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HappySqurriel on 20 October 2008
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Zucas said:
HappySqurriel said:

This 2% of oil reserves ignores the hundreds of billions of barrels of oil that are in unconventional reserves like shale oil, and the massive quantities of coal that can (easily) be converted into synthetic gasoline and diesel.

 

 

Yes an America does have some of the most reserves of coal. But is it worth the environmental risk? That people are so willing to come into this thread an argue that we could do all these other things to get fossil fuels out of the environment and not consider the effect of it. Especially when we can switch to wind, solar, geothermal, ect.

I mean its just amazing that the first thing people do when they come into this thread is a way to try and get around the statistic.  I mean I think that shows just how much of a problem we really do have with dependence on oil as a whole.  Like addicts in their first meetings at rehab.

The point of this thread is it isn't an argument whether or not we cna continue to use oil like we do. There is no argument to that. The real issue is when will America become energy self sufficient by switching to renewable resources such as solar, wind, geothermal, and tidal/wave.


I (personally) wonder how people will react when they realize how much they have been lied to, and how manipulative environmental organizations have been when it comes to global warming. Now, there are other environmental impacts of drilling and using fossil fuels, and we have the choice to incur these costs in western nations where we have strict environmental legislation and people who can protest to keep the oil companies in check; or we can incur these costs in countries like China which will not consider the environmental impact, and any dissenters will be "Disappeared."

Now, I don’t think anyone would argue that you shouldn’t pursue alternative energy resources like Wind, Geothermal and Solar but I think people need to be realistic about the limitations of these energy sources, and how long it will be before they’re cost effective. No matter how much money you throw at these technologies, they’re not going to be able to replace conventional energy sources, and they (most likely) will not be able to keep up with the combination of energy use increasing and conventional fossil fuel resources are decreasing.