Man I'm glad I'm not a Gulf Fisherman!

So what are the chances of something like the BP Gulf oilspill happening in Western Washington I wonder? 

If you ask me - 100%.  Given enough time some tanker will get into trouble along our coast and wipe out a fishery, or three.

couple weeks after the big gulf blow up exactly what you mention happened at a terminal or refinery  in the port angeles area.  you'd have to dig thru seattle  area news but u should find it.

couple weeks after the big gulf blow up exactly what you mention happened at a terminal or refinery  in the port angeles area.  you'd have to dig thru seattle  area news but u should find it.

I am not finding the event to which you are referring.  However, there is nothing happening in Puget Sound or off the coast of WA that could be "exactly what you mention" whether you were referring to the BP Gulf spill or a "wipe out" of a fishery.

While the spillage of a few hundred or even a few thousand gallons of oil is distressing it represents little to no long-term environmental damage.

Remember, super tankers are already banned from Puget Sound. 

http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=5620

it was in anacortes at the shell or tesoro refinery and is now being hushed up. i can only find one report of it now and it's locked up on a state web site that wont let me into it.

I've never considered myself a "tree hugger" by any means.  I enjoy fishing (and eating my catch whenever possible), I bought a Marlin 44 hunting riffle (always wanted a cowboy lever action) and plan on doing the hunter safety class this year. I believe that animals and nature should not be "worshipped", but man... I don't think God intended us to be such lousy stewards of His creation either.  

I wonder what's being done to insure that we still get the energy we need, without having the same disasters occurring here that has occurred in Alaska and the Gulf?

-Just my two cents.

I wonder what's being done to insure that we still get the energy we need, without having the same disasters occurring here that has occurred in Alaska and the Gulf?

Two things: 

One, we are not drilling for oil off the coast of WA, OR, or in Puget Sound.  However to be honest, if there was oil out there off the coast I'd be for drilling, and the shallower the better.

Two, super tankers are not allowed into Puget Sound east of Port Angeles due to the 1977 Magnuson Act. 

ok, so thats a good thing from the Magnusson Act.

would we ever really benefit from offshore wave and wind turbine power to help mitigate the growing demand for just electrical power? i've always seen a huge uprising of hatred when those have been proposed.

bad stewards? generally i believe in the honesty of the average person. what i dont believe in is the politcally lobbieist driven junk science that has become the basis of "modern ecological management" . i think that is where the bad stewardship begins.

still have not been able to crack that gate on that website.

ok, so thats a good thing from the Magnusson Act.

would we ever really benefit from offshore wave and wind turbine power to help mitigate the growing demand for just electrical power? i've always seen a huge uprising of hatred when those have been proposed.

There are a number of problems with these sorts of power sources, they are not steady, they are very low density, they are very expensive. 

Since they are not steady we still need some to "fill in", and today that is fossil fuel or nuke.  Because they are not steady an industrial base can not be powered by them.  This is one reason selling "green energy" to the second and third worlds is such a hard sell.  A country is NOT going to pull itself out of a subsistence existence with "green energy".  The first world trying to sell this to the third world is seen in the third world as an attempt to keep them down.

Because they are low density we need lots of them.  You can put a nuke plant on a few acres, but a comparable wind farm would be many, many square miles.  Which do you think would actually have less "environmental" impact?

Because they are very low density they are very, very expensive and none of them would be built without government subsidies.  Remember a subsidy is your tax money being funneled to a favored recipient.  Google "residential photovoltaic panel" and check out the subsidies.

Finally, the "green" lobby is not really about the environment, it is about destroying capitalism.

I like what I've seen about solar thermal, where they focus sunlight on a central point, and boil water, or some other liquid to drive turbines.  We have plenty of desert space for this, and it's a lot more efficient and practical than conversion panels.

Flame suit on. 

Honestly we would not NEED all this extra energy already if it were not for, welfare checks given to the women that can keep sneaking a new kid under the radar each year, or the fertility drugs that allow near infertile humans to breed like bunnies, or all the medication given to keep a person alive that wants it to end already, or the over packed jails with death row candidates.  So many "extra" mouths to feed.  Each one takes some form of energy to keep alive.

And another thing.... how much wasted energy is being used to ship goods out of our country, have it manufactured in a non environmentally consious manner overseas, only to have it shipped back and sold to us? 

Bet you'd love to know that Veteran's, that a currently in prison, are still allowed to send us claims whenever they like.

That generates a lot of work which incurs more debt on uncle Sam's (read: taxpayer's) wallet.  Sure, we only pay them 10% disability while they are in prison, BUT, most claims generate an examination by a qualified physician and loads of processing by VA employees.  Neat huh?


As for the rest of those things, modern medicine has eliminated natural selection in our nation.  People born with all sorts of ailments are able to live, and even worse, pass on their bad genes to the next generation.  THEN, to compound the situation, welfare programs make sure they still get fed.

Regardless of welfare reform, food stamp programs continue to pay - indefinitely, even if the person isn't looking for a job.

Neat huh?

YET, even with all these unemployed people, farmers in Eastern Washington are flying in 3000 (yes, three thousand) laborers from out of country to pick their crops, because americans make more money on unemployment and feel the work is "beneath" them.

As for the rest of those things, modern medicine has eliminated natural selection in our nation.  People born with all sorts of ailments are able to live, and even worse, pass on their bad genes to the next generation.  THEN, to compound the situation, welfare programs make sure they still get fed.

While we're side tracked... anyone else ever see the movie  "Idiocracy"

My family lives in Sarasota and I've fished the Gulf...and was HOPING to purchase a kayak down there for my extended stays.  The gulf coast, particularly in Florida, has a huge kayak fishing community.  There are a great number of fish inshore feeding in grass flats and around pilings: pompano, redfish, spanish mackerel, grouper, sheepshead and more... all easily catchable from a kayak.  Alot of the coastline is quite porous, salt marshes teeming with the life integral to the entire food chain.   If/when oil hits this delicate ecosystem the results will be catastrophic.  You can clean oil off a beach but not a marsh.  Bye bye fishing..and that's just the beginning.  It is upsetting beyond belief.

There is, unfortunately, a precedent to this gulf spill.  The Ixtoc oil spill, near the Yucatan Peninsula in 1979 is the 4th largest sopill in history.  Took 10 months to cap, and oil washed ashore in Texas.

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

As for the rest of those things, modern medicine has eliminated natural selection in our nation.  People born with all sorts of ailments are able to live, and even worse, pass on their bad genes to the next generation.  THEN, to compound the situation, welfare programs make sure they still get fed.

While we're side tracked... anyone else ever see the movie  "Idiocracy"

 Extra Big A#$ Fries!   

BTW... remember that scene where the dump trucks are piling up the mountain of garbage into something that resembles one of the alps?  Well, we have one in pierce county that my wife and I call Idiocracy Mountain.