The Pnebleu Blog » energy

MeToday 4-28-2008

Daniel Cole — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 02:50:16 +0000

I get a little stressed about the price of oil, food, and how that will affect the world’s economy today.

How Things Roll

Daniel Cole — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:35:59 +0000

Life has been rolling along at lightning speed for the past couple of months, and I’m not the only one to notice it. I’ve had to find an new apartment to live in for the Summer, Fall, and Spring coming up, which actually didn’t take that long. I only have about 5 weeks left of school this semester. Chores that I need to do are starting to stack up as I’m getting behind. My car, for instance, will need some maintenance done on it in the next couple of months, yet I’ve been waiting because I didn’t and still don’t have the money to do it. I paid off all of my taxes early, so that I don’t have to worry about now. But, my wallet is decreased because of it. The price of gas, therefore the price of everything else, has increased quite a bit recently. It’s now about $3.15/gallon, whereas last year at about this time I paid $2.42/gallon. If the price of energy continues to rise exponentially, I am going to have some trouble along with the world economy.

The 2008 election is coming up real fast and I don’t like any of the choices. It will be interesting, however, who wins the Democratic nomination. If they were smart, Obama and Hillary would ask the other to be the Vice President when they become the nominee. I’ll probably be voting for McCain, but there are so many things about him I really dislike.

Braden and Mikayla, my younger siblings, entered photos and desserts into the county fair at home. Braden won 2nd Place for his photo and Mikayla was the Reserve Grand Champion. Braden also got 1st Place for his Banana Nut Muffins and Mikayla got 1st Place for a Pound Cake. Each of the food items made the sale, so Monday they will be auctioned for and the kids will get the proceeding money. I’m really proud of them. They are so much fun to be with. Since I moved to College Station, I haven’t been able to spend much time with them as I’d like. I really miss seeing them everyday before and after school. My family means so much to me.

I will add some pictures of “the kids” and their ribbons as soon as I can.

The End of Crude

Daniel Cole — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:10:11 +0000

It is pretty well understood that there is a finite amount of oil left in the ground. The rate we are pumping it out continues to grow as more markets open up in developing nations. Most likely within my lifetime the impacts of a decreasing and harder to reach supply will have severe consequences on the world economy. As the price of traditional energy increases, so does everything that uses it, crashing the economy.

When oil is gone we are going to have to move to other high density energy sources or face human disasters the world has never seen. Wars, famine, disease, and the breakdown of today’s society. Clean coal and nuclear energy are the most easily expandable sources of energy within the small time frame we have left. Cars will have to be moved to electricity to plug into these sources. Alternative energy will continue to be researched, but I don’t see them replacing oil as the dominate source of everyone’s energy.

Within the next few decades, increasing petroleum prices will wreck havoc on our economy and individual lives. I’m not sure we will be able to survive as we are now. Populations are probably going to decrease, as food costs are going to go up. People will leave the cities because they can’t afford to be there, and more land will revert back to farms. What ever happens, the end of oil will be painful.