Posted on 08/13/2005 9:44:28 AM PDT by NYorkerInHouston
Raymond J. Learsy has written a book memorable in the special sense that nightmares can be memorable, but also useful. If the nightmare is that you died of an overdose of drugs, and the memory of it causes you when in command to draw back from the marginal dose, then the nightmare has served a purpose. Raymond Learsy writes (his book is called "Over a Barrel: Breaking the Middle East Oil Cartel") about what could happen if we continue to go as we are going. The price of gasoline as I write is 60 percent higher than it was a year ago. Such data require extrapolation.
After 200 pages of history and analysis, telling the story of the founding of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries), of manipulations and broken promises and extortion and opportunism, Learsy acknowledges OPEC's success. Sixty-dollar-a-barrel oil is certainly a success, but the body on which it feeds does not expand, pari passu, with the successes of OPEC. It does not matter how much you consume, if the supplies are inexhaustible and your capacity insatiable. But here is what we might be facing if oil rose to $100 per barrel.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
I agree on that we need a Manhattan style project devoted to energy, and fusion needs to be a significant component of that.
That problem has a couple of constraints. The major constraint is that the scientists working on it have to go from one small step to the next until someone had the Big Idea. More money can be spent, but progress still goes from small step to small step. It is a waste of resources to build more and more reactor experiments when progress is still so small. The other restraint is that our education system is not producing vast quantities of trained people to work on this. Science and math are falling out of favor, unless you happen to be in India or China.
Strategic Petroleum Reserve "loans"???
"Voucher-based" gas rationing coupons??
"magnetic debit cards"???
"market incentives"???
Good grief...
William F. Buckley is nothing but another clueless, ivory-tower, techno-ignorant buffoon.
What we NEED is to build some more transportation infrastructure that isn't so g-dd-m petro-dependent.
Electric-powered mass-transit systems in our nation's most densely populated regions and urban areas. (light rail, high-speed rail and maglev.)
And start building some NUKES to supply the juice.
It's not a panacea, but I guarantee it'll help make us less dependent on oil than a bunch of stinkin' vouchers and magnetic debit cards.
Sheeeeesh...
Are there any major non-federal projects exploring fusion current? And I say "non-federal" because I believe the Federales have a vested interest in delaying any advances in the field.
Yeah, I actually looked into the whole rationing thing several monthes ago, never having experienced it myself. During WWII, due to a rubber shortage, gasoline was rationed in the US using lettered stickers:
A: non-essential drivers 3-4 gallons per week
B: driving deemed essential to the war effort 8 gallons per week
C: indicated physicians, ministers, mail carriers and railroad workers
T: Truckers
X: Members of Congress and other VIPs (figures, par for the course, why should they have to suffer with the rest of us)
No argument from me on your points. One of the reasons the Transportation boondagle recently past irks me so much. A tremendous misallocation of resources on a highway transportation grid. Just think of all the rail lines that could have been built with that money.
Even at $100 a barrel (which isn't likely at all) it wouldn't have much impact, except to keep lefties at home instead of driving their beaters out to the country and hugging trees.
It may increase the number of stills in the country though, as some of the poorer country folk start burning Al-kee-haul instead of gas. Store bought liquor sales may drop as well.
All the fusion projects are either national labs or university labs. Most of the funding is Federal. Actually a fair amount of funding is international, including European and Japanese. They would all like to have this answer, but inspiration is apparently not hastened by spending more money above a certain level. What is it now? $5 billion a year? Maybe not even that.
The quantity of oil in the SPR would not be enough to effect oil prices for more than a day or two. Then it would be gone and what would be gained? Edwin Edwards was governor of LA when the SPR was filled. What are the odds all of the oil is there anyway?
I can see where the Japanese would want this big time. Doesn't it seem that whoever breaks this problem will pretty much rule the world? That alone should motivate, say, the Chinese, hm?
The campaigns of Democrats and Republicans are being paid for by the people who are making the profits from the current situation. The historical Golden Rule applies: he who has the gold makes the rules. It's always been so, and will always remain so.
I was about to ping you, so I'm glad to see you're already here!
WTF kind of bureaucratic, paper-shuffling imbecile actually believes that gas rationing "vouchers" and magnetic debit cards are the "market based" solution to reducing oil dependency???
Where in the world do these idiots come from???
Ya, but it takes time. In the short run, the demand for oil is quite inelastic, which means in the short run, a potentially very large spike in prices. Buckley may overstate the magnitude of the economic disruption, but the disruption will be real and palpable, and damaging.
Nodody anticipated apparently that the Indians and Chinese would be increasing their demand for oil as fast as they have been, and nobody seemed to take seriously that the supply of oil may be near its peak from pumping it from the ground (other ways of getting it are far more expensive and environmentally damaging), and about to commence a long slow slide downward.
Buckley's voucher scheme is a cross subsidy to those who use relatively little gas, from those who use relatively more. It would really screw those who have long commutes. The price of housing in the exurbs would take a great big dump, and nice inner city and close in neighborhoods would get a price boost. The Detroit auto makers would go bandrupt faster than we currently think they will. And then there is home heating oil. Oh dear.
And we are all overlooking one thing: THERE IS NO OIL SHORTAGE!! What we have is traders hedging up the price because of unfounded panic over Sadi oil which we only get 8-9% of our imported oil from. WE ARE BEING GOUGED, nothing more.
Oil is a fungible commodity, and the price is set on a basis of worldwide supply and demand. Who imports from where is near irrelevant.
I could get by on zero gasoline. I have done it for extended periods before now. Same for electricity. It's not what I would think of as a hardship, just an inconvenience. Things were rationed in England, some food items. In Germany and Russia I don't know, I think everybody there was automatically in the war so there weren't many private options to begin with. Once we are mobilized for war, FedGov assumes total control. It is neccesary. The thing is, they have extended this necessity to relatively trivial things like the War on Poverty [started way before LBJ] and the War on Drugs [also started long ago].
Just wanting fusion power does not imply that the big inspiration [still lacking] of how to do this will be forthcoming. As far as ruling the planet, the simple knowledge that the problem has been solved would likely be enough knowledge for other scientists to home in on the solution right away. A monopoly wouldn't last long.
Well said
There seems to be a never-ending supply of people who haven't looked out the door of their apartment in years. That's okay, it keeps educators busy and off the street.
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