Bush to Say 'America Addicted to Oil'

The inquisitive, common American gets it. The politicians do not.

Many, many tens of thousands of innocents will need to die before our elected media whores (I mean, politicians) will begin to think that just maybe we have a real enemy in Islam.

Several commissions will be called. Hearings held. Tens of thousands more will need to die before the recommendations of the panels make it past the left wing and the ACLU.

I'm guessing that we need another 100,000 innocent deaths of American women and children before the left shuts up enough to allow mainstream America to name the enemy and make plans to combat it.

Nothing wlse will work. Sad, isn't it? It is the way of the West.

America's safety is not imperiled by the reign of tyrants in Cameroon or Myanmar. America's safety is imperiled by Islamic jihad.

America's safety is imperiled by Islamic jihad - particularly the one that emanates from within. This holds for all non-muslim i.e., free countries.

"America's safety is imperiled by Islamic jihad. Tyranny is simply beside the point"

politics Robert - politics.

if the muslims get all upset over some friggin cartoons, then you can be damn sure that the U.S. president wont try to add fuel to the fire.

just try to think in his shoes for a change.

if he came out and say openly "we are at war with islam" , then the saudi's would turn off the oil, and bye-bye american economy. that would be utterly reckless.

he's going about it the right way.

We need nukes--not bombs, but plants. Bio-deisel, ethanol, wind--not going to make a meaningful difference. Lots of them, and fast.

Why do we always seem to be looking at the enemy of freedom as if he is something, or someone else rather than the fundamental muslim that he really and truly is.

Why do we continue to skim over and ignore the fact that he is clearly driven by the surahs' and the Hadiths of the religion of Islam?

It always reminds me of those movies where the entire audience clearly knows who the bad guy is but our hero doesn't have a clue even though the evidence is right there in front of his face if only he would just look or ask the right questions.

"For pete's sake. Tyrants have always been with us, and always will be"

sorry robert, but you dont have that vision thing. heck, if i was U.S.president , i'd need a "vision thing" just to get me up in the morning. this is just Dubya outlining his "perfect world" - and why not.

and why shouldnt swaziland have a democracy? why the fuck not?

So Mr. Texan: Who-Loves-Oil-No-Matter-What-the -Sacrifices-or-Degradation says we need to explore energy alternatives?

IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

i think its great news. about friggin time!!!

george bush - the "green" president.

who would have thought? eh?

On the oil dependency issue, I always keep this in my favorites because it keeps us up to date on all the alternative energy advances that are coming at us.

Take a look at it, you may be somewhat pleasantly surprised at some of the progress that is being made in many areas.

http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Hydrogen/

The American Federal Government will not go to war against Islam until Islam sets off car bombs, WMD's or Nukes in American and murders thousands or even millions of American.

But let just one politician get murdered by Islam and see the attitude and efforts change in Washington.

Can you imagine what America's war to remain free from Islam would be like if Hillary is elected President.

As so eloquently stated Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775, at the start of America's fight to be a free country.

"Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death”

The Texican
It is better to fight and die free than to ever live in oppression.

House OKs plants to spur biodiesel
By CURT WOODWARD
Jan 31
The Associated Press

OLYMPIA — Washington state's nascent oilseed industry would get an immediate $9 million boost under a package of emergency loans approved Monday by the House.

The money would fund four proposed crushing plants in Eastern Washington, where canola and other crops could be reduced to oil. The oil would later be blended with diesel fuel to create biodiesel.

Supporters say the crushers will help Washington leap ahead in production of both oilseeds and biodiesel, which burns cleaner than conventional diesel.

"A hundred years from now, it won't be oil that runs our economy. It will be something else," said Rep. Hans Dunshee, D-Snohomish. "Change is required — not by some hug-a-tree, granola kind of stuff, but by the simple realities of supply and demand."

The measure, part of a major movement to encourage biofuels production, passed the House on an 89-7 vote. It now heads to the state Senate.
more
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002772834_biodiesel31m.html

I would prefer the word dependent, rather than addicted to oil, on the other hand the middle east is dependent on our money.

bobalharb writes:
"We need nukes--not bombs, but plants. Bio-deisel, ethanol, wind--not going to make a meaningful difference. Lots of them, and fast."

Actually, ethanol will make a difference. But I
happen to agree that we need nuclear power plants
too. There's no single solution, just lots of
things that all need to get worked on.

This should be like the race to the moon, or,
as Robert says, the Manhattan Project.

Robert-

America has plenty of highly capable, educated, technologically savvy people who, if allowed, have the capability to bring America into the new millennium with regards to finding new energy sources.

What we are really in denial about is that our society has been sat on too long by an industrial ruling class that is politically entrenched and has found petroleum a convenient source of generating wealth (mostly for themselves). THESE people who run GM, Ford, Chrysler etc and sell SUVs seemingly by the billion are the ones who are addicted to oil. The rest of us have been STUCK WITH THIS NIGHTMARISH SITUATION FOR FAR TOO LONG.

And now (since we provide petro-dollars by the trillion to Islamic nations that wish to murder our people) we are faced with a national security dilemma: our thirst for foreign petroleum is empowering our enemies.

We cannot WAIT for the government to act (it is possible that at this point it never will). We already know the automobile manufacturers, petroleum companies et al are locked into the 1950s lifestyle and are attempting to keep the rest of us marooned there too.

The American citizenry must somehow act accordingly--on its own. If we can get the right pool of talent, perhaps a loan or grant from the (gasp!) Ford or Rockefeller Foundations, the American people could launch their own Energy Manhattan Project with or without support from Bush Inc. and/or the rest of the US industrial lobby. We have the capacity to do it. If only the right people get organized they can make the energy Manhattan project happen without Uncle Sam and his industrial ruling class.

In my books, THE SPIRIT OF TUCKER LIVES!

i cant wait for the day when american conservatives finally "get a clue" and have

"buy gas - more terrorism" bumper stickers.

if president bush actually mentions "oil addiction" in his speech , it means that that FINALLY the left and right can find common ground - and that is truely the sign of a great U.S. president.

let me qualify - the left want to reduce fossil fuel emissions, due to greenhouse gas stuff..

the right - less dependent on islamic terrorist states...

there's common ground here. lets grab it - and invent new tech, rather than the kyoto rubbish...

So why are we addicted to oil? Whose policy decisions over the decades was that?

Oh yes, I remember. All the American consumers throughout the country come en-mass to special offices in New York once each year -- just like the haj.

There, ALL the American people collectively make the decision to stay with oil based products or not. The oil exec, manufacturers, and politicians sit quietly by awaiting the fateful descion.

Heaven knows, that for decades these poor oil execs and various politicians -- the true champions of reason -- have warned the gathered masses; and time and time again the masses paid no heed.

Alas, the oil execs and their lobbysts who know whats best for the people -- were rebuffed.

Plantatively the oil execs and the politicians offered alternative sources -- but no! The American people were so addicted and demanded that manufactures NOT produce products that didn't consume so-called fossil fuels.

Just one question Mr. Bush kind of disneyland world do you live in?

"Addicted to oil." I like it! I hope they give him a cup of coffee before the address, so he doesn't repeat his performance at the recent news conference where he looked half-asleep.

As for alternative fuels: Ever stop and ponder the irony that the most haram of liquids, ethanol (ethyl alcohol), may be part of our salvation from funding Islamofascism by dependence on oil?

No Kiding....

We Americans have been testing Fate...
How

by Buying HUGE SUV's that get 9 mpg..
by Buying HUGE trucks that get 13 mpg..
But even worse we are now buying HUMMERS that gets only 8MPG on he Highway...

Did you realy expect that the Muslims would keep their Promise ... "Not to use OIL as a weapon"...

We Americans are also at fault for
FEEDING the ISLAMIC TERRORIST Hydra that threatens ALL free nations in the WORLD..

The President is correct in this statement...

But WE AMERICANS MUST do more...

I Am telling you we MUST..
1. Stop bying ANY vehicle unless it gets 40+ MPG
2. Sell even at a loss ALL SUV's
3. Sell even at a loss ALL HUMMERS
4. Sell even at a loss ALL Gas Guzzling older vehicles.

5. Switch all of our households over to low wattage light bulbs..

6. Get rid of old monitors switching to smaller and more energy efficient flat panel displays..

7. Get Rid of Power Boats, Aircraft and other Pleasure non essentials..

Then we MUST STOP buying ANY vehicle unless
A. It gets over 40+ mpg
B. Is not made in any Islamic country.
C. Is not MADE in CHINA.

WE must DEMAND HIGH efficiency HYBIRD vehicles
Not in 10 years....
But NOW!!!!
Or we STOP Buying...

This is a WAR people and we cant win it by feeding the Islamic Terrorists with OIL Dollars..

We can win it by Stopping ANY waste of oil or gas and electricity NOW!!!

Robert writes: If only the opposition party weren't even worse. It's going to be a long, hard ride.

Amen, brother.

Just one of Bush’s State of the Union dilemmas

January 31, 2006, 10:19 PM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that in the hours leading up to US president George W. Bush’s fifth State of the Union speech, he pondered whether or not to refer directly to the rise of Hamas and spell out White House policy on the terrorist group’s takeover of Palestinian government.

Some of his advisers advised inserting a paragraph on Hamas. They said his firm posture on this issue, a lot more resolute and lucid than the waverings of Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, would be an asset - in particular, his adamant opposition to international assistance to any Palestinian government that includes or is controlled by Hamas. This line, they say, would go down well with the American public.

to the american mid west - its as plain as day..

GAS GUZZLING = MORE TERRORISM

here's hoping the Dubya makes that a bit clearer.

( and no , i'm no leftie-green jihadi quisling type - i'm just stating a fact. )

Archduke writes:

"...this is just Dubya outlining his "perfect world" - and why not."

I don't know why no one thought of this before -- ending tyranny, ending crime, ending badness -- wow! -- I mean, I would have been happy if just tailgaiting was ended, but ending every sin -- excuse me, ending every negative behavior -- that's truly visionary.

Bring on the perfect world!

update from the bbc

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4665758.stm

President George W Bush is to warn in his State of the Union address that the US has become addicted to oil often imported from unstable nations.

He will tell the nation it must break the addiction "through technology".

"through tech" - boy do you americans have a fine president. cutting through the shit like a laser beam.

(no, no sarcasm - i really mean it)

zeno -> without the vision , you can't make humanity advance a little bit... why not say those things? what would you rather? not say it and be involved in endless nuances about how al-qaeda is "our fault"?

fuck that!

I hope Robert's right. It has been way too long...4 1/2 years since our energy balance of payments came crashing back in through the walls of the WTC and the Pentagon. There is no magic bullet. Contributions have to come from the political, economic, social, and techno-scientific spheres (PESTS, as an old professor of mine liked to call them). Do Americans have the stomach to:

Raise gasoline taxes. Our gas prices are half that of Europeans. If prices are determined by supply and demand (yes, I know there's a cartel on the other end) then if more goes into Uncle Sam's pocket, the less will go into pockets of King Abdullah and the mad mullahs.

Build nukes. The technology's improved but will never be perfect. What is? But we can't run our cars on nukes...yet.

Drive smaller, more efficient cars. Prius-type hybrids just a first step. Recent info on "plug-in" hybrids is intriguing. And diesel gets better mileage than gasoline (higher molecular weight provides higher energy density).

Develop significantly lighter cars to juice mileage. An outfit called the Rocky Mountain Institute has for a couple of years claimed that cost breakthroughs in the use of carbon fiber composites can move us dramatically in this direction. Fiber composites are already widely used in the latest generation of planes such as the Airbus A380, displacing a lot of aluminum as costs come down. Check out their program at www.oilendgame.com

Ethanol could become cheaper to produce through genetic modification of corn, though right now it still requires huge subsidies in the U.S. The Brazilians have better economics due to weather. Biodiesel? sounds good, just hope we don't have to wait a hundred years, we don't have that kind of time.

A note to conspiracy theorists. Petroleum is not used on account of a cabal of oil co execs and OPEC potentates. It is a liquid (easy to store and transport) with high energy density and was therefore a desirable fuel until its political cost got too high. Did the oil and car companies abuse their market power to shut out alternatives...sure, but we're talking a matter of degree, not of kind.

Love to hear other ideas; Hopefully this will be the end of the beginning in getting rid of our oil dependence.

Archduke asks:

"why not say those things?"

"Defending America from jihad" is a program reasonable people can get behind.

"Ending tyranny" is not.

How about a gas tax that would go solely to fund energy research, along the lines of the "Manhattan Project" that Robert has been calling for?

The post-hurricane price crunch showed that the economy can absorb far nastier price increases than, say, the addition of a 5- or 10-cent tax per gallon.

Give the innovators a little government help in circumventing the stalling tactics of the oil industry.

SPENCER IS RIGHT, BUT...BUT...

Spencer is no doubt right that destroying tyranny and spreading democracy will not by itself solve the problem of Islamic Jihad and terror. Nor is democracy a panacea for every world problem. But when Spencer says that 'tyranny is simply beside the point' in the post above, he goes way too far, because he underrates how dangerous tyranny is in a world of rapidly advancing WMD technology, a world in which WMD seem likely to appear in ever new forms, at ever shorter intervals, in ever more varieties, at ever lower cost, with ever more lethal power, ever greater portability, and ever greater diffusion to ever larger numbers of people. Technology is advancing faster than ever before in human history, and it continues to speed up. In saying 'tyranny is beside the point', Spencer seems to ignore what people like the astronomer Martin Rees have been saying about where the rapid advance of technology (including WMD technologies of all kinds) is heading. Liberal democracies are not panaceas, but for a very good reason to be explained, they represent one of our few hopes for controlling and limiting the greater and greater prodigies of destruction that advancing technology threatens to create. What is that very good reason? The relative transparency of liberal democracies permits verifiability of arms- and tech control treaties. As long as governments exist that are not free democracies, verifiability will be impossible, and without verifiability nations will not in any effective way implement arms- and tech control treaties, and in the absence of effective treaties, WMD will continue to mutate ever more rapidly, and become increasingly portable, lethal, and widespread, quite possibly leading to civilization's end, or at least to a profound 'discontinuity.' I try to make my point concisely in the following ditty:

Thin Hope

Destructive power
Grows by the hour;
Spreads its wings
At behest of earth’s kings.
Too soon and John Doe,
Or any hobo
Could gain access to power
To make the world cower.
Technology’s wonders
And apocalyptic blunders
Go hand in hand,
Not quite as we planned.
It’s no steady state,
But an accelerating rate
At which high tech molts
And with growing bite jolts
All the ways of the past.
But tech’s speed-up can’t last:
It is not hyperbolic
To say that tech’s frolic,
Its industrious rollick
Toward ever more power
Brings close now the hour
When any small fry
Might bring down the sky
Or brew biotech doom;
Carve a nanotech tomb;
Spark a kiloton boom;
Or seek new-conceived loom
With much bated breath
In the researcher’s room,
To weave webs of mass death.

A thin hope remains:
The globe’s despots in chains;
Full freedom to speak
In nations once meek;
Democracies worldwide,
So that peace might abide,
And transparency allow
Trust in treaties that vow
A vast reduction in arms
And in potential harms
And in any research
Where dreadful risks perch.
Thin hope, yet a rival
To doubts of survival.

Spencer is right that democracy is not a panacea for totalitarian Islam. But he is wrong to say that "tyranny is simply beside the point."

He is also wrong to assume that "tyranny will always be with us." Very few things will "always be with us." Tyranny of government is not one of those things that can be taken as eternal, like a god, nor even as enduring as the sun. There are more free democracies in existence now than ever before in history. And though we can hardly be sure of the outcome, in a number of ways the trend is for a slow increase and spread of liberal democracy everywhere.

Islam is only one of the major threats to Western civilization. There are several others. The combination of ever-advancing technologies of mass destruction on the one hand, and nontransparent, tyrannical government on the other, creates an ever more unstable world situation, unstable in proportion to the ever-increasing diffusion of ever more powerfully lethal and destructive technologies. You think nuclear weapons are powerful? Did it never occur to you that there is worse to come, that scientists have ever new twinkles in their eyes, in terms of increasing the powers at our fingertips? Have you never heard of the apocalyptic possibilites of self-replicating nano-technologies feeding on organic material? And there are many other 'amazing' technological developments in the offing.

Muslims are quite overrepresented in the "potential for apocalyptic terrorism" category, but as WMD are made ever more portable, destructive, and accessible, the whole of civilization threatens to become more and more like a chain completely dependent on its weakest links for continued existence. Kim Jong-Il is not a Muslim. The men who rule China are not Muslims. Castro is not a Muslim. And besides the many monster heads of opaque thug governments, relatively soon ordinary people with modest resources may be able to kill thousands or even millions (if scientists like astronomer Martin Rees is to be believed), through, for example, cheap new biotech weapons coming on line over the next decade or so.

If one adopts an even slightly historical perspective on technology, it is hard to remain unconcerned about the utterly huge accelerations, since the Industrial Revolution beginning at the end of the 1800s, in technological ability to create, heal, enrich, control -- and to destroy. We forget too easily what inconceivably large amounts of material wealth and progress we enjoy by comparison with people living just 100 years ago. Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, often pointed out that science allows one to do more and more with less and less. But he placed much less emphasis on the fact that science also permits us to destroy more and more with less and less.

Despite tech's ever increasing acceleration for the last few centuries, most of us act almost as though we were still in a steady state situation, and we are aware only of such changes as we have seen in our puny lifetimes. We don't see the approaching democratization -- or rather 'popularization' -- of WMD. WMD for the masses!

Yes, he's a PRAGMATIC Utopian.
Why don't people understand that Pragmatism is more than a simple word?

In about a week to 10 days, I'm gonna drop a bombshell. Of course, creature-comforts(disguised as freedom) will cause most to dismiss it. A hint: slavery of the mind is the ultimate slavery.

End tyranny? That's it? Why not think big, and dream dreams? After all, we can do anything, if only we set our minds to it. What about ending poverty? Not just pursuing but definitely capturing happiness by legislating an end to unhappiness? And why no war on mortality, so that we can all be around forever?

Meanwhile, thanks to the agents of Saudi Arabia, the gasoline taxes and other measures that ought to have been taken in 1973, and slowly but surely enlarged in scope and size, were not. And so what now happens, in energy policy, will be much more abrupt, painful, than they might have been, had we not listened to the James Akins-John Connally-James Baker-Fred Dutton school of high treason, and the other Western agents of the Arabs spread out through the chanceries, and the corridors of power, all over the Western world.

Now we are to get off that oil to which we are "addicted" -- an addiction that has just come to the attention of Mr. Bush, whose energy policy to date has consisted of opening up ANWAR. And what money will be put into this new energy policy, this promotioin of solar, wind, and nucelar energy, and into conservation projects? $350 billion have in the last three years been sunk into Iraq, $350 billion that might been used to diminish the menace of the world-wide Jihad had it been put direclty into such an energy program.

Where will the necessary funds come from now, from an Administration that, in these matters, so far has not shown it knows where to put its feet and hands? And as Robert grimly notes in his penultimate phrase above -- "if only the opposition party weren't even worse."

Remember this. Remember those who prevented a sensible energy program from being offered because they parroted Prince Bandar's line about how we could "trust Saudi Arabia" because the Saudis were "our staunch ally" and there was "no need" for measures that might leave the Saudis miffed. Remember their names, seek to have them investigated, their Arab money disgorged, they themselves put on a list of the West's quislings.

And remember their names as well if in fact it turns out, as it well may, that the changes to the environment are now irreversible and nothing can be done -- and that as a result, even if we finally come to our collective senses about oil and other fossil fuels, it will be, for all of us or for our children, too late.

Oops, slip of the brain: Industrial Revolution began toward the end of the 1700s, not end of 1800s.

We ought to make a distinction between the energy we need to power our homes and our factories and so on, and the energy we need to power our vehicles.

Right just now imported oil is powering just about everything in many parts of the free world. The first thing we could aim for is to reduce our dependence on oil to a vehicles only situation.

That would be reasonably simple and we would not have to invent, or depend on, any as yet undiscovered technologies. We would have to build many more nuclear, hydro, wind and solar generating plants and back them up with a significant number of the new 'clean burn' coal fired power stations for emergencies. Distributed micro-generation can also be used and will make a huge difference (indeed, some authorities think that that is all we need, in particular in the UK, but many doubt that it would be a particularly efficient method of gaining power in geographically larger countries such as the USA, although it would give ordinary citizens the feeling of contributing in a real and important way).

Just getting to the vehicles only situation would take twenty to thirty years if we started tomorrow because it takes time and money for big engineering schemes, such as those we are advocating, to get to the operational point. Obviously, during those years the scientifically brilliant amongst us may be able to devise realistic ways of powering our vehicles on something other that imported petrol, but even if they did not we would still have reduced our dependency on imported oil to a huge, yes HUGE, extent.

Incidentally, using biomass to produce fuel seems like a good idea but if you take into account the total number of vehicles that require fuel and the acres of land per gallon of fuel equation then it simply isn't possible to grow all the fuel we need - not even if all our countries were ten times the size they are. Sorry. The hydrogen fuel cell still looks like the most realistic short-term solution - battery technology has to improve by a factor of many tens of times before the direct electric powered vehicle is possible for more than just a few of us.

However, as I said, lets get the first part done - that we can do with no problem. Some experts say that if we do that and improve the efficiency of all our vehicles then we could cut our oil imports by almost fifty-eight percent. That would surely be worth it as a first step, wouldn't it?

Maybe we should use as much oil as possible - in 20 years, it will be all gone, and problem solved!

The American Federal Government will not go to war against Islam until Islam sets off car bombs, WMD's or Nukes in American and murders thousands or even millions of American.

Historically, like a schoolyard bully, Islam does not do this until it has an almost guaranteed victory. A large scale Islamic Militant attack is probably a few, but not many, years away still. That is, until some (even small) asteriod hits the center of Pakistan. That entire country, and every other Islamic country of the face of the earth would then be convinced the U.S. (or Israel) did it, and WhAllah (no pun intended) WWIII.

jingoist:

Here's a novel idea for you:

Let the Amerrican people discover WALKING or USING PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION!!

That's right I said WALK OR TAKE THE BUS!!!

(There's nothing more high-tech than the human body anyway...that includes feet).

THAT is the way to conserve energy and put terrorist governments on the unemployment lines. I know both modes of transport can be used since I actually use both. If I can do it so can (almost) everyone else!!!

I say make everybody walk or take the bus for the next five years. With the money we save we could apply it towards the federal deficit and probably reduce it to zilch very quickly. These modes of transport would also make for a healthier US populace that has grown too fat and sickly anyway.

And, get this, that would mean no more petro-money for the terroristas!

Hi RoP -

That is precisely what we are doing. We have to start to build what we need now because it takes so long to complete these big projects - twenty to thirty years in fact, which, according to some experts, is the time in which we will have used up all the oil that is left (although the consensus seems to be nearer fifty to seventy years).

Mr. Fitzgerald also has a point when he says that in terms of global climate change it may already be too late - indeed James Lovelock, he of the Gaia theory, stated a week or so ago that he believes that is too late and that we had passed the 'tipping point' some time ago.

See also an earlier article of his at
http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/nuclear_21st-century.htm

Seems like the main obstacles to weaning from fossil fuels are political rather than technical. If we were compelled by circumstances to shift completely to renewables within 10 years, I bet we could do so with much less disruption than many people think.

I don't quite see the sense of multiplying nuclear power plants -- in a terror-free world, the new nuke plants have no doubt become safe enough -- but in the real world we live in, they seem to make us incredibly vulnerable to huge terrorist-caused disasters. If the Indian Point nuke plant were bombed, New York City, not many miles away, might become undesirable real estate, at the least. The result could be much more damaging to NYC than 9/11 was.

People may think Homeland Security can protect us from this stuff, but it seems quite possible the terrorists haven't hit us only because they know they can do better by a gradual demographic onset, and they also know Bush might cream another two or three rogue nations if we get hit again.

Certiorari,
Hydrogen fuel cells are not a short term solution for vehicles. If several major technical challenges are solved they might be a longer term solution. Why?
Hydrogen on earth is available from 2 sources: hydrocarbons (HC) and water. Most today is produced from HCs (natural gas mainly), but since we are discussing weaning ourselves from these fuels, it hardly makes sense to discuss this route.
Fuel cells combine hydrogen with oxygen to create water, so producing hydrogen from water will by definition be a net energy-loser (due to inefficiencies) unless that energy comes from cheap non-hydrocarbon sources, probably nukes or renewables.
Then one has to get the hydrogen to the vehicle (very capital-intensive, much more so than current HC fuels) and figure some way to store them efficiently so that a 'fill-up' gets you to work and back at least a couple of times. Hydrogen has low energy density at anything less than very high pressure (over 10,000 psi). Some innovative schemes (borohydride, nanotubes, etc.) have been proposed for storage but these are years away from being commercial. It is possible to generate hydrogen on-board a vehicle from methanol or light hydrocarbons, which solves the logistical/storage problem, but then we're back to using HCs again and haven't achieved our real objective.
Hydrogen fuel cells do have a place near term in stationary power generation, particularly for back up systems.
The best recommendation against hydrogen fuel cells I know is that Detroit seems to suddenly be so keen on them...and Detroit's real aim is to put off switching from current technology as long as possible in order to save on costs. This is the same Detroit that ignored hybrids until Toyota was practically shoving them up their tailpipes.

"The inquisitive, common American gets it. The politicians do not."

What evidence do you have for this?

materialguy -

Thank-you. Very informative.

I think my short term is your longer term but even so I take your point. If it isn't hydrogen what's it to be, or is the best that can be hoped for the vehicles only situation that I suggested earlier?

Hm, just heard his state of the union, used the same phrase but also called Islam a noble religion.

awaiting the spin from the Bushbots

eduardo odraude -

I am informed that the containment buildings should be strong enough to withstand any terrorist attemtps on the reactor - certainly here in the UK. I do not know how accurate that information is but I do know that it comes from the UKAEA (United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority) and I am trying to track down a citation for you. I do not know what designs of reactors are in use in the USA, or in the rest of the world, but I would suggest that containment buildings should have been designed to be at least strong enough to withstand an aeroplane crash, as we have been informed those in the UK have been.

I just watched the depressing spectacle. The smug speaker. Not a hint of recognition. The "noble faith." The "perversion of a noble faith." Those who would misuse that "noble faith." The cure-all of "freedom" and "democracy" and America's duty to bring that "freedom" and "democracy" to the whole wide world. Freedom on the March in Egypt, Lebanon. Democracy at work, quickly blurred, among something called the "Palestinian people." Staying the course in Iraq. Helping the "Iraqi people" who, in finding "freedom," would naturallly come to desire what all those who have found "freedom" have come to desire. Realizing that the great people of the Iran are on the side of freedom and the American way, and are almost to a man against those mad mullahs, who somehow control them, somehow managed to get them to vote for Ahmadinejad. But never fear, you natural allies of America, someday we will be your very best friends. No doubt American soldiers, he thinks, would be greeted in Tehran with a "joy" that would make the "joy in Kabul" look "like a funeral procession" for that is the Lewisian line. And don't others keep talking about the "terror masters" and believe that Iran is just ripe for revolution, any day now, when in fact it is only the corruption of the clerics that arouses popular fury. The primitives are many, the advanced very few. And the other goals: Peace, justice, the American way. To be spread across the world. That is what we have all the time and money and soldiers for. That is our mission. Don't ask why. It just is. And we are here to do or die. Why? Because. And make no mistake, freedom is on the march. From Moscow to Beijing, everyone is embracing the same thing. This means, of course, only one thing: Economic Man, homo economicus, who now is the perfect man, al-insan al-kamil, the model of all our striving.

Great applause. Applause lines, at which everyone (or sometimes just the Republicans, or on one occasion just the Democrats) rose in stupid appreciation of a stupid speech by a stupid man. How could they stand it? I thought of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and how they delivered their own eloquent speeches, that they wrote themselves, with no cheap "applause lines" and no equally cheap rising to applaud those cheap applause lines. What an undignified farce it has all become.

The great energy plan? Oh, if we put the pitiful amounts left over from Bringing Democracy to the Muslim World (put Albert Brooks in charge, for god's sake, he can't do worse than is now being done) to work in cleaning coal-fired smokestacks, and the nuclear and solar and wind energy that brought applause, we might -- this is our great goal -- diminish by 75% our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

And all this by the year --- I waited, thinking he might say 2010, or possibly even 2012 -- 2025. Twenty years to go, at a trillion or so a year, flowing into OPEC pockets. This cannot be. This must not be.

And besides, we can't continue like this with fossil fuels for other reasons. Our rulers have got to start listening to scientists on this matter. This is above, beyond, before, behind, all political and economic calculation.

If he wants an American Burden, let it be to find a way to end reliance on fossil fuels, and at the same time, to convince people to locate and derive the source of their happiness in less energy-intensive pursuits. Start, say, with instilling an interest in language, in playing with it as she is spoke, in admiring it as she is written. How's that for an old idea whose time has come once again? And then in studying the laws of nature, possibly beginning with a little taxonomic Latin to enliven those admiring walks in the woods. No more making fun of Muir or Thoreau.

Get with the program.

good speech..well delivered..waking up to the smell of burning oil..great comments above..zeno..the post office actually generated
a surplus this year..loved the look on that saudi ministers face when Bush was talkin about the oil addiction..the dude looked like he was being called a "pusherman"..godam the pusherman!!..i say godam,godamn, the pusherman(Steppenwolf)..got me addicted to this oil...mmmmmm oil mmmmm..

Americans are not "addicted to oil", they just like using energy of all types. And would prefer a homegrown (or at least free world made) source, being non-suicidal pragmatists.

It is the entrenched corporate petroleum interests and their political lackies, alone, who, since 1900, find the ongoing oil situation just fine. They make fortunes and the hell with the America people. They can squirrel their outrageous windfall profits away in the Cayman Islands (in phony front/shell corporations) to avoid taxes and buy real estate in depressed areas, devastated by the results (auto plant closures, related manufacturing sent offshore, etc.) of this absurd dependency on a form of energy that endangers our security, and serenely wait for the areas to revive. And make yet another fortune on the upswing.

They aren't naive, they aren't idealistic, and they aren't giving up a fossil fuel gravy train without some gigantic government handouts to "smooth their transition" to another form of exploiting-the-need-for-another-kind-of-mass-marketable energy.

Consider the world-historical petro-profits made just this past year during the engineered oil "shortages". They know exactly what they are doing and can buy glib "patriotic" mouthpieces in the media and government to say just what they want said (behind waved flags and stirring trumpets) to the (too-busy-too-catch-the-real-import-of-the-cynical-b.s.) American people: it's good for business so it's good for America. (Rephrasing the Herbert Hoover tautology: The business of America is business.")

Most Americans would have preferred that Jimmy Carter had started a 'Manhattan Project for Energy Independence' a generation ago, but his calamitous weaknesses -in all fields- led to an indifference toward this problem through the next four administrations, including the current one (Bush's father made his fortune in the Zapata Oil company).

Most Americans would prefer that biodeisel, biomass, wind, solar, coal gassification, hydrogen, tidal, geothermal and other renewable sources of energy would be REALLY developed- with government impetus behind it. Meaning tax breaks FOR the homegrown, renewable varieties and tax breaks TAKEN AWAY from the dwindling varieties like oil. (Depletion/depreciation allowances, etc.)

But the corporate control of the government will prevent this until they can then take control of those upcoming sources.

It is the nature off all predators, from the cheetah to the businessman. They will not relinguish an easy kill (oil profits), and will destroy any competition (solar/ ethanol/etc.), until their can devour it (as intellectual-property).

But you can't expect the plain truth from a political mouth in power.

Their real bosses won't allow it.

Nothing will change until oil begins to run out, and then, miraculously, these same petro-companies will 'surprisingly' bring out all of the 'submarine patents' on adavanced technologies (tabletized hydrogen storage, etc.) that they have held close to the vest for years, -and will begin to profit from these "new, green" sources of power production. Taking credit for it, as if they hadn't also prevented their adoption for decades. And brought us misery at the hands of the OPEC swine, and helped fund Islamic terrorism by default (while they bought Swiss chalets and partied in Brussels, Paris and Rio, chuckling at the sucker-ocracy back home in America).

Or am I spilling cold beans?

Hugh.."..convince people to locate and derive the source of their happiness in less energy-intensive pursuits.." brilliant,Sir.

I was pleased to hear the energy initiatives Bush proposed, though we can always do more, especially as consumers.

I still think 2025 is too far away a goal to set for a 75% reduction of our use of foreign oil. We've got to "think big" on this, and if we fall short of a very lofty goal, at least we will have made substantial progress trying.

The world is full of problems that can't be solved solely by sitting around thinking about them-- one has to get their hands dirty, so to speak, and start testing out some options.

The lack of a single, uniform new energy source must not be used as an excuse to stall. Consider computers: There weren't always just three dominant operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux); consumer preference sorted that out.

True, there were anti-trust bumps in the road, and indeed, the same consequences should apply to the oil industry insofar as they squelch competition among energy sources.

you know what it seems Bush cannot please many of you.. what do you think he sould say about Islam! what sane Western leader can outright say we are at war with Islam! Bush knows by pushing for reforms via "Democracy" it will destroy Islam in its present form! and the oil thing about being addicted.. l think he it said to please you greenies! But being logical he has said that "Technology" will bring about other forms of energy! oh btw.. l drive a fullsized maxi van and a big old mini van! yeah screw the four cylinders crap! and not eveyone lives in cities.

I still think 2025 is too far away a goal to set for a 75% reduction of our use of foreign oil. - posted by me

Oops-- I was still typing my post when Hugh's came up.

Then, I should say, I fully agree that 2025 is too far away a goal.

Mr. Fitzgerald -

Twenty to thirty years is what it will take to build what we need to free ourselves from our dependency on imported oil. It takes time to build power stations of any type - concrete doesn't cure overnight, walls and roofs and floors don't magically appear, great metal generators and steampipes don't manufacture themselves in the twinkling of an eye, foundations aren't dug in a day by toddlers with plastic buckets and spades. Civil, electrical and mechanical engineering takes time and manpower as well as money. Large amounts of money may significantly shorten the time needed but, none-the-less, time, as measured in years, will still be needed. That is why we should have started the process decades ago, and that is why WE are all worried, as you are, that this may be the battle that we lose - we may not have the time we need.

Lulu-

Except for the "noble" nonsense about the Koranic "faith" , I found GWB's reference to "fighting Islamic Extremism" refreshing.

More accurate than "war against terrorism", at least.

Thanks God for small favors.

Inshallah.

Me: "The inquisitive, common American gets it. The politicians do not."

DR PEPPER: "What evidence do you have for this?"

What evidence do you have that this is not so?

Simply look at the blogs that discuss the enemy facing us such as here, A New Dark Age is Dawning, and Gates of Vienna.

Compare to our politicians refusing to name Islam as the enemy, but instead claiming that a bare handful have "hijacked" a peaceful religion. They are too mired in political correctness and the desire to earn media brownie points for sounding phlegmatically "moderate."

The common citizen is willing to fight. Our politicians are willing to equivocate.

Lulu--

I drive a minivan myself-- it was a gift from the folks, and I'm thankful for it, because I'd be driving a $400 Chevette (one sold in the paper under the heading "Runs Good") or thereabouts if I had shell out the dough myself.

Since it was a gift, and it would also be financially impossible as a typically cash-strapped grad student to buy something else, I plan to drive it 'til it disintegrates into a heap of fine powder.

But even if one is shackled to a larger vehicle for the time being, there are things that can be done, like observing the speed limit, consolidating trips and limiting use of air conditioning, which can decrease mileage up to 20%.

I'm also fortunate to be able to walk or bike to the university, and for minor errands. I've come to enjoy that so much that I'd miss it if I had to drive.

Shinoliite -

Hi.

Twenty years. Seventy-five percent reduction in dependency on FOREIGN oil. From an engineering point of view probably possible but the first sod would have to be turned tomorrow and it won't be (see my previous comment - above). I think such a reduction, although absolutely necessary, just won't happen in the time available.

I can't read American politicians but if he was a European politician we would all just shrug our shoulders and know that he was either lying or posturing at someone (in this case probably the oil sheiks) to scare them. Certainly, we wouldn't actually believe the words spoken but we might just try to find their real meaning. Are you sure that what he said is what he actually means?

"Twenty to thirty years is what it will take to build what we need to free ourselves from our dependency on imported oil. It takes time to build power stations of any type - concrete doesn't cure overnight, walls and roofs and floors don't magically appear, great metal generators and steampipes don't manufacture themselves in the twinkling of an eye, foundations aren't dug in a day by toddlers with plastic buckets and spades."
-- from a posting above

No disagreement that it will likely take that time

. But how bitter it is to realize, through a simple calculation, what has been lost by failing to comprehend either the nature of Islam, and of Muslim believers, and therefore of the uses to which, inevitably, OPEC revenues would be put, and further, how much time has been lost by the willingness to believe that there were "allies" among the Arabs and Muslims, and chief among those "allies" was that "staunch ally" Saudi Arabia. And we knew it was true because an army of Westerners, ex-diplomats, ex-intelligence agents, public relations men, businessmen of every doubtful sort angling for Saudi contracts, politicians on the Saudi take or make, kept telling us that it was so. And not one of them has been hauled before Congress, not one of them investigated and been the subject of books, not one of them forced to disgorge his money or had to face any charges, or any public disgrace -- which is needed, if the treasonous farce is not, in a less open fashion, not to continue even now.

So it is now going to be, in Bush's scheme, 20 years from now. But what if the government had been staffed with people who saw things as they were, and not as they were told they are, and long ago, had understood Islam, had understood Saudi Arabia, perhaps even had had a glimmer that Jihad was a doctrine that had fallen into desuetude only for want of the necessary wherewithal, which wherewithal would promptly be supplied by oil revenues. And what if those people had created, had forced upon us all, an effective energy plan beginning in 1973, that is 33 years ago, Americans (and many others) might years ago have stopped needing to import any oil from the Middle East, and what's more, had we taxed gasoline, and taxed oil in other ways, might have funded alternative energy programs that, in turn, by now might have made advances, expressed as lower costs, that would have allowed the export of such technology around the world, to India and China as well, and thus further cut down on the need by others for buying oil and thus, unwittingly or unwillingly, supporting the Jihad.

Wormwood and gall.

Certiorari-- I think setting the deadline so far away is a move for political "wiggle room"; most of the lawmakers sitting in DC tonight will have long since disappeared from the public eye by 2025, and no US news magazine will knock on their door then and say, "Hi. Remember that energy initiative back in 2006?"

I do think Bush means what he says. That may be a vestige of youthful idealism on my part, but it's possible to hold him and the legislators to account on it, in the press and in the voting booth. The US media will call a president on the carpet if he scratches his nose the wrong way (e.g., on a bronze bust of Millard Fillmore. But I digress. *grin*), let along if he reneges on a pledge.

uhoh..here come the Thoreau quotes..

"In any weather, at any hour of the day or night,
I have been anxious to improve the nick of time, and notch it on my stick too;
to stand on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future,
which is precisely the present moment; to toe that line."

from the chapter "Economy"
in Walden

"In the streets and in society I am almost invariably
cheap and dissipated, my life is unspeakably mean.
No amount of gold or respectability would in the least
redeem it,-- dining with the Governor or a member of Congress!!
But alone in the distant woods or fields,
in unpretending sprout-lands or pastures tracked by rabbits,
even in a bleak and, to most, cheerless day, like this,
when a villager would be thinking of his inn,
I come to myself, I once more feel myself grandly related,
and that cold and solitude are friends of mine.
I suppose that this value, in my case, is equivalent
to what others get by churchgoing and prayer.
I come home to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home.
I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are,
grand and beautiful. I have told many that I walk every day
about half the daylight, but I think they do not believe it.
I wish to get the Concord, the Massachusetts, the America,
out of my head and be sane a part of every day."

from the Journal (January 7, 1857)

good night!

That will do. That's something to take for a walk in the woods.

Yes, but after the solitude Thoreau returned to society--it seens impossible to live only in one sphere--except for the hermits I quess--these days someone has to drive the tractor and mind the defenses or we'll all be emaciated or dead by other means. The stars of course will still shine--at least for awhile!

This site demonstrates the rightness of the man for do we not "...find a trout in the milk." Yet others will not listen to us.

The full quote, I believe, is:
"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk."
From the Journal, 11:xi:1850.

Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald, I agree. What time they have wasted, and why will they not see the trout?

Ah, Shinoliite, dear old President Fillmore. Now there was a man who knew how to compromise.

How very strange. The compromise was The Compromise of 1850 - same year as the Thoreau quote I thought of.

Mr. Fitzgerald -

Yes, wormwood and gall, indeed.

However, for the most of the history of England it has been wormwood and Gaul, d--n it.

"as when you find a trout in the milk."
-- a poster above, quoting Thoreau

Watered-down milk is not as potentially dangerous as going fishing for trout in a peculiar river.

Perhaps the last word should go to Thoreau himself and then I will take myself off to bed.

"It were treason to our love
And a sin to God above
One iota to abate
Of a pure impartial hate."

From 'Indeed, Indeed I Cannot Tell' (1852).

And that's true too.

Okay, let's give George a break. He did say radical Islam in his speeach not radical indoeuropeans. Do you expect the president on international TV to say we have to irradicate all elements of Islam. Now that would be a declaration of "holy war" . I don't doubt that he knows the evil teachings within Islam and that he is using the NSA to spy on Islamic terrorists not those darn left wing anti war activists. At the vey least, as a Christian, he believes that Islam is a false religion and Mohammed a false prophet!
If we use the same type of language that the Islamists use then we loose credibility in our psyops. In the background we are blowing to hell many Jihadis and shutting down much of their ability to wage this conflict. That is why OBL offered his "truce" so he could regroup. We are at war with certain people within Islam, not all muslims. He knows that and is doing that. The people fighting our troops in Iraq are not Hindus or Christians, they are Muslims. We are at war with Muslims, not Islam. Physically at war that is, we are at war intellectually and spiritually with Islam.
Changing Islam will be done through better ideas being spread to those places in the world where Islam dominates. This can be done by conquest, ie Iraq, broadcasting and westerners meeting with and establishing relationships with Muslims. Also through direct evangelization of the Muslim people. I mentioned this before, they need a vision of God, that allows them to live in peace with people around them that are not the same religion.
Now don't come down on me, I am not pro Islam that is for sure. I have never seen such a deceived people in my life. There seems to be absolutley zero, (I know they claim zero as theirs),attempts within Islam to search for any evidence that may support the claims within the Koran or the hadiths. They use complete circular reasoning and rarely seem to want to honestly debate the truth claims within Islam. It baffles me. Read Koran, throw away anything else, definetly cult like.

From Hugh, many posts ago
Applause lines, at which everyone (or sometimes just the Republicans, or on one occasion just the Democrats) rose in stupid appreciation of a stupid speech by a stupid man.

Hugh

The tone of this strikes me as needlessly bitter, and is unlikely to convince people that struggle against Islam is the right cause. It'd be one thing if the president at one time had the right idea towards Islam, and recently started getting soft. But the trend here is in the right direction - from the point 4 years ago when Islam was hardly mentioned to a point now where at least he takes on Islamo-fascism (granted a redundant term), it's certainly a preferrable trend to the groveling before Islam that's taking place in Europe, including Russia.

Also, if one wanted the president to describe Islam the way it is - a vile religion, as opposed to a 'noble' one, all the pieces of the puzzle would have had to be in place: a major cold shoulder towards the likes of Saudi Arabia, Egypt & Pakistan, freezing of ties with all 53 members of the OIC, ensuring that no Americans are anywhere unwittingly in Dar ul Islam, and similar measures. Once such things are in place, one can denounce Islam all day long.

Also, the energy independence segment of his speech was a welcome part, given that he explicitly stated the problem - dependence on Middle East oil. Here again, that term is preferrable to Islamic oil, even though everyone knows the world doesn't get its oil from Israel or Cyprus. And when someone talks about getting ethanol "not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks, or switch grass", you can bet that there is a seriousness about this problem.

It may take 20 years for the US to reduce its dependence on oil by 75%. But why assume that the Saudis and others can build a gazzilion mosques all over until the camels come home? Measures can easily be taken to limit that, particularly under the auspices of homeland security. Also, even if US reduces its dependence, such an independence from oil has to be spread all across dar ul Harb - China, India, Brazil, and the world over.

As for "what if those people had created, had forced upon us all, an effective energy plan beginning in 1973, that is 33 years ago", isn't that water under the bridge by now? In 1973, the US was winding down operations in Vietnam, India had just created another Islamic country - Bangladesh, Israel had just trounced Egypt in its 4th Arab-Israeli war, so how would that have been a major focus when the enemy was communism, not Islam? Besides, there were plenty of infidel countries that allied with the Soviets, and so the US had to make unscrupulous alliances with regimes like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and for a good while, even Iraq.

Also, while it is true that this research takes time, once it crosses a threshold, it becomes relatively easy or at least inexpensive to manage. Look at lasers, microchips or any other invention that was very expensive at one time, and today costs just a few cents to manufacture due to mass production. Once we get over that hump with energy, the days that Islam has any trump card on the infidel world will be behind us.

Jinqoist

I agree with many things that your say, but you have a few facts wrong.

Our 2001 Chevy Suburban gets 16 to 17 mpg in the city on non-polluiotn controled gasoline.

Our F250 Crew Cab 4x4 diesel get +/- 20 mpg.

We need a better supply line of biodiesel and ethanol and to develop the oil shale in Colorado.

After I started working from a home office and my fuel use went down considerablly. This should be more of a consderation by all companies instead of the brain dead commute twice a day. How much fuel would this save.

The Texican
It is better to fight and die free than to ever liver under Islam.

Hm, just heard his state of the union, used the same phrase but also called Islam a noble religion.

As listed previoulsy: Bush in his state of the union message called Islam a noble religion.

Hasn't anyone in Washington read the Koran and looked at the ten's of thousands murdred across the world by the noble relegion of Islam.

And just why do we need illegal aliens working in America as Bush proposed. With out this cheap labor, then decent wages might get paid at the bottom of the wage chain and allow Americans to get ahead like Bush wants them to.

Bush just dosen't get it.

We need to shut down and fence our borders and rid America of everyone that doesn't belong here then talk about a guest woker program. Why would you let some that has broken our laws remain in America. Islami countries will not. They would execute you or send you out of their country.

I voted for Bush twice. If Bush could be elected again, he would not get my vote.

Send your emails to your senators and representatives to state your stance on Islam and protecting our bordres. They will reply and if enough do it, they will take action.

The Texican,
It is better to fight and die free than to ever live under Islam.

Materialguy:
Raise gasoline taxes. Our gas prices are half that of Europeans. If prices are determined by supply and demand (yes, I know there's a cartel on the other end) then if more goes into Uncle Sam's pocket, the less will go into pockets of King Abdullah and the mad mullahs.

Despite being pro-GOP, I actually agree with this. Have an adjustable tax that acts as an effective price control on gasoline, say ~$3. When OPEC prices drop, raise the tax so that the price stays at 3, and when OPEC prices rise, lower the tax accordingly. If the price shoots beyond $3, say $3.15, clamp it there. Recycle that cash into both energy research and transportation (widening the freeways), so that the money goes into these, instead of teaching some 9 year old Mohammedans that Israel does not exist.

Build nukes. The technology's improved but will never be perfect. What is? But we can't run our cars on nukes...yet.

Drive smaller, more efficient cars. Prius-type hybrids just a first step. Recent info on "plug-in" hybrids is intriguing. And diesel gets better mileage than gasoline (higher molecular weight provides higher energy density).

Develop significantly lighter cars to juice mileage. An outfit called the Rocky Mountain Institute has for a couple of years claimed that cost breakthroughs in the use of carbon fiber composites can move us dramatically in this direction. Fiber composites are already widely used in the latest generation of planes such as the Airbus A380, displacing a lot of aluminum as costs come down. Check out their program at www.oilendgame.com

Right now, hybrids cost some $10k more than their non-hybrid equivalents. A month or so back, I was asking a Saturn dealer whether they had any plans for hybrids. One thing that the person I was talking to mentioned was that hybrids from Toyota and others cost some $10k more than there equivalent non-hybrid cars. (Feel free to shoot this one down). Point being that one is not likely to save that sort of cash over the difference in fuel costs over 10 years (which is stretching how long one owns a car).

If hybrid cars can be less expensive, then those companies should consider diversifying and making hybrid SUV's, trucks and other such vehicles. Once these cars are in the mass market, that would help us reduce the dependence on oil. Only thing I disagree with you on is the need for lighter cars - with strict seatbelt laws as we have here, the moment one has a large family (read 3 kids or more), one needs a minivan or an SUV - even a stationwagon is inadequate.

Ethanol could become cheaper to produce through genetic modification of corn, though right now it still requires huge subsidies in the U.S. The Brazilians have better economics due to weather. Biodiesel? sounds good, just hope we don't have to wait a hundred years, we don't have that kind of time.

The Brazilians have done a good job here. But how about sugar based ethanol? That was one of the deals in CAFTA - the US would import cane sugar from Costa Rica, and then convert that into ethanol. (Doesn't sound difficult - isn't it something along the lines of glucose ==> alcohol break-up?) If this works, then this could be done with sugar not only from Central America, but also US, India, West Indies and a whole bunch of infidel countries. Thereby sending money there instead of to the Jihad fund.

A note to conspiracy theorists. Petroleum is not used on account of a cabal of oil co execs and OPEC potentates. It is a liquid (easy to store and transport) with high energy density and was therefore a desirable fuel until its political cost got too high. Did the oil and car companies abuse their market power to shut out alternatives...sure, but we're talking a matter of degree, not of kind.

I don't see how car companies gain by shutting down alternative vehicles, as we are seeing with Prius. Also, does using fuels other than gasoline mean more depositions, and thereby more clogged engines than the current engines?

Love to hear other ideas; Hopefully this will be the end of the beginning in getting rid of our oil dependence.

As of now, what is the deal with fusion? Granted that deuterium is hard to produce from tons of water, and tritium is even rarer, but where does the research stand regarding the ability to control a fusion reaction? In the case of fission based processes based on U238 and Pu239, there is the problem of nuclear waste, and you have the choice of Yucca mountain (maybe we could arrange to send these in a rocket every few years to Jupiter?) In the case of fusion, the resultant product is He-3 - an inert product that would have no effect on the environment.

Solar could be used for home heating, but the biggest problem with it, even more than cost, is that it is a weather dependent source, and cannot be stored. In other words, let's say you have a hot summer - you don't get to save that energy for a cold winter (the way you can with oil or coal by simply not burning it).

As someone else mentioned above, we should stop using oil for commercial power i.e. purposes other than vehicles. Switch to anything - coal, nuclear, hydro, et al. Make each one of our 50 states build some sort of power plant or another - hydro, coal, nuclear, anything. Once we have this surplus energy, we could use it to power our manufacturing capacity and promote newer jobs. And also reduce demand for oil in a big way that even if countries like China continue to buy oil, the cash that they'll be contributing to the Jihad fund will be far less than what it is now.

To those who think Bush has no choice but to call Islam a "noble" religion: why does he have to characterize Islam at all?

If he wants to say something positive, he could say that tens or hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world are warm, wonderful, smart, peaceful people (true!).

Excellent diplomacy doesn't require lying.

We are at war with certain people within Islam, not all muslims. He knows that and is doing that. The people fighting our troops in Iraq are not Hindus or Christians, they are Muslims. We are at war with Muslims, not Islam. Physically at war that is, we are at war intellectually and spiritually with Islam. Changing Islam will be done through better ideas being spread to those places in the world where Islam dominates. This can be done by conquest, ie Iraq, broadcasting and westerners meeting with and establishing relationships with Muslims.

disciple

I disagree with your first comment. We are at war with people (and I use the term loosely) who have chosen to be at war with us because they follow Islam. It isn't like we are at war with people who happen to follow Islam, as though Islam is an innocent bystander in all this. As far as that aspect of the war goes, I agree with Hugh and others - when the president stood on an aircraft carrier with the banner "Mission Accomplished", he happened to be right. As for the right time to have withdrawn the troops, I believe that should have been December 2003, after the capture of Saddam.

As far as changing Islam goes, it's impossible in that once you strip Islam of all its evil contents, what you'd have left would be totally different. The only long term victory that one can have is by destroying as many Islamic governements as possible (in the most populated countries - Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh & Egypt), as well as in the oil-rich countries (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Brunei, et al). Once that happens, give the people of these places the freedom to switch from Islam, and suppress anyone who spreads Islam. That way, much of that fight will be won. The rest wouldn't have the resources to either survive on their own or continue the Jihad, and we'd be rid of it all.

Where I do agree - no way the president could have explicitly stated tonight that we are at war with Islam, given the status on the ground. That is something we have to work towards. A good starting point would be to make the state department an arm of the Pentagon.

Kamala

I don't disagree - I do think he could have left out describing Islam as noble. But a more glaring sentence in his speech came just 2 sentences before that, as in:

And we do not forget the other half — in places like Syria, Burma, Zimbabwe, North Korea, and Iran — because the demands of justice, and the peace of this world, require their freedom as well.

All that said, on Iran, I have a hunch the president may have been right. If the regime falls, and Iranians in a post regime environment apostate en masse, that would have been a good thing for all involved.

2025 is too far away of a goal
American needs to start RIGHT NOW, TODAY, THIS MINUTE
Every day is another day that petrodollars flow to Islamist Extremists
We can start this RIGHT NOW, TODAY
I have listed ideas at:
http://www.driving-out-terrorists.com

We should have started on this project a long time ago. Berating and finger pointing isn't helpful at this point. Instead, let's use our Yankee ingenuity to solve the agreed upon problem as soon as possible and get on with it. I, for one, am exceedlingly tired of being held hostage by OPEC, the idea of appeasing the petrobillionaires for the sake of oil, and growing anti-Americanism of the likes of Chavez and even Mexico. We needed to be independent yesterday!

Stop grousing and get on with it.

Excellent points above by Pythagoras, Certiorari & others. I'm no inventor & this ain't an engineering forum, but here's some thoughts on IC efficiency, with a view towards sustainable vehicle propulsion.

Steam engines went from ~30% to 90%+ with the arrival of the triple-expansion cycle.

If IC engines underwent a similar evolution, we could break free from crude completely without having to drive lawnmowers. It'd be an economic and performance advantage.

It can be done, by getting rid of the 'Otto' cycle, and using the turbine model - a single, constant stroke. If the piston's only going one-way, it's gotta go in circles. A torroidal (ring) motor is already the right shape to fit directly to a wheel. The engine casing could rotate around the stationary pistons and ports. This makes for lighter, cheaper, faster, more efficient vehicles.

On the home front, 'wheel engines' played a part in winning a previous world war. They were just big electric motors with tyres.

It's possible to make an internal combustion engine that operates like an electric motor. Piston compression with one moving part isn't possible - expansion works, cuz the pressurised gas wants to equalise to atmospheric pressure. But to compress a gas with a piston needs at least one more moving part - like a valve.

There's two types of compressor - dynamic impeller (like a fan) and positive displacement (like a piston). An IC engine only needs positive displacement expansion. A reciprocating piston can compress on the return stroke, in a minimum two-stroke cycle. But if the air is pressurised by a seperate compressor, the compression ratio can be decoupled from the expansion volume - such a motor could have a longer compression stroke than the expansion stroke.

Google "Periflow compressor".

This achieves near-positive displacement, using a toroidal dynamic impeller. It can be run in concentric stages to successively raise the air to deisel-like compression ratios, with one moving part going in one direction. It could be plumbed to a single-stroke expansion piston. There could be a carb & combustion chamber/s in-between.

Such an engine would be supercharged and turbocharged at once. Also, the combustion material can be retained longer than would be possible with a reciprocating piston. Ever see an engine run with no exhaust manifold? There's a flame and a bang every second revolution. A single-stroke toroidal could trap this energy inside the motor cumulatively until it forces itself out by moving the piston past a vent, literally exhausting the energy. This would achieve all the aims of 'HCCI' without all the hassle. The exhaust would be cooler, quieter & cleaner. Instead of one impulse for every two revolutions, it could have hundreds, & run stably at low speed.

It could also run faster. Reciprocating motors struggle to reach 20krpm. Imagine a 19" wheel at 30,krpm... it wouldn't need gears. It might need a good clutch & brake. An integral magneto would also be a powerful motor. Electricity could be stored for, or fed back to propulsion. Or traded with the grid, or used domestically. A 19" torroidal electric motor would be powerful in its own right, & as a combined IC engine it'd be a more efficient way to burn fossil or bio fuel - in both economical & performance terms.

It's technically possible to end the 60% waste we currently take for granted. There's multiple pros and no apparent cons... 100mpg and 0-60 in under 4 seconds is easily
achievable, using carbon-neutral fuel. Wheel engines are a century-old technology. Wheels rotate, & have one moving part. Turbines also rotate, with one moving part. A turbine in a wheel is a logical progression. Higher efficiency = more for less. Like i say i'm no engineer, but i drew up a crude design. I sent a copy to the UK govt. & the US DoE, though it was probably filed under "crank correspondance". If anyone wants a copy email me - there's no protection involved as i'm not interested in money.

"America is addicted to oil" and must break its dependence on foreign suppliers in unstable parts of the world."

Buy Canadian oil, guaranteed jihad-free! Canada is the US's largest foreign supplier of oil and our oilsands reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's reserves. And this is only the oil we can get out of there and make money at today. Total reserves are as much as 2 Trillion barrels. More than enough to last North America for a couple of centuries. Then we can watch the middle east go back to pirating and camel trading.

Canuck

Thank you Sheik Canuck, but that oil will only be needed dor a little while. Being addicted to oil is not a bad thing. Where as being addicted to foreign oil is. There are untapped supllies of oil right here in the United States of America. the thing about it is that the democrats in Washington and environmentalists won't let us drill for it.
I was left empty when the President didn't mention drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve. There is much untapped oil there if we can get to it. It was, to me, like he was giving up on the proposal. That he was no longer going to pursue this option. I hope my asummuption is wrong.
I love to see our dependence on foreign oil "a thing of the past." Reducing the need for Arab oil to an all time low of 0%. Thus keeping countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria and the other OPEC countries from finacing terror and/or terrorists. Letting them fight progress. Being reducers instead of producers. Regressing. Thus we let the Islamofeces live in the 4th century as they want, under Islamic rule, under Sharia law, while leaving the rest of the civilized world alone. They can have Allah, Muhammad, and the koran. And soon, when we elect congressmen and senators with backbones, they can keep their oil to.

Alternatives are needed. We all know that. How long has it been since a project like the Hoover Dam has been conceived? That project drastically changed the states around it. Could a project like that be done today?

How about incentives like the civilian space project. Put that towards energy independance. Animus Fox~ keep putting out new ideas. Maybe a Nascar type race only allowing alternative fuels with a large prize, like the solar car projects that have been done in the past. Only with a much larger prize than before to draw contestants from around the world. Many would be willing to have transportation that only reaches 50 miles an hour instead of 100 if the speed limits would be changed to keep all those Nascar types from running over us. Save the speed for aviation and defense. Yeah, an HOV lane for Alternative Energy Cars only! That would encourage some to switch ! A.E.C. lanes.

I saw a report about an 80 year old man who converted a car to all battery and electric in his garage because he couldn't afford gas. If he can do it big car makers can, too. They just need the incentive. How about a "Gates" prize? Maybe he would finance it? Or Branson?

As far as walking goes, a population shift would have to occur first. Could you see the Los Angeles area walking to work? Or London? Those who have lived beside the industrial areas where they work are the most poor for a reason. You can't breath without the fumes being your constant companion. To both work and live in it would surely shorten your life. Anyone who has lived near a steel mill will point to the corrosion of the paint from their cars and the damage to their lungs. It all sounds good if you work in an office or retail. You could live above an office or above the store as many have in the past. Or live on the farm as a worker with your family in "company store" homes. Would you want to live next to the DuPont plant in Delaware or have to walk to it each day? The old New York tenements of a hundred years ago were scary, filty places. Families had one, maybe two small rooms. Look at the room you are sitting in and think about living in just that one room for everything you do, plus your whole family. Imagine being packed like sardines even more than the closets some people are living in now. All so you could be close to work. Corner groceries would have to be everywhere again because you could not walk from the grocery store very far without your perishables going bad. Plus you would need a way to carry enough food for the whole family. Ok when you're single but you would need a large carriage and a lot of energy to lug food for four or more. Corner groceries are pricier. Yeah, walking sounds great when you are on campus going to class but in the industrial world you would not like it. In China where people bike to work, many live at the job, in housing provided by the company. Some live at their desks. Plus, when people walk to work, lets just say they would need shower facilities if it was very far...It could happen again. Let's hope an alternative energy souce comes up first.

Me: "The inquisitive, common American gets it. The politicians do not."

DR PEPPER: "What evidence do you have for this?"

Your evidence is blogs, which may or may not be indicative of the majority you imply. My evidence is negative -- whenever a politician, an academic expert, a news commentator, or a celebrity spouts nonsense about Islam, I never see an avalanche of protest against such nonsense -- not in the form of letter-writing (so many thousands, hundreds of thousands, that even newspapers and magazines could not ignore it); not in the form of people en masse (not just one or two here and there) calling in to radio shows; not in the form of picket protests in the street; not in the form of a mass movement organizing and passing Initiatives against Islam; not in the form of a group of, say, 1,000 (or, Hell, 5,000 or 10,000 or 50,000) disrupting Bush's speech Sheehan-style to protest his consistent reference to Islam as a "religion of peace" and "noble religion".

I don't see any evidence of that majority of people out there who supposedly "gets it". I conclude, sadly, that the demographics of the common people in the West are roughly the following:

10% -- "get it"

20% -- vaguely sense that Islam is a problem, but they are too passive to learn more and do something about it

70% -- their hearts and minds have been infected by the PC mental disease, among whose PC Givens are that:

1) Islam is a great noble religion of peace
2) only a tiny minority of extremists are trying to hijack this great religion
3) any substantive criticism of Islam qua Islam is impermissible "Islamophobic" if not "racist" bigotry.

www.jimgoism.blogspot.com

Today on al-jazeera (aka terrorism tv)
They have a cartoon showing in arabic

The Islamic countries holding uncle sam hostage..

With a barrel of oil...

Check out the cartoon then try to tell us that the oil producing countries are PLANNING on using
OIL as a weapon...

Here is the cartoon

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Cartoons/cartoon%20originals/May/cartoon2_290504.jpg

Jingoist:

And this has changed since OPEC's formation in 1973 (or whatever it was) in what way?

The only problem is that as with all other "weapons", people who live by the sword can also end up dying by the sword. Most of the oil gazillionaires have substantial investments in the west that would suffer if the price of oil passes beyond the point at which those western economies tank.

"Just getting to the vehicles only situation would take twenty to thirty years if we started tomorrow because it takes time and money for big engineering schemes, such as those we are advocating, to get to the operational point. Obviously, during those years the scientifically brilliant amongst us may be able to devise realistic ways of powering our vehicles on something other that imported petrol, but even if they did not we would still have reduced our dependency on imported oil to a huge, yes HUGE, extent."

I call BS here. It took America less than 3 years to figure out how to mass produce penicillin. The US Government sat down the major pharmaceutical companies and the pharmaceutical board, layed out the rules and BAM...3 years.

The US Government pushed and funded the development of a synthetic rubber once Japan cut off its supply before WW2. The US Government then SOLD the process AND FACTORIES to the major chemical companies at a nice profit. That took less than 3 years.

Add the Manhatten Project.

All this took place, and many other discoveries, right before or during WW2. If the US Government and its elected officials would get the nerve to do it again, I have every reason to believe we can cut our oil imports by 25-40% in 5 years and 60% in 10.

Without oil money, the spread of Islam, the political unrest in the Middle East, and major US taxpayer funding (aka foreign aid) will be significantly lower.

Global emmissions down. Foreign Aid down. Deficit down. Islam down. World Security UP.

TO THOSE WHO MENTIONED GLOBAL WARMING:

No one has as yet PROVED that fossil fuel consumption and pollution resulting from it are the cause of global warming. I do know that the earth is clearly experiencing a strong rise in climatic temperatures. But I do not automatically believe or accept as Gospel Truth that the cause of it is people and fossil fuel consumption. The earth has experienced dramatic rises in atmospheric temperatures in the past (as at the end of the last Ice Age about 12000 years ago when most of the polar glaciers melted within a few centuries and the earth's climate warmed up dramatically). And by the way if global warming is the result of solar changes or other natural phenomena there will be ABSOLUTELY NOTHING MANKIND CAN DO TO REVERSE IT.

To my mind, the chances are very high that global warming is NOT the result of human activity but of natural processes beyond our control and we will have no choice but to live with it!

This does not mean I do not support efforts to get the industrial nations off of fossil fuel consumption ASAP. The finger pointing by enviros should stop. I am THRILLED Americans didn't sign onto the Kyoto treaty because those who put it together never acknowledged that their appraisal of the situation might be wrong. Nor were Americans ever consulted aout it. That whole thing reeked of the World Federalist Movement which J.Chirac is a member of...

It's high time "climate change" was put out to pasture as a political weapon to be used against America (Certiorari are you listening...).

I am really sick of this one.