Taming A Mighty Wind…
As the price of crude hit $136 dollars a barrel today, word came about a development that might result in rapidly lowering oil prices.
It seems that four major Western oil companies are on the verge of returning to Iraq nearly three decades after they were shown the door by Saddam Hussein when he nationalized that country’s petroleum industry.
With Iraq already possessing the infrastructure—and what experts say are 115 billion barrels of proven reserves—there’s a lot of oil that could suddenly appear on the world market.
And some geologists say the country may have TWICE that amount of oil in its still untapped reserves.
As for HOW this all came about—that’s a post for a different day.
If that oil suddenly helps to lower the cost of gasoline—we run the danger of once again slipping into the “we don’t have to worry” mode—and forgetting we need to press on with alternative energy sources.
Yesterday, we ran a post talking about oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens plan to create the world’s largest windfarm to generate electricity.
That prompted a comment from reader GREEN4EVER telling us to look into something called the “jet wind turbine.”
Here’s what we found out.
Traditional wind turbines can have problems with really high winds if their safety mechanisms fail (which happens about 15 seconds into this video).
They also apparently are somewhat inefficient.
But—technology has improved to the point where a redesign of the wind-turbine can not only make it more efficient—but make it work better when the winds get mighty.
Here’s the video provided by the maker, a Massachusetts based company known as Flodesign.
This oil crisis has provided us with the impetus to really push alternative energy sources.
It’ll take decades to significantly reduce our petroleum use—but, we need to begin now engaging in good, solid, long term solutions.
—Steve
Link to the video and the story Steve covered today on NBC-17
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June 19th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Agreed on the need to pursue alternatives–but we must also drill HERE and drill NOW for our own oil, shale oil, and natural gas. We’ve got plenty of it, if only we’d allow ourselves to get it.
BETWEENtheLINES replies:
I’m with you there..and as I said in my post about oil shale—when we process the stuff we OUGHT to mandate that it’s used HERE for our own needs—not sold overseas..
June 22nd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Is that possible though? Isn’t the oil market a worldwide market? As any electricity produced is put into the “grid”, isn’t any oil/shale/ etc produced also put into the world market?
BETWEENtheLINES replies:
Maybe we have to get selfish….Don’t know if that would fly in a world economy though….