Comments on: Saudi Oil Minister Warns Against Hasty Transition to Renewable Energy

By: mushtaq ahmed ishaq

mushtaq ahmed ishaq — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 02:59:08 +0000

crude oil prices

all kinds of petrolium products including pvc resin.

By: marc-andre

marc-andre — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:20:12 +0000

thank you America 4 getting off of oil… i lived in Japan for two years. You can have trains in cities, trains to ride from city to city(high tech speed trains), you can keep your trucking system. But you need to get your city cars to run on something other than oil. Oil is a thing of the past. But it still can and should be used for fertiliserz, truckes, farming equipments (i don't think those can run on electrical engines). You can also generate electricity from diverse sources. It will take years anyways. Don't buy into the oil scam. Hit the street and demand your right for a different America. Many countries are doing it, they're changing for the better. Your biggest hurdle is greedy for profit lobbyists in your government and profits used to prop up inneficient car companies. Become capitalistic again, be proud!!! from canada

By: gecoble

gecoble — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 12:30:42 +0000

BTW – Dubia is part of the UAE and is NOT in Saudi Arabia. The UAE is also building this since they know they are going to run out of oil soon. The Saudis has not invested their money in their own country very well. They have bought a lot of crap just like coal miners in the US when they were making money. With SO much money, you would think that the Saudis would have the best school system in the world.

The green revolution will be the only think that will help us out of this recession. Every increase in global GPD has led been precipitated in cheaper energy.

By: charles watson

charles watson — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 06:42:23 +0000

I am glad to see alternative energy is finally being taken seriously. With our talents pulled together we can out tech anybody. More important to pull together as a nation right now and come up with solutions.I am willing to give of my extra time and talents as an ex auto worker and electrician to help the cause. We must be careful at this point not to hurt our own infrastructure. There are alot of taxes on gas and oil and those things will need a shift in funding. There is difinitly a global shift of power in the air.Maybe our captures will become our captives economically speaking.War never solves problems only technology does. I know I was in Nam.

By: Mridul Chadha

Mridul Chadha — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:45:27 +0000

Thank you all for the comments.

I'll agree with some of you who pointy out that renewable energy systems would become reliable and affordable only after 20 or so years. I think they are reliable and in the future it would make great sense to establish your national grid based on renewable energy.

Energy independence is extremely important as it not only has economic but strategic and geopolitical consequences too. And i agree that offshore oil drilling is a step in that direction but it is a short term solution. It's not easy to move from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and we won't be achieving that in one or two years but maybe in a decade or so. But we must start acing now, yes oil isn't going away for sometime in the future but we must understand that renewable energy is the future.

Yes, President Bush grant subsidies to various renewable energy projects but he and his administration did many other things like ignoring EPA's advice on granting California's demand to set its own emissions rules (that was done under the influence of the automobile companies), he didn't allow EPA to reduce the permissible emission limits of various pollutants. There are many things some of them good as some of you pointed out and many bad things as i pointed out.

I believe we should see oil as a short to medium term thing with nuclear (provided we manage the wastes properly) and renewable energy as a long term solution. But we must start developing the technologies for tomorrow today.

By: drjohn

drjohn — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:54:14 +0000

Worry not, Saudi. Obama has already reversed the order granting more off-shore exploration and more shale oil development. He is doing the bidding of his Muslim masters.

By: ArtH

ArtH — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:44:53 +0000

I couldn't care less about Saudi Arabia's oil price problems, but this person has a point, inasmuch as the world currently runs on oil and natural gas, and must for the foreseeable future. Renewable energy sounds wonderful,, and may one day do what we all want it to do, but frankly it just isn't capable yet to compete; Ethanol is a complete waste of money and just adds to our debt via another stupid subsidy program that masks its real cost. Oil is not subsidized by the way. Wind is also heavily subsidized, and it is so incredibly non-competitive, it will be years if at all before it's truly useful.

I like the idea of energy independence in order to reduce and eliminate our dependence upon foreign sources of oil and gas, but we're fooling and hurting ourselves by forcing the issue faster than technology can accommodate us. Nuclear and natural gas are the only real current alternatives to oil in the nearer future, and we should fast track both instead of pushing on the rope of "chic" wind, solar and wasteful ethanol choices. These should have to compete in efficiency and cost; to force them on us is tantamount to adopting the 5 year plans that never worked in the old Soviet Union.

By: jr565

jr565 — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:33:16 +0000

We're not going to be off oil for a LONG time. We are probably the only developed country that has oil resources that we refuse to develop. Even Brazil, which is energy independentis developing oil found off of its shores. Because the real meaning of energy independence is the ability of a country to take care of its own energy needs NOT independence from oil.

But just curious, hypothetically,suppose we were able to get off of foreign oil. Would that be a policy that they love us for or hate us for? And not just the middle east but Canada too? We are, after all responsible for all the reasons that our enemies hate us, at least as per the talking points.I thought Obama was all about the smart politics, and all the libs were realists now, not to mention all the rhetoric about how we are perfectly willing to negotiate so long as our enemies don't have clenched fists.

By: Tatterdemalian

Tatterdemalian — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:32:36 +0000

Just because he's clearly biased doesn't mean he's wrong. Every "alternative energy" proposal still goes crawling back to Big Oil for some cruicial component in its production process. Solar cells require petroleum-based resins to hold their photovolaic layers in place. Only a few types of plastic can provide the strength-to-mass ratio to make wind turbines productive. And everything with moving parts relies on some form of lubrication, with those derived from petroleum being far superior in logevity and consistency to any animal or vegetable substitutes.

Even when we aren't burning oil products for power, we're going to be using it in construction. Before anyone says it, no, ending the use of oil for fuel won't make more available to produce plastics/resin/lubricants. Oil refining doesn't work that way; it's a distillation process, not a "stick a barrel of oil in a magic machine and it turns into whichever substance you want it to turn into" process.

By: steve bourg

steve bourg — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:29:34 +0000

Excuse me, Chadha, but it would be more important for us in the U.S. to promote jobs and create more energy independence by DRILLING for more oil and gas in our own country……esp Alaska. But since the Dems don't want it, and 41 Dems have always denied the "tactic", we are doomed to energy dependence on foreign oil for the next few years, which will be one of the several factors that crushes our economy.