Posted on 05/03/2005 5:06:37 PM PDT by gogipper
Bingo!
I would suggest that, more precisely, their agenda is to destroy capitalism in Western Civilization. And replace it with "5 year plans".
Whenever I am in a discussion such as this with a lib, with each solution I put forth for a problem they perceive, the response (objection) is always "yes, but...".
There is NO answer to ANY problem that does not entail trade offs. These people demand solutions that have no cost limits, no trade offs. Their manner is not to look for solutions, but to look for faults in the solutions that they demand from others.
Yes, it's so.
Why? Geez, it's pretty obvious. Listen to a Dimocrat speak.
Yes, until their guidance system had a little glitch and they fried a major population center.
"no new refineries have been built in the USA since the 1950's"
Since the 70's actually.
The University of New Hampshire is conducting tests on that very theory. They have a process worked out to produce oil from microbes and have suggested that we turn the Salton Sea in California into a giant oil-producing "farm" using oil-extruding microbes.
Cool. Bet it'll smell to high heaven though.
I don't care if we develop fancy new energy sources, as long as its a product of the free market, and not compelled on us by the EPA. If we could just leave the economy alone, these issues would not require intervention. Free markets are incredibly efficient at making a cost-benefit analysis, and developing practical solutions to economic needs. If it becomes economical to run our cars on sunlight, fuel cells, or twizzlers, and there's a realistic chance of it working, then it would happen. If looking for more oil is the best approach, then the economy will do that instead. If in 100 or 200 years we start to actually have problems finding oil, then marketable solutions will be found. It's when we adopt this Master Plan mentality of subsidies and regulations that we end up causing problems. The OPEC oligopoly does try to rig prices, but the market factors that in as well. We need to stop suppressing domestic energy companies, and maybe even let them build refineries once in a while.
"Earth Firsters" want to end all of civilization...letting the goat herds free.
I assume that if you beleive the late T. Gold's theories, you're out making BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars pumping this oil out of the ground at >$50/bbl. Unfortunately, companies like EOM, PetroBras, Aramco and Shell aren't making a penny listening to debunked theories like his... If they really wanted to make any money, they would ALL be drilling in granite to find this deep oil. Glad to see they're all bankrupt...
Have you ever seen seismic of the White Tiger field off Vietnam or the other highly fractured granite fields off Lithuania? Both look like shattered glass... Surround a bunch of fractured granite with shale source rock and apply a seal. Guess what eventually fills the fracture space...
One of MANY articles debunking the late Thomas Gold:
http://www.energybulletin.net/2423.html
http://www.energybulletin.net/2741.html
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100404_abiotic_oil.shtml
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/012805_no_free_pt3.shtml
I won't call you stoopid.. your socialist friend is stoopid.
from a US DOE site http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumerinfo/factsheets/l123.html
Solar Power Satellites
The feasibility of solar power stations orbiting the Earth and sending power to the Earth's surface, was investigated during the 1970s in response to the oil embargo of the United States. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) studied the concept of the Solar Power Satellites System (SPSS), which consisted of placing about 60 satellites containing large photovoltaic arrays in stationary orbits above the earth. Each satellite would have a matching receiving rectifying antenna (rectenna) on the ground. The satellites would have transmitted a fixed microwave beam to the ground station. The microwave transmission system envisioned by NASA and DOE would have had three aspects:
1. The conversion of direct current (DC) power (from the photovoltaic cells on the satellites) to microwave power on satellites on geosynchronous (stationary) orbit above the earth;
2. The formation and control of microwave beams aimed precisely at fixed locations on the earth's surface; and
3. The collection of the microwave energy and its conversion into electrical energy at the earth's surface.
Each SPSS would have been massive, measuring 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers [km]) long and 3.3 miles (5.3 km) wide, or 21 square miles (55.7 square kilometers) in area. The surface of each satellite would have been covered with 400 million solar cells.
The transmitting antenna on the satellite(s) would have been about ½ mile in diameter (1 km) and the receiving antennae on the earth's surface would have been about 6 miles (10 km) in diameter. Massive structures such as this would have been a significant engineering challenge.
Because of their size, the satellites would have been constructed in space. The plan envisioned sending small segments of the satellites into space using the Space Shuttle. The materials would have been stored at work stations in low earth orbit, and then towed to the assembly point by a purpose-built "space tug" (such as operating the space shuttle).
Cost was the major obstacle to development of the SPSS. When the NASA-DOE report was completed in 1979, the estimated cost for building a prototype was $74 billion. Construction of an SPSS system would have taken about 30 years to complete. At the time, the United States did not appropriate funds to begin construction. Other countries, such as Japan, are currently exploring the concept of solar power stations in space.
NASA has continued research into the concept of space-based power stations under its Space Solar Power Technology Advanced Research & Development Program. The goal of the program is to conduct preliminary strategic technology research and development to enable large, multi-megawatt to gigawatt-class space solar power (SSP) systems and wireless power transmission (WPT) for government missions and commercial markets (in-space and terrestrial).
Well, that's wrong. It's risen from about 40% to about 60%.
I wish they'd talk to current professionals in the industry before publishing this stuff.
Boy is this timely::: from the DOD today
Bush Proposes Oil Refineries on Closed Military Bases
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, April 27, 2005 President Bush unveiled a plan today to encourage building oil refineries on military sites that have closed.
Speaking at a Small Business Administration conference here, the president recommended this and other initiatives to address the country's energy needs and reduce dependence on foreign energy sources.
Bush said expanding refinery capacity will help address the shortage that's partly blamed for skyrocketing gasoline prices. The last oil refinery built in the United States was completed in 1976, he said.
more on why the dearth of refinery capacity from ask jeeves
12-06-01 No new refineries have been built in the US in the past 25 years. And petroleum industry experts say anyone would have to be crazy to launch such an effort -- even though present refineries are running at nearly 100 % of capacity and local gasoline shortages are beginning to crop up.
Why does the industry appear to have built its last refinery?
Three reasons: Refineries are not particularly profitable, environmentalists fight planning and construction every step of the way and government red-tape makes the task all but impossible. The last refinery built in the US was in Garyville, Louisiana, and it started up in 1976.
Energy proposed building a refinery near Portsmouth, Virginia, in the late 1970s, environmental groups and local residents fought the plan -- and it took almost nine years of battles in court and before federal and state regulators before the company cancelled the project in 1984.
Industry officials estimate the cost of building a new refinery at between $ 2 bn and $ 4 bn -- at a time the industry must devote close to $ 20 bn over the next decade to reducing the sulphur content in gasoline and other fuels -- and approval could mean having to collect up to 800 different permits. As if those hurdles weren't enough, the industry's long-term rate of return on capital is just 5 % -- less than could be realized by simply buying US Treasury bonds.
"I'm sure that at some point in the last 20 years someone has considered building a new refinery," says James Halloran, an energy analyst with National City Corp. "But they quickly came to their senses," he adds.
Source: Investor's Business Daily
details... details
So far, oil agrees me since it's price has gone up.
But then again, oil is pretty dumb. If there is too much oil, it's price will decrease. And if there is not enough oil, it's price will increase.
OK, lets try to have an intelligent discussion here. I posted a quote which included specific figures from the Economist magazine. To have a discussion you should try to present some figures that support you, not just say "based on what I've read...". That's really lame.
Lets also talk about "oil agreeing with you". Stay with me now. The price of oil can go up because of real demand (like China and India's economies reving up and needing more energy) It can also go up because people with money bet that the prices are going up (thinking that there is danger to the supply) and sometimes they even put out analysis saying the price is going to shoot for the roof. The latter is called speculation, and that is also boosting the price of oil.
"If there is too much oil, it's price will decrease. And if there is not enough oil, it's price will increase." -- You got that part right!
Even if the batteries were made out of hay, they'd successfully petition to make them illegal.
Read Roscoe Bartlett's (Congressman from Maryland) speech here
He's got plenty of numbers.
The latter is called speculation, and that is also boosting the price of oil.
I find it mildly amusing the high stock prices are never refererred to as "speculation", but high commodity futures prices are, even though the latter have been proven to be less volatile than the former.
It's much easier to blame boogeymen (evil speculators led by George Soros, Warren Buffet, and Emanuel Goldstein) than acutally deal with the underlying problem of oil demand starting to outstrip supply (hence the higher price).
I did a google and the second item was about airline stocks being HIGH DUE TO SPECULATION. You have provided a false absolute statement. What else are you wrong about?
http://www.thekirkreport.com/2004/06/10/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`
I know enviro weenies are breathlessly waiting for us to run out of oil but for current prices see references to SPECULATION in the face of normal inventories.
The Oil Bubble: Set to Burst?
Strong fundamentals are working against a $50 barrel price.
Oil prices have soared from $32 a barrel at the beginning of the year to an all-time high of $50 a barrel at the end of September largely on the fear of supply outages stemming from terrorism and a series of odd events. Interestingly, virtually every fear so far has gone unrealized.
Terrorism has not removed a single barrel of oil production. Oil output in Saudi Arabia, instead of falling due to terrorism as some have feared, has increased by more than 1 million barrels a day this year. OPEC has steadily increased production by a total of 1.7 million barrels a day since January and has consistently outpaced analysts estimates of its capacity. Production at Russian oil giant Yukos has not fallen it is up 6 percent so far this year. And despite a difficult war in Iraq, production in that country has averaged 2 million barrels a day a 900,000 barrel-a-day (or 78 percent) year-over-year increase with production currently estimated at more than 2.5 million barrels a day.
Although there have been labor strikes at various oil installations, ethnic violence in certain oil-producing countries, guerilla attacks on Colombian oil pipelines, and mechanical problems at producing oil fields all typical events for the oil industry non-OPEC production has been higher and less volatile than in the past.
The only meaningful event to hit the oil industry in recent months has been four back-to-back hurricanes in the southeastern U.S. This has caused temporary interruptions in oil and oil-product flows. Experience shows that inventories tend to rebuild quickly after these storms subside. Yet oil traders continue to speculate that oil supplies, in large quantity, will be cut off.
Perhaps there will be a supply interruption, but the likelihood of a prolonged outage is low.
What makes oil analysis difficult is that in addition to speculation and fear, there has been improvement in oil demand so fundamentals have played a role in the rising price of oil. This has led to concern about the level of spare production capacity and a debate about how much of the upswing in oil prices is due to speculation and how much might be due to fundamentals.
The battery toxic issue is a real one, but if that could be solved, they would be thrown on their @ss if they tried to sabotage cheap clean energy IMO.
Scientists really need to think out of the box about this.
I bet the answer is here already, we just aren't seeing it.
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