Lit up like a Christmas tree - STS-116 is poised to fly into space tonight using hydrogen rocket fuel as one of its energy sources. Visionaries have often dreamed about the renewable element hydrogen as the new energy of the future. Others look to nuclear; still others look to solar, to wind power or biofuels. But today is is still all about oil, or "awl," as we say in Texas.
OIL CONNECTIONS - (OCP) - our current president - worked (not very successfully) in the "awl bidness" in west Texas before going into politics. When I was a child not long after World War II, my father also worked as "district clerk" in the office of an oil business in Wyoming. I still remember how exciting it was to get to see a "well come in" on a cold winter's night from the back seat of our Buick. My dad sometimes drove our family of five up to the drilling site, after Mom lamented that it was already "our bedtime." Mom lamented. The rig was lit up like a Christmas tree, as the "roughnecks and roustabouts" in coveralls and hardhats scrambled to capture the black stuff arising to the surface. Later the oil company transferred Dad to Texas. Our family was dependent on oil. And regrettably the United States remains dependent all these decades later.
It is still about oil. But for this dependency the U.S. would not have invaded oil-rich Iraq. It is still about oil for the Iraqis, now in a civil war faction against faction. There is hope, however, that the three main factions of the fledgeling nation may be able to come to an agreement about how to distribute the country's oil revenues, according to the New York Times.
Iraqi officials are near agreement on a national oil law that would give the central government the power to distribute current and future oil revenues to the provinces or regions, based on their population, Iraqi and American officials say.
If enacted, the measure, drafted by a committee of politicians and ministers, could help resolve a highly divisive issue that has consistently blocked efforts to reconcile the country’s feuding ethnic and sectarian factions. Sunni Arabs, who lead the insurgency, have opposed the idea of regional autonomy for fear that they would be deprived of a fair share of the country’s oil wealth, which is concentrated in the Shiite south and Kurdish north.
The World is Flat, as Friedman says - Because our supplies of oil and gas are finite and diminishing, some experts look to nuclear energy to supply power, or "nuke-u-lure," as OCP calls it. France is almost totally powered by nuclear energy. Yesterday Congress approved a big deal to supply nuclear power to India, whether for peaceful purposes only time will tell.
The U.S. Congress early on Saturday took a major step toward permitting the sale of American-made nuclear reactors and fuel to India by giving final approval to a White House-backed bill.
The Senate approved the measure unanimously following its passage late on Friday by the House of Representatives, 330-59. It now goes to President George W. Bush for his signature.
The Bush administration and its allies contend that civil nuclear commerce to expand electricity generation in India will foster a broad range of ties with the world's largest democracy -- a rising South Asian power -- and open up billions of dollars in trade for U.S. companies.
Critics decried the bill as a historic mistake that would undermine U.S. efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.
Adjournment Sine Die- Thank goodness the 109th Congress is history. They finished "work?" late last night and went home for the holidys. Fot this "do-nothing congress," however it was still about oil. Reuters writers Richard Cowan and Thomas Ferraro discussed the last gasp of the 109th Congress.
Just hours before it ended, the Republican-led 109th Congress sent President Bush legislation early on Saturday to normalize trade with former enemy Vietnam, renew popular tax cuts and open the Gulf of Mexico to new oil and gas drilling.
Further offshore - Also from Reuters on CNN I quote more about the drilling story,
The House of Representatives voted Friday to open to oil and natural gas drilling about 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico near the Alabama-Florida offshore border.
The area holds an estimated 1.26 billion barrels of crude oil and 5.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to heat 6 million homes for 15 years. But it will be years before the tracts are leased to energy companies and the new supplies actually hit the market.
Energy is not just about oil - Democrats became the majority party after the elections because we expect them to exercise due diligence, much absent in the past six years. During recent times the oil companies have pretty much been in control. Expect that to change. NYT writer Edmund Andrews reports that Democrats have their eyes on oil company excess profits in 2007. I quote,
House Democratic leaders vowed Friday to pursue a broad overhaul of tax breaks and other subsidies to oil companies in January, saying that their first target would be an investigation of how the government collects billions of dollars in royalties on oil and gas produced on federal property.
Short-sightedness vs. Visionary - Oil drillers still have their eyes on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, seeing it as "buried treasure." Republicans in Congress have tried for years to open the refuge to further drilling. This is short-sighted because the reserves available there are but a drop in the bucket compared to the nation's energy needs.
It need not always be all about the oil. Oil, unfortunately has too much potential for causing fights. We are fighting in Iraq because of it. Iraqis are fighting over it among themselves. We are still fighting over ANWR. Congressional Democrats and Republicans will fight about energy oversight responsibilities next year.
The world's vision for space is peace. As science advances its reach we can have faith that the nations of the earth can cooperate to ease the fights over nonrenewable energy. That time is is in the future. But NASA is now. Watch the shuttle take off from its big Christmas tree tonight. The astronauts go to do more work on the International Space Station, the world's platform for the moon and beyond. NASA has its eye on the moon next. The moon base is to be erected near the south pole of our earth's satellite because of a ready supply of solar energy. Planners also see the possibility of harvesting nearby "volatiles" as needed materials for the mission.
Black gold no more - Oil just causes fights. It is time to get serious about energy independence. How exciting it is to visualize something besides black ooze spewing from the ground.
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