oil rises after threat, what now?

markmarc

Don't forget when doling out the blame that the oil industry closed down instead of mothballing many refineries. Now we are stuck with a smaller refining capacity. It was smart short-term business, but lousy long term as the industry now has to spend much more to build new (not to mention legal costs).
Big oil is too unweildy to see reality staring them in the face. There are akin to IBM in the 1980's, totally unaware of what needs to be done. They are fast turning into dinosaurs. Too busy with short term profits and small "experimental" alternative projects which in reality are no more than window dressing.
If big oil were to place the $$ from the tax breaks they have received since GWB took office the infrastructure would be in place for a 20% usage of ethanol in this country. Now I realize that ethanol is not particularly energy efficient to produce, but it's still better than sending the money out of the country.

Demiurge

Only took 32 posts!

jdhdiggs

Demiurge wrote:

Only took 32 posts!

Is that a new record? It usually happens in the first 10

MacLeod

markmarc wrote:

Don't forget when doling out the blame that the oil industry closed down instead of mothballing many refineries. Now we are stuck with a smaller refining capacity. It was smart short-term business, but lousy long term as the industry now has to spend much more to build new (not to mention legal costs).

They mothballed them back when gas was barely $1 a gallon. It cost more to bring it up and refine it than they could make off of it. Dont know if you remember or not but a decade or so ago the oil companies were getting hammered by the cheap prices and laying people off left and right. And the reason we havent built a refinery in nearly 30 years is the same reason we havent built a new nuclear plant in nearly 30 years.

Big oil is too unweildy to see reality staring them in the face. There are akin to IBM in the 1980's, totally unaware of what needs to be done. They are fast turning into dinosaurs. Too busy with short term profits and small "experimental" alternative projects which in reality are no more than window dressing.

Well thats what they do. Its not the oil companies job to make the world a happy place. Theyre a business and their first function is to make money.

If big oil were to place the $$ from the tax breaks they have received since GWB took office the infrastructure would be in place for a 20% usage of ethanol in this country. Now I realize that ethanol is not particularly energy efficient to produce, but it's still better than sending the money out of the country.

Right so rather than trying to make gas out of sawdust or whatever, how about we utilize the gazillion gallons of oil we have right here in this country.

The free market will eventually solve the alternative fuel problem and I bet that 100 years from now they wotn be using oil for anything. But until they do, we need oil and lots of it and its stupid to not be using the supplies we have here.

Its like complaining that the only grocery store in your town has their prices marked up too high and you cant afford to buy enough to feed your family are worried youre going to starve to death and youre worried about starving to death; all the while youre living on a farm complete with bountiful fields and livestock! We've got virtually endless resources in this counrty. It is stupid to be paying thru the nose to somebody else for something we already have!

schwarcw

A lot of oil exec's are going to make big $ for sure. But don't forget the vast majority of stockholders are ordinary people who probably don't know they own the stock. Got any mutual funds? You own oil! Have a pension plan? You own oil! The problem with oil stocks is they have small or no growth most of the time. Other times they have a big dividend year or two. Don't buy stock now! It will probably go down, especially if they start taxing the windfall.

markmarc

Macleod:
First, the plants were closed, not mothballed. Had they been mothballed they'd be open right now because under grandfather rules of the EPA they wouldn't need the hearings, only some environmental filters.

A company has a a two-fold responsibility, one is to make money, the other is to stay ahead of the curve as the business climate evolves. In that way they serve goals of the founders/owners, employees, shareholders, and the consumers.

First, lets take a look at the greatest pool of potential out out there, Oil Shale which is located in NW Colorado and SW Wyoming, in an area known as the Green River basin. There is potentially more oil there than in Saudi Arabia. The best process known to get it out involves such techno wizardry as placing massive heating furnaces deep below the surface to cook the shale. In order to keep from causing massive cave-ins due to heat, the area surrounding the heated pools would be frozen (check US News from a couple of months back). That will take massive energy and water, something that area (I'm a Colorado native) has not nearly enough of unless Los Angeles decides to give up about 20% of it's share of upper Colorado River water.
In the meantime we have ANWAR field in Alaska. In ten years the industry can be pumping to the main Alaska pipeline. The problem is that as of right now their is not enough refineries to take on the current amount of oil coming out of Valdez Harbor. We have to sell it to Japan, etc.

So, why not go after the easiest solution, ethanol and bio-diesel. The infrastructure can be built easily without EPA and lawsuit strangulation as the environmentalists would love to change the country's energy usage. The technology already exists and is being demonstrated not only in other parts of world (Brazil is now energy independent due to biofuels), but in parts of the great plains right now.

In all reality, Farm subsidies would all but end (an estimated 171 billion over the next ten years, saving $4400 per household in taxes, see http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/BG1542.cfm). Once again, keeping money at home and strengthing middle america's economy.

BIZILL

i wish life were like a cartoon and i could just **** into my gastank. i'd still be investing in our farmers. lotsa beans, i say!

jdhdiggs

Markymarc, You know that they used a nuke under Battlement Mesa back in the 80's right? Also, what you listed is only one method of extracting oil from oil shale. There are many more options and if the money was sunk into it (remeber, development on the processes stopped during the 80's) we would have much better solutions just like today where a company can open a capped well and recover another 40% of the reserve from a "dry well" capped in the 80's since nothing else would come out.

In this whole thing, the people I can't stand are the eco-nuts who **** about gas being high. Stick to your guns, this is what you wanted you putz's!

markmarc

jdhiggs:
The nuclear blast you are referring to took place on Sept. 10, 1969. It's goal was to loosen up the natural gas deposits, not shale. Currently a permit is being looked at to drill within 900 feet of the blast point (which was placed at 8,426 below the surface), to collect the gas (It is believed that the area immediately surrounding the blast area was turned into a glass seal trapping the radioactivity).

You are correct in saying there are other processes available for oil shale, however, they are considered to be less realistic due to a variety of factors. The money for many theories was pulled in 1982 when I belive Exxon closed down it's pilot operation in 1982 as costs per barrel skyrocketed and gas prices dropped to under a dollar at the pump. The Denver downtown office space market lost a third of its tenents within a few months.

I propose that bio fuels are the best short and longterm answers. It's renewable, eco-friendly, cost effective, uses off-the-shelf technology, lower legal costs, cost less tax $$$, create thousands of quality jobs across the country (not just a small boom area), proven worthy in small test markets, can be rolled out quickly, Detroit is already ready ( i.e. GM's "Go Green Think Yellow" campaign), and creates new businesses that can sell license rights to the rest of the world like what Microsoft has done. If Brazil can do it, why can't we?????

Demiurge

Because we don't want to. For all the bitching that's going on people are still driving as much as they always did.

jdhdiggs

Demi answered your question. As Americans, we don't want to be driving deisel powered smartcars or 2 person hybrids. We want to drive 8 passenger SUV's (even though there are only 2 people in the family).

Thanks for the dates, I goofed. I wasn't born until 77 so I don't remember the dates all that well. I just remember growing up in GJ and hearing the stories.

markmarc

jd:
The thing is, there is virtually no difference in performance between running a new GM on 85% ethanol and regular gas. I bet that if the American consumer were given a choice between USA fuel and mid east, I bet we would chose USA.

Since you were growing up in GJ during the 1980's, that means you were subjected to the endless BYA commercials for Mesa College football team under Bob Cortese.

Demi:
It isn't about driving less with bio fuels in the least, its about who you want to see get the money you spend on fuel, fellow Americans or Arabs. I chose Americans, how about you?

PhantomOG

I thought E85 was less effecient per gallon than gasoline (less mpg on the same vehicle versus regular gas). at least that's what i saw on the news the other day. however the price is supposed to be lower to make up for that.

Demiurge

markmarc wrote:

Demi:
It isn't about driving less with bio fuels in the least, its about who you want to see get the money you spend on fuel, fellow Americans or Arabs. I chose Americans, how about you?

When the politicians in this country don't want to do any drilling anywhere in the U.S. I guess I don't care if Arabs get the money for giving Americans what they want when our own representatives won't.

This is a global economy now, and you can blame all of the governmental meddling in private business for that fact. Everyone wants everything as inexpensive as possible, but they don't want to do anything to allow that to happen. They don't want to allow American businesses the opportunity to compete with nations who don't put chokeholds on businesses. Instead, many businesses are forced overseas to meet the demands of the American economy.

jdhdiggs

markmarc wrote:

jd:
The thing is, there is virtually no difference in performance between running a new GM on 85% ethanol and regular gas. I bet that if the American consumer were given a choice between USA fuel and mid east, I bet we would chose USA.

Since you were growing up in GJ during the 1980's, that means you were subjected to the endless BYA commercials for Mesa College football team under Bob Cortese.

Demi:
It isn't about driving less with bio fuels in the least, its about who you want to see get the money you spend on fuel, fellow Americans or Arabs. I chose Americans, how about you?

Ethanol is great as long as it costs the same or less than current supplies. BYA? I remember Bob Cortez but I don't remember the commercials. Go Tigers!

markmarc

Demi:
Sure, we're in a world economy, but if America is to continue to lead, we need to look to the future. The 1990's was the Internet boom. The next one in my mind is alternative energy. We can either pay others or get paid. If we get paid that means our economy evolves, if not, then economic leadership continues to erode and China will lead (scary thought!).

Demiurge

markmarc wrote:

Demi:
Sure, we're in a world economy, but if America is to continue to lead, we need to look to the future. The 1990's was the Internet boom. The next one in my mind is alternative energy. We can either pay others or get paid. If we get paid that means our economy evolves, if not, then economic leadership continues to erode and China will lead (scary thought!).

Who looks to the future, private enterprise or governments? Since this is America it should be the former. There will be a breaking point with oil and gas prices and once that happens people will be more willing to change and the 'new' or rather refined technologies will make their debut.

Government is to blame for getting us into the mess we're in, and it's from all sides.

markmarc

Demi:
That time has come, ask anyone who recognizes that we cannot drill/explore our way out of dependence of mid-east oil. No matter what fields we tap into and develop we will still import well over 50%, and our usuage will still increase. Even more important, it is plainly obvious that the next several wars will be energy related. I support nuclear (get Yucca Mountain open), solar, wind, coal, wave-tide, hydrogen, etc. energy forms.

Sometimes gov't needs to goose industry into action. Think back to the 1973 oil crisis. In the end the gov't set the CAFE standard which forced the auto industry into action (not just making the Pinto and the Vega). All makes and models became much more fuel efficient. By setting the target goal but allowing the manufacturers to find their own way there we all reaped the benefits.

Occassionally, government must get involved. Right after Pearl Harbor, the military estimated that by mid 1943 the US alone would need more rubber than all that was produced in the world at that time. The government stepped in, setting in place the elements needed to achieve developing synthetic rubber.

Demiurge

markmarc wrote:

Demi:
That time has come, ask anyone who recognizes that we cannot drill/explore our way out of dependence of mid-east oil. No matter what fields we tap into and develop we will still import well over 50%, and our usuage will still increase. Even more important, it is plainly obvious that the next several wars will be energy related. I support nuclear (get Yucca Mountain open), solar, wind, coal, wave-tide, hydrogen, etc. energy forms.

Sometimes gov't needs to goose industry into action. Think back to the 1973 oil crisis. In the end the gov't set the CAFE standard which forced the auto industry into action (not just making the Pinto and the Vega). All makes and models became much more fuel efficient. By setting the target goal but allowing the manufacturers to find their own way there we all reaped the benefits.

Occassionally, government must get involved. Right after Pearl Harbor, the military estimated that by mid 1943 the US alone would need more rubber than all that was produced in the world at that time. The government stepped in, setting in place the elements needed to achieve developing synthetic rubber.

I support Nuclear energy too, but everyone has their panties in a wad over it.

Like I said, when the American public gets serious about alternative sources of energy we'll see it.

There are some that wish gas prices were $6.00/gallon, and it's not just those who would profit from it....

VR3

At 6 dollars a gallon - I think I would actually sell my truck and -gasp- get a car.

dkg999

At $6 gal I won't have far to commute to the ethanol and bio-diesel production plant in my backyard! The wind turbines will be kind of nice to gaze up at as they crank out electricity. I will have to avoid the glare from the solar panels on the sunny days. I will waste a little bio-diesel as I clear a couple of abandoned housing developments to plant long-grain carbon chain bio-mass. I'll feed the livestock and tend to the garden prior to retiring for the night with some homemade wine and good music. I won't be able to go to the store, because a box of cereal will be about $12 and a pound of meat will be around $18 because almost all agricultural production is taken up with alternative fuel production. Sure hope Brazil and Argentina, and the rest of South America have ramped up on food production, because they will be the new center for grain and livestock production. Canadians will be pretty well off in this new economy also.

It won't happen quite like the above, however the fact is that we don't have enough good agricultural land left to be self-sufficient on both alternative fuels made from bio-mass and for food production to sustain the current US population.

aaharvel

Vr3MxStyler2k3 wrote:

At 6 dollars a gallon - I think I would actually sell my truck and -gasp- get a car.

I think I would actually sell my car and -gasp- get a moped.

markmarc

Isn't it nice to have a debate without the derogatory comments. I appreciate the thoughtful discussion and differing points of view.

MacLeod

We dont need ethanol. We dont need to refurbish all our cars engines to run on ethanol.

We've got more gas and oil in this country than we can shake a stick at. We just need to go get it!

mrbigbluelight

material for ethanol production if you turned to hemp.

More productive than corn, can grow in anything this side of solid rock.