Oil Flow Estimate Has Been Raised to 35,000-60,000 Barrels a Day, Up to 50% More Than Previous Estimate

If you're saying our survival hinges on changing the corporations I think that's a stretch. I know for a fact what they think of prophets already.

I'm saying our survival depends on realizing that a corporation is an invisible enemy of our own invention. It creates an imaginary monster willing to do all manner of ill will in the name of profit.

A corporation is a faceless football team. No face = there's no personality to uphold. I look at a corporation as a mini-government that none of them really have a right to exist. They are wheels within the big [US] wheel. They have a health plan for all employees, a retirement plan like Social Security, but ultimately they have a get out of jail free card in their hand at all times that gives them carte blanche to do all those shady dealings with impunity => because they are covered at all times by filing bankruptcy after many wrong decisions [which realization allows them to make all the wrong decisions they want til they finally destroy the corporation]... and all they have to do is start back up as a new corporation and a new name.

So then the employees they come to realize the company they think is a solid is really a fluid, so they start stealing from the company to grab all they can because they know the company is a disposable tampon, use it for a while then wad it up wash it out and use it again under a new corporate entity.

In other words just run to a judge and get a new name. So the people at the top are joined by the employees in the middle and bottom that all are knowing they better steal what they can before that time comes, because they know it's coming, not a matter of If only when.

While most ordinary folk "out here" are still thinking 130 years ago thinking that corporations are upstanding solid buildings! But they aren't. Their walls are in a constant process of blowing out. It's just like musical chairs, see who's left standing when the music stops.

All an illusion of solidity. Enron employees found out. But it's much worse today than when Enron blew out. Today corporations sporting "bedrock" ("reputable names") reputations aren't that at all because they are owned by someone in another land who doesn't give a damn about anybody in this country, whether their little rug rats are playing on lead-containing carpet rubbing on their legs for instance. All that matters is not getting caught before the end time they have already calculated their corporation is slated to explode.

Our society is a damn sham top to bottom, an illusion. Like the dollar bills we still force-will to have value. Nice little trick stamping God We Trust on them, supports the illusion. Everything we have is free-flowing sand.

It's like living in a flushed toilet always flushing. People are playing the bottom cards, such as when you start a new job they give you minimum wage because previous employees stole from them or otherwise was a dirtbag, so you get paid according to what somebody else did not according to who you are.

When you purchase a home is another, because they set the payback 250% say of the initial cost because they assume you're really a deadbeat at heart like the last people they loaned money to, so you get slammed yet again for what the previous people -now long gone- caused you.

There's rhyme to all this. But if you lack enough salmon blood and don't make it, and fall by the way, it's never the system caused it no, it's YOU, YOU caused your failure because you're a NOTHIN. You didn't pull up hard enough on your bootstraps you human slime you.

So then, if & when you do get another shot you sure as hell don't want to fail again so you learn from the last time and you start skimming money as much as you can, just like everybody else. You know you aren't being paid enough so anything you do is stamped JUSTIFIED. Perhaps you use a company credit card to charge a plane, or meals, or your company that just got bailed out by those dummy taxpayers [who deserve the screw in their back anyway] you just rationalize that away like you rationalize everything else away because, you know the company will just explode and blow out the walls again.

Pretty much summing up the BP situation too, because no matter how much they're "ordered" to pay damages and compensation... they know now what they knew back then before the pipe blew, which knowledge of their fail-safe status caused their sloppiness in the first place => that all they have to do is file bankruptcy, disband and all go to work for the companies still in business will absorb most of them.

And they jam the gas pedal and keep on gettin' up.

Just like they did to the Eskimos and Alaska, just like they've done to rain forest natives somewhere in South America, nameless folks whose lives and chidren's health is destroyed.

What this world needs is what the Bible promises, a paradigm shift to a heaven-based government run by Christ Jesus. See Daniel 2 vs 44. What we have today is a flawed tailpipe.

The picture was an art inside a laboratory of Chemistry... pure chemicals with water... very artistic and i never seen an art like this before... nature paint the colors in the sea... how i wish that all the oil be near in the sea shore so that they will not contaminate the sea life..underneath the sea was underground current that control the flow of water to the direction that they will flow..

Oh, that is going to ruin the new paint on my yacht!

Imagine all of the plankton just dying in that.

That is only what has been found---and hardly anybody is even looking. Every news report I've seen shows marshlands and beaches with oil and not a person in sight as far as can be seen.

Most wildlife is just dying and sinking to the bottom of the gulf.

It seems to me also, that the only concern for wildlife is the effect of the massive kill off on tourism and the economy.

It seems so completely stupid to me that every single time I've mentioned ethanol in the past, all I get is a chorus of howls about how everyone will starve if they can't have corn to eat every single day all year long. But I haven't heard one single person say anything at all about what the possibility of the loss of fishing will mean on the food supply. Even if they get the leak plugged tomorrow morning----there is still a lot of oil out there floating around. Even if they go out and suck it up with shop vacs and Bounty quicker picker uppers---------how long will it take for the environment and fish and shrimp populations to recover?

Of coarse, they are sucking up some of the oil now so we can keep driving our vehicles. I guess we'll just have to replace seafood with road kills. Everybody drive as fast as you can.

I sank to the bottom of a swimming pool 3 times once. I have much empathy for the birds. I opened my eyes laid on the sidewalk, surrounded by people staring at my face to see was I alive, just as people stare at those birds to see will they live. The Noon sun was very warm all over my skin. So technically the sun heat should've given me more melatonin and left me go on, but instead it woke me up.

1600 Pennsyla-Wall Street Avenue? Well, they seem very good at their job which means they're too big to fail and deserve ta be Bailed Out.

No. You would ruin the surprise and wonder that comes with Christmas. What kind of monster are you? Besides, success is imminent. Find another downer the day is young yet. Post something about how few Americans have enough Credit History left to obtain a loan for a golf cart or a baby carriage. That would do it.

Or taxes. Post how many American taxpayers will ever get to ride in a real flying car we were supposed to have 10 years ago. That would put FAILURE in proper perspective.

There is just a tiny little problem with bio-fuels...it uses more energy to make than it generates. Until that is solved (which would require shatter the laws of thermodynamics), the usage of bio-fuels will continue to require insane amounts of government subsidization. Adding ethanol to gasoline does nothing other than hurt performance and subsidize farmers into growing products for an artificial market.

In proper applications, the usage of bio-energy is good (especially in large scale industrial settings). And I agree that for large vehicles, in the right locations, switching to natural gas makes sense. But to mandate across the country that all vehicles must make the switch to multiple fuels would be a nightmare to do rapidly.

American cars get mileage and cause a level of pollution that is extremely low in compared to what they used to do. Yet Americans responded with cleaner, more efficient cars by driving more and more. Until Americans change their habit of consuming massive amounts of cheap energy, nothing will really change. Watching people blame BP on the internet via their computer for the oil spill is hilarious to me. I mean...do we not realize where plastic comes from?!?

EROI on ethanol .73 to 1 (it takes 730,000 BTUs to produce 1,000,000 BTUs using corn ethanol. And you have animal feed left over)

EROI on petroleum 1.23 to 1 (it takes 1,230,000 BTUs to 1,000,000 BTUs using petroleum---and nothing wants to eat what is left over---not even bacteria)
(Source for the above information, Argonne National Laboratory)

------" In proper applications, the usage of bio-energy is good (especially in large scale industrial settings)........"------------

People do not live in large scale industrial settings---nor do they want to.

---- But to mandate across the country that all vehicles must make the switch to multiple fuels would be a nightmare to do rapidly.----------

All new cars come from the factory able to use petroleum, ethanol, and methane would be a nightmare? How so?

---------" Until Americans change their habit of consuming massive amounts of cheap energy, nothing will really change."--------

The current commodity price of ethanol is $1.80/gal. for corn ethanol.
Ethanol has about 2/3 the energy content of gasoline. $1.80 + $.60 = $2.40/gal for an equal amount of energy as gasoline.

Gasoline costs ~$3.00 around here right now. That's regular, ethanol has an octane of 115----even high octane gasoline does not even come close, high octane gas costs ~$3.30/gal

$2.40/gal ethanol vs. $3.00 to $3.30/gal.gasoline for the same amount of energy.

The only thing cheap around here is talk.

Perpetual Motion has its perks. Jobs, steady as she goes helmsman.

All energy rays ~from all the suns in the universe~ have Mass. Mass means they have Weight. It is a very tiny amount of weight. In Outer Space those rays are spread thinly through the Cosmos.

Energy is like electricity in one big respect => it wants to go to the ground, always wanting to be grounded. It is the cycle of Matter~Energy.

Traveling through the Cosmos spread thinly there is not an accumulation enough to create gravity, but when those energy rays encounter a PLANET they pour all over us trying to get to the ground. It is a universal law they have to obey.

All those invisible rays, still invisible, but down here mashed together is what we call gravity. It pushes us down and holds us in place. We live inside an invisible pillow that moves as we walk, or drive, a criss-crossed web of tiny Masses giving our lives stability. The more we eat the less able we are to be Mary Lou or a famous bodybuilder or weightlifter. We got too big.

The oceans are also big so the mass of energy presses them down a great weight. That weight can drive generators IF you have the engine design. It just sits there waiting for us to grow up, waiting for us to admit this planet is an Energy Paradise. All we need do is use what we already have.

And no need to drill a liquid from the ground. No need to kill off birds, fish and create dead zones in the oceans. When Paradise is offered in the Bible the Bible writers told no lies. When Paradise is told on Saturday mornings by door-to-door ministers they tell no lies.

We poor saps are strapped to the front of a locomotive's cow catcher.

The same applies to car engines. Laws can be combined in such a way to make a combination fuel without combustion. No exhaust, no pollution. Just like lightning can be attracted to tall metal lightning rod poles, and as the lightning smashes through the pole's stable metal atoms a magnetic power is radiated out into the air, moving down as the bolt goes down the pole.

If a 2nd metal pole is beside the lightning pole that magnetic wave induces an electrical charge in that pole but it has to be connected to a capacitive (storage) circuit (capacitor).

You have the power of earth's massive lightning storms every day, waiting, just waiting. No need for drilling => just using the old noggin head a little, just a little, and we're awash in more energy than we could ever use no matter what we plug into the wall sockets of America, Russia, South America Canada or China.

We have energy raining down on us, energy pressing down raining atop the oceans with a gravity force pressure, tornado energy we can re-create inside engine cylinders.

Energy Paradise right here on Earth, promised and delivered.
Energy Paradise right here on Earth, promised and delivered.
Energy Paradise right here on Earth, promised and delivered.

We can get off the bottle any time we want. oops, fuel pumps. OPEC. Slavery. Dependence. Servitude. Get off the crutches and WALK. WALK UPRIGHT not hunched beside a pump like a frightened animal or toad.

Even without "my engines". Detroit has been under Washington DC edict not to gear the drive train correctly.

Slavery to other men who have no right to be anyone's Master sucks rotten eggs, as the wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico has found out.

From what I have read in regards to the efficiency of bio-fuels, the best theoretical performance shows a 29 % energy loss in its production. (I get this from Cornell University researcher David Pimental). I am not sure where you are getting your Energy on Return Investment numbers from but I will assume they are correct.

Quoting the prices of oil and ethanol is difficult to relate due to the effects that governments have on subsidizing those items. As I was trying to imply, just going to a pump and purchasing gasoline (whether or not it has ethanol added to it) does not reflect its actual costs.

You also fail to mention that ethanol usage creates greenhouse gases. While not producing Carbon Dioxide, it does produce nitrous oxide, which if the world switched completely over to bio-fuels, we still have the problem we started with, overproduction of Greenhouse gasses. We are basically exchanging one problem with another.

My point is that no matter what we do, its pointless if people continue to over consume natural resources. Switching to bio-fuels will do nothing in either the short or long term unless there are serious behavior changes made by humans.

Every so often some energetic soul will engage me saying the "Science is wrong on my engines". Maybe they're right. I don't think so. One reason I don't think so is because some of my engine systems I haven't released every minute way they work. How can people argue they don't work when they don't even know what I've left out?

They can't. Now on the car engine I left out two items. On the lightning system I didn't leave out much at all. The ocean pressure system I think it will work on ocean pressure alone but, there's a possibility I have over-estimated my ideas, in which case I "covered myself" by not releasing another half of the system that can be easily added. Then it will work very well.

Power magnification, Synergy, and Complimentary Laws of Physics is what's missing from using the easy answers => Liquid Wood. You have your gasoline, methane, ethanol, CNG natural gas, most of them ending in -ene/-ine/-ane because they are volatile branches off the same basic tree.

Why do we need volatile fuels?

Because we don't use the smart ones.Volatile is a hammer. It hammers our environment. It hammers the wildlife; hammers every living organism on earth plus the Water and the Air. Volatile is a big hammer that keeps on giving. Volatile is like a young child sometimes likes to take a hammer and smash things even his own toys just for the sheer JOY of smashing them.

Smashing Matter makes us feel strong & powerful.

So we get addicted to that feeling of power and need to feel it more often so we have wars to keep the good feeling all the time. More & More. Some of us become gluttons. It fills us with the power we want, hooked so bad want becomes an insatiable need no matter how many OTHER PEOPLE'S CHILDREN we send into the meat grinder using the patriotism argument, when all they really want is the powerful feeling they get from sending soldiers to die.

Birth a child, Kill a child, Birth a Child, Kill a child. Perpetual Motion does exist.

Wow dude...I am trying to follow you. So perpetual motion machines exists? Is that what your saying?

Not sure what you mean that energy wants to go to the ground...do you mean a lower energy state? That I would agree with, that energy in a higher state will always go to a lower state...which fulfills the 2nd law of thermodynamics. If we agree on that, then I assume you then understand how a perpetual motion machine could not exist. It would be the equivalent of putting a cold drink in a hot room...and the drink gets colder.

I also think you are confused as to what exactly "weight" is and how it is related to mass.

Oh and could you please explain what any of this paragraph means:

"Traveling through the Cosmos spread thinly there is not an accumulation enough to create gravity, but when those energy rays encounter a PLANET they pour all over us trying to get to the ground. It is a universal law they have to obey."

I am sorry but this seems to be utter jibberish to me. If you are referring to gravity's effect on light, it causes it to bend around the mass of the planet due to the gravitational well. Light or energy waves aren't pulled into a planet. We can literally see around massive bodies due to the light bending. If light was pulled into planetary bodies, how would we see them? Literally everything would act like a blackhole. I am not trying to be rude, but you are screwing up even the most simple things and coming off as quite confused about very basic concepts.

The "actual costs" man are astronomical. I know those figures and they say a gallon of gas total cost is around $14.00 a gallon once all the EPA and hospital costs are tallied in, all the fallout.

It's worse than that. How many miles does a hunk of engine last before it gets scrapped and re-melted? My car engine will run 50-75-100 years before it begins to show internal wear.

These new ads are dragging on my little system. Some answers are below.

---" I am not sure where you are getting your Energy on Return Investment numbers from but I will assume they are correct."-------

Argon National Laboratory, just like I said underneath the paragraph.

------" Quoting the prices of oil and ethanol is difficult to relate due to the effects that governments have on subsidizing those items"--------

Not when it comes to pulling cash out of your pocket and handing it over.

---------" As I was trying to imply, just going to a pump and purchasing gasoline (whether or not it has ethanol added to it) does not reflect its actual costs."-----------

Just wait till some of those actual costs start hitting you in the face. Like cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico. In the last 100 years, oil companies have gotten very good at hiding the true cost of petroleum use. Like paying $11 Trillion dollars for wars to secure the rights to "cheap" oil. Like paying too, for EPA, the Coast Guard, CDC, FEMA, Army Corps of Engineers, and numerous other agencies needed to clean up the environment, protect people and health and all the other problems involved with petroleum use.

------" You also fail to mention that ethanol usage creates greenhouse gases."------

Every atom of carbon in ethanol or any other biofuel first had to be removed from the atmosphere by the plant that the biofuel was produced from. When it is burned, CO2 is returned to the atmosphere. It is impossible to raise atmospheric CO2 levels using biofuels----it is like dipping water out of a hole in the sand at the beach. No matter how fast you dip water out----it runs back into the hole through the sand faster than you can dip it out. If the plants are not taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, they are not alive and you have no plants from which to make biofuels, therefore it is impossible to raise atmospheric CO2 levels using biofuels.

Using petroleum(or coal) is the only way to raise CO2 levels in the atmosphere.
---------" it does produce nitrous oxide,....."-------

NOX is produced when anything is burned. The atmosphere is 79% nitrogen. The higher the temperature, the greater the level of NOX produced. Ethanol burns at a lower temperature than petroleum. Ethanol produces less NOX than petroleum. 70% less NOX than petroleum. Even when mixed with petroleum, it produces less NOX than the petroleum alone would. That is why E10 ethanol mix fuel is required by law in high pollution market areas during the summer months, when pollution is at its highest levels.

-------" My point is that no matter what we do, its pointless if people continue to over consume natural resources."-------

You mean like recycle instead of use up finite supplies? Would that be like using biofuels that we make over and over again using natural resources that have evolved over billions of years to form a complete life cycle? As opposed to say, digging up dead stuff out of the ground and burning it?

---------" Switching to bio-fuels will do nothing in either the short or long term unless there are serious behavior changes made by humans."--------

Do you mean like quit making up bullshit excuses and doing something instead of flapping lips in the wind?

I agree.

BTW----YOU(collectively) will pay for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico. If BP finally forks over all the expenses and pays everything----you will pay at the pump when you buy gasoline, no matter what brand it is.

If BP goes bankrupt, and the US Government ends up paying for everything, YOU will pay for it through increased taxes.

No matter what happens, YOU end up paying for cleaning up the Gulf of Mexico---at least what cleaning up CAN be done. YOU will be paying for this for the next 20 to 100 years.

Machines? No. But systems yes. The taxation system is perpetual motion, carefully tweaked and crafted. It's an engine. It makes people scream a lot without killing, takes them to the edge without actually sawing off any body parts.

I have engine systems that are something of the same thing except they work for you instead of trying to regulate you. Regulation is very hard to do. My engines by comparison are very simple and, once put in place run for very long periods of time without needing tweaking by senators.

Their systems are designed to always need tweaking, refining, rewriting, so they are always guaranteed of being needed $$$. Real systems have a stronger automatic component. They have constructed scales that can never be brought into balance.

Forget about perp. Where we're going we don't need perp.

Black Hole? Why I guess you're right except no, you're also wrong. The density of a planet or Moon isn't nearly enough for that. But you are right too. It's like Black Hole Lite. Dang, you're real smart guy. You're doing real good for somebody who is looking at the subject by peering through a mirror. You're looking at the wrong side of the equation. You're wanting the earth to be the center of the universe using its force to pull stuff DOWN. The "center of the universe" is the laws by which it operates. One main law is the energy seeks the planets, not the planets seeks the energy.

The increasing energy density the closer ya get to a planet's surface is bending the light, not "gravity". hahahaha You're looking through a prism => an energy prism.

Career politicians write career extending rules.

An energy prism as in a distortion field. Thicker nearer the planet. Not really looking "through it" as it is seeing more of it.

Bravo...Francis E Dec??? Is that you?

I don't think so. Oil is very heavy. Inside a vacuum hose it would lack the lift it has in water. See my post a few below. Flash-freezing the oil as it exits the pipe it would float up in blocks of oil not having been given the time to mix with water. It would also serve to cool the water that has been recently heated by solar absorbed by the black oil. In time to lessen hurricane strength.

They already stated the oil is very cold when it hits the cold water it CONGEALS. Okay, so surround the cold congealed oil with refrigeration coils and freeze it into BLOCKS OF CRUDE OIL that bobs to the ocean surface like so many solid ice cubes.

Pick up the frozen blocks of oil into waiting oil tankers before it thaws. Ice cubes will also cool the ocean surface and reduce hurricane strength. Get on it Robin. Right Batman!

How long will it take to recharge when there is one recharging station, and you are number 27 in line?

Then what? You are going to need a VERY long extension cord.

I agree they need new management but it could suck for BPs share to go too low because if they are unable to pay for damages then the taxpayer will.

Time to diversify!

It might be a good idea to sell BP and invest in an ethanol producer or natural gas producer.

The only way to get a ban on drilling is---don't use oil.

The only way to not use oil is to use something else---biofuels.

The only way to use something else is to make vehicles that use multi-fuels mandatory.

Then, when you pull up to the pumps---choose the fuel that does not contain petroleum.

When no one chooses petroleum----we will have no more drilling.

If only it were that simple. It's a great idea but people choosing not to get gas at the pumps will probably only make a tiny difference. What about ships, planes...all the shit shipped from China and everywhere else?

Look again outerbanksmom.

The Fiat Siena Tetrafuel can run on methane(compressed natural gas) as well as petroleum gasoline and ethanol.

An equivalent amount of energy in natural gas costs about 1/4 the equivalent amount of energy from petroleum. Right now. Here. And natural gas is the most abundant fuel we have---with reserves greater than coal. In the US.

How many drivers will use petroleum when they can go twice as far on the same amount of money as they can using petroleum? Even considering the cost of conversion to use CNG, it doesn't take long to pay off the conversion and show a significant cost saving. And that does not even count the fact that natural gas is so clean, that millions of people use it to cook with, unvented in their homes. We don't have to import it. And it is so clean----engine oil only needs to be changed every 10,000 miles instead of every 3,000.

Methane is also a biofuel as well as a fossil fuel. We can make it cheaply and easily from any kind of organic material at all. We've been doing it for over 150 years. We can even make it out of sewage and landfills. We need to treat sewage and landfills anyway. For the most part it is just flared off right now----wasted---when it could be replacing gasoline @ $3 a gallon. If we just capture and use what is being wasted right now, we'd displace the need to import millions of barrels of oil. We make a lot of sewage---and we need to treat sewage anyway----why not capture methane and drive our vehicles with it. We will pay lower taxes to treat sewage because it will be producing a product that can be sold to offset expenses of sewage treatment.

And we will pay less taxes to support EPA, FEMA, the Coast Guard, CDC, National Response Hotline, National Guard, Interior Department, Fish & Wildlife, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Justice, MMS, and all the state agencies that perform the same functions (or, are SUPPOSED to perform the functions).

You can't spill methane in water----it just bubbles up an blows away.

You can't strip mine methane---it just blows away.

And using methane will leave a lot more cash in your pocket.

Low prices everyday. It works for WalMart.

I don't think we will need to worry about whether people will use methane

So, even those who've only had one or two violations should have to pay for BP's 750 violations?

What about plastics?

Peloquin------" What about plastics?"---------

Anything made from crude oil can be made from black liquor. It is the biologic equivalent of crude oil. Black liquor is a by product of wood pulp production.

There are already many plastics made from corn and soy on the market. Biodegradable trash sacks made from corn are an example.

I heard someone bemoaning that more research is needed to find a cellulosic replacement for plastic bags lately. ?????? That would be paper sacks. I don't think we need much research for that. We've used them for centuries. And they are biodegradable. And cats and puppies like them.

Thanks for all the info. Some of it I didn't know. One thing I do know is that Greenpeace has always done their best in everything they commit to doing. I support them and I do not and will not support new drilling off of our shores.

? I don't see where that has any thing to do with anything I've said.

I don't know the answer to the 4000+ rigs already there. I really don't know. All I know is that I live on the Outer Banks of NC and I sure the hell don't want to spend a summer cleaning half dead birds with my children.

@ outerbanksmom---

Personally, I have no problem with offshore drilling to produce natural gas----as I said before, it is impossible to spill natural gas into water----it just bubbles up and blows away. If we power our vehicles with natural gas----we will need it, and natural gas production is very easy on the environment. It is the petroleum that is causing the problems. If this were nothing but natural gas leaking out of the Deepwater well, there would be no problem to the environment except perhaps in very close proximity to the leak-----nothing AT ALL like the widespread devastation from crude oil we are seeing now, and going to see MUCH more of in the days to come.

Not only that, methane(natural gas) is both a fossil fuel AND a biofuel----we can make as much as we want from any type of organic waste material at all, cheaply and easily. We've been doing for over 150 years.

All we need is the vehicles to use it. And any internal combustion engine can be converted to run on either natural gas or petroleum at the flip of a switch.

Wait till you try getting tar out of the KIDS hair...........at least the birds will pretty much hold still for you..................

So what is the problem then? Why don't we do it? Money?! Laziness? To be honest, I've really just begun to educate myself about the whole oil thing. I consider myself an environmentalist and I usually stick to things going on locally but sheesh, something needs to be done about this.

One can only hope.

No, I take that back. One can do more than only hope; one can start pressuring the powers-that-be, and asking everyone else to do the same.

IDK contrary to popular notions electric cars pollute a lot. The batteries are toxic and energy intensive to produce and difficult to recycle. The electricity the cars use themselves is highly inefficient once you factor in the mining of fuel, the transportation of fuel to the power plant, the inefficiency of the power generation and then the power lost in transmission. Because in the US this fuel is primarily coal, most electric cars will run indirectly (and thus inefficiently) on coal! YAY!

Not only that---batteries loss a lot of power in the recharging. Electrical energy has to be converted into chemical energy----then converted back again to be used. Transmission loses x2 in the batteries alone. Plus, batteries lose charge just sitting. Ever pull a flashlight that has never been used out of the draw during a blackout---only to find out that the batteries have gone dead just sitting in the drawer? Multiply that by millions and you can get an idea of what kind of energy loses electric vehicles would mean.

----------" Does anyone think this may help with releasing a purely electric car, or some sort of alternative to oil?"---------

The Baker Electric was an electric car that was built between 1910-1915. It was extremely advanced, and extremely luxurious----the Tesla of its time. It was popular for a short time---the problems of short range, recharging and cost killed it. Baker went out of business in 1915 due to poor sales, although the Baker is still considered an all time classic car. Sometimes, what seems like a good idea does not quite work out when you try to put it into use. Electric cars are a good idea that just do not work out well when it comes to being actually put into use.

As for alternative oil----we've had those for over 120 years. The first engine that Nicholas Otto built in 1888 ran on ethanol. The first engine that Rudolf Diesel built in 1893 ran on peanut oil. Gasoline and diesel fuel had not been invented yet. There is no need for gasoline or diesel oil if there are no engines to burn it in.

Gasoline and diesel oil were basically toxic wastes from the oil industry left over after other products were taken off. Gasoline and diesel fuels were adapted to be used in internal combustion engines to take a toxic waste off the hands of the oil companies and get rid of it. That way---the people buying their products were causing the pollution, so the oil companies could not be blamed----and they made a nice profit off of something that would have otherwise just been a toxic waste.

That is why oil companies are so set against biofuels. They are clean. They are better fuels. We can always make more. And we would have no need for the oil companies toxic products if biofuels became popular.

THAT is why the only thing oil monopolies fear is biofuels. THAT is why oil companies sponsor commercials, hype and work on electric cars. THEY ALREADY KNOW that electric vehicles are no threat to them. It has been done before. They didn't work then, and they won't work now.

Thank you for the insight. I had no idea about much of the information you brought to light, and I appreciate it! :)

I've heard that many alternatives have been made, but oil companies have bought them up, in order to keep them off the market as to not put the oil companies on the back burner. I'm guessing there's much truth to this?

I see what you're saying. I know the main concern with battery-operated cars is the mileage you'd get out of it. I still think we need some sort of alternative to take oil companies out of it for good.

Good point about the ability to recycle the batteries. I hadn't considered the difficulty of it, or look into it as much as I probably should have. Thanks!

True, true. :)

I can't scale back anymore on the use of my car. It sits in my garage almost all the time. And why is that? I purposefully changed jobs, and now telecommute! So I don't use my car unless it's absolutely necessary, which means for a medical appointment, that sort of thing. Oh, and if I am needed to help rescue some animals, then I use my car. Otherwise, I walk just about everywhere.

So please don't lecture ME. And please don't make slanderous assumptions.

sarasarasara--------ethanol produces almost no pollution compared to oil. We can make it right here, out of any kind of plant material at all, including wood---it has been done before on a large scale. Germany did it in WW2. Both Germany and the US produced most of the ethanol before WW1(it was widely used as a fuel then)-------and it was made from logging and millwork wood waste. An ethanol fire can be put out with water---oil fires can't. You could spill 1,000 times as much ethanol in the ocean as oil in the Deepwater spill----it would simply be diluted and swept away in the currents. Ethanol is so safe, you can drink it every day-----millions and millions of people have for thousands of years. Hospital workers wash their hands with it to prevent infections spreading hundreds of times a day. You can't get any safer.

I want you and everyone to be able to make the choice to use ethanol in your car.

I want you and everyone to be able to use natural gas---and be able to drive twice as far with methane for the same money that you could with petoleum. Natural gas can't be spilled in water----it just bubbles up and blows away. You can't strip mine natural gas. And we have more natural gas right here than there is anywhere else in the world. And we can make it cheaply and easily.

Would you help me tell people that we can have vehicles that let us use these choices if we just get a mandate that makes vehicles that use them mandatory? We give up nothing and gain everything. Anyone who wants to can even use petroleum if they want to-----no one is forced to do anything.

Very correct. I know, Arizona is a bit different than the rest of the country, but we've been using natural gas in our city vehicles for years. It smells a bit, but that might be my own natural gas. Join us!

Methane itself has no smell. What you are smelling is mercaptins and thiols that are added for safety so that it can be detected by scent. These scents are natural scents related to those produced by garlic, onions and some musk animals.

yes, it's added so the gas can be detected quickly. It's the best idea in the world, until something better comes along. The only thing is that in the vehicles, it's pressurised. When you take off the nozzle, it "poofs" out, and we get the smell of garlic, onions, and some musk animals. No prob, it's worth it to stop funding terrorists like a telethon for Bin Laden.

Look!

"Many people have heard conflicting numbers regarding the supply of natural gas in the United States. Most everyone who knows about U.S. natural gas supply would agree that the U.S. has abundant supplies of natural gas. So why the confusion? It’s because the natural gas industry uses different numbers, for different reasons, to describe supply. My bottom line: Someday the U.S. may stop using natural gas because something better may come along. But when that happens, I believe there will still be huge quantities of natural gas lying beneath U.S. lands and waters.

10 Years of Supply: Sometimes people are referring to “proved reserves” of natural gas. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest estimate of proved reserves of dry natural gas in the U.S. is 237,726 billion cubic feet – enough to supply current U.S. demand for about 10 years. http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/data_publications/crude_oil_natur...

Proved reserves look something like inventory, what you have discovered and know you can produce if you go ahead and drill it. The U.S. usually has around 8 to 10 years of proved reserves.

80 Years of Supply: Another way of looking at natural gas supply is to look at the U.S. natural gas resource base. The natural gas resource base can mean all natural gas that exists or, more commonly, all natural gas that is currently technically recoverable. Technical recovery also usually implies that the gas can be recovered economically. This is where we see the big differences in numbers. The 2007 report of the Potential Gas Committee of the Colorado School of Mines determined that in 2006 the U.S. had a natural gas resource base of 1,525 Trillion cubic feet of natural in the U.S. (about an 82 year supply).

Thousands of Years of Supply: Does this mean that in 82 years we will run out of natural gas? No. It means that with today’s technologies and in today’s market we may have an 82 year supply. But there are mind-numbing quantities of natural gas that we do not count today. It is likely that the next report of the Potential Gas Committee will find that we now have much more natural gas because of the relatively recent perfection of drilling technologies that will allow the production of huge quantities of U.S. natural gas from shale. But even gas from shale may be a drop in the bucket compared to the staggering quantities of frozen natural gas that are in and around the United States. This is regular natural gas that is frozen because it is under pressure in the waters of the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. This frozen natural gas is called methane hydrates or methane clathrates and we currently do not have the technologies in place to produce this natural gas from the OCS. However, methane hydrates are also found in Alaska and northern Canada beneath the permafrost. Recently experimental wells have been drilled and some natural gas from methane hydrates have been produced with today’s technologies.

When you look at natural gas from methane hydrates, the numbers are staggering. It has often been said that the energy from the methane hydrates in the U.S. vastly exceed the energy found in all the coal, oil and conventional natural gas in the U.S. combined. One estimate of U.S. methane hydrates is 200,000 Trillion cubic feet – close to 9,000 years of supply at current U.S. consumption levels.

So how much natural gas do we have in the United States? The realistic answer depends on technology and economics.

http://www.mrs.org/s_mrs/bin.asp?CID=12527&DID=208645

http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/publications/methane_hydrates/MHydrate_..."

BTW Peloquin, in Phoenix, much of the methane the city uses in the city fleet comes from biogas that is captured during sewage treatment. It is then used in city vehicles---which means less gasoline and diesel fuel needs to be purchased.

It saves you tax money because it does not go to purchase fuel---it can supply more important services.

I found out about this from an employee who worked there while this methane capture and cleaning system was being installed. I had a very interesting and enlightening conversation with him. Previous to installing this system---the methane was simply vented to a pipe and flared(burned off).

You should be happy the officials in your area are fighting waste and making sure you get the most service for the taxes you pay.

@ peloquin-----

And we can also make it---methane is also a biofuel.

It is also the only means we have to lower the effect of greenhouse gases warming the atmosphere.

Yes, it's here in Tucson as well. I worked a temp job for a city subsidiary. We drove in regular trucks that use it, full size - no styrofoam fenders or all window cars and less pollution. It's New New York here. They fly too. Well, they go as fast as any other comparible vehicle.

I made some after dinner. The emmisions is the concern for the environmentalists, but I think it is within their charter to find ways to reduce the emmisions - moreso than increasing the mileage. It's probably going to slowly start happening for other states - eventually.

Now, if we can teach our children not to toss garbage in the lakes and rivers.

Thank you so much for the information! It's greatly appreciated.

This is probably a very stupid question, but I have to ask, can you purchase ethanol now? If so, where? Will it work with any type of car?

Thanks, again!

Thanks for the enlightening information!

More parts to break.
Higher repair/and/mechanic costs.
In a car wreck just replace the whole car.

Don't let it touch your hands.
Nice terrorist target in tankers [near schools].