Possibly the end of relying on oil?

evhudsons

heiney9 wrote: »

labeling a single group and stating they are at fault is ludicris and plain silly.

Yes sir, I agree with that completely. You speak the truth on that one.

tommyt21

P.s. I am neither super religious nor a rabid environmentalist. But labeling a single group and stating they are at fault is ludicris and plain silly.

That is all, carry on[/QUOTE]
Maybe this was the part that wasn't so clear, I am not describing all individuals who care about the enviroment as nuts. I sincerley did not mean that. However there are people that profit from scaring people with enviromental issues. Those individuals are who I describe as enviromental exstremists. They are a powerful group and do have a lobby. This will be my last post on this as I feel we probably agree on more than we disagree, however my communication skills in posting are not that great.

polkfarmboy

Just thought I would ask since you guys know............ What does peak oil production really mean ?

There is a town right next to me called Williston and they found oil just recently and people who lived there have had to move out because they cant afford to live in their home town. There is people coming from all over the USA and its gotten so bad that there are no homes to live in or apartments so everyone is bringin RV's and the conditions are terrible. You can smell **** a mile away lol and there are big rigs coming in and out like crazy all hours. The people who own houses there are renting out single rooms in their homes for $1250 a month in a 4bdrm. The store owners are racking in the cash and driving up prices. The town used to be just a tiny quiet lil ghost town and now its exploding

evhudsons

I hope they aren't using the nearby locals to run the rigs. Dangerous.

nooshinjohn

evhudsons wrote: »

I hope they aren't using the nearby locals to run the rigs. Dangerous.

They have already banned PFB, and anyone related to him going back three generations, from getting within a half a mile of operations...

inspiredsports

While it's true that we only import about 1/7th (14+%) of our oil from the middle east, that 1/7th is problematic.

Oil is a commodity and small changes in supply can skyrocket prices. We don't have as much uncertainty with Canadian and Mexican imports.

We need to get the Middle East portion or our supply down to less than 2% to nearly negate their ability to influence pricing.

cnh

I pretty much agree with Tony and Brock above. But I do also believe that if it were possible to make some alternative sources of energy profitable and you could get Big Oil and Big Gov't together on that. Oil would be, what it should be, a dated form of energy. Of no relevance to the 21st century.

However, as pointed out, that "would not" necessarily save us, the consumer, money. Because BOTH new taxes and NEW PROFITS for Corps would eat up our savings. So while the future looks bright for both Companies and the State. It's not that promising for our "pockets". The main problem is that too many have profited for too long off "energy".

Oh well, what else is new under the sun? Maybe we can capture some of that solar wind, flares, that hit us recently and power the world for 100 years for 'free'. Free energy...now there's a nasty idea. It's Un-American! lol

Ultimately, the most important form of energy for this planet is free and has always been so. And if it weren't we'd all be dead. Got Sun?

cnh

heiney9

Two words

DiLithium Crystals

H9

evhudsons

There will always be a market and job rich fields for energy. Even if we have vehicles running on alternative fuels we will always use oil for other products such as plastics. Food can grow freely and we are free to grow our own, but my grocery bill will always remain a huge part of my budget. I think international control and also environmental concerns drive the oil issues more than cost.

evhudsons

Ha ha you made me google that! Awesome and a perfect post H9!

markmarc

tonyb wrote: »

Algae is another one of those bandaid energy fixes, flavor of the month. It just isn't sustainable for the amount we need. Which is why even knowing about it for decades, it's gone nowhere. Electric cars are about 100 years old now, gone nowhere. Wind, solar, has promiss for limited applications. You can come up with probably 10 more alternatives for energy, but none are more applicable than oil.

If you took the hundreds of billions of dollars we spent in the last 5 years on alternatives, and put that into refineries, pipelines, and deregulation, gas prices would be under 2 bucks and we wouldn't even be having these discussions.

The problem with algae for years was the inability to produce in large quantities in a small space. Before, they would grow it in man-made concrete ponds making it economically impractical. With the development of vertical tube growth, that problem has been solved. If it produces 20% of our need in 2025 that's a significant chunk of our petroleum usage. In addition, the number of good-paying jobs and revenue produced for the states make it a winning combination. Sir Richard Branson, a billionaire has invested heavily in the technology. The US Navy ramping up production as a way providing a consistent fuel source to the fleet.

Tony, if we are going to discuss the tens, not hundreds of billions in alternative energy efforts, we must also look at the specialized tax breaks of equal dollars given to the oil industry at a time when cash flow isn't an issue for them. We can all complain rightfully so about Solyndra, but some of that debacle was caused by the Chinese dumping solar chips at below cost (people were warning that would happen). I'm an all-in kind of guy, I want all forms of energy to be pursued. Some areas of effort will fail, others will succeed. History teaches us that those who don't seek out new ways of doing things are doomed to be at the mercy of those who do.

tommyt21

heiney9 wrote: »

Two words

DiLithium Crystals

H9

..Trekky.. Did you ever see the movie "The Saint"? Cold Fusion.

polkfarmboy

Heating up salt with solar power

brgman

First off i was being sarcastic about the algae.Some didn't get that.The One said it in a speech last week and i almost choked.
Second,with all of this talk of new energy i say great.I hope we find something viable.
But until then why don't we quit playing games and drill for what we have and use it?
There is so much oil available but no no no we can't go get it.
Instead we make the average person suffer thru this crap day after day for NO reason.It is a sham.And it's not just the big evil oil companies behind it.

F1nut

Drill baby, drill

bmbguy

F1nut wrote: »

Drill baby, drill

And if we're not gonna drill, how 'bout we find some rechargeable batteries that have a life beyond a year or two? Please?

kharp1

tommyt21 wrote: »

AMEN preach it brother!! Most people dont know that North America has more fossil fuel reserves than all of the middle east. It is goverment policies on behalf of the Enviromental Religious Exstremists that put us in the spot we are today!

I would love to see us make the move to close our supplies from the rest of the world and sell only to NA and concentrate on all forms of fuels for our markets since the world supply is on a finite term and supposedly on the final countdown.

tonyb

markmarc wrote: »

The problem with algae for years was the inability to produce in large quantities in a small space. Before, they would grow it in man-made concrete ponds making it economically impractical. With the development of vertical tube growth, that problem has been solved. If it produces 20% of our need in 2025 that's a significant chunk of our petroleum usage. In addition, the number of good-paying jobs and revenue produced for the states make it a winning combination. Sir Richard Branson, a billionaire has invested heavily in the technology. The US Navy ramping up production as a way providing a consistent fuel source to the fleet.

Tony, if we are going to discuss the tens, not hundreds of billions in alternative energy efforts, we must also look at the specialized tax breaks of equal dollars given to the oil industry at a time when cash flow isn't an issue for them. We can all complain rightfully so about Solyndra, but some of that debacle was caused by the Chinese dumping solar chips at below cost (people were warning that would happen). I'm an all-in kind of guy, I want all forms of energy to be pursued. Some areas of effort will fail, others will succeed. History teaches us that those who don't seek out new ways of doing things are doomed to be at the mercy of those who do.

Agree Mark, don't misunderstand me, I'm all for trying new things and as a country we need an all inclusive energy policy. Key here is "all", not just those you like as we see today. I don't like artificially creating one market while destroying another, you gain zero. Also, as a country, if your going to toss billions of bucks down the tubes as basically a venture capitalist with the people's money, cut something else so as not to add it to the deficit.

Also I am not a fan of government subsidizing any corporations. Don't like big oil getting it, GM...G.E., wall street bailouts etc. If you eased up on some regulations in these industries, you wouldn't need to bail them out. Whats next ? Bailouts of public pension funds....wait for it, it will come. Where will they get the money ? Print it of coarse, though you might here a fancy terminology from Ben B. like stimulus or quantative easing. Bottomline....you'll pay because the value of the dollar will sink further and the costs of goods and services will go north. It's a shell game folks, with accountability buried under a slew of government agencies and processes that were created by the very people who seek to avoid being accountable.

tonyb

pitdogg2 wrote: »

^^^^^you'd better believe it's been done before.......when the oil companies make 100's of billions of $$ profit per 1/4 and yet we as tax payers still subsidize them and most if not ALL of the politicians are in their pockets NOTHING will ever change.

There's alittle caveot to that subsidy for oil I'm not sure your aware of. It's to be used for new technologies. Believe me, I'm not one to stick up for big oil. They've been getting these subsidies for years, yet, nothing new I'm aware of. Plus you have to wonder who's overlooking the subsidies to make sure they are being spent/applied as they should.

Same with Solar and other alternatives. It all came out of the stimulus package that we had to pass right now. Don't read it, just vote for it. Remember that ? Remember who was appointed the watchdog for those funds ? Joe Biden....is he being held accountable ? Is anyone demanding he be held accountable ? Is anyone demanding to know why the taxpayer got stiffed and the investors made out like bandits ? Is anyone demanding big oil account for their subsidies ? Know why ? Because the money trail and accountability always....always leads back to Washington.....but never a single person.

Anyone ask why nobody went to jail with the wall street collapse ? Anyone even lose a job ? How about Fannie and Freddy ? Tens if not hundreds of billions lost, anyone under investigation, get fired ? Nope, they got rewarded with millions of your money.

We are very good at misdirected anger, seeking out that villian to blame for all our woes. At times it's even pointed out for us by the press or talking heads, but the real villians, the real thieves, are down on capitol hill. Today, it's oil companies and subsidies, yesterday was wall street and bankers, tomarrow it will be the "Rich" all the way up to election time, it's always everyone elses fault but those who enable and even benefit.

kharp1

Plenty of conundrums.

nooshinjohn

tonyb wrote: »

... tomarrow it will be the "Rich" all the way up to election time, it's always everyone elses fault but those who enable and even benefit.

Actually, the current bad guys are those evil rich, religous zealot conservatives that want to see women die, barefoot and pregnant, because we denied them access to "women's reproductive healthcare"...free condoms for those of you in Rio Linda.

mrbigbluelight

F1nut wrote: »

The Arabs actually don't have a hold on us, although a lot of folks (oil companies, Wall St.) would like us to think they do.

I've been trying to warn you peoples about them pesky Canadians for years.

kharp1

We do pay less for petro than those guys from up north don't we?? At least that's something.

tonyb

mrbigbluelight wrote: »

I've been trying to warn you peoples about them pesky Canadians for years.

LOL !! Yeah, sneaky bastages ain't they.

Kidding of coarse, love Canadians....they actually have a sense of humor.

mrbigbluelight

It's kind of amazing how much oil is used in Agri-business in this country.
It requires a LOT of oil to make a farm run and it's requiring increasing amounts of fertilizer/pesticides/herbicides to produce the crops/animals that we consume and to process and ship them to where we store them until we consume them.

In about 1960, we pretty much ran out of arable land so the market responded by basically tripling the productivity of each acre of land. Pretty cool. Took some genetic mods on corn (and wheat and soybeans and ... whatever Monsanto chose) and some pretty spiffy mods on their associated pesticides/herbicides (Again, Monsanto).

One minor little glitch should be mentioned, I guess. Monsanto's "RoundUp Ready" genetically modded corn ? Well, kind of seems like the weeds that RoundUp used to kill have sort of genetically modified themselves, and now we have weeds out in farm fields that actually prefer bathing in RoundUp rather than rain showers.

What's that have to do with oil ?
Well, it has to do with the efficiency of converting plant products into bio-diesel. Long story short, producing bio-diesel and/or ethanol requires more oil for production than the resultant "eco-friendly" product.
So ethanol/biofuel as we know it now is, IMO, a losing proposition.

Should we do as our honorable friend F1-"I Can See Alaska From Here !"-Nut suggests, "Drill Baby Drill" ?
Or as others have suggested, that we run that slurry pipeline down from Canada ?

Don't know, but it would seem to me that if the Gov't would subsidize the people rather than Big Oil, we'd get more bang for our buck.
$100 billion here and $100 billion there to outright pay for insulating homes/factories/places of business is much wiser than $100's of billions here and $Trillions there to fight others for oil resources. With one restriction: products used have to be made in the USA. Just my opinon.

tonyb

mrbigbluelight wrote: »

Don't know, but it would seem to me that if the Gov't would subsidize the people rather than Big Oil, we'd get more bang for our buck.
$100 billion here and $100 billion there to outright pay for insulating homes/factories/places of business is much wiser than $100's of billions here and $Trillions there to fight others for oil resources. With one restriction: products used have to be made in the USA. Just my opinon.

Nice thought, but in reality, we don't have to fight anyone for oil, we have our own and plenty of friends who are willing to sell it to us without fighting for it. We are fighting only ourselves in this regard. Thats why it's so stupid. Government shouldn't be subsidizing anyone, you want to lower your energy bill, you'll do it on your own if costs is an issue for you. Again, it's treating the symptom and not the problem because costs doesn't have to be where it is today.

Every sector wants a subsidy in some form and they usually get it. We aren't working on 16 trillion in debt because of the fiscal hawks thats for sure. You have to start saying NO, and cutting spending to get the value of the dollar back up. Value goes up, prices come down, pretty simplistic imho anyway.

bmbguy

And that's tough to do with the Fed trashing our dollar every chance they get.

tonyb

I just can't help it. Here's a good example of government at it's best. A subsidized wind farm, we payed to have it built, now the users pay to have it NOT run.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/govt-subsidized-wind-farms-told-not-to-produce-energy/

Just frickin' unbelievable.

tommyt21

tonyb wrote: »

I just can't help it. Here's a good example of government at it's best. A subsidized wind farm, we payed to have it built, now the users pay to have it NOT run.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/govt-subsidized-wind-farms-told-not-to-produce-energy/

Just frickin' unbelievable.

I made a comment about the enviromental lobby and was promptly spanked for it...

tonyb

tommyt21 wrote: »

I made a comment about the enviromental lobby and was promptly spanked for it...

Really ? Must have missed that thread. Perhaps it was in a Global warming thread ?

Regardless, hope your butt cheeks recovered.