Oil Hits $45. a Barrel

[maplesyrup]

Crude oil price hits record high

The price increase is being linked to violence in Iraq which has disrupted supplies.

I suppose we can thank President Bush for this mess.

Where is Canada going with R & D for alternative sources of enery? At one point we were primed to enter the solar energy field but it seems to have fallen flat. How shortsighted we are.

[maplesyrup]

Japan begins probe into nuclear accident

The Japanese government worked to shore up public confidence in the nuclear power industry today, a day after the country's deadliest reactor accident killed four people.

Authorities launched an investigation, with dozens of police and nuclear energy officials visiting the plant to determine whether operator Kansai Electric Power was negligent. Politicians called for a review of nuclear plant safety.

This situation exemplifies in a very clear way why it is not good to privatize. We just can't trust business to act appropriately or ethically. We need governments with very strong inspection agencies. Can you imagine if we privatized our road systems. We would have bridges collapsing all over due to business cutting corners on inspections.

Some people think nuclear power is the way to go. Not me.

We need to slow down, start consuming less, beef up our public transportation systems, do more walking and less driving.

[willy]

Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident in history.

It was ran and managed by the government.

[Big Blue Machine]

I think most people are too lazy to go for walks anymore.

[Stoker]

I suppose we can thank President Bush for this mess.

Why? Is he blowing up the well heads and pipelines?

[kimmy]

Where is Canada going with R & D for alternative sources of enery?

Where is the research? It is in Burnaby, BC, at Ballard Power Systems.

Unfortunately, the technological obstacles in making hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicles a mainstream option are proving very stubborn.

As Ballard falls behind on its timetable, and major automakers like Honda and Toyota are making increasingly viable hybrid vehicles, it looks more and more like the solution is not in new technology, but in consumer attitudes. After all, hybrid vehicles are not really new technology, they're old technologies applied in a new way to meet different consumer goals. A hybrid vehicle could have been developed a lot earlier, but until a significant number of consumers decided that more efficient and environmentally safe transportation was important, there just wasn't an incentive to do it.

And as other energy prices go the same direction as gasoline prices, people will be more conscious of other energy costs too. Being stung at the gas pump is the time when most people become aware of the costs of energy consumption, but now when they open their electricity or utility bills each month, there is also an unpleasant shock. People are becoming very conscious of turning off lights when they're not being used. People replacing regular lightbulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs that use 1/5 the energy. My family recently replaced our old furnace with a high-efficiency furnace-- rebate incentives from the Canada and Alberta governments made the purchase more attractive, but the rising monthly gas bill is what made it a priority.

The obvious way to react to increasing energy costs is to... use less energy. People don't need to wait for miracle technology to arrive, they have choices. Rising energy costs are a blessing in disguise. It makes people more conscious of the costs of their lifestyle.

-kimmy

[maplesyrup]

We Canadians need to revive our solar energy programs and research, where we are using renewable and non-polluting resouces.

[maplesyrup]

Chernobyl was the worst nuclear accident in history.

It was ran and managed by the government.

Chernobyl was not being run in a democracy, it was run in a totalitarian society, not the kind of society I support or believe in.

Anytime a group of people get too much power in society is where we run into trouble. It is essential to have a healthy balance, like we try to do in Canada, or at least in a lot of our provinces, with our alternating of left-of-centre and right-of-centre governemnts.

Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[Cartman]

My family recently replaced our old furnace with a high-efficiency furnace-- rebate incentives from the Canada and Alberta governments made the purchase more attractive,

Might I ask what benefits are offered, specifically?

[kimmy]

My family recently replaced our old furnace with a high-efficiency furnace-- rebate incentives from the Canada and Alberta governments made the purchase more attractive,

Might I ask what benefits are offered, specifically?

There was a program where you could have your home audited for energy efficiency, then receive rebates for having approved work done to improve efficiency. One of the things that a lot of people took advantage of was getting high-efficiency furnaces.

Here is a page about the program, it looks like it has expired now.

http://www.energysolutionsalberta.com/defa...p?V_DOC_ID=1046

-kimmy

[I miss Reagan]

I suppose we can thank President Bush for this mess.

Why? Is he blowing up the well heads and pipelines?

Haven't you heard, everything is Bush's fault. Global warming, 9-11, terrorism, SARS, AIDS, Genocide in Sudan...

[maplesyrup]

Yes actually Bush's policies have lead to more Global Warming, more Terrorism, etc.

It always gives me a chuckle to see people who believe what the propangandist US media spews out hook, line and sinker.

Isn't it about time you started getting your information from a variety of sources, as every credible US media outlet has now apologised for being a Bush Administration lapdog:

The Post on WMDs: An Inside Story

"The paper was not front-paging stuff," said Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. "Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?"

In retrospect, said Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., "we were so focused on trying to figure out what the administration was doing that we were not giving the same play to people who said it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war and were questioning the administration's rationale. Not enough of those stories were put on the front page. That was a mistake on my part."

Across the country, "the voices raising questions about the war were lonely ones," Downie said. "We didn't pay enough attention to the minority."

When national security reporter Dana Priest was addressing a group of intelligence officers recently, she said, she was peppered with questions: "Why didn't The Post do a more aggressive job? Why didn't The Post ask more questions? Why didn't The Post dig harder?"

Several news organizations have cast a withering eye on their earlier work. The New York Times said in a May editor's note about stories that claimed progress in the hunt for WMDs that editors "were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper." Separately, the Times editorial page and the New Republic magazine expressed regret for some prewar arguments.

The US media is probably the unhealthiest media in the free world, as I remember watching their media coverage leading up to the War on Iraq and wondering to myself where are the dissenting opinions? It was as if the US media had turned themselves over to the Pentagon for decisions on what how and where to print the War news.

To blindly accept what the American media pump out is just plain stupid as the continuing facts about Iraq point out. Americans are being slaughtered there, as well Iraqis, all in the name of oil company profits. Thank goodness at least for Canadians Chretien had the wisdom to see through the White House bullshit.

[Remus]

We Canadians need to revive our solar energy programs and research, where we are using renewable and non-polluting resouces.

I do not believe that there is anyone preventing you from attracting investors for setting up a solar energy plant, or investing in solar panels for your own home.

[Big Blue Machine]

We need more solar plants and wind turbines. Nad offer tax credits for businesses who use them

[maplesyrup]

Did anyone ever visit the "The ArK' in PEI? I wonder if it is still in existence. Deja vu anyone?

The Seventies:

GARBAGE AND ENERGY TOOK centre stage in the 1970s. For the first time it seemed that legislators and world think tanks were ready to consider the consequences of taking the environment for granted. The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970 in California. In the same year, the US Environmental Protection Agency was formed in response to changing public attitudes. On the Island, the Environmental Control Commission was set up in 1971 to deal with our own unique problems.

The Ark...

North Americans began 1973 with a rude awakening. The major Arab oil producing nations of OPEC imposed an embargo on all their oil exports. Soon, an energy crisis was gripping the economies of many Western nations. Our economies had been tightly tied to oil since the end of WWII and now the search was on for alternatives. Spry Point, in King's County became the site for one such experiment. Opened by Prime Minister Trudeau in 1976, the Ark as it was known, was said to be a Bioshelter whose purpose was to weave together sun, wind, biology, and architecture on behalf of humanity. The project director, Dr. John Todd, saw the Ark as a model to reduce society's dependence on fossil fuels.

The Ark on Prince Edward Island