So what do you guys think (Stupid question) of that oil spill disaster? You wouldn't wish that on your enemy, let alone in your own back yard! Anyone on this site suffering directly? If so our sympathy, prays, & hopes are with you!
We recently suffer a minor accident on our reef, by a chines tanker that ran aground, and spilled some oil! There was & is 'bloody hell' to pay!
The basterds excuse... He was taking a short cut across the reef! I know where i would like to give him a short cut!

Cheers erny.

It's a disaster for sure...

But...

until our appetite for oil can be curbed, it's a risk we run. BP's response (and the Feds oversight) should be investigated, but a contingency plan for every possible situation is unrealistic.

Remember "Drill Baby Drill"? This can be the result of that. Otherwise we gotta IMPORT foreign oil. Then guess what happens...

Some dipsh!t takes a shortcut across a reef. Or the Exxon Valdez (sp) kills a buncha critters.

So give up yer gas guzzlin' SUV's and full size trucks or else figure on this bein' the risk you take.

(Holy Crap, I sound like one of them friggin' tree huggers [FTH's]!!)

Eh, 19,070,000 barrels of crude oil products were used each day in the USA (March 2010 numbers). A mere 8,787,000 barrels of motor gasoline was used up each day. That is a mere 1.23 gallons used per person in the USA. (That is based on a population of 300 million).

Which ain't bad over all. 1.23 gallons of fuel per person per day. Some people drink more milk then that each day!

Dimitri

You haven't accounted for diesel fuel, propane, and "other" by-products of oil refining. Taking a "per capita" average means nothing, since not everyone owns or operates a vehicle. Mass transit vehicles, for example, will be operated whether they contain one passenger or one hundred.

Joe,

I was not trying to, but you said gas guzzlers hence my response.

Dimitri

Gas guzzlers !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ................. are you talking about my old 1978 Chevy SB 4X4.............? Hahaha............ well don't worry, that's why I use my Honda Nighthawk to go most everywhere these days....... or my Montana Van on rainy days..............

What I'm sayin' is this...

If YOU wanna keep driving YOUR Ford,

AND, Bushy wants to keep drivin' his Chevy,

AND, I wanna keep drivin' my Jeep,

AND 1895 wants to keep drivin' his oil based-paint spittin' work truck (not to mention the oil it takes to produce, transport, install, and maintain asphalt roads)

then at some point we gotta expect that an ACCIDENT is gonna happen tryin' to get enough oil to keep all them vehicles operating.

The problem, in a nutshell, is that consumers don't usually consider the risk until a disaster happens.

Accidents do happen, and to be fair, I'd rather keep driving my truck. I got almost 12,200 miles on it already. At a average of 16 mpg (per the computer on the truck), I have bought 762.5 gallons of diesel, or 18.15 barrels of diesel since I bought my truck roughly 2,750$ in fuel costs. Maybe I should look into buying it in bulk and storing it for a whole year at a time.

Dimitri

hunterjoe21 ............. you are 100% correct and I agree with you..... at the rate we are using oil we need to find more places to get it or stop using so dog gone much....... every one has to chose!! That's why I ride my Honda.

1895,

I think we gotta work the vehicle angle. We'll NEVER get away from ashpalt roads. Or shingles. Oil based fertilizers will prolly never "go away". Neither will pesticides. The PC yer reading this on has a HUGE oil content (I forget the numbers for plastics).

Virtually all plastics used today are made from polymers that were created from chemicals refined and modified from crude oil. Yes there are "green" plastics, made from chemicals produced from renewable sources, but that is a tiny percentage.

Dimitri

'kay...

yer computer is all oily too...

Oh and we can't forget the cost to the consumer for going without oil or oil by products ....................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is easy to see the problem, so what's the fix?
Alcohol is one that will fill the needs of all those vehicles and you can make asphault and plastics out of it but not with the agriculture that we have here. If we used fruit juice to make the alcohol we migh get enough to power the cars in the USA but not the trucks, trains, planes, ATVs or boats.
Electricity can help with some of our power needs and wind too but it will take a tremendous effort to get these systems up to the task. We will need more too like hydrogen and solar heating so we can store some of the power that we get from daylight. No one system can handle it all but if we learn from nature (she does it all with the sun) we can get off oil.
I have purposely left out nuclear power because, here in the USA we don't take advantage of the spent fuel by recycling it we just bury it and that is dangerous in so many ways I don't want to get into it.
It used to be common to have cars and trucks running on alcohol and there was a still on every farm to produce the alcohol that went in the tank. That was when folks knew how to be self sufficient and took responsibility for themselves. (and their families)

I say lets start by grounding all aircraft ................ that should help a bunch! If you happen to be over seas right now so be it ........... you're stuck there .................... OH wait!!!!!!!!!! my wife and daughter are in England right now ..... can we start grounding in another 8 days?????????????????