Amory Lovins: We must win the oil endgame

http://www.ted.com In this energizing talk, Amory Lovins lays out his simple plan for weaning the US off oil and revitalizing the economy.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers are invited to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes -- including speakers such as Jill Bolte Taylor, Sir Ken Robinson, Hans Rosling, Al Gore and Arthur Benjamin. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, politics and the arts. Watch the Top 10 TEDTalks on TED.com, at
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/top10

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  Autos & Vehicles

[laurasIs2c]

The major elephant in the room is the fact that the USA is an OPEC nation and therefore our corporations are co conspirators in the fixing of production and pricing.

Working with the same companies who haven't been part of the sustainability discussion at this point is working with a junky, who senses you have the junk he wants.

Also check out the University of Delaware automobiles that work to be part of electrical grid and move 120 miles at a speed of 90, charge in 2.5 hours.

[Paulginz]

Gas is dangerous (a minor leak or high speed car crash --> explosion).

Petroleum is heavy and full of crap. Refineries exist for a reason you know.

Even if there were no restriction at all on drilling in the US, that wouldn't matter. There's just not that much easily extractable oil. Also, the US has passed peak production decades ago.

Nuclear reactors are big and heavy. Also, good luck convincing public opinion that nuclear powered cars are safe.

[Richard Hookway]

How can he sleep?

[fullfist]

search for LFTR thorium reactors. Incomparably cleaner, "WALK AWAY" SAFE, easy access and lots of fuel (for thousands of years)

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if you believe geothermal is "sustainable" then LFTR is too

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the problem is public opinion, people like to shut out their brain when they hear "reactor"

[52111centrumcz]

Actually those are not lead-acid batteries, those have insufficient energy density. Its mostly Li-pol, which is lithium-plastic essentially. That's why the US is in Afghanistan - it has one of the largest deposits of lithium on the planet found lately.

[52111centrumcz]

Considering that nuclear as built right now is basically a first generation paramilitary design for manufacturing plutonium for weapons production with electricity generation as an economic side benefit, they have done pretty well. Look at what a shift building LFTRs would be - they would cost a tenth of what current LWR do, and not require so much maintanence, as well as not requiring shutdown for refuelling.

[52111centrumcz]

land lines - or reverse fuel cells that make syngas out of water and carbon dioxide, converting it to methanol and power it on methanol.

[52111centrumcz]

mass production obviously has left no mark upon your mental landscape.

[52111centrumcz]

The debt exists...the joke is there is more debt then there is money in the economy, so it can never be repayed. The debt to money ratio is exceeding 20 about right now in most countries....

[openuniverse2003]

Isn't this the guy who wants us to go to Mars and "live off the land"? And what's with his breathing? Is he related to Darth Vader?

[capslockbandit]

This is a good thing though. Hopefully it goes to 90% when only people who desire to work will have to. Humans will just pursue their dreams and enjoy abundant lives.

[Soonerg2121]

The other Elephant in the room is technological unemployment.You see where is the job in the future by 2025 when 45% of the people will become unemployed by then. Where’s the customers and demand going to come from if no one is will have any neither money nor income to purchase or Finance efficient clean energy for our cars, houses, and travel.Those jobs and the use of money are primarily obsolete.Those jobs are not coming back and Financing it is also suicide because of debt that doesn't exist.