$150 per barrel, your opinion of the impact.

[FN FAL]

I still think the whole thing is over-hyped.

once again, look at the price? 2.50 a gallon? It was earth shattering that it was going to be 1.00 a gallon back in 1975. Take into account inflation, the liquid is cheap.

If we were running out, do you think we'd be getting it cheap as it is now? P.S. take the state and federal taxes off the gas and it gets real cheap.

When the price of filling your car up exceeds the price of operating an alternative fuel car, you'll see the move over to alternative fuel cars...I heard that one 30 years ago as well.

This topic is old hat, we were discussing this back in the mid 1970's and look at what we got for rolling road blocks now...Escalades, Jeep Wagoneers, Blazers, Navigators, Ford Explorers, HUMVEES, expanded cab urban assault pickup trucks and the roads are littered with motorcycles that get nada for gas milage...look at all the harleys out there. Not to mention all the dicks with personal watercraft that are making lakes such a fun place to relax on.

It's the same old story from 30 years ago...and that last fuel crunch was right at the tail end of a long war as well. Once uncle sam calls off the war and the go juice market feels the overcapacity syndrome, gas will go back down again.

 

[NCGAPilot]

once again, look at the price? 2.50 a gallon? It was earth shattering that it was going to be 1.00 a gallon back in 1975. Take into account inflation, the liquid is cheap.

If we were running out, do you think we'd be getting it cheap as it is now? P.S. take the state and federal taxes off the gas and it gets real cheap.

When the price of filling your car up exceeds the price of operating an alternative fuel car, you'll see the move over to alternative fuel cars...I heard that one 30 years ago as well.

This topic is old hat, we were discussing this back in the mid 1970's and look at what we got for rolling road blocks now...Escalades, Jeep Wagoneers, Blazers, Navigators, Ford Explorers, HUMVEES, expanded cab urban assault pickup trucks and the roads are littered with motorcycles that get nada for gas milage...look at all the harleys out there. Not to mention all the dicks with personal watercraft that are making lakes such a fun place to relax on.

It's the same old story from 30 years ago...and that last fuel crunch was right at the tail end of a long war as well. Once uncle sam calls off the war and the go juice market feels the overcapacity syndrome, gas will go back down again.

Exactly! I was listening to Art Bell "Coast to Coast" one night and one of the oil expert (not connected to any oil company) basically said we have enough fuel to last us a LLLLOOOONNNGGGG time. and by long he ment thousands and thousands of years.

 

[FN FAL]

Exactly! I was listening to Art Bell "Coast to Coast" one night and one of the oil expert (not connected to any oil company) basically said we have enough fuel to last us a LLLLOOOONNNGGGG time. and by long he ment thousands and thousands of years.

Last decade, it was threaded rifle barrels and folding stocks, this decade its going to be gasoline and global warming or global ice age, magnetic pole reversal or whatever. Don't you find it amazing that the move, "day after tomorrow" was so strategically placed during an election year?

Asteriods hitting the planet, a super tsunami, a super volcano, a super earth quake...you mention it, it's been "super" hyped this year. Also don't forget "superpredators" coming to a criminology thesis paper near you soon!

Every imagined disaster is looming around the corner...and they are all super disasters! Oooooooh...get scared!

 

[NCGAPilot]

Last decade, it was threaded rifle barrels and folding stocks, this decade its going to be gasoline and global warming or global ice age, magnetic pole reversal or whatever. Don't you find it amazing that the move, "day after tomorrow" was so strategically placed during an election year?

Asteriods hitting the planet, a super tsunami, a super volcano, a super earth quake...you mention it, it's been "super" hyped this year. Also don't forget "superpredators" coming to a criminology thesis paper near you soon!

Every imagined disaster is looming around the corner...and they are all super disasters! Oooooooh...get scared!

LOL, I tell ya, sometimes I think some of these people who are over-hyping a simple inflation, need to relax and get high. lol.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

I've been following the oil and alternative fuel situation for a number of years.

We will NEVER run out of oil. As it gets more and more expensive, people will use less and less of it. The price will stablize when we quit using it for a transportations fuel. My brother said about 5 years ago that it is stupid to be burning oil for transportation, when we could be using it to manufacture so many products.

World Peak Oil will occur (the year that the maximum world oil production will occur), and after this the price of oil will, basically, steadily climb, until we find suitable replacements.

The US Oil Peak was about 1970. Prior to that a lot of people were saying, as a number of posters have above, that a US oil production peak was a bunch of crap. Then it peaked, and we've been importing more and more oil ever since.

Mobil-Exxon (the most conservative of the oil companies) just predicted a non-OPEC world production peak within 5 years. Most of the proponents of the world Oil Peak happening sooner that later predict it within about 5 years of so. Just so you know, BP is one of the companies predicting the peak sooner rather than later. They are, I believe, the 3rd largest oil company.

I am hoping that the most negative prognosticators are wrong, and that we will have a relatively smooth transition to alternative fuels.

However, our politicians are not helping things. Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and GW Bush have done nothing substantive to decrease our use of oil.

The approx. $200B we've spent in Iraq so far would've, I believe, have solved the alternative fuel situation if we'd spent it for that. I have read that only $100B over 10 years would do it, but very few politicians seem to be listening so far.

Social Security, Medicaire, Medicaide, our welfare system, along with public schools, our jobs, etc. depend on switching to alternative fuels. I want EVERY viable candiadate for the 2008 election to be trumpeting alternative fuels as the most important piece of their platform, because it is the most important thing that the world needs to accomplish now.

The US is #1 in both Wind and Solar power potential. We used to be #1 in wind turbine technology (the Dutch are now). We used to be #1 in solar technology (the Japanese are now).

I want to see US companies building alternative fuel hardware, in US factories, filled with US workers. This hardware will be installed in the US with US workers, which can help make us the strongest country in the world once again.

I find it disgusting that we are financing the terrorists who are trying to kill us.

Cliff
HEF

PS-I just bought uranium mining and wind turbine technology stock. We'll need a lot more nuclear power as a stop-gap measure to get us off of oil/natural gas before we have enough renewable electrical energy production to make up for the loss of fossil fuels.

 

[Yellow Snow]

The oil production peaked in 1970 for a lot of reasons. We are no where near out of oil. The oil companies found that it was easier to go overseas for crude than to continue to fight the regulation and environmentalism in this country. There is more oil in Alaska and under the gulf than in the entire middle east but the fight to drill for it isn't worth the effort. We cannot expand our nuclear power for many of the same reasons. It is assinine to think that power generation as clean as nuclear is blocked in favor of coal fired production by environmentalists.

It is just a shame that every time one of the doomsayer "scientists" speaks up and scares most of the uneducated population that we have to wait twenty years for them to be proven wrong. Man sure didn't create this world and in no way has the power to destroy it. I am sure if we started to really damage this planet it would wipe us out and go right on with its existance without us.

 

[AGuyThatFlys]

The oil companies found that it was easier to go overseas for crude than to continue to fight the regulation and environmentalism in this country.

More complicated than that.

U.S. oil companies (in fact, all oil companies throughout the world) have relied on multiple sources for their oil since around 1880. In fact, Standard Oil of California (Socal) was getting oil from Bahrain in 1932 and Saudi Arabia in 1934. Gulf Oil and Texaco followed as well.

The reason was the way oil companies were structured, they were fully "integrated." In other words, they found, drilled, refined, transported, marketed and distributed the stuff. They were the customers for raw crude, and the suppliers for the refined product. Companies wouldn't let competitors get control of sources of oil, since doing so would effectively cut their marketshare, as well as enhance their competitor's ability to control the price of oil.

John Rockefeller did just that with Standard Oil in the late 1800's. He controlled so much of the world's known oil reserves (most were in the U.S. at the time) that he could squash competitors by simply selling at below-market prices in his competitor's markets--knowing that he could make up the losses by simply selling for far higher elsewhere in markets that he controlled.

As for the effects of the environmental movement of the 1960's; that led to a drop in coal burning, and actually caused "reliance on cleaner-burning oil [to grow]." But, thanks to a seepage of 6000 barrels of crude from a Santa Barbara offshore well, public outcry led to a shutdown of California offshore drilling. If you're wondering, it was the Nixon administration that banned it.

Source: "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power," Daniel Yergin.

There is more oil in Alaska and under the gulf than in the entire middle east

Nope. The top five proven oil reserves are all in the Middle East. Saudia Arabia at #1 almost equals numbers 2-4 (Iraq, Iran, Kuwait) combined. Notice that Russia is #6 and China is #10. U.S. isn't even in the top 10.

See: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872964.html

but the fight to drill for it isn't worth the effort.

Even if it were, it really comes down to the price of a barrel of oil. The higher the price, the more oil you can pull out of Prudhoe Bay and ANWR economically. Ironically, if oil were to go back to $25, even $35/barrel, the financial case for drilling in Alaska makes less sense. It won't be worth the expense to add production capacity.

Another problem with tapping into Alaska is the structure of the oil business itself. While companies are still integrated, today they are far more reliant on buying and selling oil on the spot market. The U.S. is no longer insulated from the world oil market. ExxonMobil, being a publicly traded company, seeks to make the most profit in the most efficient way. I have no confidence that, based solely on patriotism, they will only keep Alaskan crude for U.S. energy demands. It wouldn't surprise me if ExxonMobil thought it could make more money selling Alaskan oil on the open market, that it would do so.

 

[wrxpilot]

Last decade, it was threaded rifle barrels and folding stocks, this decade its going to be gasoline and global warming or global ice age, magnetic pole reversal or whatever. Don't you find it amazing that the move, "day after tomorrow" was so strategically placed during an election year?

Asteriods hitting the planet, a super tsunami, a super volcano, a super earth quake...you mention it, it's been "super" hyped this year. Also don't forget "superpredators" coming to a criminology thesis paper near you soon!

Every imagined disaster is looming around the corner...and they are all super disasters! Oooooooh...get scared!

Well, fear can be used as a form of control. When "bad" things are about to happen, many will gladly exchange their rights for "security".

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

NCGAPilot: Actually, the whole thing is massively under-hyped. If all of us, as Americans, had understood our energy situation in 1970, we would be importing 0% of our oil today, and we would be well under way in our transition to alternative fuels.

Hardly anyone in the US today understands the gravity of the situation that we're in today. I like my job, my house, and my way of life. I hope I will be able to keep them. The pessimists say there's no way that is going to happen.

ANWR: (Alaska Nat'l Wildlife Reserve)
If we drill out ANWR, it's only enough oil to supply all of the US for one year. Much of that oil will go to Asia, as it is cheaper for us to import oil from other places for the 48 states than to bring it down from AK. If ANWR is approved for drilling, it will be 10 years before they can get it online.

BP and Chevron/Texaco, along with one other big oil co. I can't remember (NOT Exxon/Mobil) all dropped out of the oil industry lobbyist group pushing for ANWR in the last 5 years. They dropped out because they can get oil other places cheaper.

Nuclear:
New nuclear elec power WILL happen. That is why I just bought a great uranium mining co. There are now 3 companies competing to design the new wave of nuclear reactors here in the US. 2 are US and 1 is French. France currently gets approx. 78% of the elec. from nuclear. We HAVE to go nuclear to get us over the hump in the transition from natural gas/oil to renewables for the majority of our elec. needs.

General
The US oil production peaked in 1970, and our current production is < 1/2 of what it was then, even though or demand is way up.

In, I believe, 1980, we were down to 40% imported oil. Now we are up to 60%. If we are against terrorism, we should be doing everything we can to avoid buying Middle Eastern oil.

Cliff
HEF

 

[wrxpilot]

I agree that we should strongly pursue alternative fuels and MUST use nuclear energy. Hippies in Oregon and Boulder aren't going to enjoy high energy costs and coal emissions any more than the rest of us. More importantly (like you said), we need to cut our dependence on the middle east. That place is a disaster that we should not be financing as much as we do.

I'd be very surprised if we were literally on the peak of oil scarcity though. I've talked to a couple of people in the oil & gas field and they seem to believe a lot of the talk going on these days is nonsense. There's even a couple of guys I work with that are busy converting their money into Euros and gold. Seems a bit extreme to me. They believe oil prices are going to skyrocket, and that we are on the verge of a massive depression. Sounds too much like Y2K talk.


.

Hi!

NCGAPilot: Actually, the whole thing is massively under-hyped. If all of us, as Americans, had understood our energy situation in 1970, we would be importing 0% of our oil today, and we would be well under way in our transition to alternative fuels.

Hardly anyone in the US today understands the gravity of the situation that we're in today. I like my job, my house, and my way of life. I hope I will be able to keep them. The pessimists say there's no way that is going to happen.

ANWR: (Alaska Nat'l Wildlife Reserve)
If we drill out ANWR, it's only enough oil to supply all of the US for one year. Much of that oil will go to Asia, as it is cheaper for us to import oil from other places for the 48 states than to bring it down from AK. If ANWR is approved for drilling, it will be 10 years before they can get it online.

BP and Chevron/Texaco, along with one other big oil co. I can't remember (NOT Exxon/Mobil) all dropped out of the oil industry lobbyist group pushing for ANWR in the last 5 years. They dropped out because they can get oil other places cheaper.

Nuclear:
New nuclear elec power WILL happen. That is why I just bought a great uranium mining co. There are now 3 companies competing to design the new wave of nuclear reactors here in the US. 2 are US and 1 is French. France currently gets approx. 78% of the elec. from nuclear. We HAVE to go nuclear to get us over the hump in the transition from natural gas/oil to renewables for the majority of our elec. needs.

General
The US oil production peaked in 1970, and our current production is < 1/2 of what it was then, even though or demand is way up.

In, I believe, 1980, we were down to 40% imported oil. Now we are up to 60%. If we are against terrorism, we should be doing everything we can to avoid buying Middle Eastern oil.

Cliff
HEF