Posted on 04/19/2008 1:05:51 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
ran says oil price too low at 115 dollars a barrel.
We say the price of food is way too low. You eat your oil, we’ll eat our food.
We also need 3 additional formulations: one for California and other high density metro areas, the other, for rural areas with the metro formulas cleaner burning.
Then the gas companies can add the octane boosters to provide 93 octane. yup, 87 and 93, that's all we need with 4 basic formulations, period.
Then again, greenie groups and consumer groups cannot understand the cooperative effort could make that a reality.
Coal fired electric plants can run clean if scrubbers are installed and they are maintained to provide optimal inefficiency.
Yuma Mountain is now complete and we have a place to store radioactive waste. Do not forget that breeder reactors also do well in eliminating the tonnage of spent fuel.
We also need to focus on energy efficient home construction with at a minimum being passive solar, solar panel on the roof to preheat hot water for tankless hot water heaters and in the winter, before recirculating back to the panel if no hot water is being called for, a forced air blower one-duct system in the center of the home to supply heat.
My parents had one of these ($3000 installed in 1988) in the mountains of NC. It would heat the entire main 1800 sq ft floor all day starting at 9:30 am and run to 4 pm with the outside air temp never reaching more than 20ºF-25ºF those days. Though not tied in to the hot water system, it cut their oil bill in half for 3600 sq. ft.
Greed and politics?
We need to put a food tariff on every stinking OPEC nation that is selling us crude at any price over $50 a barrel.
Let them pay $80 a Bu for corn/wheat for awhile. Whatever price they charge over $50 we add to the price of food. Problem solved!
Why do you feel it necessary to be offensive just because you disagree with what I say. You say I must not have a job, etc. Why is your opinion so much more valid than mine?
I am not young, do not ride a bike and do not use mass transit. I have a relatively small car, I keep my tires properly inflated, drive the speed limit, avoid jack rabbit starts and stops and keep my engine tuned up. I don't see where this makes me some sort of ignorant, dangerous person.
When I look around I see hundreds of ways that we are wasting energy in every aspect of our life. It's easy to think we are doing our best to conserve energy, and I know that conservation is not the entire answer, but it's a start.
As far as sending the money to our enemies I'm not sure I follow your reasoning there. Every dollar we spend to import oil is a dollar that's leaving America. Much of it goes to those who wish us ill.
Why do you take exception to the part of my post that talks about a tax to force those who are selfish and otherwise not inclined to save energy to do so, but then ignore, while quoting, the part where I say I'm not serious, just making a point.
Only 1/3 of oil is used for gas and I doubt that could be reduced by much over 15%. That will have zero effect.
Are you kidding? You're talking about the same crowd that doesn't give a rip about illegal immigration either.
If you get a promise of a crash program to become energy independent you can get a glimpse of how it will turn out by looking at the crash program to secure the border!!!
I Love the idea!!
unless heavily subsidized that is
then the price will come down
“I hear a lot of we need to and yet I see, Hillary, Obama and McCain on deck.”
A very good post. We have the resources available, but the issue (obviously) isn’t important enough to elect people who actually have plans of getting something done.
I hear what McCain says, and then you read what a guy like Romney thought on the matter and the visions he had, and you just slap your head:
Romney: “We send over a billion dollars a day out of our country to buy oil and energy from other countries. Building nuclear power plants, developing carbon sequestration, liquefied coal, or gasified coal will be the more expensive efforts, but the payback is enormous.”
...
Q: The economy has been booming almost uninterrupted for a quarter century. How do we keep it going for another 25 years?
A: Keep our taxes down and our spending down.... Deregulate, deregulate, deregulate. Invest in technology, and sharply improve the standards in our schools.
We have politicians out there who have the right idea and who have the know-how to get things done. We just need to make sure they get elected in the future.
I don’t care if you’re a Romney supporter or not. The fact of the matter is that we DO have policians with a grasp of economic issues and with ideas. We need them leading us. Not old battle axes like McCain. It’s irritating beyond belief that our nation is investing so much in social welfare programs and so little in developing the technology of the 21st-century.
The known oil would make a cube 3.4 miles on a side. If that were distributed evenly on the surface of the planet it would be no more than a shiny oil slick.
There are 3,500 counties in America. Say each county averages being able to conserve 1000 gallons of fuel a day. Some will be closer to many thousands of gallons, others will be much less. That's 35 million gallons of fuel a day that's not moving. That 210 million gallons a week, 800 million plus a month. The numbers add up very quickly.
We hear from the truckers all the time how desperate they are, but I have them blow by me on the Interstate doing 75 and 80 miles per hour. The myth is that they run more efficiently at that speed and use less fuel than at the speed limit or a bit below it. BS, you can't get something for nothing. If that were the case they could run faster and have fuel actually going into the tank rather than out of the tank.
Drive in to a truck stop and notice how many big rigs are sitting there with their engine running while the driver sleeps, takes a break or eats.
I am not saying we conserve out way out of the high prices, but we can certainly reduce the demand for fuel a lot more than we do right now.
My original point was that if Iran were to block the Straits through which a third of the world's oil passes the price would go to $20 or more a gallon, if you could get fuel at any price. I am convinced at that point you would see a lot of people finding ways to conserve energy that never occurred to them at $3.50 a gallon.
I am not a fringe lunatic ecological nut case. I am as wasteful as the next guy, but it staggers the imagination to realize how wasteful we are as a nation. Petroleum is needed for plastic grocery bags, yet we bury billions of them in landfills every year.
The answer is not conservation and I realize that, but one reason gas is so high is because we pay whatever they ask. Why should they do anything to lower the price. It goes up and we pay up. We were told $60 a barrel oil would wreck the world economy. Well we're pushing twice that right now and we buy all they can pump, refine, ship and sell us.
And I won't even get started on how much oil we use for the production of electricity, virtually all of which could be supplied by nuclear plant, leaving that oil to be used for other purposes.
If we have a bone to pick it's not with each other because we think we can do a better job of stewardship of our planet, but with those who refuse to allow us to drill for our own oil. I am a Floridian and live near the Gulf Coast. I would rather see them drill for oil 200 miles out in the Gulf of Mexico than have to import it from a foreign country.
Oh well, I guess you get the point. We have such a victim mentality about this energy thing. Oh woe is us, we are at the mercy of the big oil companies. They make record profits every year because we demand something, and they supply it.
I've just seen the idiotic “Left/Right” Climate Change PSA’s. One features Gingrich and Pelosi sitting together talking about how we all must do something about Global Warming and we can “Work Together” to stop it.
These idiot politicians are completely bought and paid for. Oil at record prices and all they worry about is a stupid scam such as this. Newt is a disgrace.
Diesel engines do get far better mileage at 70 than at 45, and they can run on next to nothing at idle speed. They are much different than gas engines.
I'm not sure how much knowledge you have with plastics but most of it can't be recycled back into was it was before.
Its not like recycling metals.
If I were king there would be a nuke plant every 50 miles on all the coast lines.
I honestly don't know what it's going to take to get us to start drilling for our own oil and begin building new nuke plants. Whatever it is it's not going to be helped by the oil companies. They must think they've died and gone to heaven! They just keep increasing their earnings and we just keep bitching and complaining and paying whatever they charge. It's a sure thing they aren't interested in spending money to build new refineries!
I live near a nuclear plant as well.
It isn’t cheap because of all the crap the government piles on top and demand consumes supply increasing prices. With cheap electricity there’s a number of possible fuels one can manufacture instead of hydrogen.
I say we kill that SOB and take his oil.
I agree with your comments, and I drop words too, so I knew exactly what you meant. Thanks DB.
I’m not sure why the issue of tax comes up for you. These new power plants pay for themselves. Am I missing something? As we bring on nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, whatever... the power is sold to the customer. The government doesn’t have to spend any money. Private investment forks over the start-up.
While I agree with your premise, I also see a problem there. As much as I like Canada or any other nation for that matter, I want the U.S. to develop energy resources that will not be depleted over time. We’ve got enough nuclear fuel to last us a few centuries (at least that’s my perception). We wouldn’t have to go beyond our own borders for it.
I would not be any more supportive of LNG than I would drilling off our coast. In the short term, I think it might get us part of the way to where we need to be, but I view it in terms of temporary.
I’d like to see us develop the alternative fuels and essentially abandon oil all except for some manufacturing uses that couldn’t be substituted yet.
In time I think even that will go by the wayside.
Nuclear could not only drive clean water, but could be instumental in massive hydrogen production. Once you have a good supply of hydrogen, you’re off to the races.
I do understand your thoughts about plentiful LNG. Perhaps I’m a little too overly optimistic about what we can accomplish without it, who knows. Thanks for your comments.
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