Ok, again, you just don't get it. I've never been one to bash anybody, but really, I don't think you have a grasp on how the world works. The way to create low gas prices is to reduce the demand. By producing vehicles that run on alternate fuel sources, you force the oil companies to lower their prices to compete. It's called free enterprise, you might want to look it up. What we really need is a government that is commited to finding alternate fuel sources and a public that is sick of our troops dying for oil. Again Trader Jorge, you never answered my question, would you like me to take you to a recruiter?
I think this is the biggest issue here with hydrogen powered cars. Storing hydrogen is extremely difficult. Because it is a gas, one would have to compress it at extremely high pressures (we're talking about the lightest element on earth) or extremely low temperatures to store it in any kind of feasible manner. This can easily be shown by the ideal gas equation. We have to make sure that whatever method we choose to store hydrogen is extremely fail proof and safe. We will be dealing with a gas under very dangerous conditions, so this has to be the top priority of any storage solution. Again, this will cost a lot. Sure, scientists have figured out some ways to store hydrogen, but the problem is that it is only on a very small scale. Until we can figure out ways to store hydrogen on a large scale at a cheap cost ($$$ is the bottom line), I don't see mass production of hydrocars to start anytime soon. Another problem will be refueling stations which could also potentially cost a ton and shy away the gas station owners from converting ASAP, unless there is some kind of federal subsidy involved.
That's the thing though, when we move away from oil or even talk about the subject oil companies cut refining because they figure not much will be needed and when we move to other alternatives such as ethanol or hydrogen there are others things we must look at. Ethanol production and its gaining popularity will cause price rises in other areas such as food and the cost of producing and storing hydrogen as well as creating a viable infrastructure to fuel hydrocars will be very costly.
I agree that we are a long way around from hydrogen powered cars given the storage and transporation problems with hydrogen but we could use hydrogen now as a storage medium for power generated by other sources and then use that hydrogen for power stations. Consider having a wind farm that is generating electricity. During peak wind hours that electricity is going to the grid along with some being used to crack water to make hydrogen. That hydrogen is stored on site so it doesn't have to be transported and then at times when the wind isn't blowing it is used to power fuel cells on site whose electricty is fed into the grid. So while you are generating hydrogen you don't have to worry about transporting it and you are only storing it for times when the wind isn't blowing.
Ridiculous. It's like Seinfeld....the market about nothing. Exactly what I was saying last year...all of this price increase is backed by absolutely zilch. That fuels crashes. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5014592.html 'Nothing' prods oil to record $78 a barrel By TOM FOWLER Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle Oil prices shattered another record on Tuesday, settling at $78.21 per barrel, driven by the familiar drumbeat of energy demand outpacing supply. No hurricanes appeared poised to ravage Gulf of Mexico oil production on Tuesday, geopolitical hot spots were relatively quiet, and economists weren't predicting big changes in the economic growth pushing China's thirst for energy. So what caused the price to hit the latest milestone on Tuesday in particular? "Nothing," said Philip Verleger, an oil economist who heads PK Verleger in Aspen, Colo. "Sorry, no smoking gun," said Peter Beutel, president of energy risk management firm Cameron Hanover in New Canaan, Conn. The pace of the price climb in recent weeks may have been helped along by speculators — a record number of traders hold long positions on oil, meaning they are betting the price will climb, according to trading data kept by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. "But that the record should happen to fall today isn't terribly important," said Bill Herbert, an analyst with Simmons & Co. in Houston. "By and large energy is such a long lead-time business that the fundamentals don't really change." Tuesday's close beat the previous record of $77.03 set on July 14, 2006. Analysts pointed to some news to explain the new record — reports that a Nigerian construction worker was kidnapped and investors' predictions that an inventory report to be released today by the U.S. Energy Information Administration will show a decline in oil inventories. "But by and large ever since we were near $64 (in early June), we've continued to move high just on the same-old, same-old," Beutel said. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, drew a connection Tuesday between rising oil prices and the energy priorities of the House Democrats, who are putting the final touches on an energy bill: "It's ironic that the price of oil would hit a new high in the very same week Democrats intend to make far less of it available for production in America," Boehner said. Democrats contend the bill, which would emphasize conservation, create incentives for alternative fuels and tighten up on some oil industry tax breaks, represents responsible energy policy over the long term. Oil prices may actually pull back in the coming weeks, some analysts said, as the U.S. summer vacation driving season comes to an end. "We believe the seasonal demand slowdown could ultimately push crude oil prices below $70/bbl in the near-term," Merrill Lynch analysts said in a report released Monday. And even officials with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries — the cartel that pumps more than one-third of the world's crude — have hinted they may consider increasing output. OPEC president Mohammed al-Hamli expressed concern about oil prices hurting global economic growth last week while ministers from Iran and Qatar "have expressed willingness to pump more crude on an as-needed basis," according to a report by Lehman Brothers. And analyst Herbert said that even if OPEC decides to open the spigot a bit more, it's hardly a guarantee prices would stay in check. Most of OPEC's spare capacity is in heavy-sour crude oil, which must be processed in types of refineries that already are running at full capacity. "There's very little ability on the part of the supply system to respond to more demand," Herbert said. For the oil industry that's such a big part of Houston's economy, higher prices continue to mean good news, Herbert said, since more oil fields will stay profitable for exploration and production activities. But consumers will likely see the impact in the long term with higher gasoline prices and an overall higher rate of inflation, analysts said. For now, though, stockpiles of refined products like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel remain relatively high, noted the Merrill Lynch report. "Barring an unexpected output disruption due to weather or geopolitics, we believe that the gasoline, jet fuel and diesel markets will remain well supplied during the next three months," the report said. Regular gasoline in Houston averaged $2.74 a gallon in Houston Tuesday, AAA reported, down almost 20 cents from a year ago. With the most active part of the Atlantic hurricane season just getting under way, the potential for production disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico are always a possible price driver. How high could prices go? It depends. Beutel said traders have been testing the market's limits for weeks, seeing if it would carry up and beyond last year's record close. "The big question is if this record will be broken decisively, if it will carry up to the $80 or $81 range," Beutel said. If it does, prices could continue to climb and easily spike above $90 or $100 on some real news, such as a hurricane coming ashore in Texas or Louisiana or an elevated state of turmoil with Iran.
Again, why is this allowed? Why can people "bet" something is going to happen to drive up the price of something in which there is no real alternative currently but is needed by basically everybody in the world?
I don't understand the point of that (from a big picture standpoint). Even if we look at the electricity from the wind farm as zero marginal cost to produce, what is stored is subject to some loss. With batteries, losses would be minor, but with hydrogen it would be significant. (My father works for a pipeline company that transports hydrogen. Transport losses are assumed at 30%; storage losses are even higher.) Then, fuel cells have their own efficiency. I would suspect that the efficiency of storing electrical energy in hydrogen and converting it back with a fuel cell is on the order of 60%. Because of scale issues, wind power will always be a supplemental energy source. I find it hard to believe that the efficiency loss from running the primary energy source at a reduce rate is enough to justify the loss energy from converting it to hydrogen and back.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5017960.html Oil prices fell Wednesday as traders took profits after the front-month crude futures contract closed at a record price on expectations that U.S. crude inventories fell last week. The contract had gained $1.38 to settle at $78.21 a barrel Tuesday, beating the previous record close of $77.03, set July 14, 2006. Investors believe a weekly inventory report by the U.S. Energy Department's Energy Information Administration, due later Wednesday, will show that refiners drew down oil inventories last week as they continued to increase gasoline production, analysts said. "Oil surged ahead yesterday to set a new settlement record for Nymex, primarily fueled by momentum buying in expectations that U.S. inventory data due today will show crude stocks falling," said Victor Shum with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore, who attributed the drop Wednesday to profit-taking. Light, sweet crude for September delivery lost 46 cents to $77.75 a barrel by midday in Europe in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. September Brent crude fell 48 cents to $76.57 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London. Vienna's PVM Oil Associates said the spike Tuesday "was mainly due to concerns regarding the security of supply and the expectations of another draw in U.S. crude oil stocks," in the U.S. data. Analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires, on average, expected Wednesday's inventory report to show crude oil inventories fell 690,000 barrels in the week ended July 27 as refinery utilization rates rose 0.7 percentage points to 92.4 percent of operating capacity. "If crude stocks don't fall, or if the stock drawdown is smaller than expected, then one could expect to see some liquidation by investor funds," Shum said. Declines in crude inventories have driven oil prices higher in recent weeks even though overall stocks are comparatively high. PVM noted that "even with such a decline, U.S. crude stocks would remain some 43 million barrels above the five-year average and around 17 million barrels higher than seen in the same week last year." Those fundamentals seem not to matter to many speculators. Analysts say large investment funds — many of which trade on technical factors — have pulled money out of gasoline futures and plowed it into oil futures in recent weeks, another factor driving high oil prices and undermining gasoline futures. Nymex heating oil futures lost nearly 2 cents to $2.1040 a gallon (3.8 liters) while gasoline prices were steady at $2.1050 a gallon. Natural gas futures gained more than 4 cents to fetch $6.234 per 1,000 cubic feet. The U.S. Energy Department report is also expected to show gasoline stocks increased 1.1 million barrels last week. Distillate stocks, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, are expected to have risen 1.4 million barrels. Hedge funds and other speculators have been trying, unsuccessfully, to test light sweet crude's all-time intraday high set last July. "There is certainly a lot of talk about trying to push past that intraday record of $78.40 but it would take a lot of help from the inventory data to make pricing go above the record and stay there," Shum said. "The market is vulnerable to a reversal." Crude prices have gained more than 20 percent in the past two months on a combination of refinery outages, supply reductions in Nigeria and the North Sea, and forecasts that global supply at the end of the year might not be enough to match demand. The rise has been rapid, with prices hitting fresh recent highs in 18 of the past 23 sessions. looks like these guys are just having fun
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/5029847.html Here we go again Oil prices fell Monday, extending a decline prompted at the close of last week by news of a cooling U.S. job market. Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $1.17 to $74.31 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, afternoon in Europe. The contract declined $1.38 to settle at $75.48 a barrel Friday after the Labor Department reported the unemployment rate rose to 4.6 percent in July, a six-month high. That suggests the U.S. economy might be slowing, which could lower demand for oil and gasoline. While crude futures set new price records above $78 last week, they ended the week $1.54 a barrel, or 2 percent, lower. September Brent crude fell $1.15 to $73.60 a barrel on the ICE futures exchange in London. "Market participants are cashing in their profits and the concerns now are the weak U.S. economic data reported late last week," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore. Also, Shum and other analysts said the recent price run-ups have been driven more by speculation than by fundamental issues and that it is to be expected that prices will fall from the highs as traders look at seasonal supply and demand balances. Oil prices tend to peak in the summer, then slide in the fall. Last year, for instance, oil dropped nearly $20 between early August and early October. Fundamental factors that earlier supported prices in the U.S. spring and summer have eroded. In particular, demand for gasoline — typically high during the summer driving season — has ebbed. As well, U.S. gasoline inventories have been building the past several weeks. Analysts say investment funds have been supporting prices in recent weeks by buying up contracts when prices hit technical triggers. Declines in crude oil inventories as refineries increase output have been cited as a fundamental reason for the price increases, but crude oil stocks in the U.S. are still higher than their average for this time of year. "Large funds ... have been reported cutting their overall risk exposure and more widespread risk reduction to cash could have a negative influence on the speculative holdings in energy," said analyst Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix. Analysts at Goldman Sachs believe the strong fundamental outlook means any dip from current levels should be viewed as a buying opportunity. "We continue to believe that without an adequate supply response by the Arab Gulf producers, the ongoing market tightening could lead to ... a further price rally by year-end," they said. "We maintain that every day that goes by without a significant recovery in Middle East exports, the price risk becomes increasingly skewed to the upside." The market has found some relief from the latest export numbers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which showed an increase in its exports for the fifth consecutive month in July. A survey by Dow Jones Newswires last week showed OPEC exports in July climbed 181,000 barrels a day to 30.72 million barrels. Nymex gasoline dropped 2.75 cents to $2.0015 a gallon (3.8 liters) while heating oil prices lost 2.10 cents to $2.0130 a gallon. Natural gas prices fell 5.0 cents to US$6.040 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Yeah, barring any real setbacks (hurricanes, refinery issues, etc.) I would expect to continue to see a decline. It is kind of funny though, gas prices around my town have remained relatively stable over the past 2 weeks. I would have expected them to hit $3 and up the way oil was rising. I remember earlier this year when it was rising and was not as high as it has been the last week or two and gas easily hit $3 a gallon and in my parts got up to around $3.20 before sliding back down. It has remained around the $2.60 mark for a while now.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/5029847.html Oil and gasoline futures plunged today on concerns about the economy's health and as investors sold to lock in profits from last week's record-setting rally. September oil fell more than $3 a barrel, and gas futures slid more than 10 cents to settle below $2 a gallon. Both contracts extended declines that began Friday after the government issued weaker-than-expected employment numbers. That data added to the sentiment of a series of other government reports analysts say suggest the economy might be slowing. "The weaker ... numbers are raising the prospect of softening U.S. commodity demand in general, and energy demand in particular," wrote MF Global UK Ltd. analyst Ed Meir in a research note. But investors are also taking profits from the rally that sent oil prices to record levels last week, analysts said. "It's all related to the (investment) funds dumping a portion of their long holdings," said Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch & Associates in Galena, Ill. Light, sweet crude for September delivery fell $3.42 to settle at $72.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract has fallen more than $6 from the intraday price record of $78.77 it set last week. September gasoline was off 10.31 cents to settle at $1.9259 on the Nymex. Analysts were split, however, on whether the steep price declines of recent days portend the beginning of a sustained drop in energy prices. "I don't think this marks the beginning of the end," said Ritterbusch, who expects oil prices to rise to $80 this fall. "It's just a deserved correction in a bull market." Others disagree, arguing that oil prices are headed for a fall slide that could take prices down to the $60 range. The selling wasn't limited to gasoline and oil. In other Nymex trading, September heating oil lost 9.47 cents to settle at $1.9393 a gallon. In London, September Brent crude fell $3.58 to settle at $71.17 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange. At the pump, meanwhile, gas prices also extended their declines, falling 2 cents over the weekend to a national average of $2.838 a gallon, according to AAA and the Oil Price Information Service.
barring no hurricane or terrorist attack, they're going down to around $63-$65 again this fall, is my guess. just like last fall. as for gas prices in 5-10 years. i don't know. i know what the doomsdayers will say....but they've been saying it since the 70's.
Chavez is itching for a reason to cause instability and resultant oil price hikes, and it's win-win for him if he can blame the US for it. His popularity is waning slowly and those public programs he instituted are very costly to maintain. There's not much separating himself from a dictator at this moment.
I can't even begin to imagine how high the oil would soar if a hurricane pops up and damages some of the drilling infrastructure. It is absolutely mind blowing how high the price of oil has remained despite zero reason for it to be this high. As far as oil prices in the next 5-10 years, I think it will depend greatly on how Iraq progresses. Here are some facts about Iraqi oil: Iraq holds more than 112 billion barrels of oil - the world's second largest proven reserves. Iraq also contains 110 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and is a focal point for regional and international security issues. While its proven oil reserves of 115 billion barrels ranks Iraq second in the work behind Saudi Arabia and Canada, EIA estimates that up to 90-percent of the county remains unexplored due to years of wars and sanctions. Unexplored regions of Iraq could yield an additional 100 billion barrels. Iraq's oil production costs are among the lowest in the world. However, only about 2,000 wells have been drilled in Iraq, compared to about 1 million wells in Texas alone. In the first quarter of 2007 Iraqi crude oil production averaged 1.95 million barrels per day, according to the US Special Inspector General. That's far short of the Iraqi goal of some 2.5 million BPD. In fact, Iraq has failed to meet quarterly crude oil production every quarter since January 2004. Iraq oil production averaged 3.7 million BPD during the peak year before the invasion of Kuwait Since the US invasion there have been some 400 insurgent or terrorist attacks against pipelines, pumping stations, oil fields, and other parts of Iraq's oil infrastructure, according to the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. In a perfect world, if the Iraq oil production does increase in the next few years, this can be easily offset by the probable increase in demand for oil in India and China. This could help reduce prices, but there are just too many what ifs to predict anything with any degree of certainty. Although alternative fuels will play a big role in how oil prices fare in the future, I just don't see anything happening for the next 20 years at the very least because everyone in the US is just so damn dependent on oil, from top to bottom. The transition to alternative fuels will be slow and will require large amounts of cash. One good thing about the high oil prices is that it has really ramped up in the research and development of alternative fuels. Bottom line, nobody knows.
