Oil, Energy and Berkeley the Masses

Hydrogen is also very difficult to keep contained. It's small. Really small. In fact, it is as small of a molecule as you can get. That means that it will leak through a very tiny hole.

I ran a burn unit for a month. I've seen the aftermath of open gasoline and a spark. It is a bad thing. Two of the most popular items (best sellers) were starting a trash fire and a BBQ grill (both with gasoline). 4th of July, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc., were very bad times to be on call for the burn unit.

>that's rediculous. oil is a commodity that is used where >it is refined and alaska oil is refined on the gulf coast. >Of course it will be used in the US.

It's a sour oil, and that's not handled by US refineries. It is shipped off to overseas refineries, mostly pacific rim and south american, who do handle sour oils. Very rarely is oil refined where it is drilled, and many refined products are shipped globally. It's the nature of a global economy. That's why there's to big tanker ships running around all over the oceans. Oil isn't a local commodity.

>neither has the government of any other country. sure >they have politically controlled NOC's, but its not the >government doing the drilling, its the drilling engineers >and geologists of the NOC.

Politically controlled and frequently straight out owned by the government. In many cases, those engineers and geologists are employees of the government. Haven't you noticed some of the things going on in Russia these days for example?

>I find that hard to believe. More likely, the geology >around the refuge is not conducive to oil and gas >whereas the geology within the refuge is.

Then do some research. Learning things is always a good thing. Of course oil companies want the easiest oil they can get the most profit from. Doesn't mean the government should just give it to them, any more than you should be given a welfare check to avoid having to work at a job.

John Brown wrote:

16vCorey wrote: I'd say it's probably a .01% chance of it happening. Now if you participate in high speed chases/shootouts, I could see avoiding the compressed hydrogen.

Let's face it every punctured fuel tank I have seen in the salvage yard was put there by a yard hand with a brass punch.

Or a loader fork from being picked up improperly.

A garage, whats that?

neon4891 wrote: A garage, whats that?

Ahhh, the Democrats!! Responsible for all of the World's Problems and owners of the Most Despicable Man in the World: Bill Clinton!

Point: Where oh where have the Republicans been for the last how many years as THEY have controlled Congress? Even with a Democratic majority (and it is a slim one) the Democrats have not been able to do much without crossover Republican votes.

Point: The CAFE standards were suspended by Ronnie Ray-gun, the Great Communicator. That move communicated to the world that we were going to use as much oil as we wanted. Period. Let everyone else save.

Point: "The Democrats" are not responsible for nuclear reactors not being built during the last 30 years. The Nuclear Industry is. Remember Three Mile Island? The industry did a God-Awful job of responding to that. Rather than develop a standard plant that is demonstrably safe and putting on the dog P-R wise, they have sat back and done little. In fact, what has stopped the building of reactors has been community opposition; not some Democratic conspiracy. Of course, if the voice of the people saying clearly: "No we don't want something" is too difficult a democratic concept for everyone...

Point: Ahmadinejad is right: A part of the cost of oil is reflected in the futures trading in petroleum. Now that the free-market bozos (remember the guys who packaged debt and sold it to each other in that great ponzi scheme that put our economy where it is today?) can't lay off risk by selling debt, they are now trading in petroleum and betting that the price will go up. No one wants to bet the price will go down, so they artificially push the price up as no one wants to get left holding the bag (see Mortgage Crisis).

The solution, fellow forum members is partially more exploration (although the total reserve in ANWR works out to quite literally just a few weeks of our current usage) but importantly conservation.

See next post for details!

Now you are all jumping up and down screaming: "I'll be Berkleyed if they try to take my car keys from my cold dead fingers!"

That is the Scary Monster we all get fed.

Think:

Petrochemicals are used in fertilizers. Plastics Electrical power generation. Farming. Transportation.

In short: How stupid are we? I live in Pittsburgh. Like many big cities we have big buildings. Why do we waste electricity (and therefore using oil-fired and coal-fired power plants) TO LIGHT THE OUTSIDE of the the buildings? Heck, we even have giant lighted signs that say: "Boo-Boo Kitty Enterprises" just for the effect. We even light (in an architecturally wonderful way) the UNDERSIDE of bridges! Want to conserve? Turn Off the Lights! Why do people shine lights at their rhododendrons? Turn off the lights!

Plastics use a huge amount of petrochemicals. Do we need everything shrink-wrapped, plastic-encased and bubble-protected? Look at how much you come in contact with during the day that is plastic such as those water bottles (aside: $4 a gallon gas is too expensive but $4 a gallon to buy water you get from the tap for far less is smart???).

Don't even get me started on the farm industry. Rather than have cattle graze and eat grasses (they are ruminants after all) we truck them (diesel) to feed lots where corn (fertilizer/diesel) is trucked in (diesel) and then they are trucked away (diesel) etc (more diesel).

Of course we need to ask why we use trucks rather than trains to ship goods, but that is a post for another day.

Bottom line: yes more stringent fuel economy standards should be part of the equation, but we have to start thinking about where we waste oil.

Now I remember. Getting the driveway graded again comes first, thoe

JohnSSC, you have some valid points. However, do remember that the voice of the so-called environmentalist movement that has crippled our energy system has historically been the D's, just like the voice of the disarm the peon set has been the D's and the kill all the poor babies so there's more stuff for the rich set has been the D's. I'm not saying that there wasn't R complacency associated with it, but the leaders of the movements are the D's.

Conservation is a good short term solution. It does not end the long term problem of continued population expansion with limited resources. Lighting the bottom of bridges is rather silly. Better fuel economy standards is not a solution. Passing a law that says next year, all vehicles sold have to get 20% better mileage than they get today, while sounding good, would only postpone us running out of our current energy system a little later. What's more, there is no shortage of oil or things we can make into oil/gasoline like natural gas, shale, coal, etc. So why are we conserving oil?

For whatever reason, we are being driven to nuclear energy. There are plenty of alternatives available, but the rich give up control of the poor if the other sources are developed. You're right also about the lack of a standard nuke plant. A friend of mine (20 valve circles) works at a nuke plant and he was telling me that in France, they have one nuke plant design. If there's a problem found, they fix it and fix all of them. They only have to order 1 model valve for every plant, instead of a different valve for every plant. Why don't we have that? Why don't we have one of those double 18 wheeler trailer sized nuke plants in every town pumping out virtually free electricity? Why don't we recycle our nuclear waste into more fuel until it isn't waste anymore, like France?

Read that article I posted somewhere above regarding what Ahm-a-nut-job was saying. He was not saying that the evil futures traders were the reason oil was so high. He was saying that the evil U.S. was doing it on purpose so that we would develop our own petro-energy and alternative energy.

There is virtually no markup in the water you buy at the store. The store gets their standard profit, probably 5-8% net, and the rest is cost. I'm in the industry, I know these things. Is it wasteful to buy water that has that much cost associated with it when you could get water out of the tap? Probably. But sometimes (depending on who's water you are buying), you are getting a better quality water than the stuff from the tap. Sometimes not.

I also agree that the disposable plastic society we have built is wasteful. You go eat at Taco Hell and look at all the plastic that comes with the meal. Even the plastic spork is wrapped in plastic. Micky D's is even worse.

Oh, and I last ate a piece of cow about 20 years ago, so think of all the diesel I've personally saved. I've saved so much diesel and fertilizer that SOMEONE should GIVE me FREE 95 octane fuel for my turbocharged and other high performance motors for the rest of my life. It's only fair. GIVE ME FREE GAS OR I'LL EAT THIS COW! Save Bessie The Cow from Certain Death! Give Dr.Hess Free 95 (or better) Octane Gasoline!!

JohnSSC wrote: In short: How stupid are we? I live in Pittsburgh. Like many big cities we have big buildings. Why do we waste electricity (and therefore using oil-fired and coal-fired power plants) TO LIGHT THE OUTSIDE of the the buildings? Heck, we even have giant lighted signs that say: "Boo-Boo Kitty Enterprises" just for the effect. We even light (in an architecturally wonderful way) the UNDERSIDE of bridges! Want to conserve? Turn Off the Lights! Why do people shine lights at their rhododendrons? Turn off the lights!

If you want to go even crazier, think of how many millions of people leave their large TV's on all day in order to "keep their dogs company" while they're at work.

People who leave their AC's running all day at 65 while no one is home all day.

Stores who leave every interior light on overnight.

...among other dumbness

The D's are leading the conservation/green charge? Interesting. As disjointed a group as the Democrats are, I am continually amazed at how cohesive they are when it comes to "controlling" things.

Ahmadinejad is not a "nut job" any more than Bush or most other world leaders. He was elected in a non-rigged election (see Florida 2000 or any election in Egypt, our Partner in Democracy) which is better than you can say about Saudi Arabia, where President Junior was recently grovelling for more production.

I know, Ahmadinejad has said (or had attributed) a number of things we take as "crazy" but then again, most people in this country cannot spell Farsi let alone speak it. Several of his comments have been botched translations - it is just that the botched translation makes better copy.

He, along with the Saudis have blamed speculators in part for driving up the cost of oil. I was not referring to anything I gleaned out of the article you posted.

Further, I am not saying that conservation is THE answer. It is an arrow in the quiver to buy us time seeing as how we wasted so much of it since OPEC turned off the spigot in the 70's.

The French, much as we love to hate them, have a pretty sweet deal going with the way they have developed N-Power.

My point re: cows was not directed at you or anyone in particular. As a society we eat a lot of cow parts. It takes a lot of petrochemicals to get those cow parts to market. Just as it takes a lot of petrochemical based fertilizer to get the veggies to market.

My point re: water is that it is just dumb buying something that there is a ready supply of coming to your home. Whether there is markup or not is not the point. Of course, you can't be serious that a liter of water is nearly as expensive as a liter of soda and somehow there is no "markup." Maybe not for the market, but for Pepsico there is ...

Bottom line, we have placed too much in the petrochemical basket.

I would also agree that the powers-that-be (and they are not elected officials) prefer to keep things the way they are. There is always room in their ledgers to book more profit...

Just for your enlightenment, yes, a liter of water costs almost as much to produce and bring to market as a liter of Pepsi Cola. The only difference is a little bit of chemicals. I don't know the cost of the sweetener, color, preservative and the gold stuff (secret flavor), but is is pennies per bottle and minor compared to the bottle, cap, label, water, production line, plant costs, box, shrink wrap, warehousing, transportation, warehousing, transportation, stocking. At that point, you put it in the basket. Water production markup is razor thin. Some of the major producers are selling it at cost. Some have been selling it below cost for several years, which is a pretty bad business model, and it's come to bite them. Pepsico is probably one of the few major water producers that is turning a modest profit in purified drinking water, but their product is not as good as others.

It's really funny to watch the big beverage producers like Coke proclaim their "greenness" with lower plastic content bottles. Hysterical. The reason they went to thinner/lower plastic content bottles is because the price of plastics went up through the roof. As you pointed out, it is made from oil. That and the cost of corn and diesel is killing the beverage industry, along with some bizzare twist of the consumer to not want to consume large quantities of stuff that may not be good for you, like HFCS and Benzine.

I wouldn't say the D's are leading the green movement, but the green movement leaders are within the D's. I have nothing against clean air and water. But telling me to give Albert Arnold Gore Jr. money for carbon offsets is BS.

Florida was not rigged, unless you mean rigged by D's looking for "pregnant chad" and disenfranchising military voters. That part was rigged, no doubt. Just not successfully. The SCOTUS said recount the whole state or leave it alone.

Yes, we have too much in the petrochemical basket. All previous efforts to do something about that have been stopped at the national level.

gamby wrote: If you want to go even crazier, think of how many millions of people leave their large TV's on all day in order to "keep their dogs company" while they're at work. People who leave their AC's running all day at 65 while no one is home all day. Stores who leave every interior light on overnight. ...among other dumbness

I hate the stores that leave the front doors wide open all summer so shoppers feel invited in and don't have to actually open the door themselves.

Hey numbnuts, you're not going to air-condition the whole world.

I am not really trying to point fingers here but you do have to blame a lot of our energy problems on govt involvement in energy production. If you want to get the cheapest and best product the answer is ALWAYS to privatize the market and deregulate. If you just let the energy companies do what they want they will automatically seek out the cheapest methods for producing energy. The private market will weed out the companies who can't hack it and you will be left with the best producers. The reason that government run institutions are always such poor performers is that they never have to make a profit, and since their is no profit their is no motivation to achieve.

The best way to think about it is to apply the theory of evolution to the business world because it is exactly the same the fittest survive and the weak die off.

So why is China kicking our collective ass as far as being producers?

China pays their workers pennies per hour. China is a Communist country, which means that they have slave labor, thus the pennies per hour labor. That is what the end goal of Socialism/Communism is: Slavery. Add on top of that a total disregard for their environment as they dumped their waste where it landed, like New Jersey, and the government owning/controlling all natural resources and you get uber-cheap production. Here, we demand a higher wage because we will just go someplace that pays better if we don't like it. We also demand that the rivers not run orange or catch fire, and individuals (or corps) own the natural resources and want to be compensated for them. That all costs money.

JohnSSC wrote: Ahmadinejad is not a "nut job" any more than Bush or most other world leaders. He was elected in a non-rigged election (see Florida 2000 or any election in Egypt, our Partner in Democracy) which is better than you can say about Saudi Arabia, where President Junior was recently grovelling for more production. I know, Ahmadinejad has said (or had attributed) a number of things we take as "crazy" but then again, most people in this country cannot spell Farsi let alone speak it. Several of his comments have been botched translations - it is just that the botched translation makes better copy.

Ummm... he's the guy who hosted the 'the Holocaust never happened' party and and swears there are no gays in Iran after the major news outlets reported several being executed. He said that last in English at a university in New York City. Sounds pretty nutty to me.

Bottom line, we have placed too much in the petrochemical basket.

Yup, agree 100% there.

JohnGalt wrote: I am not really trying to point fingers here but you do have to blame a lot of our energy problems on govt involvement in energy production. If you want to get the cheapest and best product the answer is ALWAYS to privatize the market and deregulate. If you just let the energy companies do what they want they will automatically seek out the cheapest methods for producing energy. The private market will weed out the companies who can't hack it and you will be left with the best producers. The reason that government run institutions are always such poor performers is that they never have to make a profit, and since their is no profit their is no motivation to achieve. The best way to think about it is to apply the theory of evolution to the business world because it is exactly the same the fittest survive and the weak die off.

Is that why when California privatized and deregulated energy prices skyrocketed and service went to E36 M3?

Hess,

Okay, my question was semi-rhetorical. I was responding to the statement: "If you want to get the cheapest and best product the answer is ALWAYS to privatize the market and deregulate."

Although, I think you did a good job of responding to why it is that we need to regulate markets to some degree and prevent groups from having carte blanche to maximize production and minimize costs.

And slave labor isn't the goal of communism. That's the result of a totalitarian regime, which is what communism devolves into.

16vCorey wrote: Is that why when California privatized and deregulated energy prices skyrocketed and service went to E36 M3?

While we're at it, we can privatize and deregulate security. Who needs a public police force, anyway? Or roads. We'll let each community plan their own damned highways.

Hey. I heard they used to make sausage really cheaply in the early 20th century before that wasteful FDA got in the way of everyone's health.

Some people do believe this, Blackwater, We shoot, you die, no questions. Understand?

I was really amused by the debate over the latest GI bill. The Republicans were falling all over themselves to complain that giving college tuition to veterans would hurt retention at the same time as they are enabling Blackwater to take the most expensively trained of the military and where we then pay them many times more than they were making in the military.

Salanis wrote: While we're at it, we can privatize and deregulate security. Who needs a public police force, anyway?

The big question regarding OIL in particular in the US is where is the money GOING to go?

Off shore drilling = Billions in leases and regulative red tape before the first drop is explored. A couple hundred new sites would make your local friendly politician a popular man with the ruling party (the oil lobbyists) ANd add some funding to the local tax base.

It seems to me that if we invest in alternative energy resources instead of drilling for oil, we can make the tree-huggers happy, save the planet (different from making the tree-huggers happy), gain energy independence, AND tell Iran/Iraq/Saudi Arabia/Venezuela/Russia to berkeley themselves and have fun fighting over a couple gallons of water, which is one resource they'll find scarce once oil isn't worth jack.

Seems like a win-win-win-win to me. But what do I know?

If we reduce our oil and CNG consuption 25% we ruin the economies of Canada and Mexico... Our two biggest oil and gas suppliers.

I agree telling IISAVR to lick scrote, but ALL of our available options would still take multiple years to bring online.

We need a switchgrass based ethanol that will run in normal cars without conversion. Cheap, easy, reliable, fits in the current supply system and gives us the time to resolve the REAL issues.

Go nuts on Nuclear, Clean coal, Hyroelectric, Geothermal and Wind stations. Then bring Plug-In electrics on line for all city commuters with a HUGE tax credit.

I am sure they could add an odor to Hydrogen like the do to natural gas, but right now a Hydrogen leak would be undetectible until the contacts closed.

And then there are those pics on the web of NOS bottles exploding. Hydrogen bottles would be just as bad plus they'd have to be bigger so that would mean more of a mess.