Thursday, March 14, 2013

Keys to Failure

Headlines in the San Antonio newspaper are two oil related articles. Energy is the blood of Texas. Energy. Oil. Natural Gas. Water. Wind. Solar. Energy. I can't emphasize that enough. Those M.I.T. grads aren't bicycling to their electronic engineering jobs so someone has to get the gasoline to them. As I've said, the environmental movement is no match for the determination of the energy industry to find every drop of oil. Classic example is the Keystone Pipeline project that would cross the continent from Canada to Texas so a refinery doesn't have to be built in Alberta. So the pipeline is delayed because of concerns about the risks...and do you really think the energy folks are sitting on their hands waiting for someone to tell them what they can do? And unless you live in Texas this issue probably doesn't matter to you.

But the two sides of the debate are real simple:
1) I need the oil/job in Texas so let's build the pipeline.
2) Exploitation of the tar sands guarantees the end of civilization.

One headline says that there are thirty years of natural gas and oil reserves in the two major east Texas shale fields. Either they are padding the numbers to keep assholes like me around to drive down wages by keeping employee numbers high...or they are telling the truth.

The other headline has a big picture of a train...coming south from Canada...loaded with tar sands oil.
"There are no laws against putting oil on trains so that's what we'll do until the pipeline is built." says local oil man.

I'm reading the Climate Progress website and while they concentrate on the pipeline every oil development man is looking for alternatives. That oil will get here no matter what. These men are determined to make it happen and truthfully the environmentalists are not determined. They advocate certain policies but they are not determined. And which do you think is more risky to the environment? The Pipeline or the train? So the delay with the pipeline not only didn't solve the problem it actually made it worse, it had the exact opposite effect. The pipeline makes the most sense if we ignore the end of civilization being an outcome of the tar sands project in general.

I'm not depressed about this anymore. This was the lesson the oil field has taught me. It's a force of nature beyond any that I've witnessed in the leftist sectors. The chanting NYU students are completely out-matched when it comes to accomplishing things. I've been on both sides of the picket line and this side is going to win. Furthermore, any delays the other side can force will make things worse in the long run and endanger the land they are trying to protect. The refineries will transport the oil to Texas on the backs of wounded Alpacas if they have to. Nothing will stop it.

Gore's book doesn't have much discussion of the Future despite that being the title of the book. He writes mostly about the present. Well, since my reputation is already fucked I'm going to talk about the future because every hipster would be better off joining the 4H club and getting their hands dirty in experimental agriculture than listening to David Bowie* and beating off on social networking sites:

1) Crops that are resistant to salt. Use sea water to water them
2) low resource desalination methods.
3) mass transit. cyber commuting
4) Biodomes the size of Boston.
5) Flux capacitors
6) State sovereignty. End of federal government
7) Robocop
8) 3D printing food and drugs and body organs (star trek)
9) designate a state like Oklahoma to detain the estimated billion environmental refugees headed in our direction. Or divide Texas in half.
10) Colonize the Moon

I can see why Gore didn't want to write much about the future. It makes me sound insane.

*Bowie is awesome by the way.

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