Why are we waiting?

[Gonzo1]

The price in my area at the pump 7/29/08 is $3.699 per gallon.

[GernBlansten]

"Exxon Mobil reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest quarterly profit ever by any U.S. corporation"

 

Ain't capitalism great! Do they still get government subsidies?

[Gold Winger]

"It's really funny, most people believe we use our oil imports for gas, when in reality, oil (petroleum) is used mostly in production of plastics and polymers."

 

I just read an article in "Business Week" that claims that only 8% of oil is used to make plastics. 8% isn't most.

 

No matter what anyone says, pump prices are a joke.

 

Crude goes up, pump price goes up immediately. Why? Because

 

Crude goes down, pump price doesn't go down. Why? Because they're making gasoline from the oil bought months ago.

 

We recenly had a momentary low in gas prices. I was driving home and saw a local chain had regular for $3.85. Cool! However, I had 3/4 of a tank it wouldn't make sense to stop for four gallons of gas. A few days later when the tank was nearing empty, the price was back up to $3.98.

 

Now I've read that coal is going up in price because the Chinese are buying that too.

 

A parable, if you will.

 

You've bought a new car and need to get rid of the old one. Your brother desperately needs a car to get to work but doesn't have much money. However, he offers to pay you what he can for the car. While you mull this over, your neighbor comes over and offers you $50 more for the car. Whose offer do you take?

 

 

[GKlose]

Depends on the condition of the car

[acco40]

A long time ago in a far away place ...

 

In the mid 70s in Missouri, Union Electric wanted to build a new nuclear powered electrical power plant. The "gas crisis" of 1973 was just as real in the form of sticker shock as it is today. In actuality it was worse because not only was the price very high, availability was suspect. We may now have gas prices near $4.00/gal but availability is not an issue.

 

Anyway, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that building a nuclear plant is not done with small change. Union Electric, being a utility company is sort of private (one may buy UE stock on the open market) and sort of public - it is regulated by the state. It asked to slightly increase the rate it charged per kW/hr to raise funds to pay for the new plant. Opponents of nuclear power, rightly or wrongly, got legislation passed that prevented utility companies from "charging" for the cost of plants before they were built. Therefore, a utility company, such as Union Electric, would need to spend out of their pockets (keep in mind their profit margin is regulated) for a new plant. That legislation (as well as The China Syndrome, Three Mile Island, Silkwood and other events) kept new plants from coming on-line.

 

I don't know what other states do wrt building refineries. But I'm sure it is a big undertaking. Private companies exist to make money. If building a new refinery is too much risk and cuts into short term profits - that in and of itself will prevent them from being built. If cost effective (or given the appearance of being cost effective such as builidng hundreds of Starbucks) refineries would be sprouting up all over.

[packsaddle]

Unless there was some compelling reason I had to have the money, if I didn't need the car myself, I'd GIVE it to my brother. It's only stuff.

 

Edited part: Regarding the nuclear plant, back when I worked for the industry it was common for IOUs (investor owned utilities) only to be able to recover the capital costs of a new plant AFTER they started commercial operation. This was incentive for them to minimize costs and get the job done quickly. I suppose it could be different from state-to-state. But that's how it worked (and still works) here. If there is sufficient investor interest in the technology then the IOU will get that capital through sale of stocks to investors. The public should not be required to 'front' the money for a private business whose successful completion of the project is purely speculative. If the public DOES front that capital, then the public ought to control and own the project once it is completed.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[hops_scout]

Gas is right around $3.86 here at home in Southwestern Illinois. No more than about 10 days ago, it was $4.17! We went down to Cape Girardeau today and it was $3.69 in Cape. In Perryville, MO on the way home, my dad filled up at $3.46 per gallon!

 

What's going on? Please.. keep going down!!

[packsaddle]

Folks, let's consider what we're whining about. Fossil fuel is nothing more than solar energy that was sequestered by organisms long enough ago for it to be considered fossilized. (OK, for you young-earth types, that was about 6,000 years ago...rolling my eyes).

Anyway, of all the energy that bombarded those plants, only about 0.5% was fixed into biomass. An even smaller portion of that was stored away as fossil fuel (some of it was decomposed before it was fossilized). Now, we take these concentrations of extremely inefficiently-fixed hydrocarbons over eons of investment and quickly decompose them in a process that is usually only about 30% efficient, or less.

If this is to run a car, it means that in seconds we exploit thousands of years of sunlight to move, say, 200 lbs of biomass and about 4000 lbs of car.

If in the form of electricity, we take these same inefficiencies and further inefficiently convert this electricity into....warm water, or warm air, or maybe run a fan to move the warm water or air.

 

If we consider what those hydrocarbons mean in terms of investment in the history of the earth, the fact that we take it for granted that that incredible investment over eons of time should cost almost nothing, is itself incredible. What a bunch of whiners!

 

If you don't like the price, don't buy it. If you can't afford to drive an obscene distance to work, find closer work, or don't work. What you are experiencing is the slap of the unseen hand and the magic of the free market...that almost all of us craved back in the 1980s. We asked for this and now we have it. So be it. This is the American economic system, love it or leave it.

[FScouter]

What a spoilsport! It is so much more fun to bellyache about it.

 

Wouldn't be more efficient to take the daily bombarment from the sun and use it directly? Skip the plant growth and decomposition part and the eons of processing time. I suppose we'll figure that out after the decomposed plants are used up.

[packsaddle]

It's partly a matter of economics, partly politics. They're almost inseparable and I cannot forget the graphic symbolism of Reagan taking the solar panels off the White House. But you're right, solar cells are about 10-20% efficient right now and if we use the warmth of sunlight directly it approaches 100%. The problem is cost. When carbon begins to cost enough, the market will allow us to make a rational decision to move to solar panels, kind of like Germany is doing now. And few of us have ever accused the Germans of being stupid. On a slightly different direction, I recently did a stint out in the Pacific Northwest. I was working on projects associated with hydropower, of which there is an abundance on the Columbia R. Yet, even though not all of the hydro potential has been exploited, wind turbines are being installed at an exponential rate. Same in the Iowa cornfields. A few years ago I could gaze vast distances over a climax forest of corn. Now I see hundreds, maybe thousands, of the big turbines. T.Boone Pickens is also a smart guy. http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_10039547?source=rss I hope he makes a pile of money and I suspect he will.

[FScouter]

Other than nuclear, it's all energy from the sun.

[Gold Winger]

Maybe it was here but somewhere I read that the manufacturing process for solar panels generates horrible pollutants that makes a 1960s vinatage car look eco-friendly.

 

Besides, there isn't enough sunlight to do all the stuff that we've grown accoustomed to. Heck, just look at the amount of energy that it required to keep Las Vegas lit up.

 

 

[gwd-scouter]

Walmart gas down to 3.55 yesterday. Saw a news report that Hummers are not going to be manufacturer anymore, no resale value. What I thought was interesting is that the report stated that Hummers get about the same mileage as one of the Toyota SUVs (don't remember the name, but it wasn't a huge SUV). Yet, the Toyota is still selling. Guess it's an image thing.

 

I'm still driving a 1998 Explorer. Got the thing because of Scouts. Hated it when we got it, hate it now (hate SUVs in general). Guess since it's paid for and still running well there's no reason to trade it in, but I sure take a deep breath when I put gas in it. Started turning it off at long lights and drive-up bank window, try not to let the tach go over 2, correct tire pressure, etc. It is helping.

 

I have listened to both sides of the arguments over off shore drilling, renewable energy sources, tax credits for hybrids, and so forth on CSPAN, Fox, and CNN, Obama and McCain. So I think I've heard both sides fairly well. I'm really confused and sit somewhere in the middle of the arguments. It is upsetting to hear about Exxon's 11 billion in profits. But I read that as a percentage, Microsoft made double that in the same time period and I don't hear anyone screaming about that. Exxon and others have a product American's want and while we may complain about the price, we keep on buying it. On the other hand, if we buy the argument that we can drill out way out of this, it will be hard to ever look seriously at alternatives as long as the oil holds out. If we have so much untapped oil in this Country that we could do away with the need for foreign oil, why haven't we been doing anything about it before now?

 

I remember in the late 70s and early 80s when I was living in Maryland. In the new housing market, the big thing was solar panels or a passive solar set up. I remember everyone buying small cars - Datsuns and Toyotas were everywhere. Highway speeds were reduced. Right turn on red was created. I remember seeing some homeowners using the old manual wheel type lawnmowers instead of their gas mowers.

 

Then the gas lines went away and prices came down and the SUV was born. Bigger was better and they kept getting bigger. Solar was unheard of and people were removing the panels from their homes. Single family homes were growing out of proportion (McMansions) causing larger heating and cooling requirements.

 

Wonder where we would be today if we continued on the track that started back then AND drilled for oil in those areas I keep hearing about that are leased but unused? Well, at least we can still turn right on red.

 

 

[FScouter]

"If we have so much untapped oil in this Country that we could do away with the need for foreign oil, why haven't we been doing anything about it before now?"

 

We have some oil wells around here that were drilled in the early part of the century. The flow of oil has pretty much run out and most or all of wells were shutdown in the 60s or before. In the 70s the price of crude rose to a point where the old wells were given another look. A guy got the brilliant idea that he could make steam and inject it down the well and force up more oil. This he did. The oil recovered was expensive, but he could sell it at the new higher market rate and recover his high costs.

 

All the easy oil is long gone. Gone are the days when Uncle Jed might run into a pool of bubbling crude while shootin at some food. Offshore drilling is incredibly expensive. Oil from shale is even more expensive. Steam injection into dead wells is incredibly expensive. Politicians and oil companies would have the public believe otherwise, but more offshore drilling is not going to produce cheap oil. The easy offshore oil has already been tapped. New drilling is more complicated and more expensive. It is not going to cut the world market price, and is NOT going to lower the price of gasoline in the U.S.

[skeptic]

Cannot help but think part of the problem is we tend to have little faith in the big corporations being responsible; fear that they will cut corners for the sake of profit. Most environmental nightmares that are pointed to as evidence why we should not drill, or build nuclear plants were due to carelessness and cost cutting at the expense of tight safety procedures. If we could almost guarantee that all needed restrictions and fail-safe options were in place, we might find more receptive audiences. There is always risk; but doing it right, and taking precautions as necessary, will make it far less likely to cause problems. Nothing will ever be "absolutely" safe and fool-proof.