Real Media (rm) Download

I just listened to Winning the Oil Endgame given by Amory Lovins. You may also want to download the PDF which goes into much more detail and was written in 2005. Here's two snippets from the executive summary:
...The cornerstone of the next industrial revolution is therefore winning the Oil Endgame. And surprisingly, it will cost less to displace all of the oil that the United States now uses than it will cost to buy that oil....
...Investing $180 billion over the next decade to eliminate oil dependence and revitalize strategic industries can save $130 billion gross, or $70 billion net, every year by 2025....
In his talk he shows how nearly all oil dependance can be removed and no draconian policies or taxes need to be implemented. In addition saving oil by being more efficient makes you more profitable, we just need to make companies see the light.
His talk, amazingly, doesn't even cover wind-farms, nuclear energy or anything really exotic. The only 'cutting edge' technology he thinks should be implemented is using carbon fiber to build cars instead of sheet metal. He goes into detail how this can be done for cars and heavy trucks with substantial savings.

But the real reason I'm posting this entry is because I really don't like Real Media streaming. When I try to stream on my machine, when I click pause, then click play it starts from the start! The talks is an hour and a half long, and I didn't want to sit through half an hour again! The trick in Linux is to run:
mplayer -dumpstream "http://mfile.akamai.com/lovins-oil.rm" -dumpfile lovins-oil.rm
and then run mplayer on the .rm file. (note url above was shortened to fit and isn't correct). Now I can watch the video the way I want, and click pause if needed. Thanks again Linux.

Comments

James Aach said…
Nuclear power and saving oil don't mix much presently in the US, as oil is only rarely used for electric generation and that's all nuclear is used for. If we do go more to electric or hydrogen powered cars, then the two begin to mix. You might find my website interesting if you'd like an entertaining look at power generation from a nuclear insider.
3:04 pm
Scott Kirkwood said…
James Aach points to an online novel he's written called Rad Decision (get it?). It's a novel that takes place in a nuclear powerplant, and attempts to be entertaining and informative (from someone who's worked inside the nuke industry for years).
About the comment. The use is both 'addicted' to both oil and coal. Both release CO2 in the air and is helping to change the climate. The paper I cited only talked about oil.
Incidentally, I'm pro-nuclear. There was a Scientific American article recently talking about a closed loop nuclear fuel cycle which would be more expensive but eliminate the nuclear waste problem.
10:03 am
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