By the year, 2000

[SoCalDem]

What if?

What if people had paid attention to Carter, and his plan to wean us off of oil?

What if we had seriously explored becoming "green".....waaaaaay back in 1976?

The 200th year of our country would have been the perfect time to launch ourselves into the future.

What a way it could have been, to start the Second Hundred years of our nation.

Given the technology head-start we still had back in those days before Nafta/Cafta/Shafta, and before the outsourcing-of-american-companies, and before college became unaffordable to most young people, we literally still "had it all".

Solar technology was beginning to be talked about in a serious way, and many smart people were just itching to get started. Wind "technology" had been used seriously by every sodbuster who headed west. The windmill pump was no secret, and if a 3rd grade educated immigrant farmer could figure it out, surely the brain-trust of America, circa 1976, could have embellished the basic principle.

Every structure built since 1976, could have (should have?) had solar shingles, or solar panels on every rooftop. High rises could have had solar energy generating glass in every window and its own converting station in the basement. Every garage roof could have been solar, with special facilities for recharging those cars, who slumber inside every night..

Every "Home Show" on TV, has had a show devoted to some "smart guy" who ...all by himself..has converted his home to solar/wind or a combination of the two. There is always a tour of the home, that shows us how they live like "everybody else"...with all the electricity they need, and plenty of hot water..

It's not magic.. It's science.

Cutting edge science and innovation used to be the hallmark of America.....until someone somewhere saw the handwriting on the wall, and decided that we needed to be LESS scientific, LESS cutting edge, and that we needed to go back to the "olden days".

We sent people to the moon with less computing power than most have in their cell phones or in their high schooler's graphing calculator.. The technology is NOT the "problem". It's our ATTITUDES toward science and knowledge.

Who benefits from the 32 year "nap" we have taken?

Instead of living in a house that generates its own power...pollution-free power, and driving cars that do not pollute, we are still using the same old oil, only we are using it at the "new and improved" pricing.

We are paying more than any of us ever imagined, to (mostly) Texas-owned energy companies, for our electricity, as we are constantly insulted by their TV commercials, where they paint themselves as humanitarians.

Many of us drive BIGGER vehicles that get LESS gas mileage than in 1976..They cost too much to even pay off in 3 years (like car loans used to be)..They are made of plastic and tin-foil instead of metal, like the older ones were, and still they get bad gas mileage.

Gas that used to be under 50cents a gallon, when we drove metal-monster-cars, is now approaching $5 a gallon to fill our plastic, $30K behemoths...

Our houses got bigger, but now we find out that bigger really only means more space to fill up with more toxic plastic shit from China, and more airspace to heat/cool with expensive energy. Most people work too nuch to spend much time IN those McMansions.. We have succeeded in building manions for our dogs & cats to enjoy, while we bust our asses 60-70 hours a week to afford those dog/cat houses.

Some pundits have commented about how we have wasted 8 years in the global warming dilemma...

Well, they are partially right...BUT we have wasted THIRTY TWO years..

32 years of enriching oil-companies, corporate executives, politicians...all at the expense of US..and the US..

We wasted a third of that second hundred years.. Those years would have passed, no matter what we did, but wouldn't we all have loved it if they had been well-spent on making us energy self-reliant, and green, and healthier..all at the same time.?

[The_Casual_Observer]

1. As I recall reagan canceled all the synthetic fuels, geothermal & solar

funding. Instead, he egged on the Iran-Iraq war in order to drive down energy prices & increase oil production.

[SoCalDem]

2. He decided we should "fight" for other people's oil

instead of using the money to become independent FROM oil..

[DainBramaged]

5. Synthetic fuel from coal or NG is a reality, even at $50 a bbl for crude

The Germans SURVIVED on it from 1944 on.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synfuel


The leading company in the commercialization of synthetic fuel is Sasol, a company based in South Africa. Sasol currently operates the world's only commercial coal-to-liquids facility at Secunda, with a capacity of 150,000 barrels per day (24,000 m³/d) <1>. Other companies that have developed coal- or gas-to-liquids processes (at the pilot plant or commercial stage) include Shell, Exxon, StatoilHydro, Rentech, and Syntroleum <2>. Worldwide commercial gas-to-liquids plant capacity is 60,000 barrels per day (9,500 m³/d) <3>, including plants in South Africa (Mossgas), Malaysia (Shell Bintulu) and New Zealand (Motor-fuel production at the New Zealand Synfuel site has been shut down since the mid nineties, although production of methanol for export continues <4>. This site ran on the Mobil process converting gas to methanol and methanol to gasoline).


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_Liquid_Fuels_Act

The Bureau of Mines first studied the extraction of oil from oil shale between 1925 - 1928.

Between 1928 and 1944, the Bureau experimented with coal liquefaction by hydrogenation using the Bergius process. A small-scale test unit constructed in 1937 had a 100-pound per day continuous coal feed. The methodologies employed underwent extensive development in this period, delivering significant increases in efficiency, culminating in the Karrick process.

Between 1945 and 1948, new laboratories were constructed near Pittsburgh. A synthetic ammonia plant Louisiana, Missouri (Missouri Ordnance Works) was transferred from the Army to the program in 1945. The plant was converted into a coal hydrogenation test facility. By 1949 the plant could produce 200 barrels of oil a day using the Bergius process.

Part of the personnel were German scientists, who had been extracted from Germany by Operation Paperclip.

In 1948, the program was extended to eight years and funding increased to $60 million. A second facility was constructed at the Louisiana plant, this time using the Fischer-Tropsch process. Completed in 1951, the plant only produced 40,000 gallons of fuel.

In 1953 the new Republican-led House Appropriations Committee ended funding for the research and the Missouri plant was returned to the Department of the Army.

In 1979, after the second oil crisis, the U.S. Congress approved the Energy Security Act forming the Synthetic Fuels Corporation and authorized up to $88 million for synthetic fuels projects.

In 1986, during the 1980s oil glut, President Reagan signed into law the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 which among other things abolished the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program. It's estimated that over 40 years the various efforts at creating synthetic fuels may have totaled as much as $8 billion.

[Skink]

3. Neccesity is the Mother of Invention

I think Zappa said that.

[pitohui]

4. carter had to be slammed, smeared, and "october surprised" because he would have cost big oil 2 much

we all known in our hearts why this time was lost and why the lies were told and the deals cut with iran to destroy one of the best presidents in our lifetime

who benefited? iran benefited, big oil benefited, halliburton, cheney, wingnuts, reaganites...the usual suspects

[CrispyQ]

8. And the American people fell for it because of their sense of entitlement.

They didn't want to be told that they would have to cut back on their life styles. The American people are a bunch of spoiled brats.

I'll probably take some shit for saying that, but when I see how the majority behave that's what I see.

Carter/Reagan was my first presidential election. I was so excited to vote for Carter -- I loved that he was concerned about the environment & that he encouraged conservation. Then I saw how the republicans used the hostage situation to manipulate the American public & how the American public allowed themselves to be duped. We had a second rate actor in the White House & I figured the American public deserved what they got. I became so disgusted with politics, it was many, many years before I voted again. I was young & stupid. I did not realize that eventually those policies would affect me, too. ~sigh.

[HughBeaumont]

6. Er . . . that'd be 200th.

K & R.

[SoCalDem]

7. Thanks.. fixed it

:)

[Raster]

9. 32 years of enriching oil companies and warmongers.

How many children could we have fed?

How many homeless could we have provided homes?

How many could we have provided healthcare?

[JuniperLea]

11. And that, Dear Raster, is my bottom line!

It makes me so angry that all this money has been wasted to make these evil bastards all the more wealthy.

[Initech]

10. Ray-gun fucked it up for all of us.

His anti-envorinment and anti-education policies were horrible.

[tavalon]

13. Actually not to split hairs, but it was the shadow government behing RayGun

He barely had enough brain left to memorize his lines. He spent his time doing that and his VP (who was that VP, again) actually ran the government and surprisingly, the oil companies benefited.

[Beam Me Up]

14. That is right. It was greed at the top of society that nixed the

renewable resource potential. In the mid-70s anyone who was paying attention understood that building an advanced technological society on non-renewable hydrocarbon energy would end us up precisely where we are. But the simple explanation is that renewable energy markets are inherently more decentralized and, therefore, more difficult for oiligarchs to control. Their wealth and hegemony vs our prosperity and security. There was never even a contest.

[SoCalDem]

15. and every time a new patent came out, an oil company or rich guy was right there to buy it

not to USE it, but to keep it FROM being used.. Make solar kitschy and tree-hugger-ish, and you keep the price high...and make it undesirable for the masses..

[Initech]

16. Yup, and his VP was Stupid Jackass Sr.

Who is just as evil as the son is, maybe even more so.

[craz3z]

12. Check out this great JC & Solar Panels DU post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x156431