Why is oil so important?

With wind,solar, Hydrogen,electric,nuclear and other forms of energy why are the U.S and other countries so dependant on oil?Especially with the middle east so unstable.Why doesn't the goverment start pushing these technologies,this way it doesn't look like the U.S is attacking the middle east for oil,we won't have to worry about our supply of energy running out and we will be saving the enviroment.I don't get it

maybe?

America is perceived as conquerer, what she cannot get thruogh coercion
she will strive to get through might. be it by use of her economy or military might. She pursues an ideal of a global America , She has already Americanised much of the west with hollywood and Mcdonalds etc, but its not enough, she is not yet "THE" global superpower.
She still has to contend with china and russia being militarily an equal match of threat, let alone france, korea, india pakistan. She pumps billions
yearly into so called "defence" creating and instilling cold war fears in her own people so they dont question the expense on "defence" that isnt needed. She already is nuke rich, what more deterant and defence could you need?
Is she paranoid? of course not she can already obliterate any country on the planet if nessesary, but she knows that her competitors dont sit on their military laurels either, they keep up as best they can to keep her in check. no wonder she wants to curb proliferation, she has enough to overcome with russia and china france already, if she is to become "THe" superpower she must nip it in the bud, she must continue to develop ever more efficiant and powerful weapons and control evermore of the planet.
Why does she want to control the middle east, why does she place trade sanctions on a nations that have only oil to trade, oil that she wants?
Why does she not trade fairly, because she dosent want to pump the finance needed to build weapons(which will add to threat against supremacy) into the hands of folk who control the oil.
Why? because of their historic and ongoing hostilities in the region? They might blow each other up?
No, she dosent care less about them, she cares about the oil feilds, because her economy depends on oil. Why?
Because all the billions she is spending on "Defence" in pursuit of supremacy, prevents her from developing an alternate energy source.
She needs that oil, short and sweet, a nuke war inside the middle east and she can kiss the oil goodby, then her dream of supremacy is sunk, game over.
But why would the middle east destroy the only product they have to trade with? How can America stop them anyway, by nuking them? not on your sweet nelly! By might, while she has the opportunity, any excuse will do and retaliation against her oppression resulting in 9/11 is just perfectly convenient. [Thankyou Osama, the money has been transferred to your swiss bank account, now dissappear quickly and dont forget new tapes from time to time???]
But if she just pulled out and quit the might race and stopped playing cosmic slingshots shooting things at comets, those billions could be pumped into developing sustainable alternate energy. Just imagine, make mid east oil obsolete, save her own arse, save the worlds arse, stop pollution, and save the enviroment all in one!
America would be God, no need for her current agenda, no need to dominate with might, because she would dominate with economic power, and no need to dominate at all, she would win the respect of the entire planet. We would follow by choice not with threat.
So why does she not? Because even with alternate energy she will still only be another nation, not "the" nation. She wants the cake and eat it too.

If she can spend billions pissing around in space, why can she not trade fairly and pay for oil ? oil is all the middle east has to trade with.
oil for for food because there naughty people? They need more than food.
Why does America not say to the middle east, cease all hostilities or we will stope trading period? Because she needs oil. Why does the globe not stand united in such an ultimatim? because we all need oil.
How can you bargain with someone who holds what you want, without ultimatly destroying what you want?
It would seem you have a few choices:
(a) trade fairly pay for oil ~ they might develop weapons and you dont want that
(b) try to buy oil through another nation ~ ? not likely to work for l;ong
(c) Invade while you have a tecknological advantage and take what you want by might.
So you bung trade sanctions on them, so they suffer and they retaliate which in turn gives you an excuse to invade. Convenient.
She wants a global America, Right by might is not working so she decides to control by controlling oil instead. perfect, because everyone needs oil, after she gains control of oil, she bungs trade sanctions on her more difficult enemys one by one, weakening their economies so they cant afford defence, finding or simply creating self justifications along the way.
invade one by one, all for the sake of freedom and liberty ofcourse, give ultimatimes about their WMD, pretend there a threat to herself, eventually
America controlls land, sea, air and space, bingo! America rules supreme.
Global America atlast.


You decide!

Maybe they are doing it all for money,that's the only reason I can come up with.

What you don't realize is that all our modern technology is made out of plastic. Plastic comes from petroleum/oil bye product. Just look around at all the things in your house made out of plastic. Are you willing to give them up?
Fertallizer, pesticide, anti-biotics, all come from oil. Not to mention all the preservatives and chemicals used to store food. You need to lubricate mechanical moving parts with oil and corn & canola oil just won't cut it.
All industry would halt, not to mention pavement.
Oil is the life blood of all our modern technology. Without it you can't have the modern western civilization.
An alternate fuel source would only solve a small part of the problem.
I hope you understand.

So what happens when oil runs out? no more plastics! No choice to "give them up" then is there. better recycle and recycle and then...recycle!

turbines need oil, solar, hydro, and wind power all use oil, plus wires, solar panels, microchips, boats, cars, fuel cells, medical equipment, etc all need oil to be built.

Originally posted by namehere
turbines need oil, solar, hydro, and wind power all use oil, plus wires, solar panels, microchips, boats, cars, fuel cells, medical equipment, etc all need oil to be built.

Minor (very minor) correction. All *currently* need oil to be built. If we *had* to, we could use other substance for all of it. However, a pure synthetic is *a lot* more expensive as it has to be manufacturered from scratch, not just refined (like oil is).

I know the paint industry is doing everything in their power to be rid of their oil dependance.. the price increase caused a lot of pain in that segment this year.

Osiris

the powers that be ( a texas oil man in the white house, ((son of a texas oil man)) with a vp who's former co was in the business of rebuilding oil fields and condeleeza rice used to have an oil tanker named after her) make a lot of money off of oil, and they want to keep it that way.
energy that doesn't need to be replenished is a poor business model compared to oil. after you make the initial sale of a solar or wind powered system, you're cash flow is done.

One way to think about it is how many products are marketed on replacement parts and upkeep or onging charges. free cell phone, just sign a two year agreement ! free security system, just sign 5 year service contract ! cheap razor, but the blades are $10 a pop....

Ok then why don't we switch to hydrogen to power our cars,if we did that the demand for oil would go down and we would have more than enough for things like plastics?I think the only reason they don't is because they tax the hell out of oil to support thier big military budget..

Originally posted by thecry
Ok then why don't we switch to hydrogen to power our cars,if we did that the demand for oil would go down and we would have more than enough for things like plastics?I think the only reason they don't is because they tax the hell out of oil to support thier big military budget..

The US has some of the lowest oil prices in the world, it isn't taxed the hell out of. Go to Europe, then complain about gas prices breaking 2 bucks a gallon here.

Anyway, as for fuel cells right now, they have many drawbacks-
You either have to use alot of energy (in the form of electricity) to get the hydrogen, which last I checked actually sued mroe energy than fossil fuels do. Barring that, you can put the electricity straight into the car battery for power, but right now we don't have batteries that can hold enough charge for the trips. A third option is to use a reformer to extract the hydrogen from fuels such as methanol, natural gas or...you guessed it...gasoline. I hope I don't need to tell you what the problem with option three is

Also, look at it this way- we have a complete infrastructure for gasoline distribution. When your car is running on empty, you can rest assured that a filling station is down the street. What we don't have is a hydrogen or electricity distribution network, and such a thing cannot be created overnight. Until you've got the infrastructure to support new energy sources, they're pretty useless.


[edit on 1-22-2005 by Esoterica]

While I agree the monetary and infastructure are big components on why the USA or any other developing country want oil.

The main reason I see, probably the most important idea behind why we really seek oil..

The chemical structure of OIL is useful because of how easily it reacts and creates ENERGY while reacting/creating.

The idea behind plastics etc, are balony. The plain fact is, we can make that crap with other resources. Although it would take immense amount of energy to do so. So the idea that while you create, you gain more energy, is the real reason why it has so much value.

All things created by OIL, can be created using other resources. ALL. So no argument in favor of items can truly be used IMO.

[edit on 22-1-2005 by LaoTzu]

Originally posted by LaoTzu

The idea behind plastics etc, are balony. The plain fact is, we can make that crap with other resources.

The original plastic was made from cotton. Ever hear of rayon?

Needless to say, if we made plastics from wood/other resource (lol wood? ). I would think that ZIPLOCK bags would then cost $50.00 USD per box of 10 hahah.. lol you'd have to wonder, how much big corp. would end up losing if they had to use exorbitant amount of money on energy to create whatever they wanted... I'm sure Micheal Dell would be most unpleased, those boxes would raise in price in a hurry..

The next "revolution" will be hydrogen fuel cells. The network will act the same as ours do now, with the hydo-stations built everywhere. Theres not many stations in the US yet, but there are some, mainly in Cali being tested.

As for wind, the US plans to have wind electricity increase As for solar...Its really not that great...yet, if they can double its efficiencys then it will grow much quicker. As for Nuclear, The US isn't building any nuclear plants, we havn't for some time, and have no plans in the future, they carry a big threat with them, and as terrorism is a bigger part of life, a nuclear facility seems to be an inviting target, not to mention what do tou doo with the spent fuel, which takes a l-o-n-g time to become non-radioactive.

there is no need to get rid of all oil using/consuming devices, but it would be good for the environment if buildings and vehicles did not use it for there main source of energy.

Hydrogen fuel cells will become the norm around 2030, you will see companies start to mass produce them in 2015, and when that happens there infastructure will grow, with in 15 years there will still be gas stations but you will notice that some of the pumps are hydrogen and not gasoline.

Originally posted by Murcielago
The next "revolution" will be hydrogen fuel cells. The network will act the same as ours do now, with the hydo-stations built everywhere. Theres not many stations in the US yet, but there are some, mainly in Cali being tested.

The problem is that Hydrogen takes (signifigantly) more energy to produce than you can get out of it. There are no hydrogen deposits that can simply be mined (like oil), so it must be seperated from either oil (or other hyrdocarbons) or water. Both take more energy than can be gotten back out of the system (even with 100% efficiency).

You still have to have some other means of producing energy. At this point the only viable and economically feasable energy source is nuclear fission. People often cite the problems with disposing of nuclear waste, but forget that the cost of disposing of the waste has been calculated in the cost of the power forever (unlike other systems - there is currently a huge amount of money set aside for this). The only obstacles remaining are political and educational.

And although no completely new nuclear facilites have been built since the Carter administration (Thanks, Jane Fonda) - a new reactor was recently (within a coupple of years) certified at a power facility in Clinton, IL.

I'm not even going to bother reading all of this babble - Oil is cheap, everything else is not. That is why oil is still fought over. For all of the billions spent on the war in Iraq, there are billions more worth of oil there and it still ends up being cheap in the long run (except for the loss of human life).

because its cheaper, because everything is made with the help of oil (plastics ect) , oil companies are in power not the us president or the UN
but shell bp exxon total ect.

ok.....H2O is water, its made up of hydrogen and oxygen. Earth is over 70% covered with water. Thats why hydrogen is considered to "never run dry", and the only emmisions of a hydrogen powered fuel cell is water, you could litteraly drink the water that drips from your tailpipe. Currently it takes a little more electricity to extract the hydrogen from water, then you will get out of it in your vehicle, but whats wrong with that? I consider that the price you pay for having it be portable power. and the facility that does that hydrogen extracting could be powered by wind turbines, making the whole process completely "green".

and nuclear fission isn't "the wave of the future", the next great power source wont be wind or coal or water or the typical solar, it will be nuclear fussion. Basically create a mini sun, everyone recognizes thta nuclear fusion is the ultimate in clean electricity and it would last virtually forever. Scientist have being researching nuclear fusion for over 50 years, and still can't produce more power then it takes to run it, but if its big enough, it could. If you have seen the movie Spiderman 2 then you know what nuclear fusion is (its what Doc. Oc made his metal arms for).

Nuclear fission has radioactive waste that takes 10,000 years to become safe again, but nuclear fusions waste only takes a few decades to become safe. You would heat hydrogen to 100 million degrees centigrade, in which place the hydrogen ions combine to create a larger ion called helium, and then it releases the energy. At the moment some of this may sound science fiction, but its all on the drawing boards.

ITER (in latin it means: "the way"), They expect a nuclear fusion reactor be finished with in 10 years (2015) and will take 6 billion. To run this bohemith it will consume 50 megawatts, but once running it will produce 500 megawatts. They hope to have nuclear fusion providing the power to your house by the middle of the century. There is 6 countries pouring money into this, its comparable in size and costs only to the International Space Station, the big six is the United States, Russia, China, Europe, Japan, South Korea. But its not off to a good cooperative start, China and Russia want it built in France, but the US and South Korea want it built in Japan.

[edit on 23-1-2005 by Murcielago]

Originally posted by Murcielago
ok.....H2O is water, its made up of hydrogen and oxygen. Earth is over 70% covered with water. Thats why hydrogen is considered to "never run dry", and the only emmisions of a hydrogen powered fuel cell is water, you could litteraly drink the water that drips from your tailpipe. Currently it takes a little more electricity to extract the hydrogen from water, then you will get out of it in your vehicle, but whats wrong with that? I consider that the price you pay for having it be portable power. and the facility that does that hydrogen extracting could be powered by wind turbines, making the whole process completely "green".

[edit on 23-1-2005 by Murcielago]

In a perfectly efficient system takes about 25% more power to produce hydrogen from water than you can get out of it in a 100% efficient engine. In the real world that is a huge difference. There is no plausable way for Wind power to provide the worlds energy needs (plus about 50% energy loss in producing hydrogen). If not for the cost of purchasing/mainting the turbines, imagine the environmental impact on those few places that are really suitable for wind power.

Like I said, Nuclear Fission is THE ONLY currently available power system that is both clean (with the exception of a little bit of waste than can be safely stored or reprocessed if the US wants to) and capable of producing sufficient power day in and day out. Period. End of story.

Originally posted by thecry
With wind,solar, Hydrogen,electric,nuclear and other forms of energy why are the U.S and other countries so dependant on oil?

Because all those other forms are more expensive and less effective than oil.

Especially with the middle east so unstable.Why doesn't the goverment start pushing these technologies,

The governments of various countries do support alternate energy systems.The only thing thats realyl going to work is to make oil more expensive than the other forms, ie to put a special tax on gasoline and such. No likely to ever happen tho.