The Electronics Universe

Here\'s why we need to drill...

You mentioned getting oil from Saudi Arabia, why do that? Do you want to fund their terrorists?! If we drill from America WE will be the ones receiving the money from customers, not Osama Bin Laden.

I never said we should drill for oil off shore, I suggest we drill in Alaska and states out west where there are many un-tapped resources.

You say oil is a fossil fuel, we all knew that. Of course it will be gone some day, most of us learned that in 1st grade. There are tons of scientists and graduate students working on a new/better solution to our needs. In the mean time, WE NEED OIL!

You say that oil will become cheaper as the "renewable resource industry grows"..... I doubt it. We have "corn oil" now and all gas has done is rise in price. The more options people have to choose from, the less people that will choose oil. Therefore companies will need to raise their prices to stay in business. The OPPOSITE of what you suggested!

We will not be trashing the Earth by drilling for oil. Littering will cause more problems then drilling. I had a discussion with an elmer a few weeks ago and he said that there would be few problems if any (because of drilling for oil).

You talk about oil being a fossil fuel (non renewable)..... then you say that we can\'t use all the oil up or else our children\'s future will be harsh.... Wake up and smell the bacon Duncan, oil will be gone someday. It IS a fossil fuel. As for the environment, it\'s already screwed up. How do you think Al Gore made billions off of Global Warming.


Don\'t fund the terrorists by supporting simply importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other third world countries. Support America!

So what do you call asking Saudi Arabia to increase drilling? Is that not ALREADY "funding terrorism"? Cal, with your logic, we\'ve been funding terrorism all along, especially under the "house that Reagan built".  

You say that oil will become cheaper as the "renewable resource industry grows"..... I doubt it. We have "corn oil" now and all gas has done is rise in price. The more options people have to choose from, the less people that will choose oil. Therefore companies will need to raise their prices to stay in business. The OPPOSITE of what you suggested!

Why is gas so expensive? Speculators know we will be consuming record amounts. If the usefulness of oil goes down, people won\'t be rushing to buy oil commodities, and speculators won\'t be saying it\'s going to be more and more expensive every day. The main income for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is oil. We take away the appeal to buy oil from them, move away from oil, they have to reduce prices to compete with our FREE energy from the sun and wind. Drilling off our shores won\'t do that, why? Because as we grow, that won\'t provide enough. We will stilly be relying on the middle east for oil because all our energy infrastructure will be based around.

We will not be trashing the Earth by drilling for oil. Littering will cause more problems then drilling. I had a discussion with an elmer a few weeks ago and he said that there would be few problems if any (because of drilling for oil).

Then you are not very familiar with the process of drilling, refining, and storing oil.

A) Drilling for oil, when you dig deep into the earth, where oil is, there is also ground water there. That water no matter where you are, has an extremely high sodium content, and a high PH level. As you bring the oil to the top, the water comes with it, and escapes. Instead of being confined to little "caverns" where oil is, it is then released into the environment, because companies do little to nothing to control that run off. So the water kills of plants, and enters aquifers which many plants get underground moisture from, and it also enters our wells. Next time I\'m at my grandparents farm, I\'ll take some pictures of the area surrounding a oil well, there is NO vegetation within 100 yards of there, and studies my Emporia State University show that PH levels in underground water within 500 yards of there are extremely high.  

B) Refining, when you refine oil you are separating any of that water that is left, and again it enters the atmosphere. The other part of refining, includes reducing the sulfur levels in the oil, that release toxic gases which we can\'t control. Any runoff from the water also contains high levels of sulfur.  

C) Storing, crude or refined is often stored in batteries, not energy batteries but big tanks. Those are often A) Not sealed properly or B) Corrode quickly again releasing all of that.

Not to mention how you have to tear up surrounding landscape to get in and out, and the damage to wildlife. The environmental damage done by oil is tremendous, and it is even worse than coal.

You talk about oil being a fossil fuel (non renewable)..... then you say that we can\'t use all the oil up or else our children\'s future will be harsh.... Wake up and smell the bacon Duncan, oil will be gone someday. It IS a fossil fuel. As for the environment, it\'s already screwed up. How do you think Al Gore made billions off of Global Warming.

That is what I said Cal, oil is a fossil fuel and won\'t always be around. However you distorted it a bit, I said oil is a fossil fuel which we WILL use up. That is inevitable, whether we should use it up, or not is regardless, it\'s not going to last. However we can make it last longer, which will help in the long run while we wean ourselves off of a bad habit. You can\'t just go cold turkey with energy policies.

So because it\'s already screwed up, do you think it\'s justifiable to make it even worse? Or should we try and improve it?

You are losing a baseball game, should you just give up or try and make a comeback, and at least make it a close game?

Don\'t fund the terrorists by supporting simply importing oil from Saudi Arabia and other third world countries. Support America!

Too late for that, the Republicans in Washington keep pushing for more oil from there. Drilling in America is not the same as supporting America on several levels. A) It DOES tear up the environment, if it didn\'t then there wouldn\'t be restrictions on it.
B) Using more oil doesn\'t support America, we wouldn\'t see a price drop for at least a decade, and even then due to growth, we would still need more and it would be a marginal drop
and C) Using up our non-renewable sources before we have developed enough technology for total switch or mass change of energy would mean ball game, we lose.

I think we need to drill for oil off coast. If we don\'t, our children\'s future will be harsh.

Why? We drilled endlessly in the early 1900\'s, the oil boom of America. Our future already looks harsh because of our dependence on black gold.

The problem with drilling off coast is that it won\'t lower gas prices. It\'s not the availability of gas that is driving prices up, it is Wallstreet. People have been buying lots of petroleum bonds, and speculators keep saying it will go higher because of our thirst for it, thus driving the value of it up.

Most people think that our energy industry is like currency. The more in production or circulation, the cheaper. It doesn\'t work that way, the more in production the more we use. The more we use, the more expensive it becomes.

If we drill of coast, that won\'t budge the gas prices one bit. Saudi Arabia recently agreed to up its output of crude oil, you\'ll notice gas either stayed the same or went higher. Why? Because investors knew that more would be consumed at that point, creating a larger and larger market for petroleum, making it more valuable.

Plus there are many environmental and personal risks to drilling off shore, drilling for oil as it is isn\'t safe, now doing that over water makes it riskier. Plus in the Gulf to boot! Imagine what happens if a big hurricane comes through, those platforms could easily be heavily damaged, OR destroyed by the power of storms. It\'s like playing in the freeway.  

People think by decreasing our dependence on foreign oil, we will be better off. Their solution is drill at home. What we aren\'t realizing is the consequences of this. Oil is a fossil fuel, nonrenewable resource right? An oil field in Texas started forming at the beginning of time, and will be exhausted  in a about decade if our oil consumption continues to climb. The earth simply can not keep producing fossil fuels, the time it takes to form a deposit that will pay for itself is way into the future.

By not investing in a form of energy that we can use as many times as we want, THAT is what will be putting the hurt on the future. Yeah, it\'s not cheap now. But with time and as the renewable resource industry grows, it will become cheaper and more prominent. While if we waited till we absolutely needed to use renewable energy, the prices of production and the higher demands would be impossible to meet if we don\'t exploit and further research how to improve efficiency in this gold mine of clean energy.  

The environment also plays a big role. We can\'t trash the place up, you see what happens to contaminated streams after DDT poisoning from the early 1900s, the pesticides we use are nasty. Just think of how damaging petroleum is, with a higher sulfur content it is bad news for any living creature. We think we can contain it, but we can\'t. When drilling for oil, gases are released immediately after you hit the well. When coal mining, toxins escape the mines and enter streams and aquifers.  

Whether we like it or not, we need to prepare ourselves for the future of our children and grandchildren.  We can\'t achieve that by exhausting our main fuel sources, and leaving them a screwed up environment to boot.

I understand perfectly what you claim God said about sodomy.

But what does that mean in terms of homosexuality? Are you 100% okey dokey unless you commit sodomy? Do you think sodomy is the exact same thing as homosexuality? I have stated that homosexuality and sodomy are not the same thing. So why does the Church try and treat them as the exact same?

I think someone could be a sodomist and still be Christian. Does committing an act of sodomy automatically mean you don\'t believe in God or Jesus? Abomination or not, God loves you. Right? Or is it a conditional love?

Lastly, are you suggesting I\'m a sodomist by your final remark?
I hope you are not.

Hate was a bad word. Let me change that to "dislikes".

Still, the point I am trying to get across is that the bible never said anything about homosexuality. It never said it\'s wrong or right. However, it does speak of sodomy. However homosexuality and sodomy are not the same thing. So why speak out against homosexuality in a religious manner, when really it is OK according to the bible?

There is a difference between sodomy and homosexuality that is not being recognized by the Church. If it was, the Church would be OK with same sex couples, but would frown upon acts of sodomy.

Just because someone performs an act that may be an abomination, doesn\'t mean that the person in any way themselves is an abomination. So why should the Church support suppressing the rights of homosexuals, when there is nothing wrong with homosexuality?

Like I said, the Church can not prove beyond reasonable suspicion that any same sex couple will perform an act of sodomy.  

Homosexuality is a condition or feeling one might say. Sodomy is an act.  
The Bible is against the act, the Church is against the condition.

So let\'s not condemn the just.

Homosexuality is just. It is loving one of your same sex. Is that not just?

That\'s OK. I was just voicing my opinion.

Find somewhere in the bible where it says that truly loving someone of the same sex is against God\'s word? It\'s not there. Jesus himself taught that it is OK to love men and women all the same. Neither God nor Jesus ever stated homosexuality is an abomination.

That was a view that the Church developed on it\'s own.

Been having trouble getting the 440 elements tuned, but did some more research: 440 is for the downlink, won\'t be transmitting on the 440 antennas, so they are put together, but are kind of crude with not the best SWR. But each one has a great pattern and some directionality! From 10 feet, pointed one at my radio area (computers, radios, electronics) and there was S9 noise, pointed the moxon 180 degrees away and it dropped to S1, that pattern amazes me.

Tomorrow will be working on the phasing and matching lines, then will post pics. of the entire assembly.

Wish me luck! :icon_rolleyes: