Oil spill essential for marine life...says GOP candidate

[Swatopluk]

That may belong in the Aaarghh department but we have no current oil-spill-related thread as far as I can see

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/05/30/ocean-life-thrives-on-crude-oil-meet-congressional-candidate-art-robinson/

[Aggie]

Read the article: 


and



and

[Lindorm]

Didn't one of the Fox News luminaries (O'Reilly, I think), pronounce that the oil spill was due to "environmental extremists" sabotaging the drill platform?

Fair and balanced and all that...

[Swatopluk]

Didn't one of the Fox News luminaries (O'Reilly, I think), pronounce that the oil spill was due to "environmental extremists" sabotaging the drill platform?

Fair and balanced and all that...

It was so suspiciously close to Earth Day so there could be no other cause. Limbaugh peddled that story too of course.
Cyanide, aconite etc. also are natural substances (as are lead and arsenic btw). But apart from a some microbes few organisms thrive on them (at least not for long).

[Sibling DavidH]

I don't believe for one moment that this disaster was caused by environmental extremists, but one should be aware that such fanatics have been known to damage the cause they are fighting for.  In the UK, animal rights activists have done massive damage to our riversides by releasing mink from farms.  They often release other animals which cannot survive in the wild.  A few years ago they sabotaged the electricity supply to the elephants' tent at a circus, which left the elephants freezing.
So from all I've read, this allegation is wrong but not totally silly.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

It's a matter of proportion, EEs are few and far in between, and the environmental community is aware of the damage they do not only to the cause but to the environment they claim to fight for.

OTOH polluters are way too many and little is done to stop them. This spill is in the news because the damage to other industries in a first world country is clear but many other spills -specially in the middle east and Africa- have done as much damage without much word in the news.

As for repugs claiming that oil is a "natural substance" he isn't the first nor will be the last. The not-so-invisible hand of the "market" is feeding them to say that.

[Opsa]

Lava is a natural substance too. The difference is that we humans caused this eruption in our effort get more, more, more.

Never mind whose fault it is. We urgently need this to prompt us to more seriously pursue alternatives. Why are we putting all this money toward backward energy sources when we need to put it toward forward-thinking, clean, safe methods?

[ivor]

Arsenic is all natural...

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

A superb example of Republican stupidity. 

[Aggie]

Never mind whose fault it is. We urgently need this to prompt us to more seriously pursue alternatives. Why are we putting all this money toward backward energy sources when we need to put it toward forward-thinking, clean, safe methods?

None of them is ready to go at the moment, that's why, and there's too much money to be made with that nasty stuff still.

I fear that oil will be the energy source of choice for the next decade or two, and rejoice that technology is advancing fast enough that very shortly after that time, solar and other technologies will become so economical that petroleum will be limited to specialized energy applications (like tanks, perhaps ).

[Swatopluk]

I am a pessimist. As long as there are coal and oil (and be it tar sands) Big Oil will keep its dominant position and sabotage real change (at least in the US). And the next GOP (or its equivalent) administration will undo most of the little that's done now.

[Aggie]

I simply think that at some point in the next 50 years, alternative energy technology will become cheaper than oil.  Once light, sweet crude is completely tapped out, extraction and refining costs put a minimum price on oil which will keep going up.

Natural gas, OTOH, is likely to remain cheap until that happens, as is coal.  I can't actually see a wholesale switch from these fuels as base electricity producers so long as we are wired to the grid, but despite the huge amount of money tied up in the current energy production and transmission system, at some point we are likely to cross over into personal energy services, not centrally distributed ones.  This may get widest adoption in the developing world (although not initial adoption), similar to the cell phone, simply because the (non)existing infrastructure is so poor.  Something intermediate may happen in the developed world, such as natural gas distribution combined with on-site generation (the Bloom Box or its ilk), which would likely be practical in Canada.  At least until shale gas and coal bed methane are proved to be bad ideas.

[Swatopluk]

I don't say that the change will not happen at all but far too far in the future (when Berlin has become a Baltic seaport*).

*that is indeed possible but will still take a while.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Certainly the polluters will keep doing so freely for a good while, but they will be forced off their stuff by economics as Aggie says, wind power is already competitive, PV will take a while (and by extension personal generation) but solar thermal will soon be economic enough. The oil and coal cartels can do so much until energy companies figure that it's cheaper in the long run to run renewables, and the writing is on the wall already.

Coal will be used for steel more and more, in fact at some point they'll figure out that burning it is a waste.

The problem is the century that those things will take and the damage in the interim.

[Swatopluk]

But transportation will still require fossil fuels for the time being in huge amounts (currently 28% of primary energy use in Germany). Not enough land for biofuel (not to forget the less than stellar eco/energy balance) and alternatives lack (also for the time being) the necessary energy density. Outside of cities electric vehicles will not be competitive in the forseeable future.
In the US public transport in the cities (apart from NY) does not look good (in some cases systematically destroyed in favor of the cult of the car). Subways are very expensive and above ground space is missing. To change that will take decades even if the will is there (and it often is not, not to talk of open hostility from the usual suspects*)

*public transport is socialism, un-American and also costs money that would have to come out of evil taxes. Not to forget that it would benefit 'those people' not 'us'