The Solution To Solving The Oil Prices

As long as the oil companies hold the patents to most of the inovations that would make life run without oil, we will continue to depend on oil. The best way to break the back of the oil companies strangle hold on the whole world, is to one by one boycott them to near extinction. The first boycott is EXXON Mobile. The boycott is in effect from now to the 15th of June. In June a new company will be chosen. Of course, all CITGO and Petro Express fuel and products are boycotted forever because they are owned by Chevez and run by Iranians. Shalom~Adoniah

Electricity might work, *nods* though we should probably putsafeguards so that companies can't hike up the prices on that willy nilly just 'cause they know people'd need it if we end up turning to that instead of oil. Another thing we could do is algae fuel, hydrogen cars, or solar powered cars (if a country has come up with a plan to create an entire city which only has vehicles which run on solar like everything else in that place then the rest of the world can certainly come up with a way to run cars on it. I'm referring to a city in Abhu Dhabi whose government has been dedicated to finding a solution to oil for the sake of their own country and the environment). I mean there ARE solutions to oil out there, so it'd take a bit more thinking power to actually implement a plan involving them, that and time...but as soon as people need oil less, as soon as we abandon them, they'll feel the harsh sting of what it means to mess with the little guys, the average people, who can't live this way.

Where would the electricity come from? Right now the electric plants use gas and oil to turn the turbines to generate the electricity. You have to generate the electricity in some way. Right now the choices are: water, wind, coal,solar, oil and gas. Water -- you gotta be near a big enough water source. Plus, the environmentalists scream about the dams. Wind -- big honking things that ugly up the landscapes, change the climate and the environmentalists scream that it kills the birds. Coal -- dirty, nasty and the environmentalists scream that it pollutes the air and the mining destroys the land. Solar -- gotta have enough sun and there is currently no efficient way to store the power generated when the sun is shining. the environmentalists don't scream much over this one.

Unfortunately a lot of electricity comes from oil and petrol. Yes, there are other sources like running water and wind and solar energy, but put together these still will not be sufficient. The trick is to use as much of alternative energy as possible - solar heaters and cookers, windmills where feasible, etc etc so the load on oil consumption comes down. And we can never say enough about saving oil and energy - switch off unnecessary electric appliances, carpooling, etc etc are very useful too.

To talk about replacing oil with renewable sources of electricity generation and thus solving the "oil crisis" is simplistic thinking. Oil is not only used for the generation of electricity and for burning in cars and trucks as fuel but it is the basis of our entire civilisation, being the basis of all plastics production to say nothing of a vast range of other products. Another point that enthusiasts of renewable energy tend to ignore is that all of the world's trade is carried on shops and aircraft that all burn petroleum based fuel. You can run a cargo ship off bio fuel, but there is not enough land available to grow the crops necessary to produce enough fuel to run the worlds entire merchant fleet. Part of the price rise in maize, (corn to you Americans) is due to President Bush's drive to turning more land over to growing maize for bio fuel production instead of food. This policy benefits the American motorists but helps to increase food shortages elsewhere. The USA is the worlds biggest exporter of maize and this policy of the Bush government has resulted in a reduction of maize exports of food grade grain. Another fact that people tend to ignore when they waffle on about "replacing oil with renewable energy" is that a large part of the world's trade is carried out by air cargo to say nothing of the huge volume of international business travellers that the airlines carry. All these aircraft are major polluters and all burn petroleum derived aviation fuel. There is NO bio fuel substitute for aviation fuel, (though I believe Richard Branstons Virgin Group have been experimenting with an aviation bio fuel) nor can a commercial aircraft be run on any type of renewable energy to say nothing of the land use problems which I referred to above. If there is no oil available, the only type of renewable energy which we can use to continue with the world wide trade network which is the life blood of our civilisation is wind powered commercial sail.

Part of the increase in oil prices is due to the devaluation of the dollar. Oil trading is in dollars and when the value of our dollar is down, they increase the price to make up the difference. Another factor that comes into play even before gas gets to the pump is that, especially when prices are high, oil speculators buy the oil from the source and a low price and then sell it to the oil distributing companies at an inflated price, making huge profits. It is also obvious by the profits that are being made by oil companies, that once the oil is in their hands, they are also inflating the prices substantially. I think we also have to take a good, close look at the situation through the eyes of the countries that supply oil to us. We are stockpiling oil to build up reserves while at the same time we are not tapping into our own resources. If we are not willing to use any of our own oil, why should they provide theirs to us at anything but top prices?

I agree with you...the problem is that renewable energy is still a far away concept in terms of practicality. I have made some stuies about eolic energy and found out that until a new concept of batteries is created, eolic wotn work. My concern is that now agricultural regions are being converted in " energy " producing units...and of course grain prices are starting to go up...Ethanos is being produced out of sugar cane, soja, corn etc and pretty soon you will face scarcity of those comodities and worst rising prices in food that third worl nations wot be able to pay