Dear George,
Thanks for your emails.
Sorry to rain on your parade.
In the big scheme of things, ANWR’s oil reserves are trivial.
At most, ANWR might provide the United States with two and three quarter years of oil supply.
The actual amount would probably be less.
Here’s the deal George.
Although science must use statistical probabilities, these probabilities are remarkably accurate. (The atomic bomb for example, was actually built on the (still) unproven Theory of Relativity.)
The fact that an attractive anecdotal story comes from “somebody’s relative” doesn’t mean diddly unless that person is a trained scientist.
Consider:
The manager of housekeeping at UR Med Center is intimate with the hospital’s entire physical plant but still doesn’t know squat about medicine.
The inescapable fact is that we live on a small planet.
And on this small planet, oil is a finite resource.
In the domain of oil production, most of the “easy pickings” have already been picked.
And so, overall, the price of oil will go up.
In the next ten years, however, the price of solar energy will fall below the price of fossil fuels.
And it will continue to go down “forever.”
Although the average price of extracting oil from the earth is getting more expensive all the time, it is also true that here in the United States, the price of fracked natural gas is, for the time being, an exception to this rule.
However, when the cost of fracked gas is compared to the ever-declining cost of solar energy, solar will soon be cheaper.
Advances in solar technology are a lot like Moore’s Law in computer technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
Moore’s Law states that every 18 months, the price of computing power is cut in half - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
The cost of solar energy is not declining as fast as the cost of computing power. But it will not be long before the price of solar is half what it is today, and in many parts of the world, the cost of solar is already cheaper than fossil fuel. (Germany already produces 25% of its energy from solar. Yet here in North Carolina where we receive twice as much solar energy from the sun as ALL Germany, the production of solar energy is trivial.)
The Chinese, whose business sense is much keener than the business sense of decadent, desparate westerners, have identified solar as THE ENERGY SOURCE of the future.
Consequently, the Chinese -- in public-private collaboration -- have gone whole hog to dominate the solar market, thus preempting competitors elsewhere in the world. (This is not yet true at the "high end" of solar innovation, but it is true as solar energy relates to the mass production of “commodity panels.”)
Conservatives are, by nature, people who have tremendous difficulty “letting go of the past.”
And so, to prevent the collapse of conservatism’s hindsighted worldview – and let's remember that the collapse of a person's worldview is a VERY threatening thing... rather like waking up tomorrow and discovering you’re gay – conservatives have little choice but to believe this tiny planet will "keep on producing more and more oil," so that any fundamental change in the nation's "energy paradigm" will never be necessary.
In passing, I will mention the total weirdness when, just last year, Republican congress-people fought mightily to preserve the incandescent light bulb even though fluorescent bulbs are about 80% more cost effective than incandescents and the amount of mercury in a fluorescent bulb is about the same amount of mercury as found in three tins of tuna fish. (Perhaps you recall that Republicans represented fluorescent bulbs' mercury content as if each one of them were a miniature Chernobyl Power Plant just waiting to melt down. Science George! It’s about science! It’s not about politically advantageous terrorization, unless we wish to model ourselves on Osama bin Laden.)
The sun is already being tapped as an energy source, and the price of solar energy will (just like the price of computers) continue to come down.
Meanwhile, the price of oil will continue to go up.
Sure, there will be some fluctuation.
But the trend line is up.
And up! And up!
This is not anecdote George.
This is scientific fact.
Pax on both houses
Alan
PS Once again, you confront The Big Choice. Do you take the initiative and inform people who are mistaken about ANWR – and mistaken by a factor of 100! Or, do you let them live under the very dark shadow of a very black lie? Check this out... Why don’t you forward this email to blphoenix, Dave G and Sonny C just to see how they react. You can always back track and tell them you got some bad weed... or somebody "slipped you the mickey..." Or just tell them you were messin’ with their minds to have a little fun, and now it's time to get together for a couple o’ beers and ridicule those goddam scientific elitists scamming the system to get rich. (Yep! That would be the same group of scientific elitists y’all turn to for salvation when Doc says "you’ve got a spot on your lung.")
From: George
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 7:49 PM
To: Alan Archibald
Subject: Fw: Thought you might want to know?
----- Original Message -----
From: SC
To: Undisclosed
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2012 1:04 PM
Subject: Fw: Thought you might want to know?
--- On Wed, 2/22/12, Joe C wrote:
|
Snopes: The Truth About ANWR: http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/anwr.asp
