Posted on 06/07/2007 5:46:44 AM PDT by BGHater
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has warned that the drive for environment-friendly bio-fuel risked pushing oil prices "through the roof" .
OPEC Secretary-General Abdalla el-Badri told the business daily that the development of bio-fuels had made the powerful cartel consider cutting investment in new oil production.
"If we are unable to see a security of demand... We may revisit investment in the long term," the newspaper quoted him as saying.
The report said el-Badri also warned that bio-fuel output could become unsustainable because it competed with food production.
He added that crude oil prices could go "through the roof" if investment in bio-fuels backfired.
The 12-nation OPEC oil producers' cartel pumps more than a third of global crude supplies.
Bureau Report
It’s a very long range view. Alternative fuels are a long ways from cutting into the profitability of oil wells.
And The US automakers believe that increasing the gas mileage for vehicles would actually hurt their sales.
” You’re fretting over jobs become non-existent and shortage induced riots in the midst of enormous bounty overall structural health, and I need remedial economics training? “
Yep...
One who sees fuel availability/price and “enormous bounty [and] overall structural health” as discrete, and not interconnected and interdependent, is certainly in need of remedial *something*.......
And the fact that you base your ‘argument’ on personal attacks and name-calling shows that you probably can’t offer a valid counter-argument.
“I don’t think we are in a position to demand they do anything.”
lol... so you think we have to listen to them when they spout economic idiocy? Go ahead if you like, but don’t speak for me.
You're right. Tightness in the fuel market most definitely means riots and complete joblessness are just around the corner. It's as obvious as could be to anybody that ever cracked a book, or even played on a Slip-and-Slide. Cost-push inflation is beginning to swallow us whole. Damn near took my arm off just a minute ago. The fact that I've been tweaking about your certitude, instead of citing the results of studies, just proves once and for all that you are right. If there was a valid counter-argument to the assertion that localized inflation and supply issues will be the end of us all, I would have used it by now. Game, set, and match to you.
“You can believe what you want to believe and sit on your butt and complain while others try and get us out of the fix we are in.”
Just make sure when you are “fixing” the energy problem you aren’t standing in a government cheese line. Chances are you will be.
I am not complaining, by the way. Energy prices will force the hands of the politicians. While it is nice to have no drilling where there are proven reserves from an environmentalist point of view, it cannot stand for long in the face of energy uncertainty and oil shortage.
What IS silly is responding to perceived energy shortage by funnelling subsidies to agri-business and corn-growing states for political purposes.
This shortage, like most shortages are caused by government, not by any real resource constraint.
So keep convincing yourself that the gov’t cheese you are eating is really “technological innovation”. maybe you’ll get lucky and actually break even. I doubt it though.
True enough. But you forget their short-term greed and fear. Greed is simple enough to understand, and who wouldn't want to have a dollar (or 10 billion) now vs. later? But the fear factor is there, helping to distort the market. These countries are ALL dictatorships - they have to keep opposition elements fat & not too unhappy, or somebody finds them with a second smile. They (at least the Arab ones, who really run the show) also have to keep arming themselves - ostensibly to fight Israel, but realistically to deter or fight each other.
“You are aware that ethanol and biodiesel are not the only alternative fuels getting this ‘government cheese’ you speak of. There are a lot of other technologies getting the same and each is trying to add its part towards getting us energy independent.”
Let’s be clear. Ethanol, whatever it is intended to be, is not an energy alternative. It conveniently burns and can be made from corn. It is another tax on motor fuel, intended to subsidize and enrich midwestern states that are being depopulating and losing political clout in the process. It is not about energy alternatives.
So yes, I do know there are lots of government funded energy research.
The citizens (and non-citizens) want cheap gas for their cars so they can pursue whatever they want to pursue.
That is not a problem, as you put it, it is freedom.
You missed the point. He was saying that if we pursue a strategy to reduce oil usuage, they will have no incentive to develope new sources. Then IF biofuel strategies fail, we will be forced to go back to oil. HIGH DEMAND will force HIGH PRICES in the absence of INCREASED PRODUCTION.
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