Oil Prices

[JoeSixPack]

Hi,
While the tradegy in US has a huge human implication, it should not be
justification for the world oil prices or is the system that finely
balanced.

With a third of the US oil refining capacity temporarily offline due to
hurricane damage, in an already stressed oil market, the laws of
supply-and-demand are badly skewed towards demand. In the absence of any
government action to freeze prices or subsidize the consumer, it is a sin of
omission rather than profiteering in my opinion, that so many are suffering
from high prices.

 

[Ray Hogan]

Hi,
We in Ireland have today been advised that Petrol from tomorrow will be
?1.30. It was just over ?1 beginig of July and we did not have huricane.
But ours are not problems when we consider the Gulf Coast senario.
Regards.
RayH.

 

[Ray Hogan]

Hi,
Is this Caniadian Dollars, as the Canadian Dollar at ?0.676 Euro equals
$1.10 per Litre.
Regards.
RayH

 

[Jim Baber]

Demand is not causing more supply. Already our gas producing
facilities are maxed out. We have oil reserves in US and are not
having a supply of oil issue. We have a supply of gas issue. They
are making no moves to create more refineries either.

And anyone thinking about their own long term investments will
understand why they are NOT building new refineries that will become
obsolete in a relatively short time when the oil they are being built to
process is exhausted. The refineries we are using today in the US were
primarily built 65 years ago during World War II to supply the war
effort, not civilian demands. I admit there has been some construction
and modernization, but the petroleum industry, has so far avoided major
changes and construction. These pinch penny profit hungry policies have
had the effect of making the outdated facilities very susceptible to
catastrophic failures as evidenced several times in the last few years,
let alone when the problems are compounded by nature. Why were the New
Orleans refineries so susceptible to electric power failures, when they
could easily have been producing their own? Behind their own levies?

 

[Herb]

Demand is not causing more supply. Already our gas producing

And anyone thinking about their own long term investments will
understand why they are NOT building new refineries that will become
obsolete in a relatively short time when the oil they are being built
to process is exhausted. The refineries we are using today in the US
were primarily built 65 years ago during World War II to supply the
war effort, not civilian demands. I admit there has been some
construction and modernization, but the petroleum industry, has so
far avoided major changes and construction. These pinch penny profit
hungry policies have had the effect of making the outdated facilities
very susceptible to catastrophic failures as evidenced several times
in the last few years, let alone when the problems are compounded by
nature. Why were the New Orleans refineries so susceptible to
electric power failures, when they could easily have been producing
their own? Behind their own levies?

The doomsayer so sayeth! This is the same crap they've said about tin,
iron, molybdenum, and any number of other commodities. I especially
like the part where you said that we'll soon exhaust the supply of oil.
Wow, I guess Venezuela, Russia, OPEC, Alaska, Canada, and the Gulf of
Mexico, just to mention a few, failed to get the memo that all the oil
is soon to be gone. Predictions state that we've only used about 23%
of known oil resesrves since we started using oil in the early 1800's,
and that doesn't even include the oil in oil sand or oil shale fields
that right now aren't economically useful. It also seems that your
statement about refineries is wrong as well, we go through about 20
year cycles, where the price of gas peaks due to supply vs. demand,
then we build more refineries and the price drops again for about 20
years until we reach capacity again. As far as susceptible to danger,
is it economicaally feasible to build a levee around each plant and put
in generators to run the plant when a hurricane like Katrina comes
along every 35 years? I'd say that was why they were susceptible, a
reasoned decision that it wasn't worth the money to prepare for
something that had a low chance of happening, and cost less to recover
from than to prevent. Fact is, we haven't built refineries because of
government red tape and environmental nuts, I'm not talking about the
people who really want to protect the environment, I'm talking about
the people who want us to go back to living in caves, if they can't
figure out how to kill off the human race altogether. Look at Robert
Kennedy, flying around the country in a private jet to tell us not to
drive our cars. What an all over huge puckered bunghole, but he comes
by it honest, his Uncle Teddy is freaking out over a group that wants
to build a wind turbine off of Martha's Vineyard. NIMBY, that's why
there haven't been any refineries or power plants built in years. Just
my opinion.
Herb

 

[Ray Hogan]

Hi,
On the 28th of August last I placed this notice on this Newsgroup. Since
then we have had Hurricane Katorina and as of yet, a confirmed number of
lives and lost and all the consequences that go with such a tragedy.
However, to this question, there have been about forty replies and they have
ranged from. Why worry, through, we have heard all this scaremongering
before, what are my motives to the realisation that all fossil fuels are
not finite sources and therefore if we are using and not replacing, we will
run out someday.
When I asked this question, I had seen the $90 Barrel as a ceiling and
probaly about a year and a half away. But against what has happened. We as a
society seem to have put our needs for energy way beyond these figures.
Regards.
RayH.

 

[JoeSixPack]

Hi,
On the 28th of August last I placed this notice on this Newsgroup. Since
then we have had Hurricane Katorina and as of yet, a confirmed number of
lives and lost and all the consequences that go with such a tragedy.
However, to this question, there have been about forty replies and they
have ranged from. Why worry, through, we have heard all this
scaremongering before, what are my motives to the realisation that all
fossil fuels are not finite sources and therefore if we are using and not
replacing, we will run out someday.
When I asked this question, I had seen the $90 Barrel as a ceiling and
probaly about a year and a half away. But against what has happened. We as
a society seem to have put our needs for energy way beyond these figures.
Regards.
RayH.

 

[JoeSixPack]

When the US hit it's peak domestic oil around 1970, domestic demand had
finally eclipsed domestic supply. The talk about the energy crisis and
conservation was well-founded in those days, but a bit premature. Little
did everyone realize that offshore production and new discoveries would
satisfy demand for another 35 years.

Now that the world consumption of oil has begun to eclipse world supply,
there is no third option in sight. We are forced to follow the laws of
supply-and-demand, and pay the higher price as the supply runs low.

The major new player in the game, China, has no legacy of cheap oil like the
US, and does not expect lower prices to be the norm. Their thirst for
energy is growing at least as fast as their economic growth. If we are
forced to pay 3 and 4 times as much for energy, some radical lifestyle
changes will have to occur in North America.

Alternate energy has been discussed and developed for decades, but still
remains a long way off if we continue to compare it's costs to cheap oil.
Biofuels are costly to produce and require a good deal of energy. Solar
power is incredibly expensive for the amount produced, but has a very long
lifespan. Wind power is more cost-effective but the equipment has a shorter
operational lifespan. Both wind and solar power are at the mercy of weather
and are therefore less reliable. Nuclear power combines cost-effectiveness,
longevity, and reliability of output with fairly environmentally-clean
operation. Fear of the "N" word however, makes it's re-adoption more
difficult. Hydro power is clean and reliable, but is quite costly to build,
but tends to disrupt wildlife and raise the hackles of environmentalists.
Besides this, there isn't enough potential hydro power make much of a
difference to the massive energy requirements of the future.

Even if we manage to build a massive, cost-effective energy grid, many
vehicles will still require a fuel. Trucks, airplanes, construction
vehicles, tractors, ships and even personal vehicles can not perform
adequately on electric power alone. Biofuels require a good deal of energy
to produce, fertilize and process and no economies of scale can reduce it's
costs significantly.

The only fuel that seems to make sense for this purpose is hydrogen. It has
a high enough energy density to compare with petroleum and does not pollute
by releasing carbon into the atmosphere. At present, hydrogen is more
costly to produce to make it appear to be a feasible alternative to
petroleum. The only way hydrogen can make sense is for a massive supply of
cheap energy to exist, and for no cheap alternative fuel to exist in
sufficient supply. I believe that day will come, and the more we do now to
prepare, the less of a shock it will be when it becomes our only feasible
alternative.

 

[Steve Spence]

JSP:
Biofuels require a good deal of energy to produce, fertilize and
process and no economies of scale can reduce it's costs significantly.
==========================================
A sweeping generalization. I would agree that anything that needs a
fire lit under it to distill it needs 'a good deal of energy to
produce', but a field of sunflowers doesnt take much energy to produce,
and neither does the oil from the seeds, and I believe there IS some
economy of scale to be gained in largescale oilseed production.

We have folks here who desparately cling to the notion that crops need
gasoline instead of sunlight to grow ....

 

[Ray Hogan]

Yes, very well described and as you are aware the energy giants are busy
putting in place the necessary implements of controls for when we arrive at
this alternative, but I tend to view this issue from a slightly longer view.
If we take it that all energy is received from the sun and this planet has
been in reception of this for about 4.6 billion years and mans evolution has
been for just 2.5 million of this period. The Industrial Revolution is the
point in this evolution in which man has evolved to harvest this store.
It is estimated that this store should last for about 300 years, but as
energy cannot destroyed. Is the issue the rate of energy consumption or the
rate of human evolution?.
RayH.

 

[Anthony Matonak]

Yes, very well described and as you are aware the energy giants are busy
putting in place the necessary implements of controls for when we arrive at
this alternative, but I tend to view this issue from a slightly longer view.
If we take it that all energy is received from the sun and this planet has
been in reception of this for about 4.6 billion years and mans evolution has
been for just 2.5 million of this period. The Industrial Revolution is the
point in this evolution in which man has evolved to harvest this store.
It is estimated that this store should last for about 300 years, but as
energy cannot destroyed. Is the issue the rate of energy consumption or the
rate of human evolution?.

....

This argues for conservation of energy. The less energy you use then the
less you need to obtain from any source, fossil fuels, solar or anything
else. From an evolutionary view, like yours, one might consider that a
lot of animals thrive using a lot less energy, even food, than humans so
clearly there is room for improvement.

What would a human being look like that was evolved to exist with less
energy needs? Well, smaller for starters. The smaller a creature is,
the less food it needs to survive, the less space it occupies, the less
it needs heating and cooling and all the rest. Such a person would be
thin as well and possibly covered in fur for those long winter nights.
With the progress in technology, it seems clear that a more evolved
form of human would have more need of dexterity than people today. This
would suggest oversized hands compared to the body size, perhaps with
a few more digits and, of course, dexterous toes as well. Light takes
energy also so these folks would need larger eyes to be able to read
in the dark.

Yes, clearly when you look at it from the point of evolution, we need
to be breeding bug eyed midget knuckle dragging furry humans with six
fingers and prehensile toes, tails optional.

Sometimes the larger view isn't worth much.

Anthony

 

[JoeSixPack]

Yes, very well described and as you are aware the energy giants are busy
putting in place the necessary implements of controls for when we arrive
at this alternative, but I tend to view this issue from a slightly longer
view.
If we take it that all energy is received from the sun and this planet has
been in reception of this for about 4.6 billion years and mans evolution
has been for just 2.5 million of this period. The Industrial Revolution is
the point in this evolution in which man has evolved to harvest this
store.
It is estimated that this store should last for about 300 years, but as
energy cannot destroyed. Is the issue the rate of energy consumption or
the rate of human evolution?.
RayH.

It's hard to ignore the fact that enough solar energy falls on the earth in
one day to power the entire world consumption of electricity for 27 years.
Even baby steps in the direction of capturing some of this free energy would
go a long way.

 

[Ray Hogan]

Yes Anthony, but the evidence is that the human body is evolving to a larger
size.
RayH.

 

[zenboom]

this is more nutrition than evolution.
BTW he made a joke

 

[Ray Hogan]

But where is the extra nutrition or the wealth to secure it coming from -
yes, through the energy chain.
RayH.

 

[spakker]

Interesting thread ! Some consolation may be that petrol costs nearly 8
dollars a gallon (4.55 litres) here in the UK. I'm sure there's more tech
know-how that can help out eg. BMW diesel 270 hp. 0 -60 mph in 6 seconds and
40 mpg.