RE: Hummers

["Paddy Apling" <e.c.apling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This subject heading is mysterious to a Brit whose dictionary only gives the
definition "a person or thing that hums, as a bee, a humming=bird, a top;
one who makes things hum."

However, realising from the context that you are refrring to energy reserves
just prompts me to say that I agree with L V Nadal that such discussion has
little immediate relevance.  Stories of the running out of resources have
been a constant refrain throughout the centuries and do not take account of
human ingenuity and discovery which have always, in the past, refuted the
pessimists and are likely to do so in this century.

It is worth recalling that - when wood was the main building material and
source of energy - the shortage of oak for shipbuilding in England so
concerned the government of Henry VIII that a law was passed requiring every
exporter of beer [there was at the time a considerable export of beer from
England to the Low Countries] to enter into a bond to import sufficient oak
staves to manufacture an equivalent number of barrels.  Little could Henry
imagine that eventually ships (and beer barrels) would be made of iron and
steel, or aluminium !! - and that the main energy resource would be, first
coal, and then that peculiar stuff seen burning in areas around the Caspian
Sea -(mineral oil)...  and, of course, there are now many more trees in
Britain than there were in the time of Henry VIII, just as the coal reserves
in UK are still vast, though more difficult of extraction that they were in
former times.

Predictions of the future should be left to "Old Moore"..... This does not
mean, of course, that I am saying that concern for CONTROL of known oil
reserves is not a major concern of the US government - it clearly IS - and
it is not just oil they want to control - it is the whole world !!

Paddy
NFHS Member #5594
Mailto:E.C.Apling@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://apling.freeservers.com/index.htm
or http://www.e.c.apling.btinternet.co.uk