Archives

Experts say high prices are needed to cut demand and develop new resources. (http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/07/news/economy/120_oil/index.htm?postversion=2008050812)

http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Saudi_Aramco_Oil_Rig.jpgSteve Hardgreaves - CNN/Money - May 20, 2008

Scarcity will prompt solutions - Ed

With $120 oil not seeming to follow the fundamental law of supply and demand many are wondering if the market is broken.

The Federal Reserve has been cutting interest rates, saving Wall Street but sinking the dollar and driving up food and fuel prices. Investors, also called "speculators" by some, have been pouring money into commodities of all sorts, artificially driving prices higher in an attempt to squeak out healthy profits in the face of falling stock values.

But to many, all the financial voodoo is merely a distraction. The fundamental reality of oil - and the thing that makes it so attractive to investors in the first place - is that we are using ever more and finding ever less. High prices are necessary if we are to reduce demand, find new oil, and develop alternative technologies....http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/07/news/economy/120_oil/index.htm?postversion=2008050812

Companies and industries will say anything to justify their desires to make a greater and greater horde of unjustifiable profit.

Capitalism....I think its a great thing. Oil does not pull on my heart strings as necessacity of life as does food, shelter and clothing. People have a choice where they work, play and drive. While my friends were buying big SUV's, Hummers and gas guzzling sport cars, I bought a Ford Focus 8 years ago. Everyone would ask, with all the money you make you drive a Focus? Now with 237,000 miles, being paid off for 5 years, and getting 40 mpg my friends are all bit**ing about how much it costs to fill up their leased vehicles. They made a choice and I did too.

I say go big oil! The more they crush the average persons pocket book the quicker they will be surpassed by a new technology that everyone demands. Wether hydrogen, solar, electric..the higher oil goes the better other sources of energy look.

The only bad side of all this could be if oil returns to $60-80 a barrel. Everyone will be relieved, no one will change thier habits, and big oil with be laughing all the way to the bank.;)

Peak Oil is what is raising the price, and there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

Harry

I agree with Titan, except I am not as happy about. Oil prices are set by investors' perception of global supply (nada) and demand (growing). Higher prices will not only fuel alternative energy research, but increase expensive oil exploration in harder to extract situations. The era of cheap oil, like when it cost less than bottled water a just few years ago, is long gone. But looking at it glass half-full, at least it is not more expesive (yet) than: beer, anti-freeze, milk, Windex, Orange Juice, and Cascade. -Ed.

Peak Oil is what is raising the price, and there isn't anything anyone can do about it.

Harry

Judging by the comments on this topic I read in the blog in the Houston Chronicle yesterday was like a trip through the looking glass. The run the gambit from, "...lets bomb Iran and take their oil" (By no means the majority opinion) to the "...lets nationalize the oil companies because oil is too important to leave to the oil companies." Not one of the bloggers accepted the notion that the old paradigm of cheap abundant oil is going away and that the best new oil discovery will be called conservation. The new paradigm will be to treat oil as the scarce non-renewable resource that it is.

Isnt oil a renewable resource?

The earth is making oil with heat and pressure every day - its just that we are using it way faster than its making it right?

Lets hope the sun keeps shining and the wind keeps blowin :)

No one seems to bring up the fact that the world is getting overpopulated. There is a limit to what the planet (people) can handle.

Isnt oil a renewable resource?

The earth is making oil with heat and pressure every day - its just that we are using it way faster than its making it right?

Lets hope the sun keeps shining and the wind keeps blowin :)

I hope you can wait 150 million years. :rolleyes:

http://resources.schoolscience.co.uk/SPE/knowl/4/2index.htm?origin.html

Capitalism....I think its a great thing. Oil does not pull on my heart strings as necessacity of life as does food, shelter and clothing. People have a choice where they work, play and drive. While my friends were buying big SUV's, Hummers and gas guzzling sport cars, I bought a Ford Focus 8 years ago. Everyone would ask, with all the money you make you drive a Focus? Now with 237,000 miles, being paid off for 5 years, and getting 40 mpg my friends are all bit**ing about how much it costs to fill up their leased vehicles. They made a choice and I did too.

I say go big oil! The more they crush the average persons pocket book the quicker they will be surpassed by a new technology that everyone demands. Wether hydrogen, solar, electric..the higher oil goes the better other sources of energy look.

The only bad side of all this could be if oil returns to $60-80 a barrel. Everyone will be relieved, no one will change thier habits, and big oil with be laughing all the way to the bank.;)

The unfortunate reality is food, shelter, and clothing are all currently provided very cheaply due to oil...and you're right, as oil increases, the alternatives will become economical...all averaging out at a higher level. Thus, all goods will become more expensive.

The new paradigm will be to treat oil as the scarce non-renewable resource that it is.

For a long time I've wondered why human beings can't see the obvious, that oil is indeed a scarce, non-renewable resource.

It's incredible to me that people will wake up tomorrow morning, and go buy a brand-new SUV. What does it take? We should run completely out of oil, and then say, oops, we should have driven more fuel-efficient vehicles?

Harry

One thing nobody has mentioned is that, as far as fuel goes, we're wasting half of what we use. I bike to work everyday, holding my speed down to a reasonable limit. People pass me and give me the "moron!" look. Yet, I'll pass them sometimes three times on the way to work. I never stopped once. They stopped three and four times. ...and I mean long, hard, pad smoking stops. In their moronic attempt to get to where they are going faster, they are doing one thing: wasting fuel. They'd get there faster if they'd just line up behind me. They'd have fewer accidents and fewer strokes. Their vehicles would last longer and their children would enjoy their company a lot more (and a lot longer!)

The high gas prices could be fixed by simply by reasonable conservation. Not radical hypermiling like we're doing on here, just some reasonable driving. The problem is they're either too stupid or too busy talking on the cell. Personally, I applaud the high gas prices!

Bring it on OPEC! Lets rock! High gas prices may be painful but it will raise our quality of life if we'll let it.

For a long time I've wondered why human beings can't see the obvious, that oil is indeed a scarce, non-renewable resource.

It's incredible to me that people will wake up tomorrow morning, and go buy a brand-new SUV. What does it take? We should run completely out of oil, and then say, oops, we should have driven more fuel-efficient vehicles?

Harry

I wonder the same thing sometimes, but I think a lot of people are just concerend with looking cool and don't really pay attention to things outside of what is in front of them. I live in a neighborhood of Suburbans and Tahoes and witness this behavior/attitude every day.

When I talk about oil or alternative fuels they look at me like I am some kind of nerdfest. I don't understand it. We have even gone as far as considering moving so our kids aren't over exposed to this way of thinking.

I live in a neighborhood of Suburbans and Tahoes and witness this behavior/attitude every day.
When I talk about oil or alternative fuels they look at me like I am some kind of nerdfest. I don't understand it. We have even gone as far as considering moving so our kids aren't over exposed to this way of thinking.

You wouldn't think that it would be possible for so many citizens to be so utterly ignorant of such important issues as peak oil, global warming, and the whole global geo/political power struggle that will affect their own and their children's futures. At least you wouldn't think it possible until you realize that the media (TV, newspapers, radio) and the politicians are all funded and lobbied by the same conglomerates who have gotten incredibly wealthy by selling fossil fuels. Elections are won and lost, wars are waged, and species are pushed into extinction by keeping the electorate ignorant.
jsmithy, I admire your inclination to move to a different neighborhood to protect your kids' minds----but unfortunately you might need to move a very long way.

As fuel prices continue to rise I've noticed people around here are starting to polarize significantly. I'm either asked about the Prius and the gas mileage that I'm getting, usually followed up by a comment about how they're thinking of getting a hybrid of some sort, or I get broadsided with nearly direct quotes from that Dust to Dust article telling me my car is destroying America somehow.

I've even started to notice this behavior on the road. I finally found a much shorter (6 miles) way to work that is all back roads with speed limits between 40-55. It was like a godsend. When I first started driving this way it was empty, I never met anyone, now I'm usually following or being followed by 3-4 vehicles. Most of the time the people around me even seem to be hypermiling, but then I get that angry person in the SUV (usually a H3 or FJ Cruiser) that rides my tail for miles before having a road rage fit and racing around me while giving me the stink eye.

The higher gas prices get, the more hatred there seems to be from some of these people to anyone in a gas efficient vehicle doing the speed limit. (not just hybrids). On the positive side, we now have 5 hyrbids at work and a definate decrease in the number of trucks/suvs in the parking lot.

The scary part is the attitude from people I'd never have suspected. I had a close family friend, who'd never said a negative thing about my car start telling me the prius pollutes worse than a Hmmvee, and that they'd have to pry his gas burning cars from his cold dead fingers. This isn't an unintelligent man, but his argument is that by the time gas is too expensive to drive, he won't be able to afford anything else either. I was dumbfounded.

_______________
Alex

High prices is simply the product of highly successful price manipulation and gouging at the source--OPEC.

And no matter what we do to cut OUR consumption, either 1) China and India will gobble it up and then some or 2) OPEC will cut production to keep prices high.

Our only real answer is to go to domestic energy sources. Oil shale, ANWR, North Dakota, that new deposit off the Florida coast...those are an intermediate solution to keep prices down while the government launches an aggressive initiative to upgrade the national power grid in anticipation of millions of PHEV's hitting the market.

Hell, make a state-owned energy company if you have to. Just get the power plants built. Preferably nuclear since that uses a minimum of fossil fuel's.

I hope you can wait 150 million years. :rolleyes:

http://resources.schoolscience.co.uk/SPE/knowl/4/2index.htm?origin.html

Actually, the earth is producing "new" 150 million year old stuff right now.

In another 150 million years, perhaps you and I will become the "new" oil :)

And no matter what we do to cut OUR consumption, either 1) China and India will gobble it up and then some or 2) OPEC will cut production to keep prices high.




And that's Peak Oil, isn't it? Or perhaps we could modify the term and call it "Effective Peak Oil." Like you say, OPEC has the ability to lower production, but almost no ability any more to increase production, and there are so many new motorists in China and India that any softening in the price of oil will encourage a spike in consumption. Therefore, "Effective Peak Oil" is here. Get used to it.

It's laughable to talk about the US producing it's way out of this mess. Ain't gonna happen. It's impossible.

Harry

I've even started to notice this behavior on the road. I finally found a much shorter (6 miles) way to work that is all back roads with speed limits between 40-55. It was like a godsend. When I first started driving this way it was empty, I never met anyone, now I'm usually following or being followed by 3-4 vehicles. Most of the time the people around me even seem to be hypermiling, but then I get that angry person in the SUV (usually a H3 or FJ Cruiser) that rides my tail for miles before having a road rage fit and racing around me while giving me the stink eye.

The higher gas prices get, the more hatred there seems to be from some of these people to anyone in a gas efficient vehicle doing the speed limit. (not just hybrids). On the positive side, we now have 5 hyrbids at work and a definate decrease in the number of trucks/suvs in the parking lot.

_______________
Alex

Alex, that happened to me this morning. I drive 30 miles to work and 20 miles back mainly because my special needs kid goes to a private school. On the last leg of the trip I made my left turn at an intersection. I crept up to speed as I normally do at intersections and this guy in a green Jeep Cherokee tail gated me and then honked me. I muttered under my breath to myself, "It's my gas and its gotta last me the rest of the week." Well he sped way ahead of me only to get to a red light that intersects interstate I-10. I let up on my accelerator, as is my usual custom, 1/5 mi. down the road and gently coasted to a stop with the green Cherokee to my left at the red light. I turned my head toward him. Then something startling happened. He apologized to me! I stated back, "It's your gas mac! Why race to the red light?" That was it. Lesson learned. :)

What is sad is we should have solved this problem years ago. The late 70's was a warning shot. We as a nation did not heed. :(

For a long time I've wondered why human beings can't see the obvious, that oil is indeed a scarce, non-renewable resource.

It's incredible to me that people will wake up tomorrow morning, and go buy a brand-new SUV. What does it take? We should run completely out of oil, and then say, oops, we should have driven more fuel-efficient vehicles?

Harry

Ya know, Harry, I think it has a lot to do with the love affair America has had with their cars. When you love anyone or anything blindly, it becomes quite easy to "overlook" things you don"t want to believe.

Anyway, thats the way I feel because I, like a lot of you, spent my formative years under a car. I still love to go to car shows and see "THE JUDGE"!!:flag:

Gas isn't high enough yet. I think some are changing but some people have to just be hit over the head. I work with a woman whose husband sells houses, he drives a dodge ram hemi crew cab truck with a v8. She says his gas bill is 700 bucks a month on that one truck, he fills up every 3 days, so doing the math he is driving roughly 3,000 miles a month. This is a case for a car switch if I ever saw it, and I told her so She said well the truck is paid for, once in awhile he needs to haul something so we'd just have a car payment. Why not get a 700 dollar truck, to use on those times, or rent one, and trade for a four door civic or something to do the work stuff in. He isn't going to do it because that vehicle wouldn't look as flashy and cool... So what does the number have to hit for people to change, more than their house payment? It seems that way. I've heard excuses when talking about downsizing ranging from "I can't fit in one of those things" to "those are unsafe", to "the gas prices are going to fall just anytime now" that one is really funny. Just yesterday when picking up my daughter from school I saw a woman fly up the drive and screech to a halt and then leave her door wide open, motor running, and air cond. full blast...while she went inside to collect her child. I guess there wasn't time to kill the motor haha. Then she figured out her child was on the playground instead of at the main building so she hopped back in her car and moved it literally 50 feet to get closer to the playground...it took more time to do that than to walk the distance. In general people that I see and lazy and spoiled to the point of stupidity, I wish more would wake up. I agree that america does have a love affair with cars, and that's fine I love going to car shows and seeing old hotrods and such too, but the problem arises when everyone wants to drive a show car or gas guzzler every day for their regular commute to show off to everyone, instead of just on the weekends.

She said well the truck is paid for, once in awhile he needs to haul something so we'd just have a car payment.
Get a low millage used Prius for daily driver, keep the truck he loves for hauling and pocket 1 to 200 dollars per month depending on the price of the Prius.

What is sad is we should have solved this problem years ago. The late 70's was a warning shot. We as a nation did not heed. :(

The gas crisis of 1979 should have warned us but it didn’t because we weren't willing to listen. I hear the same mantras today. There's plenty of oil over here. It's just that the enviros don't want us to drill there. The oil companies aren't building enough refineries and so on. Well first the USGS says have 21.5 or so billion barrels of oil that are proven and not fanciful conceptual reserves. We consume 7.5 billion barrels per year. So all that alone, this amount would last us 3 years. Second, the oil companies are never going to build additional refineries when they are not likely to increase the extraction rate of the oil that's there. These refineries take a long time to plan and build. There's permitting and planning and all that goes along with building a refinery then they have to hope that oil feedstocks don't go higher and make it impossible to make a profit. I'm not, by any means flacking for the oil industry but when they hear that they will be taxed on their profits they have to wonder why on earth they would build more refineries. Enter President Carter. He warned us about this energy crisis. Here's an excerpt from a speech President Jimmy Carter gave on July 15, 1979.

>>Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them. <<

It was called the Malaise speech. You can find it at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html

Funny how the memory works. I have heard the name Malaise speak many times, not until I read those word you quoted did I remember see Pres. Carter deliver that speech.

Our excessive dependence on OPEC has already taken a tremendous toll on our economy and our people. This is the direct cause of the long lines which have made millions of you spend aggravating hours waiting for gasoline. It's a cause of the increased inflation and unemployment that we now face. This intolerable dependence on foreign oil threatens our economic independence and the very security of our nation. The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our nation. These are facts and we simply must face them. <<

It was called the Malaise speech. You can find it at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carter/filmmore/ps_crisis.html

Right on! That's exactly what I've now been saying. I have seen long gas lines lately (usually when many stations jump and one hasn't jumped yet), inflation is hitting the roof, unemployment is becoming a problem again, and this is primarily because OPEC's got the testicle lockbox, and they've slammed it shut on us.

Oh, and oil is $133 now. :angry:

You wouldn't think that it would be possible for so many citizens to be so utterly ignorant of such important issues as peak oil, global warming, and the whole global geo/political power struggle that will affect their own and their children's futures. At least you wouldn't think it possible until you realize that the media (TV, newspapers, radio) and the politicians are all funded and lobbied by the same conglomerates who have gotten incredibly wealthy by selling fossil fuels. Elections are won and lost, wars are waged, and species are pushed into extinction by keeping the electorate ignorant.
jsmithy, I admire your inclination to move to a different neighborhood to protect your kids' minds----but unfortunately you might need to move a very long way.


Thanks.

What spurred our serious thoughts of moving was a ridiculous spectacle we came across last fall. We drove into the entrance of the neighborhood after dinner at a local burger joint and what did we see? A banner that was roughly 10'x20' attached to the front of a house that reads "Happy 16th Brendan Love ya' ". Sitting in the driveway beneath the banner is a NEW Hummer H2 with a giant red bow. What kind of distorted message does this send to a 16 year old kid? I hope he realizes after he gets past the teenage years that this type of vehicle represents many things that are wrong, if you will, with this country. I can only hope.

On a side note, my kids ask me frequently if I am coasting and they get a kick out of watching my scangauge from the back seat. They are quick to tell me if the trip MPG is decreasing.

Perhaps the high prices will help get the huge vehicles off the road that the drivers cannot see out of. Like the one that pulled in front of my and totaled my Civic several years ago or the (censored) minivan with tinted widows that backed into my new Prius in a large parking lot with only one other vehicle in it tonite... :mad:

I still love to go to car shows and see "THE JUDGE"!!:flag:

I guy on my paper route in 1975 had this, Ram Air IV.



http://www.gtoalley.com/gtopics/70juga.jpg

He had this too, Ram Air III.

http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/Pontiac/1969_Pontiac_Firebird_Trans-July25a.jpg

High prices is simply the product of highly successful price manipulation and gouging at the source--OPEC.



That's not true, although every gas-hog owner I know who has commented on high gasoline prices has used that argument.

It's important to realize that it isn't just OPEC, it's Peak Oil. Almost every non-OPEC country has seen reduced production of oil, including the US, Mexico, Russia, and the North Sea producers. Taken as a whole, world production of oil simply cannot keep pace with rising demand, and that is the primary reason for the increase in the price of oil. OPEC is taking advantage of the situation, but that is a relatively minor point.

Harry

What is sad is we should have solved this problem years ago. The late 70's was a warning shot. We as a nation did not heed. :(

SO very true, Jamtee, SO PAINFULLY TRUE!!:(