We are along way from even getting close to a replacement for gasoline in
aircraft or for that matter cars where weight isn't near as critical. BUT,
if we would stop using petroleum products in everything other than the
transportation sector we would reduce their use by 25%. And doing that
would
be huge.

IMHO, the 25% figure is very low--by more than an order of magnetude.


Many of the steps being taken now are nothing but "feel good" moves that
really don't reduce the amount of petroleum used just move some of the use
out of the public eye. In fact many of the current fuel saving programs
probably increase the net use of petroleum. Add to that the fact that we
are
now replacing fuel with what should be food and you are just begging for
real problems in the future.


Very true. BTW, I have heard that's what really brought down the Japanese
war machine in WWII.

I think it is funny that the environmentalists are getting back on the
Nuke
bandwagon, since it was mainly they that stopped construction of new
nuclear
power plants in the first place. Nuclear energy is safe. The US Navy has
proved that. I've often wondered how large an area could be powered with
the
reactor from a nuclear powered carrier? One of the big problems with
commercial nuke plants is that they almost always started each plant from
scratch on a clean sheet of paper. Think how much less it would cost if we
had an assembly line of small reactors. Yes I realize there is the issue
of
what to do with the waste. The answer to that is reprocess until you can't
reprocess any more then shoot what's left into the sun. It would be like
one
guy ****ing in the ocean.


It certainly is interestng to find the greenies coming to their senses--if
true.

In any case, there are plenty of uses for thermal energy that is not hot
enough to generate high pressure steam--so nuclear "waste" could easily have
a second, and even a third, usefull life before the first reprocessing
becomes necessary.

Peter