# Coolest Winter Since 2001+US oil reserves+Middle east Apocalypse=NO GAS IN 3 YEARS **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 10, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504 "2008-06-10T22:16:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/41 "2008-06-11T20:29:43Z")
[QUOTE=focusonz] With Nukes… we all can enjoy a very good life. [/QUOTE] :dubious: I’ll see your blogging economics policy wonk and I’ll raise you a nuclear power waste disposal issue. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/42 "2008-06-11T20:34:14Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I cannot think … our existing automotive transit system is heavily subsidized by the state and your car would be useless without state-funded… [/QUOTE] I know! Typical for a socialist to miss attribute the funding for infrastructure. Our automotive transit system is paid for by the taxpayer at the pump. Those taxpayers can choose to pay the tax and use the system or not pay the tax and find other means of transit! Subsidy and state funding a character of a socialist state has nothing to do with the American highway system. Hell, the USSR, a socialist system, had a highway system which was mostly dirt roads and which were so rough that most of the grain bounced out of the truck on the way to the market. It is no wonder that we shipped every spare grain of wheat to the USSR during the 80’s delivered to the US ports on taxpayer/user funded American highway system. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/43 "2008-06-11T20:38:29Z")
[QUOTE=focusonz] Your wrong! [/QUOTE] **You’re** ignorant. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/44 "2008-06-11T21:01:00Z")
[QUOTE=focusonz] Our automotive transit system is paid for by the taxpayer at the pump. [/QUOTE] Yes. But I think you’ll find it’s also paid for by general sales tax, property tax and income tax. Gasoline tax revenues alone aren’t **nearly** enough to cover the whole cost. See [_Asphalt Nation,_](http://www.amazon.com/Asphalt-Nation-Automobile-Took-America/dp/0520216202/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213217870&sr=1-1) by Jane Holtz Kay; excerpted in [this thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9243156&highlight=holtz#post9243156) And there is not a mass-transit system in the world that pays for itself at the farebox, except for Hong Kong’s. (Or so said Joel Garreau in [_Edge City,_](http://www.amazon.com/Edge-City-Life-New-Frontier/dp/0385424345) published in 1992, but I doubt the economics have changed any since then.) The private sector, therefore, won’t build them, because it can’t make a profit on them. Yet we still need them. Therefore . . . ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/45 "2008-06-11T21:01:36Z")
[QUOTE=focusonz] You didn’t read it! [/QUOTE] I read it. You comment isn’t energy conservation. ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/46 "2008-06-11T21:03:37Z")
[QUOTE=focusonz] Our automotive transit system is paid for by the taxpayer at the pump. Those taxpayers can choose to pay the tax and use the system or not pay the tax and find other means of transit! [/QUOTE] Can I get a cite for that? **ALL** the money for our automotive transit system (as BG says, “streets, roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, traffic-control signs and signals, traffic cops and highway patrol officers, specialized traffic courts, state driver’s licensing agencies, etc., etc.”) is paid for by the taxpayer at the pump? **NONE** of it comes from non-gas sales taxes, property taxes, school taxes, city income taxes, state income taxes, or federal income taxes? If there are, in fact, other sources for that money, could I get a breakdown of the gas-tax/non-gas-tax percentages of the tax revenue? ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/47 "2008-06-11T21:05:02Z")
[QUOTE=Duck Duck Goose] I’ll see your blogging economics policy wonk and I’ll raise you a nuclear power waste disposal issue. [/QUOTE] You enjoy the benefits of the Dresden Nuclear Power Station in Morris IL. You tell me where the waste goes. If you are so concerned about the waste then shut the station down and stop using its electricity else stop wringing your hands and get used to it and stop making it an issue. I helped build that plant. > [@](#): > > In USA high-level civil wastes all remain as used fuel stored at the reactor sites. It is planned to encapsulate these fuel assemblies and dispose of them in an underground engineered repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. This is the program which has been funded by electricity consumers to US$ 26 billion so far (ie @ 0.1 cent per kWh), of which about US$ 6 billion has been spent. > > In Europe some used fuel is stored at reactor sites, similarly awaiting disposal. However, much of the European spent fuel is sent for reprocessing at either Sellafield in UK or La Hague in France. The recovered uranium and plutonium is then returned to the owners (the plutonium via a MOX fuel fabrication plant) and the separated wastes (about 3% of the spent fuel) are vitrified, sealed into stainless steel canisters, and either stored or returned. Eventually they too will go to geological disposal. > > Sweden represents the main difference. It has centralised used fuel storage at CLAB near Oskarshamn, and will encapsulate used fuel there for geological disposal by about 2015. Finland is establishing a final repository at Olkiluoto. European funding is at similar level to USA per kWh. [http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/wast.htm](http://www.world-nuclear.org/education/wast.htm) Europe has accepted the bad with the good, can’t you? And besides by the time we get new nukes up and running and after many years of operation then we will have the new nuclear waste and can follow Europe’s lead on its disposal. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/48 "2008-06-11T21:11:18Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I doubt the economics have changed any since then. [/QUOTE] $4.00 per gallon gas changes the economics somewhat. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/49 "2008-06-11T21:13:03Z")
[QUOTE=Lobohan] **You’re** ignorant. 😛 [/QUOTE] I ignore ants! ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/50 "2008-06-11T21:24:16Z")
The OP in this thread is a classic demonstration of the maxim that a **little** knowledge is more dangerous than simple ignorance. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/51 "2008-06-11T21:48:35Z")
**TWEEEEEEET!!** OK, **everyone** , knock it off with the derogatory, personal remarks. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/52 "2008-06-11T22:04:23Z")
[QUOTE=focusonz] You enjoy the benefits of the Dresden Nuclear Power Station in Morris IL. [/quote] Er, no, I don’t, actually. If you helped build it, then you’d know that it serves the Greater Chicago Area, not Downstate. > [@](#): > > _You tell me where the waste goes. If you are so concerned about the waste then shut the station down and stop using its electricity else stop wringing your hands and get used to it and stop making it an issue._ Bwah? So it’s okay with you if we have radioactive waste polluting the landscape for thousands of years, as long as we don’t have to rely on burning fossil fuels? Isn’t that kind of a false economy: trading short-term non-pollution gains for long-term pollution losses? And, I might add, a long-term pollution that is demonstrably unhealthy for living things, whereas AGW is still not proven categorically to exist. Global warming, yes, but not global warming caused solely by people burning fossil fuels. So you’re polluting heavily, for generations to come, with highly toxic materials that aren’t readily removable even with Superfund funds, in order–you think, so goes the theory–to keep the globe from warming up more than it already is, even though there’s no proof that using nukes instead of oil will do any good. Whereas there’s proof that nuclear waste is extremely dangerous. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/53 "2008-06-11T22:07:16Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] The OP in this thread is a classic demonstration of the maxim that a **little** knowledge is more dangerous than simple ignorance. [/QUOTE] Your posts in this thread are classic demonstrations of the dangers of overfeeding your brain, **glutton**. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2008, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504/54 "2008-06-11T23:22:15Z")
Today, 05:48 PM #51 [QUOTE=tomndebb] **TWEEEEEEET!!** OK, everyone, knock it off with the derogatory, personal remarks. **[/Moderating]** [/QUOTE] Today 06:07 PM [QUOTE=focusonz] Your posts in this thread are classic demonstrations of the dangers of overfeeding your brain, **glutton**. [/QUOTE] If you are not only incapable of playing nice, but are incapable of following direct instructions from staff, then you cannot play here. This thread is closed and more of this nonsense will start earning you a ticket out. [/Moderating] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coolest-winter-since-2001-us-oil-reserves-middle-east-apocalypse-no-gas-in-3-years/452504.md?page=2)