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.