And yet another BP Spill

[SFSxOI]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

[codewalker]

What makes me sad about all the oil shit is our rotten governments because for over 40 years
clean energy technology already exists. This technology is being surpressed because they want
to sell you to the last drop of oil before they even start to think about releasing this technology
to the world. Money and power at the cost of worldwide air and water pollution.

Some examples of already existing clean energy technology.

1. Nico Tesla's scalar waves and electrogravitation (since 1950)
2. Bruce de Palma N-Machine http://www.brucedepalma.com/n-machine/
discovered by Faraday and finally put to work in a generator by Bruce de Palma
and heavily surpressed.
3. Victor Schauberger implosion technology (steered tornado) stolen by de americans
after the second world war and kept secret until today.

Please don't start about perpetuum mobiles because these technologies simply
transform free available potential into electricity, just like a windmill driving
a generator.

cw

[GWarner]

No, the real reason that governments are suppressing clean renewable and sustainable energy sources that are available today in favor of oil is because most politicians have long ago been bought by the oil companies. How else can you explain why an industry that makes billions if not trillions in profits are granted huge tax breaks by most governments when everyone knows that these companies could easily afford to pay much higher taxes unless there was something in it for the politicians themselves to give them those tax breaks.

The British need to calm down and take a few deep breaths. I hear they are taking America and American's anger with BP personally. We angry with the company, not the country or it's people.

I feel sorry for BP's employees but I personally hope they go bankrupt after they have cleaned up their mess. At the very least the people responsible for BP's bad decisions to cut corners on safety in favor of the bottom line should be charged with crimes against the world and justly punished. Make an example of them for the next idiot that thinks to save money in lieu of safety.

[blueznl]

I am not convinced. I think there is no government able to suppress such kind of technology, as it would develop underground.

If it would have been developed and fully under government control, and the government would be able to suppress such technology, then you won't have a chance anyway, because appearently that would mean they would have the means to detect such development and act accordingly.

All these 'solutions' that suggest unlimited / cheap energy have one problem: you cannot show me a working prototype. Or, even better, provide me with a set of drawings so I can build one myself.

If I would have a working prototype, I would have it taken apart by a very talented group of students and engineers, followed by a mass posting on the internet, and the secret would be out of the can. Unstoppable.

But, most likely, even such a set of plans involve some esoteric component which makes it pretty hard if not impossible to build something. I somtimes think there are some very inventive practical jokers around.

I'm not saying there's no technology suppressed, or that there are no better alternatives. There might be, but unless they are suppressed immediately at the moment of discovery you won't be able to suppress them forever. And again, if governments are able to suppress those technologies then they would already have so much power that you're powerless anyway.

Happy dreams

[djes]

I am not convinced. I think there is no government able to suppress such kind of technology, as it would develop underground.

If it would have been developed and fully under government control, and the government would be able to suppress such technology, then you won't have a chance anyway, because appearently that would mean they would have the means to detect such development and act accordingly.

All these 'solutions' that suggest unlimited / cheap energy have one problem: you cannot show me a working prototype. Or, even better, provide me with a set of drawings so I can build one myself.

If I would have a working prototype, I would have it taken apart by a very talented group of students and engineers, followed by a mass posting on the internet, and the secret would be out of the can. Unstoppable.

But, most likely, even such a set of plans involve some esoteric component which makes it pretty hard if not impossible to build something. I somtimes think there are some very inventive practical jokers around.

I'm not saying there's no technology suppressed, or that there are no better alternatives. There might be, but unless they are suppressed immediately at the moment of discovery you won't be able to suppress them forever. And again, if governments are able to suppress those technologies then they would already have so much power that you're powerless anyway.

Happy dreams

Badly, even if there's no perfect energy transformer (and not generator!), there's so much ways better than petroleum, that actually the money is the only reason to stop innovation. Other great technologies have often been pushed over, for example when General Motors lobbyed with such efficiency that tramways nearly disappeared in almost all countries. These companies are way too big, millions of people interests are involved, pushing politics to preserve jobs whatever could be the safeness of future. There's other examples with weapons companies.

[SFSxOI]

I'm invested in a lot of stock, some of it touching on every promising renewable or "green" energy resource available. When your invested, and your own money is at stake, in these things you learn the reality as to their viability for energy sources, the reality as to why they are not in use as many think they should be including me. There is no grand government conspiracy to supress these things, there is no grand industry conspiracy to supress these things.

The primary reason why they are not in use on a wide spread basis is simply because they are not yet fully ready to be deployed as a wide spread drop in replacement for what we use now. The reasons they are not ready to that scale yet are many. Sure, some forms are in use on limited scales in various areas of the world, even here in the U.S., but because they are in use on limited scale does not mean they can be deployed wide scale because there are so many other things to consider.

I could go on and on about why various things can and can not be used. I've got almost five years of on going research I collected, read, vrified, checked, etc....which I used for investing purposes. I've spoken to a lot of these places that have some of this technology in use today - everything from wind power to solar to biomass to biofuels to a few of the more exotic things. As an investor I want my money to be safe and of course to make a profit, but I also want to ensure my country gets away from things like fossil based oil products, not only my country but the other areas of the world as well. You can talk to these places and they will tell you all day long they can do such and such, and of course they are going to say that as they wish to paint their product in the brightest light possible and truthfully as an investor I want them to do that as after all its my money and I basically own part of that company or concern. However, when you get past that part, when you get past what it showcases on the news or in science orientated shows or in any other book or reading or you get over the "This car drove 1000 miles on fuel made from waste cooking oil" things , you begin to find out so much that really fills in the blanks or changes a perception to what is truely available capability.

When you get inside at the investor level and start talking to the people behind the scenes, the developers, the researchers, the scientific types, you find the number one reason is simply because they can't supply these things on a wide scale drop in replacement because of economics - in other words these things would cost more in some way right now then what they are replacing. Its basic economics 101 - if it cost more then what is already in market then it will not be viable for the larger precentage. The second reason is simply because these are not ready for wide scale usage. I've seen all the hype, all the promises, all TV talk shows, all the movies, and probaly read just about anything you can dredge up on the matter, but the truth is this; showing promise and reality are not always the same things. Sure, you can point to certain things and say "See, its being used." Again, economics 101 - smaller scale usage means smaller scale cost, and yet another economic 101 lesson - the more people that pay for something the less your cost can be to supply that something, in other words the price drops for usage. Then there is the second reason - capability - some of these technologies if they started to be deployed today would still not replace current things being used for a decade or more and then we would still rely on those older things for a while after that.

For example; the most promising technology for fossil oil replacement is algae based oil. Sure, algae based oil is available today and just going into use as a replacement in some areas - biodiesel is one for use as jet fuel or heating oil and in some limited cases as a vehicle fuel replacement. We started talking about algae oil as a replacement back in the 1970's here in the U.S. The techniques have been known for a while, but its just now being deplopyed because it wasn't until the last few years that technology and chemical advances allowed such commercialization and there are still a few bugs to work out. In fact there is a algae based fuel for vehicles approved by the U.S. government for use here in the U.S., but they will not allow it to be sold yet. The reason they will not allow it to be sold is not because of a conspiracy, its because the cost at the pump for that fuel is almost three times what current gasolene costs and because of a few issues with algae based fuel it still needs to be mixed with the current gasolene 50/50 (in most cases) to perform suitably in the normal internal conbustion engine, this would tripple the price of gas at the pump. Sure, you can modify the engine to accept straight algae based fuel, but modifying a few here and there while it may look good in the news or an article somewhere is not the reality that the majority of people face when the cost for modifying the engine is factored in for every car there is. So why don't the car manufacturers make cars that run on these things instead of batteries for example. The answer is that the drop in replacement for oil on a wide spread use is till too far away, and retooling for a modified internal combustion engine for wide spread usage is too expensive when that oil based replacement is not yet available.

Ohhhh there is just so much more I could tell you, but one thing I can tell you right now is there is no conspiracy to supress these things, and in fact even the coporations that people claim are supressing these things are researching them as well and trying to bring them to market, even the U.S. government, and other governments of the world have research projects in place that are very visible. For example, the U.S. Department of Defense, through DARPA, has recently completed work on algae based oil as a fuel replacement - the approved one I mentioned earlier - and is testing that fuel now in vehicles and aircraft. This project has been known for years, there was no government cover up. Every big oil company has alternative fuel research and development going on. Some companies are just starting to commercialize algae based products - one product is pure Omega 3 oil, but you know what...that same system that produced the Omega 3 oil, with a change in the strain of algae used, can also produce algae oil suitable as a replacement for fossil oil. However, the difference between Omega 3 oil and algae-fossil-replacement-oil again comes down to economics - although the same system and method can produce either - commercializing that oil replacement is very, very , expensive and takes a while to do, then the rest of industry has to catch up and retool - once again, very very expensive. Besides with a gallon of pure Omega 3 oil produced by algae sells at $200.00, cheaper then fish based pure Omega 3 oil selling at $100.00 or greater more then the algae product the financial incentive is there. (No, not the various places on the 'net where you can buy gallon products labled 'pure omega 3' - those contain some pure Omega 3 oil hence justifying the advertisement but the rest of the gallon is made up of something like soy bean oil to make a full gallon. They are not full gallons of Omega 3.)

Will the price come down? Yes, it will eventually. If we have known about this for so long then why are we still using fossil based oil? Because it was not until the last few years the other support chemical, technology, and industrial advances made it possible for commercialization.

So, this BP spill a disaster. Yes it is, not disputing that one little bit. But even if the government were to say right now - no more oil and we will use an alternative source like algae based oil, it would still be a decade at least before it was the wide spread use choice, sure limited usage would happen, sooner but use for everyone and every sector of industry will take a lot longer. So although the BP spill is devastating, horrible, the agnst behind the emotional cry for getting off oil now is not going to make it happen any faster then it can, and its not going to happen until it becomes economically viable to do so in wide scale use, as wide scale use is the only thing that can make it economically viable for long term use and replacement. Sure, we could do it a lot sooner here in the U.S., if we raised taxes by 10% to pay for it so that the governemnet could subsidize it but even I am not willing to go for a 10% increase in taxes for it at this time because it would finacially ruin over 60% of the population and increase spending in other areas to account for those which shoots you in the foot because then it means less people paying taxes which would have other effects such as supporting a national healthcare plan. Whole industries would need to retool, large sums of money would need to be devoted, all this takes time.

So, I said too much, I tried to be brief, but you know how things are on the internet - people want to pick apart everything said in such brief things and prove their own points as superior to someone elses. So i'll just throw it out there and people can believe what they want, but i'm tired of hearing this "govenment and corporate conspiracy" thing (yes, I know there are a thousand things on the internet one can post links to that claim such exists - it doesn't), there is no government or corporate conspiracy to supress these things, the reality is these things are simply not ready for wide scale deployment on an economically viable drop in replacement basis.

[djes]

Why are you limiting your vision into a pure economic logic? Economy is a method, not a goal. The goal is to make this world a better place to live. Money is only a way to define our capability, and to easily transfer resources from one place to another. If the effort was on research on energy (or health, or transport), instead for example of military, or pleasure for a few limited persons, you could be sure that the electric car would be here for ages. We have in France the first car to achieve 100 kms/hour (66 mph), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jamais_Contente. It was an electric car, back in 1899.

[SFSxOI]

Why are you limiting your vision into a pure economic logic? Economy is a method, not a goal. The goal is to make this world a better place to live. Money is only a way to define our capability, and to easily transfer resources from one place to another. If the effort was on research on energy (or health, or transport), instead for example of military, or pleasure for a few limited persons, you could be sure that the electric car would be here for ages. We have in France the first car to achieve 100 kms/hour (66 mph), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jamais_Contente. It was an electric car, back in 1899.

I didn't limit my vision to anything. You failed to grasp my point. Its not limited by vision, its limited by the reality of the situation - that reality is the economic forces at play. No, economics is not just a method, its the reflected reality of how and when something gets done.

So? They had an electric car in France, big deal, I say that not as an insult, but rather as a query which is; If that means something then why hasn't France taken the lead and started pumping out electric cars to the world?

No, electric cars would not be here for ages, and i'll tell you why. The automobile industry has spent too much time, effort, money, and resources on the internal combustion engine, the only reasons why they are producing electric cars now is for two reasons; 1: They can make money off them because of public preception as to what "green" is, and...2: They are waiting for a replacement for oil. In the mean while they still produce electric and non-electric vehicles. If you think electric cars will be the mainstay of consumer usage for ages you are sadly mistaken, and its simply economics that will make that not happen. The economics involve the cost to completly retool away from the internal combustion engine in favor of lower profits from electric cars, no company in their right mind moves to lower profits on purpose. Invest in some of these companies, you will be able to find out that they are making plans for an actual production increase in internal combustion engine vehicles by 2020 and a decrease in production for other alternatives such as battery when algae based oil is expected to be the major replacement in use for current crude oil on a complete drop in replacement basis. The electric car is simply something for them to make a buck from right now. They will make more money from an internal combustion engine vehicle. And that is the reality.

I know all this stuff people see all this stuff, and it sounds good, and, heck, I want to see some of it happen too. But I also know that preception and reality do not always match, the preception here is that it can be done now, when the reality is that although it can be done it will take a while for it to happen wide scale replacement wise and that is driven by economic forces.

Companies work for profit, plain and simple, and you can attache any noble intent to them you wish, but the reality is that profit is the bottom line for a company. If a company can not market wide spread drop in "green" replacements for a price that is equal to or cheaper then the product doing the same function now then it will not be economically profitable, and no amount of anguish over an oil spill or presidents screaming for green now, or politicians doing a voter song and dance show, will change that. Profit is how a company survives, its that survival that drives the economy, its that economy that lets people get money, its that money that lets people buy things, its that buying things that induces a company to make more money, and its that drive to make more money that makes a company put its resources where the most profit will be made. You can think the economics a method if you wish, but the reality is that its how and when things get done.

[Demivec]

Why are you limiting your vision into a pure economic logic? Economy is a method, not a goal.

No matter how worthwhile the goal, how can you achieve a goal without a method? You will note on the wikipedia page you linked to that gas-fueled combustion engines grew in popularity after the record speed was set in France by an electric car. You will also note that according to the wikipedia article La_Jamais_Contente broke the speed record for publicity reasons so that he could 'carve a place in the then promising Parisian electric carriage market.' Apparently he too was motivated by economy.

I review as many of these alternative power methods as I can but haven't found one yet that is viable for the situations I need them (and is affordable).

[Rook Zimbabwe]

BP does NOT want to cap the spill.... they want to be able to harvesst the oil from the source so ALL their efforts have been bent that way.

This is why it is still leaking.

GREED!

They could have dumped 10,000 tones of fiber expanding concrete down the pipe the first day and had no issue.

NO ONE BRINGS THIS UP!

Time to polish the sniper rifle and climb the tower again!

[SFSxOI]

No one bought it up because its so obvious.

I'll bet if they started plugging it with BP excutives that something would be done then.

[djes]

I think it's crazy how people can't get their minds away from "economic reality". Why aren't you able to imagine another type of society, not based on money as a goal (having more money), but on money as a method to serve a goal (having a better life on a better place). I know the world (most of) is acting this way, economy leading the decision, but I repeat : it's not the only possibility. You can live without money, you know? You can create another type of economy, and you can be happy this way! Ask your old grandfather if he needed money for his garden!

[Demivec]

I think it's crazy how people can't get their minds away from "economic reality". Why aren't you able to imagine another type of society, not based on money as a goal (having more money), but on money as a method to serve a goal (having a better life on a better place). I know the world (most of) is acting this way, economy leading the decision, but I repeat : it's not the only possibility. You can live without money, you know? You can create another type of economy, and you can be happy this way! Ask your old grandfather if he needed money for his garden!

My granfather's currency was his time. I imagine the same is true for you. Do you want to spend more time raising vegatables and get less power?

[SFSxOI]

I think it's crazy how people can't get their minds away from "economic reality". Why aren't you able to imagine another type of society, not based on money as a goal (having more money), but on money as a method to serve a goal (having a better life on a better place). I know the world (most of) is acting this way, economy leading the decision, but I repeat : it's not the only possibility. You can live without money, you know? You can create another type of economy, and you can be happy this way! Ask your old grandfather if he needed money for his garden!

I can imagine any type of society all day long, but when I open my eyes the present society is the reality I have to operate in. Its no different for a company. Just because something is "green" does not mean its special, and thats a concept that people fail to grasp. Being green is no more deserving of attention then anything else, its the preception of the "green" concept that has given it focus and nothing else.

Even with that garden you mention, I would expect some yeild from it - in other words some type of reward for my efforts, so you still have economic forces at play but your just doing it for something else other then money maybe and your batering, or your eating the crop yourself, at any rate your still profiting. The economics are how and when you get there, in our present day world and not some alternate reality universe or something, thats translated into profits for companies, and once again we arrive at the reality of the situation.

There are a little over 2000 new companies emerging into the "green" sector for oil replacement. 1, 832 of those are algae based companies. Without profit, they don't survive, a large sector of the emerging market will collapse if they try to market the product any sooner then it will be economically viable to do so. Big oil also has replacement research under way for commercialization and have had for years, they are in the same situation as to marketing the product. Its the same all over. Companies exist now that are supplying algae based biodiesel for limited use, wide spread deployment is still too expensive for a gasolene produced from algae oil because the product is still too expensive.

So while people perfer to dream about a utopian society where every thing is fair, it just is not going to happen if they do not solve the root problem instead of focusing on the effects. If you want green now then solve the economic issue first and it will happen sooner just as soon as the profit margin looks attractive, and no amount of wiki searches or imagination will change that as thats just the way it is.

[the.weavster]

BP does NOT want to cap the spill.... they want to be able to harvesst the oil from the source so ALL their efforts have been bent that way.

This is why it is still leaking.

GREED!

They could have dumped 10,000 tones of fiber expanding concrete down the pipe the first day and had no issue.

If it were that simple it would have been done on day one. The reason Obama is spewing anti-British venom is because he's totally impotent in the face of the problem and he wants to appear to be doing something. BP hasn't been named 'British Petroleum' for over a decade and it employs twice as many Americans as it does Brits, the reason he likes to continually call BP 'British Petroleum' is political. He's grandstanding because he hasn't got a 8ugg3r5 clue what else to do.

@GWarner
The reason the British are so p1553d off about it is not only because he wants to use it to make the whole US dislike the British as much as he does (he claims his grandfather was accused of being in the Mau Mau and was detained and tortured by the British so he may have some justification for the way he feels) but lots of British pension schemes and insurance companies have large investments in BP and his pouting and postulating is driving the value of BP down for no good reason and it's hard to see what good will come of it. If he wants BP to pay to clear up the mess it's better that they continue to be successful and continue to make the same huge contributions in tax to the US that they have been doing for many years.