SAT Question Stimulates Thoughts on Oil Dependence
When I signed my daughter up to take the SATs, the organization that administers the test asked if I wanted to receive, via email, the “SAT Question of the Day.” I eagerly agreed. I love little quizzes, and I look forward to checking this out each day as part of my morning routine.
Today’s challenge calls for choosing the word or set of words that, when inserted in the sentence, best fits the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
To believe that social reforms can ——- evil altogether is to forget that evil is a protean creature, forever assuming a new ——- when deprived of an old one.
B. eradicate . . shape
C. mitigate . . providence
D. sustain . . episode
E. dissolve . . abstraction
The correct answer is B. To believe that social reforms can eradicate evil altogether is to forget that evil is a protean creature, forever assuming a new shape when deprived of an old one.
I bring this up because occasionally, as is the case here, participating in the quiz brings to mind some really neat, thought-provoking concepts. Is the sentence above true?
There are those, frequent commenter Glenn Doty among them, who believe that, even if we could remove the value of oil, and thus all the violence and social injustice that surrounds it on a global basis, that it would simply be replaced with another important but scarce commodity, perhaps rare earth elements. Personally, I’m not swayed by this. I see a scenario in which eliminating our dependence on oil as transportation fuel comes in concert with electric transportation, charged by distributed and renewable sources. As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
It depends on your philosophical view about evil. I like to think of evil in its most rudementary form as being like entropy. It is with us in every process. You can’t eliminate evil by changing the process and you can’t do an energy conversion without increasing entropy. Our only hope is to turn evil into good.
With secondary recovery processes it is possible to use waste heat from a turbine to heat water and to even grow vegetables in a green house. IMO waste heat = increased entropy = evil L
Hi Craig
Just wanted to put the idea forward of piezo electric generators
As I read an article on them alittle while ago about some Israeli engineers testing them on a stretch of highway. They spoke about storing some of the electricity generated from this system so electric cars can recharge on the side of the road, or maybe you could say recharge stations instead of petrol/fuel stations. I not sure on your views on these source of energy but from what I have read piezo electric generators are not just limited to road ways they can be used on railway lines, airport runways and all high traffic areas even side walks shopping malls airport terminal sporting arenas the list seems endless. Anyway I would really value your opinion on piezo electric generators if you could find the time to reply.
Kind Regards
Nicholas Quin
Here you go: http://2greenenergy.com/piezoelectric-generators/31789/.
Craig,
My major objection to electric transportation is it is much more highly polluting than petroleum based transportation; and it costs far more as well. So we are spending extra money (which might be spent on cost-effective items like wind farms or building efficiency upgrades) for the sole purposes of worsening the environment and encouraging people to have less useful vehicles.
John Peterson is the chief spokesman for the limited materials argument… While I agree with his overall argument and believe he makes strong points; I am not familiar enough with the numbers to argue them effectively without reference.
Craig,
I just realized what you were probably talking about here:
My statement is that with regard to war, we don’t go to war because of our dependence on oil… We go to war because of the politics of war. If the Neo-Cons were in power, we would be beating the drums of war. If we were dependent on lithium instead of oil, we might find (with the right neo-con in office) a reason to invade Chile or Peru.
We reduced world oil supply by invading Iraq, to such an extent that Iraq’s oil production is only now recovering to pre-war levels. If we go to war with Iran, we’ll see global oil production drop by ~2 million bbl/day, and oil prices will skyrocket. Our DEPENDENCE on oil does not cause us to go to war, it should – if anything – deter war. Politicians who want war cause us to go to war… that will still be true if oil had no value