I got this from Charlie Rose tonight, who had as his first guest Lawrence Wright, author of The Looming Tower, about the rise and development of al Qaida. Wright says that if you take the whole of Arabia, from Morocco to the Levant, an area larger than the US with a population of about the same size as the US, and subtract the production of oil from the revenue generated by those people, it turns out that the gross Arabic product (so to speak) is about the same as the gross national product of Finland, with a population of five million. If you add the production of oil, the gross Arabic product bumps up to the gross national product of Germany.<br><br>Food for thought, no?<br><br>

They're going to be in a world o'hurt<br>if we live the true American Dream<br>& move away from fossil fuels ASAP.<br><br>[color:white].</font color=white><br>[color:white]. . </font color=white>

The oil producers are going to be in a world of hurt if we find alternatives? Dream on. As peak oil is encountered we will just pay them more and more for less and less. <br><br>Take a look at the world's energy usage If you read through and keep track of the MW, TW and ZW you will see that the world's productivity is based on a very large amount of elecricity. I would love to see solar and wind power take more of the share. They should be subsidized and we should go back to Jimmy Carter's recommendations for accelerating solar and wind power research.<br><br>But in the short term (the next 50 years) there is no possible way that they can make enough Watts. So we will ruin our planet by switching from oil to coal to create the Watts needed. Nuclear power needs to be used to create an alternative to burning coal. Once we run out of oil there is 600 years worth of coal underground at current rates of usage. We'll burn it too until the polar bears catch fire.<br><br>Crib sheet:<br><br>10e6 megawatt MW <br>10e9 gigawatt GW <br>10e12 terawatt TW <br>10e15 petawatt PW <br>10e18 exawatt EW <br>10e21 zettawatt ZW<br><br>A ZW, or 10 to the 21st Watts is one hell of a lot of oil, coal, and natural gas. If every human on earth started building solar cells we would create a percent or two dent in the output.<br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>A ZW, or 10 to the 21st Watts is one hell of a lot of oil, coal, and natural gas. <br>If every human on earth started building solar cells we would create a percent or two <br>dent in the output.<p><hr></blockquote><p><br>Then, I dare say, we have NO MORE TIME TO LOSE! These technologies have been <br>INTENTIONALLY suppressed for long enough (and then some) for the enrichment <br>of people that cared more about the bottom line than about the final outcome.<br><br>Nukes may indeed buy us precious time, as long as we don't get lazy again, & forget <br>that this Genie in a Bottle can potentially be our undoing if someone pulls the cork.<br><br><br><br>[color:white].</font color=white><br>[color:white]. . </font color=white>