Energy Crunch. Shit.
Goddamn, I've gotta do this more often.
Probably the most devastating effect of Hurricane Katrina has been that it proved just how vulnerable we in the West are when our oil stocks are threatened. True, any major Doomsday scenarios never came to pass, but just imagine if they did. Would gas have gone up even higher than $1.20/litre? Would prices have "normalized" so quickly? I doubt it.
My parent's heating bill last year was roughly $4oo. This year, it's projected to increase 40%. With bleak future outlooks like that, it's no wonder that we're hearing more and more about breakthroughs in alternative fuel source. In the National Post a few days ago, there was a story about a company who've developed an efficient method to create hydrogen for fuel. A dorm at Canadian Mennonite University is heated completely with geo-thermal energy, no longer just the darling of the Icelandics. How to conserve gas on W-DAZ in the States. Bio-diesel in Canadian Geographic. Adverts for Beyond Petroleum in Time. You get the idea. Me, I'm all for it. I cringe whenever I see one of those big honkin' SUVs being driven by only one person. I want a car with a diesel engine so I can convert it to run on used vegetable oil. I want Katz to sponsor a new rapid-transit system. I want a sustainable future. If that makes me a dirty hippiy then I'm never showering again.
Our economy, and more importantly, we cannot realistically survive a long-term oil shock.
Probably the most devastating effect of Hurricane Katrina has been that it proved just how vulnerable we in the West are when our oil stocks are threatened. True, any major Doomsday scenarios never came to pass, but just imagine if they did. Would gas have gone up even higher than $1.20/litre? Would prices have "normalized" so quickly? I doubt it.
My parent's heating bill last year was roughly $4oo. This year, it's projected to increase 40%. With bleak future outlooks like that, it's no wonder that we're hearing more and more about breakthroughs in alternative fuel source. In the National Post a few days ago, there was a story about a company who've developed an efficient method to create hydrogen for fuel. A dorm at Canadian Mennonite University is heated completely with geo-thermal energy, no longer just the darling of the Icelandics. How to conserve gas on W-DAZ in the States. Bio-diesel in Canadian Geographic. Adverts for Beyond Petroleum in Time. You get the idea. Me, I'm all for it. I cringe whenever I see one of those big honkin' SUVs being driven by only one person. I want a car with a diesel engine so I can convert it to run on used vegetable oil. I want Katz to sponsor a new rapid-transit system. I want a sustainable future. If that makes me a dirty hippiy then I'm never showering again.
Our economy, and more importantly, we cannot realistically survive a long-term oil shock.
posted by Derek at 11:19 a.m.
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