Dr. Larid Thompson

I wasn't able to watch the program on t.v. because I had to take my daughter to the Dr. So I watched in on iTunes and the quality wasn't very good. I had a difficult time seeing the power point slides clearly. I thought his presentation was full of lots of complex and complicated slides. A little difficult to keep up with what he was talking about on the iTunes version. I wished Dr. Thompson had a pointer because that would have helped to see in which part of his slide he was referring to during his presentation.
He had a lot of information and I felt very informed when he was done. It is so scary too to see how our consumption is high and growing and the resources of oil and coal are depleting. His information on how we reached the mid-point of total production capacity in the 1970's was depressing. Also when he talked about that fact that 63% of oil, natural seeps into the earth and atmosphere was scary to me too. The fact that we are very inefficient and we use only 63% of the energy we produce made me feel like a greedy American.
The process of oil and where it was found was really interesting. I was one of those people who thought it came from dinosaurs although I did question this belief. I thought it was interesting seeing how the oil platforms and rigs work. The information on the barrel of oil and how it is refined was difficult to see but I can tell that it goes into making different things at the different levels in the barrel. I thought that was interesting.
I like the idea of biodiesel and did hear that Volkswagen is going to sell a Passat that is diesel and can run on biofuels. I thought the idea of switching from corn to switch grass was interesting except it is not native to the U.S. The fact that sweet potatoes and sugar beets can produce more ethanol fuel than corn was something I did not know either. But like Dr. Thompson said economics drives everything and with the corn farmer lobbyist out there I'm not sure if the use of corn can be changed or shared with another source.
It seems there has to be a better solution. Someone in class asked it a little bit of all the different ideas that are valid and being presented can be put into practice. I liked that idea. I think then it might not put a strain on one thing. Like with the corn crops it isn't great for the soil to keep having the same type of crop.
So the bottom line sounds like we need to be more efficient as individuals and be more aware of how we use our energy. There was a show on television that had a family of four trying to live off the grid. I watched a little of it and tried to tape it because I'd like to see what they did and how I can incorporate it into my life.