Gas Rage In Staten Island

So what? We do *not* have to build something that can last that time right now. Besides, the pyramid builders could build something that lasted for

-- at the smallest estimates -- 6 frickin' thousand years. You think we can't?

In a few centuries at most, we'll have either safe space travel via a space elevator or something similar, or we'll be dead as a species and won't care about the nuke waste any more either.

Jasper

That's what hydraulic lifts are for. No, what's difficult is getting his wheelchair into a vehicle with a roof not much more above the floor than a regular car. That's why the minivan would be much more useful.

Jasper

But that still does nothing to resolve the mid to long term problem of refineries and demand. Like the news has reported there hasn't been a new refinery built in about 30 years. And usage has increased, Thus you still have a supply issue.

Ken

More hypotheticals. It is impossible to plan for all events. Not too many people thought a chunk of foam hitting a space shuttle would cause it to burn up as it re-entered the atmoshpere. Not too many people thought a group of terrorist would use planes as cruise missles. There are just to many ' what if ' s to think of them all.

Ken

FWIW, I think Bush was exactly right in using some of the reserves for this event. This seems like precisely the thing the SPR was designed for: temporary problems.

Whenever we're past this event, though, we still have very serious long term strategic problems. We have an economy that is addicted to uninterrupted delivery of oil from foreign powers - powers that are accepting bids from other eager customers. Seems to me that makes us very vulnerable to all sorts of disasters, attacks and shenanigans.

- Frank Krygowski

Agreed. The only benefit Art gets from choosing an SUV over a van is the ability to conform to a truly stupid trend.

I talked to a 25-year-old today who said "But of course, I've _got_ to have an SUV. I work nights, and I need it for the snow around here."

Except I've worked days, afternoons and nights in this area for many decades, and I've never had snow I couldn't drive through. That's with

1960s front engine rear wheel drives, or modern front wheel drives, or anything in between.

- Frank Krygowski

I'll agree with you on that, I grew up in a city, where if you were not going uphill, you were going down, and we got some nasty winters, front wheel drive was rare in those days. I learned the simple trick to winter driving, don't do anything quickly. Yeah, it's that simple, as soon as you do something quickly, steer, accelerate or brake, you are guaranteed to be in trouble.

W

Again, it's a matter of what one considers acceptable odds. Obviously, nothing is or can be absolutely guaranteed in life. But there are acceptable odds, and unacceptable odds. Actually, it's a lot more complicated than this (who decides what's acceptable? upon what criteria? how valid is the odds-making?). The point being that while an inability to attain a 100% fail-safe system should not, in and of itself, necessarily preclude potentially risky and dangerous ventures, neither should this lead one to adopt a cavalier attitude towards risk. But we digress from the original topic...

Kovie snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.netizen

I mispoke, not being an expert in hazmat shipping. But while the risks, as you mention, might be higher for hazmats than nuclear waste, because the former aren't protected as well, they are nevertheless still not 0% for the latter. And, given what just happened in NO, I have a bit of a problem with the "conceivable" qualification above. Clearly, sometimes the inconceivable (at least for public officials, who continually give us reason to question their foresight, and thus their judgement) happens, with devastating consequences. I'm not saying we should all live in caves and minimize all risk, just that proper risk management is absolutely essential.

He didn't say no fuel, just less fuel. Thus the word "scarcity". Look it up sometime. ;-)

Although I do disagree with Campy, that either scarcity OR higher prices are likely to curtail driving.

Agreed, in priniple, that you've got to draw the line on the "what if's" at some point. But at what point is that, exactly, and who gets to decide? Personally, I'd rather err on the side of anal-retentive obsessive-compulsiveness than throw all caution to the wind (literally, in fact, in the two horrible examples you cited, both of which likely could have been prevented with a more intelligent and thorough approach to risk analysis and mitigation).

Couldn't agree more.

I heard that nuclear power plants were environmental disaster waiting to happen. I also heard that anybody living within a 100 mile radius of such a plant had a 90% chance of getting cancer and that their offspring would be genetic mutants. That's what my local Petroleum Refiners and Distributors of America rep told me. I believe him.

Big deal so some kids in the future will have 12 fingers, or something stupid like that. Cheap energy is needed and worth the risk.

Ken

Apparently some were born without a brain already.

florian /FF/

Until it actually happens, who really knows, even crash testing doesn't guarantee success, maybe you have and older tank, and there is a microscopic crack, and the guy looking for it, broke up with his girlfriend before the shift started and isn't paying as much attention as he should. Maybe you have another guy driving a cement truck while drunk (his boyfriend left him, for a girl), hits a bridge support, and the bridge needs maintenance, but budget cuts at the railroad have put it off until next year, and the bridge collapses just as that train is passing overhead. The cracked tank, hits whats left of the cement truck at just the right angle, and explodes, which overwhelms the protective ability of the other tanks, causing a chain reaction explosion, just outside a major city, and 5,000,000 people are now feeling the effects of a dirty bomb.

People will be saying it can't happen, until it does.

W

Of course their addiction to video-gaming and 'keyboarding' has nothing to do with it. Where better to put their corpulence than in extra fat fingers (you put the hyphen where you will).

Actually, both of those were things that *were* foreseen.

- Everybody knew bad enough damage to a Shuttle's heat shields would cause it to burn up, and NASA knew that the heat shields were getting damaged on lift off on a regular basis. They didn't have the funding to do anything about it, though.

- I refer you to Tom Clancy, who in '97 or so used terrorist-bores-747-into-the-Capitol as the plot point by which his Jack Ryan becomes President just hours after the vote confirming his vice presidency and minutes *before* his swearing in.

Jasper

Note that I said 'conceivable collision with a stationary object or an oncoming train' -- that's a fairly narrow set of specs. Incidentally, it's also what's used for those chlorine tanks -- in the event of a crash, they'll mainly just pile up on one another, without even a slow leak, let alone bursting. Nuclear waste containers are the size of regular shipping containers for at most a cubic meter worth of active material, and all the rest is containment.

Incidentally, the NO thing was hardly unforeseen. There are news reports going back to 2001, at least, of the "what could happen if" variety.

Nuke transports tend to be canceled in the event of major weather or protestors, in fact, they're cancelled at the drop of a hat. That's the first line of defence.

Jasper