Gas/Oil

[Killer Joe]

What do you think about the oil prices?

The rational part of me is buying the notion that currently the supply of oil is low and the demand for it is high what with China and India growing fast in both population and usage of oil.

The cynical side of me is thinking that Middle Eastern countries who have oil are just saying to themselves, "Stupid capiatlistic democracies, they'll keep buying oil at an whatever price we set." $$$$$$$$CHA-CHING!$$$$$$$$

I'm sure the cynical side of my thinking is wrong and I'm glad that I can handle my anger by just sticking to clear & logical thinking. But it's getting harder everyday. Locally it's $3.59/gal. If we're still buying gas at that price then what's stopping us from buying it at $4.00/gal. or $4.50 to $5.00/gal.?

What are we going to do? Stop going to work? My family and I are cutting down "extra" trips to the store and picking Sundays to do our overall shopping and if we forget something, "Oh Well!"

I am very surprised that car manufacturers are allowed to sell fuel efficient cars because that could certainly hurt the booming oil business, right? And as for ALTERNATIVE fuel I really can't imagine that a person(s) would be alive long enough to come up with a solution, corporate espianage is maybe real BIG during this time. <-- cynical side again.

Here's another thought: Why would oil companies ever again settle for $3.00/gal. of gas if we're payiong much higher for it now during this recession? Even if oil goes down below $1.00/barrell what incentive do oil companies have to lower prices? We are a nation built around capitalisim, right? Money, money, money is our motto. Raise your hand if you don't like money?

*...............*

No one, right.

Honestly, we all should get use to the idea that gas will never dip below $3.00/gal. ever again and after it $4.00/gal. never below that price.

I can almost see local businesses picking up again and Malls with Wal-Marts and Targets going down.

 

[Spiderman]

Dude, it sucks but it's a fact of life. I think Americans have had it easy for WAY too long, considering what price European countries pay.

Not to mention other forms of transportation, like jet fuel.

Biofuels isn't really an alternative that I see since that pushes up prices on that side and what with the food shortage worldwide and all.

I think people just have to get used to public transportation and the governments need to start building such infrastructures and people are gonna have to pony up, whether they like it or not. But it'll be a LONG time before people change their minds towards that kind of model in the US.

 

[Budget Player Cadet]

I would love to see a decent-sized (read: Four-door that is smaller than a mini-van) car that could get more than 40 MpG.

 

[Mooseman]

BP's first-quarter profit jumps 63 percent

 

[Killer Joe]

Oh, I'm not saying it's a total conspiracy, and I am getting use to the thought of paying $5.00/gal. before this time next year. I also realize that companies exsist to make profit so a 63% gain just means that capitalism is alive and well.

With that said, let's go ahead and start drilling for oil in the artic. The caribou are plenty enough that they could survive, they got use to the Alaska Pipeline didn't they? Of course we could start a bigger war if we'd do that because then we'd be cutting into the middle-eastern countries profit and I'm pretty sure thay already hate us for just existing so there would be a price from drilling our own oil.

Fuel efficient transportation just won't happen, again, cutting into profits is not a good-thing.

Reshaping our life-styles is the solution, in my opinion. In my town we have a supermarket within walking distance. My town (small city, really) is a ghost town but could easily be filled up with local businesses like a clothing store, hardware store, GAME SHOP, heck, they could even build a Wal-Mart without a big parking lot.

I'm not saying that our society should turn into some futuristic Logan's Run scenario, but going back to the mindset of, "Everthing we need is right here in our hometown." I could get used to that and it's not aggressively attacking the oil companies, in fact, THEY would be the ones that would be forced to change thier mindset. Right now, they have the COOKIE!!!!! We have dirt.

 

[rokapoke]

I would love to see a decent-sized (read: Four-door that is smaller than a mini-van) car that could get more than 40 MpG.

My car may not quite qualify as "decent-sized," by your standards, but with my 2005 Toyota Corolla I recently got 42 mpg on a tank.

Unfortunately, I also have to drive 30 miles each way to school, so that kind of offsets my fantastic gas mileage.

Just don't expect the American car companies to produce the gas mileage you're looking for -- they still think every single car buyer in America looks only at the horsepower when buying a car.

 

[Mooseman]

Separately, BP said its net profit soared by a staggering 63.4 percent to 7.62 billion dollars in the first quarter.
BP said its output was flat at 3.91 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Production is flat, but profits are increasing.... means more profit per-barrel.....

 

[Spiderman]

Just as a note, the Middle East countries are profiting from sending their oil worldwide, not just the US. The US imports from lots of other countries, like Venezuela (who uses that to their benefit too by railing against the US at times). Like KJ noted before, it's China and India that are fast driving the demand - technically you can blame them, but they just wanna catch up to where the US is

 

[rokapoke]

they just wanna catch up to where the US is

In terms of fuel consumption, they'd be much better off staying where they are!

 

[Spiderman]

It might be cheaper over there for them - don't know if the government subsidizes their gas... plus, the whole status factor of driving whatever style of car...

 

[DarthFerret]

My car may not quite qualify as "decent-sized," by your standards, but with my 2005 Toyota Corolla I recently got 42 mpg on a tank.

Unfortunately, I also have to drive 30 miles each way to school, so that kind of offsets my fantastic gas mileage.

Just don't expect the American car companies to produce the gas mileage you're looking for -- they still think every single car buyer in America looks only at the horsepower when buying a car.

I too, drive a 4 door Honda Civic, and have to drive about 35-40 miles to get to the office. I get an average of 40-45 mpg depending on how bad rush hour is and what time I decide to go in in the morning (or how early I leave in the evening). It seems to be a problem mainly for "American" car companies, however, most of your "foreign" models are now being produced here in the US. For example, I work for Toyota Industrial Equipment (bet ya did not know that). The only place that produces our main line of forklifts is in Indiana. There is only 1 model that comes from Japan, and there are 5 models that come from Canada. The other 90 some odd come from the US. They are manufactured there and most of the parts are also made there. (If you do not believe me, read "The Toyota Way" and discover how the auto industry does it the same way).

I think you were spot on when you refered to the Big 3 worrying generally about horsepower.

 

[Oversoul]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMTCNOlozTA

 

[Mooseman]

I was looking for this yesterday..... full story here... http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/24/beck.oil.prices/index.html#cnnSTCText?iref=werecommend

Fortunately, there is some good news in all of this: Oil prices this high mean that a lot of formerly dismissed alternatives will finally make good economic sense.

For example, back in 1980, Congress passed the Energy Security Act, which led to the creation of something called the Synthetic Fuels Corp. (SFC). Lawmakers provided SFC with up to $88 billion in loans and incentives to get started (the equivalent of about $230 billion in today's dollars) with the goal of creating two million barrels a day of synthetic oil within seven years.

So why aren't you putting SFC oil into your SUV right now? Well, it turns out that members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries didn't appreciate the competition so they started bringing down the price of oil. From 1980, when SFC launched, to 1986, when it was shut down, oil went from more than $39 a barrel to less than $8 a barrel. Suddenly, synthetic oil didn't seem so important anymore.

In announcing the SFC's closure, then-Energy Secretary John Herrington said that oil prices had simply dropped too low to make it a viable business.

But the good news is that those economics don't work anymore. The state of Montana, which is leading the synthetic fuel charge, says we can now make it for somewhere around $55 a barrel. That's more than a 50 percent discount from what it costs to buy the real stuff.

 

[Spiderman]

What goes into synthetic oil?

 

[Killer Joe]

Soylent-Green, right?

 

[Oversoul]

What goes into synthetic oil?

No idea specifically what is meant in that context by "synthetic oil." But it is possible to make the same hydrocarbons as generally found in petroleum through a process called thermal depolymerization. I read an article about this several years ago. There's a plant, somewhere in the northeast, that's next to or near a turkey plant and they take all the garbage/turkey parts and turn it into oil. The process generally produces methane, minerals, water, and some combination of coal and oil when organic materials are put through it...

So yeah, soylent green should work.

 

[Mooseman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel

 

[Spiderman]

So what I got from that is that it mainly comes from coal. Is that right? Is coal being used for other things right now or is it largely unused?

I ask because of the worldwide food shortages and price increases. From what I've read, people liked ethanol as a alternative fuel source, which was a good idea when corn was cheap, but now it's "expensive" (more so than when the idea was introduced) even though more farmers are planting corn than wheat (which in turn helped limit the wheat supply and are causing prices to rise for wheat-based goods).

So is switching to a fuel that requires coal as a main source going to take away from whatever else uses coal? Or does nothing else use coal?

 

[DarthFerret]

Coal is still being used in some of your Midwestern powerplants.

Of course, Santa Clause uses his fair share every year also!

 

[Oversoul]

So what I got from that is that it mainly comes from coal. Is that right? Is coal being used for other things right now or is it largely unused?

Coal is mostly used to provide electricity. It provides more electricity than any other source both in the U.S. and in the world. It's also used in smelting.

I ask because of the worldwide food shortages and price increases. From what I've read, people liked ethanol as a alternative fuel source, which was a good idea when corn was cheap, but now it's "expensive" (more so than when the idea was introduced) even though more farmers are planting corn than wheat (which in turn helped limit the wheat supply and are causing prices to rise for wheat-based goods).

Biofuels could be a good partial or maybe even complete replacement for petroleum. But ethanol is a pretty crappy one. And any of them would be more expensive now, but prices would drop once mass production got going. The problem is that ANYTHING we use to replace fossil fuels will be more expensive than fossil fuels, because we need to add energy to make things into fuel. With fossil hydrocarbons, the energy to make the fuel was already put there before we got there (with coal, it was probably plants, which used photosynthesis to build up lots of fibers and carbohydrates, and then the intense pressure they were buried under converted that into coal).