Please stop comparing oil to a drug and its use to addiction.

Like it or not oil has become fundamental to human existence and we are no more addicted to it than some-one is addicted to food or water. To make that comparison masks and minimizes the real issues and suggests that like drugs, the user can just quit if only he can summon the willpower. Or that like so many other problems we think we can solve--like poverty or homelessness--by just making it illegal.

I'm not anti-regulation--quite the contrary--insufficient regulation (along with a serious deficiency of respect and demand for quality and craftsmanship)is obviously what got us here.

Should we work on alternatives? Absolutely; and I was extraordinarily disappointed that Obama didn't make that a Kennedy-esqe national call to action last night.

But to suggest that somehow we can ween ourselves off oil is fantasy. We need safer, cheaper and alternative sources of oil including hemp, synthetics and recoverables. I wonder if Obama's crack team of scientists are pursuing technologies like thermal depolymerization?

In order to 'survive' we are harming ourselves and are unable to stop.

Your statement about drugs, that a user can just quit if they can summon the willpower, shows how little you know about drug treatment. Therefore I can understand why you do not see the comparison as valid.

:thumbsup:

shows how little you comprehend what you read.

I did misread what you typed in relation to the fallacy. And I apologize for that. However, I still believe use the analogy of oil as an addiction is valid. Outside of a few 'extremists', no one has suggested that the solution to our oil addiction is 'cold turkey'. As a nation though, we have not even reached the point of realizing we have a problem. There is a massive oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico destroying our environment and food supply. And the people living there and their representatives are complaining that a six-month moratorium is going to hurt their jobs. People still frequent the BP near me. People still scoff of that the fact that I drive a hybrid when everyone around me drives their SUVs.

for oil to our need for food and water............ sounds like addiction to me:shrug:

covered in our own bodily fluids smoking a rock we bought with panhandled money and we're still insisting it's recreational use.

It's an addiction, and this rationalization only drives the point home further.

We are very addicted, very physically addicted. Most of us would stop functioning without our (oil) addiction. It isn't a mind over matter thing with many substances. We will need to find a new form of energy to take the place of the old addiction.

Physical dependence can manifest itself in the appearance of both physical and psychological symptoms but which are caused by physiological adaptions in the central nervous system and the brain due to chronic exposure to a substance. Symptoms which may be experienced during withdrawal or reduction in dosage include increased heart rate and/or blood pressure, sweating, and tremors. More serious withdrawal symptoms such as confusion, seizures, and visual hallucinations indicate a serious emergency and the need for immediate medical care. Sedative hypnotic drugs such as alcohol, benzodiazepines, and barbiturates are the only commonly available substances that can be fatal in withdrawal due to their propensity to induce withdrawal convulsions. Abrupt withdrawal from other drugs, such as opioids or psychostimulants, can exaggerate mild to moderate neurotoxic side effects due to hyperthermia and generation of free radicals<5>, but life-threatening complications are very rare.

Treatment
Treatment for physical dependence depends upon the drug being withdrawn and often includes administration of another drug, especially for substances that can be dangerous when abruptly discontinued. Physical dependence is usually managed by a slow dose reduction over a period of weeks, months or sometimes longer depending on the drug, dose and the individual.<4> A physical dependence on alcohol is often managed with a cross tolerant drug, such as long acting benzodiazepines to manage the alcohol withdrawal symptoms.

Drugs that cause physical dependence
nicotine<6>
opioids<7>
barbiturates
benzodiazepines (see benzodiazepine dependence and benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome)
nonbenzodiazepines, such as zopiclone<8>
ethyl alcohol (alcoholic beverage)<9>
GHB<10>
methaqualone (Quaalude)
caffeine<11>
blood pressure medications such as beta blockers<12><13>
androgenic-anabolic steroids<14><15>
glucocorticoids<16>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_dependence

I disagree with you that we can't wean ourselves off of oil, we can, it's a matter of doing it by supporting the alternatives that we know have promise and funding research into new technology.

1. A good three semester course in "Unit Op" -- like Byrd, Stewart, and Lightfoot
   
2. A good polymer science course - think Fred Rodriguez
   
3. Applied Reaction Kinetics
   
4. Chem E thermo
   
5. Computer Methods in Chem E -- which I sometimes teach, I'm a fair grader and have a good sense of humor.
   

Your suggestion is noted which brought forth the not altogether mocking suggestion above.

Un sub
PhD ChemE, PE

Evidently you are one of those who feels that anyone with lesser education or experience in a particular field is not qualified to even so much as ask a question, let alone present a layman's opinion of that field. As in "you've never been in the military so you are not qualified to have an opinion on the war."

BTW how's your research into synthetic oils & fuels coming along?

is fuel cells and batteries.

What has become fundamental to human existence is the ability to harness energy to our own devices.

This began when humans first found the ability to keep, use, and make fire.

The fuels change, but the fundamental necessity doesn't change.

What we need is a different source for that energy. Our fundamental need for the energy will never go away.

That is certainly one of its major uses, but petroleum is in damn near everything we touch and I can't see that changing in the near future.

The petroleum industry had to find uses for the waste products of refining.

Thus was invented "Nylon". But nylon had to compete with stronger, better, and cheaper natural fibers.

Thus was invented "marijuana" to insure cannabis, the primary source of cheap, strong natural fibers better than nylon would be illegal and the competition would be taken out.

Anything synthesized from petroleum waste products can be synthesized from renewable resources.

Valid points.

can be synthesized from coal tars and from vegetable oils, and even animal fats.

Back before "steel died" (1980's) recovery of coal tars and fumes from the "coking" process was a major -- and highly profitable sideline -- for the iron and steel industry. Everything from plastic precursors (monomers) to aspirin was produced from these coal tars.

as I don't see that happening without a substitute that I don't think we have yet, and may not ever have.

fuel sources above and beyond human strength. No one really wants to get out in a field and work. No one really wants to walk and keeping animals in the quantity to support what we call work these days is not feasible. It takes a lot of energy to get behind a desk and write e-mails and push paper.

1 gallon of gas equals 30 hours of human energy.

But since we can no longer separate our leisure from our work, it then translates into addiction.

If you can find a better high that what oil gives society, I would love to know about.

And on a side note: food and water are necessary for survival, oil is not.

Remove oil from our lives, we still live. A much more labor intensive life, but we will be just fine.

Therefore, believing that we require oil to survival, sounds like an addict talking.

Coming soon to a strip mall to you: OAA: Oil Addicts Anonymous.

Our entire culture is based around making each other feel guilty. As near as I can tell, this has always been true. However, this empathic feeling today appears extremely asymmetric. Corporations, being non-sentient, cannot feel it, for they have no feelings; only humans within the corporation can, and they are required to suppress their feelings for the work they are paid to do.