War with Iraq

[Cam]

I was sitting here thinking about America's plan of attacking Iraq. I can't remember where I heard this, but I remember someone saying that instead of fighting a far with Iraq, the US should put it's resources into a "Manhatten Project" to discover some form of energy other than Petroleum.
Just think what would happenen to all the Middle Eastern Countries of they suddenly had all this Oil and nobody wanted it. It would completely change the world economy and the US would be the front runner.

[Cam]

I found the article that I got the idea from. It doesn't say the same thing as I remembered but it kind of gives the same general Idea.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=4647

[Xugumad]

The following <a href="http://www.lrb.co.uk/v24/n19/print/liev01_.html">article</a> from the London Review of Books seemed insightful enough to me. Opinion may vary, but I'd like to hear comments and criticism from others here on the board. (quote the article and follow-up with your points, if possible - it's quite long)

Anyone?

X.

PS: In somewhat related news, Blair <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2293701.stm">states</a> that he'd like to see Israel comply with UN resolutions as well, if Iraq has to. Israel replies by saying that they are "disturbed" by such demands. I am keenly awaiting US moves to start invading Israel, since the main issue of contention with Iraq was their non-compliance with UN resolutions.

[elSicomoro]

Originally posted by Xugumad
I am keenly awaiting US moves to start invading Israel, since the main issue of contention with Iraq was their non-compliance with UN resolutions.

Yeah, we really should have taken that land right after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. I mean, it's practically US territory as it is. We really need to exploit the land more...we hawk Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as big tourist joints...might as well start pushing the hell out of Israel.

[Undertoad]

It's a lovely land, and really very little chance of having red hot nails ripping through your flesh.

[Tobiasly]

Originally posted by Xugumad
(quote the article and follow-up with your points, if possible - it's quite long)

Could not execute query: SELECT opening, body1, notes FROM fulltext WHERE articleid = 'liev01_2419'. You have an error in your SQL syntax near 'fulltext WHERE articleid = 'liev01_2419'' at line 1

Well, I think the error statement is rather terse, but that's pretty common with quickly-written web applications these days, I guess.

The query seems to be correct SQL syntax, so I'm thinking the programmer got a bit lazy and isn't checking for error conditions on the level of granularity that he should.

[Xugumad]

Potentially hardware failure of some sort; the article may be on another disk, and the script is failing to retrieve it. It was online a few hours ago.

X.

[Griff]

Something for you doubters.

[tw]

Originally posted by Cam
... but I remember someone saying that instead of fighting a far with Iraq, the US should put it's resources into a "Manhatten Project" to discover some form of energy other than Petroleum.
Just think what would happenen to all the Middle Eastern Countries of they suddenly had all this Oil and nobody wanted it.

This concept and its following cited article are classic of MBA mentalities. They advocate creating innovation by throwing money at it. How many times every year must we suffer another corporate disaster or government solution because of this myopic mentality. Did anyone learn from Perot who described a difference - solve problems either by throwing money at it like a grenade or use the money as a scapel.

Money does not create innovation. Innovation requires money. But too much money (the grenade) can even stifle innovation. Does anyone remember all those robots promoted by Roger Smith of GM - that only raised GM's costs and reduced product quality? Those trained in the MBA schools have problems understanding the concept - because like the article's author, they are the problem.

Strategic objective was to eliminate petroleum as an energy source. Fine. What will carry more energy per pound than petroleum - and with simple containers? At least the Manhatten Project was based upon some fundamentally proven theories. No such alternative exists theoretically to match the energy per pound of fossil fuels.

The following article claims, as a solution, distributed energy generation. The problem is not energy generation techniques. The problem is a massive shortage of intelligent knowledge among the masses. That silly article completely avoids basic numbers in order to draw conclusions absurd. Instead, maybe a Manhatten Project is needed to educate brains such as the article's author? There seems to be a serious deficiency of first learning how things really work.

For example, the article implies that 66% of the energy consumed is wasted as heat. Yes, when you use inefficient energy generation technologies. So we burn fuel and heat houses simultaneously - as if this were some new, radical solution not implemented in major cities such as Philadelphia and New York for at least 1/2 a century. So we install electric generators with 35% thermodynamic efficiencies in homes and use the residual energy as heat - forgetting most electricity is consumed during summer heat - just a few minor facts forgotten when numbers are ignored.

Did the author ever bother to read real news or is he another product of the local gossip - Action News and Daily News? If he first bothered to even read read non-fiction articles, then he would have learned of, and for example, two natural gas fired plants being installed in Limerick and Cromby that are almost 70% efficient. 70% (not 33%) because existing and proven technology is being used. Numbers - that last paragrahs not reported in the Daily News and Action News results a completely different conclusion. Numbers must be understood before wildly advocating a solution.

Then there is the little thing called addressing major wasters of energy. The poster never once mentioned the SUV and its 1960 based technology - used because companies like GM fear to market innovation until absolutely forced to do so. Why should they when 'we' will buy obsolete technologies based upon emotion rather than facts. What is the thermodynamic efficiency of the SUV? 10%? 15%? Not only does the article ignore what is a major source of energy waste, but it furthermore fails to advocate solutions using proven technologies to advance mankind. We have understood and used hybrid technologies since before WWII - and the technology is still not available in vehicles from anti-innovation companies such as GM.

Do we throw billions of dollars at GM to create a hybrid car? Nonsense. We buy Toyota and Hondas - and suddenly stifled innovation appears even in GM products to pollute less and create greater energy efficiencies.

So what is the real problem? The real problem is too many people who waste the world in fiction - who fear numbers - who cannot even both to first learn how things work.

Some classic examples of consumers who advocate world degradation by advocating unproductive products. Are you on the list? Such consumers purchase low performance SUVs, Listerene, daily vitamins, and plug-in surge protectors. It does not take much knowledge to see through the problem. These products would be rare, unnecessary, or irrelevant if consumers first learned facts and then voted those unnecessary products out of existance. In the meantime, we still have those MBA mentalities who advocate solutions by throwing money at them.

How often does the expression "We have met the enemy and he is us" have relevance?

[hermit22]

What's your beef with Listerine, daily vitamins or plug-in surge protectors? They keep my gums and teeth clean, my body healthy, and my computer, um, on.

He's miffed that the UPS I sent him still doesn't work.

[ OT - tw, have you had time to play around with it yet? ]

[Cam]

I never thought just throwing money around would solve the problem. The Manhattan project was not successful because the government spent billions of dollars, It was successful because the government got a bunch of ingenious scientists, put them together with the newest technology and told them to go to work. It was the combining of great minds that made the Manhattan project successful.
And the fact that we have no idea what we would use for energy, well maybe that's true, so maybe we should concentrate our resources, and by resources I don't mean just money , on figuring out another source. Alternatively, maybe we should develop a way to clean up radiation quickly and inexpensively, therefore making nuclear energy a safer form of energy, or even trying to make nuclear fusion a feasible means of producing energy. We have many great minds out there, if they work together with a common goal it might be possible to do these things, then again maybe not, but it's a whole lot better option then sending our resources, by resources I once again don't mean money, but our soldiers, into battle against Saddam Hussein.
Look at the human genome project for example. Two groups were working toward a common goal and they both reached it at nearly the same time. Now what would have happened if these same two groups had worked together, they possibly could have done the same thing with less money and in a shorter amount of time?

[Undertoad]

I know that in the mid-80s, shortly after TMI and in a period where people were a little more concerned (really!) about energy shortage, the IEEE Spectrum published some ideas about how nuclear energy could be done much more safely than it is. Since the last plant went online, we have advanced in every technology - computing, materials, generation etc. But also since then, nuclear engineering has almost stopped being a discipline, and building plants is politically unfeasible. So it's a weird situation.

What I do know is that alternative energy research has been funded and funded over the years. The truth is, there are ready alternatives to gasoline right now. They cost about twice what oil costs. If oil gets too expensive, the alternatives will start to kick in.

[Xugumad]

Undertoad
The truth is, there are ready alternatives to gasoline right now. They cost about twice what oil costs. If oil gets too expensive, the alternatives will start to kick in.

In theory, sure. But that assumed perfect competition, which is an unattainable economic model. Practically speaking, the barriers to entry in many markets, such as the energy market, may hinder certain technologies from being adopted even if it's economically feasible to do so.

Let's assume a gallon of gasoline costs $1.50 where you live (to the end consumer). In theory, if it tripled in price to $4.50, alternative methods would quickly be adopted, right? Yet the price for a gallon of gas in many areas of Europe is already close to $4.50, and it's not just local taxation, even though the petrol giants usually try to sell that idea to Europeans. It's what the market supports. End users are adapting to those prices, and so do the economies, using a variety of methods. In those countries where it's becoming unfeasible to rely on gas (simply because it's the least future-proof energy source we have at our disposal), wind and water 'powerplants' are already the only new source of energy. (e.g. some Scandinavian countries, Germany, etc) This is done through government bullying and against the resistance of oil companies, for obvious reasons. It seems obvious to any student of the energy industry that the oil companies will continue to ride the oil train, lobbying governments, until it's inevitable that oil reserves are running out.

It seems inevitable that consumers in countries that are 90% dependant on cars for individual and goods transportation would rather suffer higher gas prices for extended periods of time rather than switch to alternate means of transportation. It's short-sighted to continue paying $5/gallon for gas, but it's how behavioural patterns seem to develop.

The irony, of course, is that mass transportation is relatively trivial to switch to alternate energy sources. Changing every car's engine, however, is an entirely different thing altogether. (insert comments about the car industry's lobbying to sabotage Amtrak etc here)

X.

[hermit22]

I think that might work in some places, but...in Southern California, where I live, we don't really believe in public transportation. However, if gasoline prices rose to $4.50/gal, there would be a public outcry such that politicians would have to develop some kind of such project. In actuality, polls have shown that the public in my neck of the suburbs is generally receptive to the idea of public transportation, but not so keen on paying for it - since, what the hell, all they have to do is hop in the car and go. We don't have the best freeway system in the country for nuthin'. However, last summer's energy crisis allowed work on the Alameda Corridor (a light train from Pasadena to LA) to begin.

The point of this ramble is this: if prices rose suddenly enough, even the most deeply ingrained gasoline based societies would capitulate and find some better method. However, if it's a gradual increase, people just accept it and move on. At the risk of sounding cliche, it's a slippery slope pattern of social behavior.