OrionWorks - Steven V Johnson <[email protected]> wrote:
> It seems to me that even in the best case scenario it is not likely > that our nation would be motivated (economically and/or politically > speaking) to start digging up all of these service station gas tanks - > not for quite a while. I'd estimate it is likely to take more than 15 > - 20 years from now before such a program might be implemented. > I believe there are EPA rules in place that mandate faster removal than that. But 20 years should be sufficient. Gas stations are not all going to go out of business the same year. It will take 10 or 15 years. As I pointed out in the book, the process will be accelerated toward the end, as fewer and fewer stations are left over people will not be able to drive gasoline powered cars without running out of fuel. As the EPA brochure says, from 1984 to 2004: "Together, EPA, states, tribes, and industry have closed 1.5 million old, unsafe tanks and have upgraded or replaced nearly all other underground storage tanks. Of the 400,000 plus known leaks, nearly 70 percent have been cleaned up; the number of new leaks being discovered each year has dropped dramatically, from a high of over 66,000 in 1990 to roughly 12,000 last year . . ." I think there are 3 tanks in most small gas stations (for the three grades -- it used to be that way). So that's roughly 490,000 tanks. We can handle that. As I said, society as a whole will save fantastic sums of money. We can afford to spend $5 or $10 billion cleaning up the mess left by gas stations and refineries. We will save that much *every week*. So I do not worry about the cost of phasing out the fossil fuel and electric power industries. My only concern is the people who work in those industries. There will gigantic additional savings from the cost of wars and occupying chunks of the Middle East. Al Qaeda will not be a threat when they have no money. Iran will not be making atom bombs. They will be trying to sell figs and dates. Apart from oil, the entire GDP output of all Middle East counties, excluding Israel, is smaller than the GDP of Finland ($238 billion). The combined GDP is also smaller than that of Israel ($217 billion). So Israel will not need our help in defense. Who are they going to defend against? Several million impoverished people who cannot afford food, never mind tanks or nuclear weapons? We will have to help those people, but that will be far cheaper than war. - Jed
