I don't trust them at all. I would hope that a cut in gas taxes would have a provision that would penalize Big Oil for artificially raising prices during the gas tax cut. But I definitely agree with your point, and am amazed that we don't have a serious national plan to produce alternative fuels. Amazed, but not surprised, with Big Oil's best friends in control of Congress and the White House. In whichever thread it was, the discussion about Brazil becoming energy independent was a good one. Brazil points towards where we should be today, if we had leadership worthy of the word. Keep D&D Civil.
I disagree. It is true that Brazil is energy independent, which is a good goal for the US, but I don't like the altrenative they went after. Switching from burning one fuel to another is a short term solution. We need to be developing more long term solutions (like solar). Where they are now is better than where we are now, but not as good as where we could/should be.
The U.S demand for oil is 45% of THE ENTIRE WORLD's PRODUCTION(yrly)! ... they can not do what Brazil has done. Demand is just too high.
The US consumes ~25% of the world's oil. How can they demand 45%? http://www.nationmaster.com/red/pie-T/ene_oil_con
Well, I disagree with you! Here we are, in 2006, with hardly an alternative fuel program worthy of the name. That is an absurd situation. If we weren't paying farmers not to grow sugarcane, and promoting a program similar to Brazil's, we could have a significant percentage of our fuel supply produced from alternative sources. Is Brazil's example perfect? Of course not, but it is a heck of a lot more than the US is doing, with our vaunted technological prowess. The production plants are fueled by the sugarcane husks, meaning that they don't need petroleum products to produce fuel. They are self-contained. I would suspect that there is an impact on greenhouse gases that isn't desirable, but no more than the impact we produce now, and most likely less. Keep D&D Civil.
i'm sorry... i think i made up that number However the consumption is at 20,030,000 barrels per day. Second is the European Union at 14,590,000 barrels per day. 10,400,000 barrels per day is the import figure. Hmmmmmmm.
My dad is in the oil business and here is his take on the current state of oil and why gasoline prices are higher: >The world is running out of the finite resource, as we know. > China had 170,000 transport vehicles in 1997 and they had 5 million in 2003 (latest statistic I have). >OPEC’s spare capacity to produce went from 14 million barrels per day in 1986 to between 1 and 2.5 million barrels spare capacity today. No one in the world has any spare capacity but OPEC. >By 2010 OPEC will have zero spare production capacity. >The oil companies produce oil and make gasoline. Obviously their profits are up because oil is a whopping $70 per barrel. OPEC sets the oil price based on world demand. > Europe has been paying over $3.50 per gallon for years for gasoline. >The US has not built a new refinery in 25 years…………because Greenpeace and the Sierra Club did not want to pollute the environment (a good idea if there is excess international gasoline—NOT). Because we can export our air pollution to somewhere else - Now we are paying for it. But even if we had new refineries, the price of oil (and gasoline for that matter) would be the same because we import 60% of the US requirements. Becoming self dependent on energy is a joke for the USA . We are addicted to oil. The only way to become less dependent is to drill for more within the USA . The only way to incentivize companies to drill is to provide a good return on their investment…………which means higher prices, which are here to stay. Heck, it costs $400,000 per day to lease a drill ship to drill a deep water well…..think about that and calculate the $ per minute. AND it may take two to six months to drill a single well. That price doesn’t include the pipe, valves, etc to complete the well. It is an expensive game. >Finally, we all need to drive a little less and the only way to treat the addiction is to price it out of reach which will reduce consumption and bring prices down. Unfortunately, it hurts lower income families more. But cuts in the family budget will have to come from other areas for now------gotta drive those big ass SUV’s.
I find that difficult to believe. If we build more nuclear power plants, produce/use more ethanol/biodiesel, build more wind power, put solar cells on every roof and use solar water/home heating in the North, and massively increase research into alternative energy... To just give up before we've even begun the battle is defeatist.
Nuclear power, wind and solar replace coal/natural gas way more than they replace oil since oil is not used in large percentages to produce electricity. The transportation fleet is where we consume the most oil (cars, trucks).
Why can't we have solar powered cars? Every year there is at least one solar car race, so the cars exist. The problem is, no one outside of Monty Burns has come up with a way to charge people for use of the sun. Don't you think someone might be interested in a car that has free fuel? Now, this is not at all feasible for cargo transport yet, but I think personal transport could certainly change to solar if any of the big auto companies would just be willing to get behind it and develop it. EDIT: I forgot to mention, we can also have electric cars that are recharged using the regular energy grid, which as you already pointed out can use nuclear, solar, and wind power, thus making the cars use nuclear solar and wind power. This one at least one automaker has gotten behind (sadly they abandoned it) with GM and the EV1.
Didn't they talk about fleet mpg minimums a while ago. Cars that use less gas. That's a start. They're pretty smart in Detroit (well...i guess that's not where the cars come from any more)...but if the rules are there -- the manufacturers will come up with a way to meet them while still producing cars people want. But the rules have to be in place for all the manufacturers. Except last time the companies found it easier to lobby against the rules.... I remember in the mid to late 70's all the talk about running out of gas. We had about 20 years left, if I recall -- which seemed like foreever back then -- at least to guy in grade school. Gas line ups. Even/Odd days. Yet mpg's are about the same as before. Crazy.
Yeah its not like if we tank our efforts at conservation or other energy sources we will have a shot at getting a higher pick in a new oil reserves draft.
Frankly the wealthy leadership of this country, prefers its tax breaks to anything and is defeatist about just about every major problem, health care for all, the environment, ending poverty at home and abroad, rebuilding New Orleans, energy independence-- just about any endeavor except for using the military, the one large scale institution that still works well and is adequately funded. Sadly the primary use of this fully funded institution is to neeedlessly take over or bomb the crap out of of some third world country.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/3847953.html May 8, 2006, 9:57AM Oil prices stay below $70 a barrel By GEORGE JAHN Associated Press VIENNA, Austria — Crude-oil prices sagged below $70 a barrel today as a stagnating gasoline market temporarily pushed persistent worries about Iran's nuclear ambitions into the background. Crude futures lost more than $4 a barrel last week after U.S. government data showed an increase in gasoline supplies. But geopolitical concerns, including unrest in Nigeria, violence in Iraq and rising resource nationalism in South America, still underpin oil prices. The most pressing source of anxiety stems from the possibility that Iran, OPEC's No. 2 producer, could cut supplies because of international pressure to modify its nuclear program. Venezuela's oil minister added to potential concerns, saying today that OPEC is not likely to decide on a production increase at its June 1 meeting in Venezuela because the group has little additional capacity it can summon. "There is not much OPEC can do," said Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez in a television interview in Caracas. Still today, the market chose to react to increased gasoline stocks and lessened demand due to high prices. Vienna's PVM Oil Associates attributed "stagnating demand and higher production rates" for the U.S. gasoline stock build revealed last week. "In the short run, slower demand, coupled with higher production and lower crude prices should bring (gasoline) retail prices down," it said, even as concerns continued over Iran and South America — where Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador's energy nationalism continues to fuel crude and natural gas markets. Light, sweet crude for June delivery lost $1.06 to sell for $69.13 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by afternoon in Europe. June Brent crude futures on London's ICE Futures shed 68 cents, selling at $70.27 a barrel. Gasoline futures fell by more than 2 cents to $2.0200 a gallon while heating oil prices slipped nearly 2 cents to $1.9380 a gallon. Natural gas prices lost 13 cents to sell at $6.641 per 1,000 cubic feet. Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency, told reporters at an Australian oil and gas conference Monday that crude prices will have to come down, adding that even producers aren't happy with surging prices. "The current prices aren't sustainable," Mandil said. "The high oil prices are not consistent with the long-term trend just because they are much higher than the margin costs of an additional barrel," he said. Still, upward pressures loomed. On Sunday, Iran renewed its threat to withdraw from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, with its president saying sanctions would be "meaningless" and its parliament seeking an end to unannounced inspections of its nuclear facilities. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he would not hesitate to reconsider membership in the treaty, speaking as Washington and its allies pressed for a U.N. Security Council vote to suspend Tehran's uranium enrichment program. The U.S. is backing attempts by Britain and France to win Security Council approval for a U.N. resolution that would threaten possible further measures if Iran does not suspend uranium enrichment — a process that can produce fuel for nuclear reactors to generate electricity or, if sufficiently processed, to make atomic weapons. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, said he believed the resolution would move to a vote this week, with or without support from Moscow and Beijing. Other concerns affecting the market include some 500,000 barrels per day of Nigerian production, most of it operated by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, that remains off-line because of violence there, and more than 300,000 barrels per day still shut down in the Gulf of Mexico since Hurricane Katrina battered offshore platforms in August. Strong global demand and a limited supply cushion magnify the significance of these events, while a surge of investors betting on oil and other commodities has also lifted prices — which have fallen more than $6 from their intraday peak of $75.35 reached April 21 on the Nymex but remain roughly 40 percent higher than a year ago.
Yeah, it's time to build some more refineries. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/biz/4008346.html Saudi says crude is flowing freely Prince calls lack of refining capacity the real problem By LYNN J. COOK and BILL HENSEL JR. Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Saudi Arabian crude is stranded in tankers on the high seas, circling the globe in a desperate search for buyers, according to the kingdom's ambassador to the U.S., Prince Turki al-Faisal. The ambassador told an audience at the U.S.-Arab Economic Forum held at the George R. Brown Convention Center on Tuesday that 350,000 barrels of heavy crude oil have been lifted from the ground but cannot be sold because the world lacks the refining capacity to turn it into useful fuels like gasoline or diesel. He later confirmed most of that is already loaded onto tankers, just waiting for sales contracts. How long can the situation last? "As long as there is no customer," he said. The stranded oil helps to illustrate Saudi Arabia's insistence that it is doing everything it can to try to quell oil prices and that the market is out of its hands. The world's refiners only have excess room to run lighter crudes. High demand for that kind of oil, coupled with the fact that it is easier to turn light crude into transportation fuels, continues to drive up oil prices even though there's plenty of the heavier stuff out there. The prince said that given the situation with the crude it is trying to sell, it is obvious it is not limited supply that is driving oil prices up. "The fact is, the biggest bottleneck in oil prices is the security situation, particularly in our part of the world," he said. But exacerbating the situation is a lack of refinery capacity, he noted. While Saudi Arabia is building more refineries and talking about expanding into hot markets like China, there is a lack of refinery capacity in the U.S., he pointed out. One way to deal with the need for increased capacity is to reduce demand for oil in the U.S. by increasing fuel-efficiency standards, said William Berry, executive vice president at Houston-based ConocoPhillips. He said tougher standards would help conserve gasoline and deal with growing demand for energy. "The federal government needs to step up efforts to promote the efficient use of energy in all sectors of the economy, including transportation," Berry said. Increased efficiency can help relieve some of the pressure on supplies, he added. The U.S. consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day but produces only about one-third of that, said John Watson, president of international exploration and production for Chevron, who joined Berry on the morning panel. Berry called it disturbing that many discussions about energy focus on reducing reliance on what is labeled unstable foreign supplies of oil. "Repeated pronouncements by U.S. lawmakers about backing out Mideast imports may deter Arab producers from expanding capacity at the very time the world needs them to do so," he said. John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil, said U.S. interdependence with Middle Eastern oil producers is fundamental to sustained economic growth for countries throughout the world. Steve Simon, director and senior vice president of Exxon Mobil, called the Middle East vitally important. "The U.S. has a strong interest in what happens to production in the Middle East," Simon said. Albert Helmig, executive adviser and former vice chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange, said the entire world needs oil. "The demand for oil is global, not regional," Helmig said. "We are all interdependent."
Half of all US oil refineries have been closed by the oil companies since 1970. Something the oil companies and the administration always fail to mention.
obviously the u.s. companies aren't interested in increasing refinery capcity. btw, if you pull up that thread about the refining bill, i posted a link that said it passed. so we'll see how eager these companies are to build refineries.
