Please check out the Rational Middle Energy Series. Then, share it with your friends, co-workers and significant others. Most importantly, after viewing, please take some time and join in this important conversation.
As important to our lives as energy is, we seem to spend a lot of time either dismissing it or arguing about where it should come from. With all the different emotions, concerns and motives involved, it can be hard to make sense of the noise and rhetoric and get a balanced view of energy issues.
We have an opportunity to step back and take a thoughtful look at the current energy challenge. Let's consider a new path to a cleaner energy future. This path invites open discussion and offers everyone willing to work on a solution a place at the table. It is the Rational Middle movement, and its voice is captured in the Rational Middle Energy Series.
Brought to you by the team that produced the acclaimed energy documentary Haynesville, the Rational Middle Energy Series is a series of short films exploring energy topics with titles from "What's at Stake" to "A Day in Our Energy Life" to "The Great Transition". The series will launch this summer —but you can get a preview right here.
It's time we start working on the energy future. It's time for the Rational Middle.
This looks FANTASTIC, Guys! I shall spread the word.
http://www.facebook.com/mzoekeithley Zoe Keithley
Finally!
http://www.facebook.com/mzoekeithley Zoe Keithley
Finally, a discussion we can learn from and join in to find the way forward! Thank you!
The Rational Middle
Thank you, Zoe! We believe the democratization of information is the first step in creating a level playing field to discuss the issues and these first films are about just that.
Gaia
Says the film is private. Cannot open it. How private is it?
The Rational Middle
It shouldn’t be showing as private. Are you still having trouble seeing it?
Lynne Thomas
All common sense, thank you. I plan to send this on to other alert people.
Guilherme Oliveira
When “The Great Transition” episode will be available here to download? It was planned for July 11th, according the press release and I’m looking forward to watching it!
therationalmiddle
It will be released in early September. We will be continuing the discussion as we move forward with our tour and we hope everyone will continue to work with us to create the future of energy which effects not only our electricity and fuel needs, but our health, our quality of life, and our natural environment.
therationalmiddle
That’s right. We have complete creative and informational control. And really, the facts are dictated not by us or even the experts, but by government numbers and trends where available.
ranndino
I’ll still take all this in with a great dose of skepticism in regards to its objectivity. Big oil never does anything that isn’t in its interest.
therationalmiddle
Please do. Look up the facts we present in the films, do your own research, and see where you land. We encourage it.
ranndino
Will do.
http://www.facebook.com/sid.abma.1 Sid Abma
Natural Gas. America is blessed to have so much of this energy available, but as stated in the video, we need this energy to last us 200 years or more. Today America wastes 40% (?) of this energy as HOT exhaust into the atmosphere.
Global warming?
The technology of Condensing Flue Gas Heat Recovery is designed to recover the heat energy from the exhaust gases. This recovered energy can then be used back in the building or facility.
Natural gas can be consumed to near 100% energy efficiency.
Imagine the converted coal to natural gas power plants operating with no chimney’s, and the recovered heat from the exhaust creating hundreds and thousands of jobs producing bio fuels and food.
Near Zero Emission Power Plants operating at near 100% Energy Efficiency.
Large commercial buildings and industries consuming their natural gas to over 90% efficiency.
Increased Energy Efficiency = Reduced utility bills = Profit
Increased Energy Efficiency = Reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Natural gas can be consumed so efficiently that the WATER can be recovered out of these combusted exhaust gases, and this clean-distilled water is very usable.
What natural gas is not wasted today, will be there to be used another day.
therationalmiddle
John, the known reserves of oil are low. 25 years by EIA estimates. Shale drilling has shaken that up not only for gas but for oil. Unlocking shale is proof that higher prices can drive the availability of technology that can access additional reserves that weren’t cost effective before. That said, new technologies and deeper reserves dictate the need for high prices going forward. And that you are exactly right about. There will be a time when we must move beyond oil. To start doing that now is the right move if we’re going to avoid climate change and other challenges and leave some oil for things like plastics and other things that make our lives better.
tumbleweed
Plastics need not be made of petroleum, they can be made from vegetable protiens and what about the subject of hemp? This commodity should be freed up and made legal! Fuel, building materials and the list goes on of its MANY uses. It has a very low THC content that being said, by the time you smoked enough to get high, you would have one doozie of a headache, just sayin! That thing you stated about using natural gas as a feed stock for fertilizer would not need to come into play if we all just went organic, ya think?
therationalmiddle
We aren’t against hemp, but the discussion about arable land, water, and other resources has to be had along side a discussion about moving from fossil-based plastics to plant-based products. Not to mention that many fertilizers are made from ammonia which is extracted from natural gas. Again, the problem goes deep and wide and we have to consider all the angles, including using crop space for things other than food.
I was planning to show my students the series Schock and Awe, I was able to watch it from this link, but is not there anymore, where I could get this video? would this be available for download?
therationalmiddle
Marisol, we have no connection with the series Schock and Awe so unfortunately, we have no way to help you with this.
therationalmiddle
It is certainly being contested. There are those on the other side that have shown how issues with fracking can be mitigated and, in some cases, solved through proper practices enforced by proper regulation. If people didn’t want it, they might be more inclined to stop using the gas or the products that are made using the gas. The supply is driven by demand and there is a measure of pull the public has though purchasing power, in addition to their active voices to promote that stance. But gas is drilled for because there is demand for it. Use less, drill less.
Part of the solution is everyday citizens being aware of how they are using resource they dislike – be it cooking or heating fuel or plastic products that require gas to create them. It’s hard to know sometimes and so if you dislike gas for whatever reason – be it fracking or fugitive emissions or the competition with renewables (all stances that have retorts from the other side) then the decisions people make in their daily lives need to reflect that desire as much as their voices do. We encourage people to act on their opinions, not just speak!
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