How Much Will Energy Prices Effect you and the Parks?

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Jeff said:
freakylick: Don't be a jackass. I don't tell you what to do in your house, don't tell me what to do in mine.

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First, go back and read what you have said in this thread. It sounds like you are telling me what I should do in my house, or should I say, have in my garage.

Second, you criticized another website and said that it shouldn't be taken seriously. Now I understand that this is your site and you are going to do whatever you want. But if you can't follow your own rules, why should you or your site/rules be taken seriously.

To quote a famous blue genie:

"The emergency exits are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here."

I've been posting here a long time and I've never told Jeff what to do or not do on his website. If I don't like something...I don't have to return.

It is that simple.

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Brian Noble said:

I also agree that, eventually, nuclear power will be back. It is already well-accepted in several European countries (where environmental causes tend to get more attention, too).

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I'm not so sure about nuclear energy.
Admitted, it produces no smog or air pollution the way that burning fossile fuel does.
But the big problem with nuclear power remains the radiation that it emits into the environment. Many studies have proven how unhealthy it is to live close to a nuclear power plant, and even more so close to a re-processing plant. Accidents simply happen - there is no way around it, it's a question of time alone.
The second bad thing about nuclear power is the waste it produces - and this waste stays deadly for millenia to come.
The strategy that is mostly used is to transfer the nuclear material into a "final storage" in which it is supposed to stay indefinitely, in geologically stable surroundings. But this won't contain the danger forever, as these storage places are already running out today, and the waste will continue to pile up as long as we use nuclear power.

The other strategy, re-using the material is prone to even more dangers, as the material has to be shipped to the factory to be processed, and these facilities are surrounded by areas of higher cancer rates as well.

The Tchernobyl desaster has left Germany with a strongly increased cancer rate - and still today, I refrain from eating the mushrooms I find near my home village.

The German government has decided not to built any new nuclear power plants, and to switch the last one off by 2035 - I don't see any other tendencies in the other countries of Europe, but i'm not 100% sure about eastern Europe and the new European states.

OK, I admit I sort of breezed through the last page and a half on here, so if I'm repeating or misinterpreting, I apologize. Please bear with me.

I find it interesting that many of the posts on here seem to say similar things: A) Americans waste too much energy and need to conserve. B) I have no intention of driving less when it comes to visiting all the parks I want to visit. So in other words, it's EVERYONE ELSE who needs to change, in order to allow ME to do what I want as cheaply as possible.

One other good way to conserve on fuel would be for the Kennedys and other "enviromentalists" to stop flying to Alaska in their private jets to have press conferences on how terrible it would be to drill for oil there. Now if they wanted to walk there and back, that's another story.

Here's another question... who knows the source of the electricity used to operate your favorite park(s)?

Actually, alternative sources of energy seems to be more along the lines...but I could be wrong.

So if the "environmentalists" walked to Alaska, would you change your mind? Seems you have a right-of-center opinion based on the sarcasm, but I don't want to put words into your wouth or fingers as it may be.

Sure we love our lifestyles, but it doesn't mean we should give up support for doing things better and with, say, future generations in mind.

superman: true, there are issues with nuclear power. There is never a free lunch, after all. And, these issues are undoubtedly serious. However, the day will come when it becomes so hard (i.e. expensive) to extract fossil fuels that we'll either need to have given up on electricity or we'll need to look to some other source of energy. The most obvious candidate is going to be fission.

RGB: I'll bet you dollars to gascans that over 90% of the gas used by CBuzz readers is used on normal, everyday trips and not trips to the parks. I've already said (on the first page) how to conserve there, and I take those steps already. Mainly becuase I'm a cheap bastard, but I suppose one could take those steps altruistically, too.

However, your point does remind me of the anti-globalization folks. If you *really* want the workers in China to be paid a living wage, and work in safe and sanitary conditions, you'd better be prepared to spend $30+ on a t-shirt at walmart rather than $5.99. It's that simple.

Edit: Does anyone know if flying is ever more fuel-efficient (from a barrels of crude point of view) than driving? I suspect it *never* is, but that's just a WAG. *** Edited 3/23/2005 8:53:45 PM UTC by Brian Noble***

Brian, originally I was going to chastise you for the MPG advice because I am so tired of hearing the news media tell me how much I could save if I do all those things. Guess what: I won't save a dime, as I have been doing those things for years...yes, because I am also a cheap bastard, at least about those sorts of things.

RatherGoodBear, for the record, Cedar Point's power probably comes mostly from coal and possibly from nuclear power. Possibly some hydro, but I doubt it. Kings Island's power is almost assuredly coal. It's a completely different topic, but living in Ohio I tend to be annoyed at the fact that we're using so much natural gas to generate electricity when we have a million-year supply of coal available which is pretty much useless for anything else (I'd rather save the gas for heating and use the coal for generating electricity. There are ways around the fly ash problem.)

The most flexible power source we have today is electricity. That is the one form of power which can be used for pretty much everything we need energy for, EXCEPT for powering automobiles. It would be great for that, too, except for the need for very long extension cords.

Oh, Brian, you ask about the efficiency of flying versus driving? Are you talking about the actual transport, or the total package? I suspect that it requires fewer barrels of oil to move a 737 loaded with passengers from point A to point B than it would take for all those people to drive from point A to point B in their family sedans and minivans. Commercial air travel tends to be very efficient on a per-passenger-mile basis. If you are talking about a charter jet to Alaska, on the other hand, some of those efficiencies are probably going to go away.....

--Dave Althoff, Jr.
(edit: changed an attribution) *** Edited 3/23/2005 9:13:43 PM UTC by RideMan***

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superman said:
But the big problem with nuclear power remains the radiation that it emits into the environment. Many studies have proven how unhealthy it is to live close to a nuclear power plant, and even more so close to a re-processing plant.

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Show me the studies. They aren't true. You get more radiation in a year from your TV (assuming you still have one of those "old fashioned" CRT's like me) than you do living next door to a nuclear plant.

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superman said:
The second bad thing about nuclear power is the waste it produces - and this waste stays deadly for millenia to come.

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Like I said, that's nonsense too because if we recycled the fuel there wouldn't be any waste, or at the very least not enough to pose any kind of significant threat, especially compared to the amount of waste produced by even one coal-burning plant.

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superman said:The Tchernobyl desaster...

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...was caused by poor engineering standards. That plant didn't even remotely have the same precautions or standards used in the U.S. since the 60's.

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superman said:
I don't see any other tendencies in the other countries of Europe, but i'm not 100% sure about eastern Europe and the new European states.

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You mean besides France? If you live in Germany, you're down-wind of them and that whole country is nuclear. They also recycle their fuel.

Your fears are based on uncertainties and general disregard (not by you) of the facts. I live down-wind of a plant, and there's another east of me. I toured one of the reactors in 1985 before it was finished, and I've been fascinated ever since.

I read an in-flight magazine once that compared jet-engine vs. the internal combustion engine on a horsepawer basis and the jet was a lot more efficient. Couldn't really find anything on the web though.

I also heard talk a while back of using small turbojets to generate electricity for cars much the way they are used in diesel locomotives, but haven't heard anything in a while.

I agree that nuclear power plants are extremely fascinating buildings.
I have only seen schematics, but just the fact that we as humans are actually able to pull this off is really great.
With the nuclear plants, you seem to be fine if you are living around 14 miles away of one:

Seymour Jablon, Zdenek Hrubec, and John D. Boice, Jr., "Cancer in Populations Living Near Nuclear Facilities," JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Vol. 265 (March 20, 1991), pgs. 1403-1408.

But in the 3-5 mile ranges, the cancer cases seem to have clearly increased:

David Forman, Paula Cook-Mozaffari, Sarah Darby, Gwyneth Davey, Irene Stratton, Richard Doll, and Malcolm Pike, "Cancer Near Nuclear Installations," NATURE Vol. 329 (October 8, 1987), pgs. 499-505.

Sellafield is a prominent example for the dangers of a reprocessing plant - the most danger seems to be for and from the persons working in those plants:

Martin J. Gardner, Michael P. Snee, Andrew J. Hall, Caroline A. Powell, Susan Downes, and John D. Terrell, "Results of case control study of leukemia and lymphoma among young people near Sellafield nuclear plant in West Cumbria," BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL, Vol. 300 (February 17, 1990) pgs. 423-428. See also the letters to the editor this article provoked: "Correspondence," British Medical Journal Vol. 300 (March 10, 1990), pgs. 676-678.

I hope that there will be more clean nuclear power in the future - it would be so cool if we could use it without those troubles.
But I do absolutely agree that it's a fascinating technology.

Kudos superman! You were called out and responded like a pro. Actual citations to articles in scientific journals. Nice!

Jan, yes I was being sarcastic with my "right of center opinion" -- sort of. But am I the only one who thinks there's something not right with someone who flies a private plane (that presumably consumes oil and I'm sure makes noise) to a pristine natural site so he can showboat and talk about how proposed plans to drill for oil will upset the environment and the noise will scare the animals who live there? It's also come out that a few of these same people drive gas guzzling SUVs and make frequent use of limos, etc. which aren't exactly in the same league as a Prius when it comes to energy use. Hence my point of "do as I say, not as I do." Sorry, but I have to agree with Sean Hannity on that one.

Brian, yes I'm agree with you regarding CB'ers driving habits, and am even willing to say that your 90% number may be a bit low. No way am I saying that people should stop going to parks-- we all know what the result of that could be. I'd also say that a lot of "environmental fundamentalists" would probably consider trips to theme parks, especially long distance/ multi-day trips would be considered frivolous and wasteful.

Ride Man, glad you could answer that. It's amazing how many people have this disconnect (no pun intended) between how the energy they use in their homes, workplaces, stores, etc. is generated. I seriously believe they think it's stored up in the wall behind the outlet, or random electrons are sucked out of the sky. I burn coal in my own house. I'm sure that gives some people seizures.

I still believe that too many people that they can just keep living their lifestyle as they do now, and things would just be alright if other people, or businesses, or whatever would cut back.

~RGB, who did manage to include the word "park" in both his posts in this thread.~

I've just heard on the news about a major refinery accident in the Houston area. I can't imagine that'll help fuel prices much.

It seems that this hasn't made CNN or Fox News, yet it has been widely covered here.

I can only find one link at the moment:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1292507,00050001.htm

superman: The samples in those "studies" are too small to represent any significant statistical trend. Similar studies around here have been conducted and found nothing. They were all the rage when one of our local plants was ready to turn up their second reactor (the one I was in).

Want some real facts? Here are measurable radiation doses from one of the US nuclear operators. The NRC has other interesting stats here and here.

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Jeff said:
I'll say whatever I want my friend. I don't believe you.

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Thats okay, You're failure to see it as truth dosen't make it any less a fact of my life or the truth regardless, so believe what you want. But don't spout off that something is 'nonsense' when you don't know Jack.

You show me a photo and I'll graciously repent for my sins. :) Pete is on his own though.

Dave: I was thinking the widebody boeing case. I guessed it wasn't based on the speed of the transport, but like I said, it was a WAG. It would be interesting to check the numbers (i.e.: how many gallons of crude to make a gallon of avgas, gallons of avgas to fly a fully loaded plan from NY to SF, etc.) but I'm way too busy this morning to chase it down.

Edit: RGB: Long distance trips are frivolous and wasteful. With discipline, we do not need fun! ;)

*** Edited 3/24/2005 10:19:04 AM UTC by Brian Noble***

This article provides some interesting reading, although I'd take it with a grain of salt. I wonder if the authors would ACTUALLY give up 2- and 3-class configurations on aircraft if given the choice; etc. (I also noticed quite a few grammatical mistakes, such as repeated "its"/"it's" confusion, but the source isn't an English-speaking country so I can cut them some slack there)

Anyway, one of the eventual statements that comes out in it is

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A car with three passengers use [sic] only half the fuel per passenger compared to the most economical passenger jet for the same distance (1 hour flight = 700 kilometers driving)

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Now, by "fuel" they're probably comparing gas versus jet fuel (someone else is welcome to sort through the writeup and check that), not raw crude vs. raw crude, but it's a start.

*** Edited 3/24/2005 2:52:00 PM UTC by GregLeg***

I would expect that you need more crude to generate one gallon of avgas than one gallon of automotive gas, but I could be wrong.

And, you can pry first class/business class seats out of my cold, dead, NWA-elite-status-holding hand. I'm not *that* liberal. :)