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here's an interesting article to read:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-oi...2956.htmlstory
Quote:
"Howard Dunbar's Tanker Truck 6 rolled into the station one chilly night last September. An amiable ex-cop, Dunbar drives for an independent fuel hauler. At 9:25 p.m., he stepped down from the cab, set out the safety cones, hooked up his hoses with a reassuring click, and then proceeded to unload 7,723 gallons of gasoline and diesel into the station's underground tanks.
It took Dunbar 29 minutes to empty his swimming pool-size cargo--a workaday chore that reveals the triumphs of our motorized civilization but also the seeds of its possible end.
The diesel streaked past a tiny glass porthole on the truck's hoses in a smear of pale yellow, like beer, while the premium unleaded ran colorless as vodka. That particular night, according to one industry method of calculating the explosive energy locked away in crude oil, Dunbar dumped the liquid equivalent of 19.2 million hours of physical labor into the Marathon's storage tanks--or the power of a slave army of 2,200 men working around the clock for a year. This bonanza would be sucked dry by customers in 24 hours, a small, stark example of the nation's awesome petroleum appetite at a time when the planet appears to be lurching into an energy crunch of historic proportions.
By now, most Americans realize that something is profoundly awry in the global oil patch. "
and......
"I truly think we're at one of those turning points where the future's looking so ugly nobody wants to face it," said Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker in Houston who has advised the Bush administration on oil policy. "We're not talking some temporary Arab embargo anymore. We're not talking your father's energy crisis."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/chi-oi...2956.htmlstory
Quote:
"Howard Dunbar's Tanker Truck 6 rolled into the station one chilly night last September. An amiable ex-cop, Dunbar drives for an independent fuel hauler. At 9:25 p.m., he stepped down from the cab, set out the safety cones, hooked up his hoses with a reassuring click, and then proceeded to unload 7,723 gallons of gasoline and diesel into the station's underground tanks.
It took Dunbar 29 minutes to empty his swimming pool-size cargo--a workaday chore that reveals the triumphs of our motorized civilization but also the seeds of its possible end.
The diesel streaked past a tiny glass porthole on the truck's hoses in a smear of pale yellow, like beer, while the premium unleaded ran colorless as vodka. That particular night, according to one industry method of calculating the explosive energy locked away in crude oil, Dunbar dumped the liquid equivalent of 19.2 million hours of physical labor into the Marathon's storage tanks--or the power of a slave army of 2,200 men working around the clock for a year. This bonanza would be sucked dry by customers in 24 hours, a small, stark example of the nation's awesome petroleum appetite at a time when the planet appears to be lurching into an energy crunch of historic proportions.
By now, most Americans realize that something is profoundly awry in the global oil patch. "
and......
"I truly think we're at one of those turning points where the future's looking so ugly nobody wants to face it," said Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker in Houston who has advised the Bush administration on oil policy. "We're not talking some temporary Arab embargo anymore. We're not talking your father's energy crisis."
