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Kahunascott,
I would identify myself as a treehugger. I've heard that there's actually very little oil in the Alaska Nat'l Wildilfe Refuge, maybe ten years worth at our rate of usage. Hardly, a rresource worth destroying that habitat for. On one of my trips to Alaska, there was a meeting of major oil companies to figure out how they could harvest the natural gas that they had to pump back into the ground. It would need a different pipeline than the one used for oil. I suspect the interest in drilling in AK is more about the NG than the oil.
I do believe that it would destroy that habitat and the oil companies wouldn't be held accountable, reference what Exxon has gotten away with in the Prince William Sound. That area is now dead as a fishery, oil continues to cover the sea bottom. They've never really cleaned it up and have failed to adequately compensate the people of the area. I think we could expect more of the same it drilling continued.
I don't know about the details of geothermal, but I've heard that there are local environmental problems associated with that, too.
Les
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Marj snd I sttended the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair last weekend. There were probably 500 or more vendors, primarily of Solar systems, wind power and some alternative building techniques and thousands or people, very few of whom looked rich to me.
There were a lot of different innovative products.
Many of these are used where it is cost prohibitive to bring in standard utilities, i.e a mile in the woods.
A recent article claimed that the entire USA electrical energy needs could be supplied by photovoltaic covering 2% of the land.
Plus nanotechology has recently created improved means of turning sunpower into electricity at better efficiency than silicon.
Last year the USA led the world in installation of windpower.
The realistic future is going to be a mix of solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear and conventional oil and coal, with renewables increasing in market share.
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Well, Les,
I guess you should visit Valdez sometime. There's fantastic fishing for salmon, halibut, oysters, shrimp, bottomfish, and on and on.....The same goes for Cordova and Whittier....also located on Prince William Sound.
Must have just happened, right?
Bill ( 25 year Alaska resident)
All this from a "dead fishery"
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Bill, I have visited Valdez a couple of times but did not talk to fishermen while there. I was referring to the area where the spill occurred and drifted ashore. Valdez, Cordova and Whittier appeared to have been spared direct contact with the oil
http://www.adn.com/evos/pgs/ev_illustrations.html
Do you know that the bottom of the affected area of the PW Sound have been adequately cleaned up? I've heard that lots of oil gunk is still turning up. I've also heard that many of the people of the area who were directly affected have not been compensated as promised by Exxon. Perhaps the whole fishery is not dead, but are these other things not true?
Les
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ANWR Facts:
According to the most reliable figures published by the US Geological Survey, found in their 1998 assessment1, ANWR contains somewhere between 5.7 and 16 billion barrels of oil (Gb), with the most likely figure being somewhere in the neighborhood of 10.4 Gb. Recoverable reserves are estimated to lie between 4.3 and 11.8 Gb, with a mean value of 7.7 Gb. The United States consumed 7.3 Gb of oil in 2003. So, under the best circumstances ANWR could only supply us with a little over one year and a half worth of oil. Compared to other notable oil fields ANWR is 7/100ths the size of Ghawar, and holds about the same comparison to the West Siberian Basin. It is about 1/4th the size of the North Sea Graben deposits. The USGS reports that the entire region of northern Alaska ranks 25 on a listing of world hydrocarbon deposits. Enough to supply the world for two days. For this we are willing to destroy one of the last pristine habitats on the planet?
Steve & Regina
Tahoe/Hawaiian Acres
Steve & Regina
Hawaiian Acres / North Lake Tahoe
'If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there' - George Harrison
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At the risk of being off base, the topic is the future of Puna. I respectfully submit that if people want to debate ANWAR they open a new thread.
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I am one of the "guilty as charged" who contributed references to Alaska. I did this only to counter the ideas that the oil there would make a big difference in light of the passing of the Peak Oil mark, which became part of the original thread. The reference to oil companies being more interested in the natural gas there rather than the oil, speaks to their attempts to conceal their real goals. The reference to the Valdez oil spill addresses the unaccountability of these large companies at being responsible for their errors, something that might be at issue when talking about the geothermal resource.
More on topic: we went to see "An Inconvenient Truth" at the Palace Theater yesterday. It's refreshing to see Al Gore speaking up about this subject, which seemed so painfully absent from his campaign speeches. More to the point, along with the movie were two locally produced shorts, one about "Ice" (crystal meth) and the other about recycling on the Big Island. The whole "recycle, reduce, reuse" concept is something that we needed to be living years ago. I recently returned to the Islands after living for a while in Palo Alto, CA. Palo Alto has a lot of knocks against it for being one of the wealthier cities in the Bay Area (we were in the lower strata), but they have one of the most comprehensive recycling programs around. It's incredible to realize how little you end up sending to a landfill when you fully participate in "recycle, reduce, reuse".
It may feel like too little, too late, in light of things like Peak Oil and Global Warming, but you have to do everything you can to change the direction we're going in.
Les C
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We recycle everything we can here in Arizona. Our blue recycle bin is full every week and less goes into the trash in the alley. I realize that we will be responsible for recycling trash there in Pahoa...seems like a super business op for someone?
You know, I have been thinking about this thread a lot. I try to be respectful of others even when their opinon is not the same as mine. I never find it necessary to actually "name call." I don't see how that benefits ANYONE. I was disheartened to see what I thought was bashing. I will forever speak out against that type of anger - which isn't to say it's not okay to be angry or perplexed about something - just seems like that energy could be more productive than to spew insults at others. JMHO - again - I'm getting down off the soapbox now.
P.S. I never considered myself a "treehugger" and really have not been an activist. I do miss them here in the Arizona desert since I was raised in Buffalo, New York (many trees) and moved to So. Cal. from there (also many trees)...I am so excited that I will be able to enjoy the smells and sounds of Puna and the flora and wildlife there.
Carrie
http://www.cafepress.com/dreamhawaii
http://www.hellophoenix.com/art
Edited by - Carolann R on 07/05/2006 15:14:10
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Again, I don't want to be a nitwit but these are important topics, recycling, the future of oil etc. and deserve their own threads. I'll start one on recycling.
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Did anyone see this:
http://www.hawaiitribune-herald.com/arti...ocal01.txt
Earthship homes coming to the Big Island. The owners will be very happy with out electricity bills. Notice the reference to peak oil at the end. This is a very foward thinking solution.
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