Short Essay Thesis, sources and etcetera.

Okay... Glad I checked this before class... everything is gone... *sigh* serves me right for trying to do something whilst distracted by errant computers, other assignments, being very tired and fighting off some sort of renegade sinus fatwa that has been issued to cloud my mind and stuff my nose....


My topic is #2.
My Thesis is as follows:
Alternative fuels may occasionally be seen as off-the-wall and not practical in current society, but because of the inevitable, eventual decline of oil resources, any viable offerings must be analyzed. This topic is not so concerned with examining the topic of peak oil. Peak oil will occur sooner or later, preferably later for the world's peace of mind; however, regardless of when it occurs, the world needs to be prepared for this inevitability. The sooner reliable, feasible and practical methods are discovered or created, the smoother the transition away from oil.

Main points are:
After doing some research, I decided to focus my attention on alternative fuels, and save my resources about oil pricing, and they "why" questions for a portion of my final paper. My first portion of the paper is dealing with the overall picture of alternative fuels. What's out there? Where are they coming from? What have they powered? Are they useful? Can they be produced on a large scale over a long period of time?

I've found a 2 or 3 separate articles so far that praise hydrogen, and believe it is currently our main alternative to oil. Therefore, this will be my second topic of discussion... both the pros and cons known at this time about hydrocarbon.

The third part, right now, is concerning the cars of the future. What will they look like? What does it mean for a "PTD" to run on alternative fuel? What changes will have to occur before they really are more than just a novelty item, used by the odd wealthy/extremely clever enviro-friendly person? Work Cited: Like an idiot, I forgot to save the work cited page to a Word doc.... so, because of time, I will just post the links here for now... and hopefully later today, I will be able to put them into proper MLA documented form - in a saved word doc....

http://afdc.energy.gov/afdc/ http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelrenewable.html

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/05/alternative_fuel.html

http://www.alternativefuelsources.com/eflp/alternative+fuel+sources/pid238191/D971542/C0

http://www.beyondfossilfuel.com/

Ebsco Host:

Beirne, Mike. "King of Beers Seeks Crown Among Asian Americans." Brandweek 46.37 (17 Oct. 2005): 15-15. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 23 Sep. 2008 .

Reyes, Sonia. "The 'INVISIBLE' market." Brandweek 47.5 (30 Jan. 2006): 22-26. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 23 Sep. 2008 .

Thomaselli, Rich. "Trends to watch in 2007. (Cover story)." Advertising Age 77.51 (18 Dec. 2006): 10-10. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 23 Sep. 2008 .

Imada, Bill. "Who's Asian and what it means for marketers." Advertising Age 78.36 (10 Sep. 2007): 19-19. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 23 Sep. 2008 .

"Asian Americans in the U.S." by Packaged Facts. M2PressWIRE (15 Aug. 2006). Newspaper Source. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 23 Sep. 2008 .

Nguyen, Hang. "Asian market is not so niche anymore." Orange County Register, The (Santa Ana, CA) (08 June 2006). Newspaper Source. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 23 Sep. 2008 .

I Just Do Not "Get It"

This isn't an official post, it's more of a reaction to Adam's post about ambition, that lead into something I've been thinking about.... read it or not... it's up to you :) Have a great day.

Hmm... Oddly enough, Adam answered part of a question that has been running through my mind. I know that Saudi Arabia, at the height of the recent summer inflation of gas prices was able to sell oil for almost $150 a barrel, what I didn't realize was that it only costs them around $1.50 to produce a barrel!!! That's just unreal. I know for other countries/companies, it's not that cheap, but they're still making buku bucks on each barrel.

I'm a relatively non-"Ambitious" person. I want to succeed, but I'm not Driven like the people described in his blog, and the people we are reading about in The Prize.... I didn't really understand WHY they felt they needed to sell each barrel for such a high price... they're already making obscene amounts of money.... Outside of KSA since it's mostly government driven, there is NO way that any of these men/companies could use all that money that they're making.... so, why be so greedy? I get the ambition thing now... but I don't think I will even be able truly understand what drives them. For the most part Pieces people just aren't wired that way, but more than that, I don't really "get" business... hence the reason I am no longer an Accounting major, but have switched to a more art related field.

Intellectually, I understand that businesses have to make money in order to survive - but I don't think I will ever be able to fully comprehend the greed that drives men like Rockefeller and Deterding to ignore anything outside of making money. They spend every waking hour amassing large amounts of money they will never be able to spend in their life time. Giving to charities is great, give as much as you can.... but even Televangelists, who are supposed to be really close to needy organizations, can't give away all the money they get fast enough, so they end up spending it on things like "gold toilets" and stuff like that. When there are so many really good organizations out there, desperately in need of funds.... the fact that this money can't get to them saddens me.

Even if these rich oil men hired out a company, to do nothing but donate money to worthy causes, they still would not be able to give the money away fast enough. This amount of money, boggles my mind when I think of all the people in the world who are starving to death.... it's unreal.

Short Essay Ideas

First of all... I just noticed that sometime between when I posted about There Will Be Blood and now.... I either didn't get it posted, and it floated into No-Mans Land.... or I somehow deleted it... Still looking into it. I really liked the movie, and I enjoyed writing about it... guess I get to write about it two times in a row. *sigh*

Concerning the Short Essay.

I like the idea of number 2. I'm a car person, so this one really appealed to me. Initially I thought about doing number 1 since I like the movie, and I had already started comparing some things in the movie to the book. (i.e. certain characters that could be clearly seen in Daniel Plainview.)

I think #2 is better in my case though as I like history, cars and I drive a lot; therefore, gas accounts for quite a large part of my budget. I really don't understand a whole lot about the workings of the lowering and increasing of gas prices. Since entering this class, I'm starting to get a bit better of an idea. Being the intensely curious person I am, I want to know why and how OPEC and other companies can suddenly decide to reduce production and drive up prices. I would like to use this information as a basis for discussing the need or apparent need for alternative methods to propel "personal transit devices".

I've been watching this field of energy efficient cars for quite a few years now, and it has been interesting to see how things have changed. I remember getting excited when hybrid cars started seriously hitting the market near the turn of this century... I believe I was in middle school... (I'm a first class techno nerd.) Now, major companies are offering them at very reasonable prices. I love new technology - my family consists of a bunch of techie-saps - therefore I'm willing to look at anything new and analyze the merits of it. I think it will be fun to take this essay and discover some of the different types of alternative methods for powering PTDs...

I've often thought about what I would like in a car. I'm not completely convinced that the carbon humans produce is as harmful as Global Warming enthusiasts would have us believe. (There is a study that I know of that breaks down the different types of carbon in the atmosphere, and their findings are quite interesting... that's for my final paper though.) Excluding the carbon element of vehicle emissions... the less we have to depend on oil as a whole, the happier I am. If something does happen down the road, we need to have a backup plan already in the process. Preferably one that has been in the process for a number of years at that time. For this reason, I'm actually kind of happy that people are making movies like Oil, Smoke and Mirrors. I don't agree with many things they said, but if it gets people thinking, and galvanizes the geniuses of the world to develop new and better ways to do the same thing as oil, who am I to complain?

As to the essay topic, I also have a family friend in the upper echelon of the government who has been talking to Condoleezza Rice about getting a grant to do a thorough 5 year study of alternative energy. Obviously, he already has great deal of information, and I would like to use him as a source, time permitting.

New technology is fascinating to me, so I'm excited about this topic.