Excellent comments all! In 1993, on a trip to China in the now open developing regions, and 6 years before the turnover from Britian, China was already building highways, factories, facilities, infrastructure and consuming huge amounts of petroleum off the world markets. These are the comments of one of my B-School professors. When the communist wall came down, then they began to slowly release data about their government and actions, such as world market demands upon commodities, raw goods / materials, fuel and manufacturing faciities, as well as partnering with other manufacturing companies. These facts were in evidence early on during the Clinton Adminstration, as well as the same conditions of building infrastrucure, preparing for and engaging in offshoring jobs, factories and call centers to India. Both these countries demands, needs and speculative acquisition of raw and refined commodities were already factored in, when we had $1.65 - $1.85 unleaded gasoline, during the Clinton Administration. what has changed? In addition to the obvious is the additional spectre of enormous greed and political maneuvering in the manner in which events have shown themselves, hence $4.25 unleaded gasoline in the US and $78 bbl prices and continous talk to push the costs even higher, as if somehow these news agencies are uneffected by the realities of these secret policies. hmmmm
http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/NewsML____12744.aspx?newsid=2283 28 Jun 2006 Sweden presents plan to break oil dependency by 2020 STOCKHOLM, June 28, 2006 (AFP) A Swedish commission presented a report Wednesday on how to end the country's oil dependence by 2020 but the head of the body, Prime Minister Goeran Persson, said it would not be entirely oil-free by that date. "We will not be free of oil in 2020. But we will not be dependent on oil in any sector, in the sense that there are no alternatives," Persson said as he presented the report, TT news agency reported. The commission, created in December 2005, proposed four national targets to be reached by 2020. They are: rendering energy use 20 percent more efficient; reducing the use of petrol and diesel in road transports by 40 to 50 percent; reducing the use of oil in industry by 25 to 40 percent; and entirely eliminating oil as a heating method for homes and offices. The report showed that oil products were primarily used in Sweden for road transports, and called therefore for greater emphasis on biofuels and alternative-fuel cars. It also called for energy-efficient buildings to be built and for the forestry and agriculture sectors to be expanded to increase production of biofuels, such as ethanol. It noted that the business sector and the state would have to make hefty investments in order for Sweden to reach the goals. For example, the report called for the state to invest in more high-speed train connections between large cities. "This report is an important first step towards Sweden becoming free of its dependence on oil," Persson said in a statement, refusing to predict when Sweden could be totally free of oil. "The pace will be affected by a number of factors that are external to our national policies. But the direction ahead as laid out in the report is a good basis for a positive development," he said. The goals are needed to confront an expected oil crisis, the commission's secretary general, Stefan Edman, said. "We are showing that it is possible, with measures taken now, to confront a future oil shortage and rising oil prices in a way that stimulates development, growth and employment," he said. In addition to Persson, the eight-member committee consists of business executives, energy experts and professors, and includes Volvo chief executive Leif Johansson among others. " http://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/3212/a/51058 http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1705315,00.html
latest news from CNBC they keep trotting out T.Boone Pickens and his draconian, older statesman death march news by trying to occupy the moral and trading / economic high ground, as if somehow he is the ultimate insider, he continues to trumpet seeing Oil (price per barrel) as going over $80 comfortably and over $100 shortly there after. Its is a worthless to watch on TV as watching paint dry on a wall, and they give this man a 3min - 4min exclusive segment of time on CNBC as if he is worth talking to and watching. What makes no sense is this facination that the news media (puppet on strings) with the draconian touting of even yet higher oil prices instead of leaving those touting it and events supporting this fraudulent reporting as if it is news worthy. Simply put, why wouldn't they want to relegate news, interviews and otherwise along these even yet more negative perspectives to the scrap pile along with other unworthy news stories? Would you want to cover so called breaking news of a potential dirty bomb attack with such facination?, yet the overall damage to the American economy has been equally as perverse and pervasive and detrimental. There was a lady on the nightly news reporting paying over $10.00 for just 2 gallons of gasoline in the St. Lous area where the heatwave and power outages have crippled the gasoline pumping stations. T. Boone Pickens, and others of this Oil Administration are hoping and creating a scenario of events even worse than that lady's experience. Each and everytime they need to bang the drum they get coverage from the financial news media, as long as they want to talk. Something is really wrong with these events.
From the committment of traders report, we know that hedge funds and speculators are heavily long crude, heating oil, and gasoline. Perhaps CNBC is just giving its audience what it wants to hear? "Crude is/will be spiking sharply higher" makes for better ratings than "crude drifting in a range".
stop hoping for Congress to 'act', these guys are too conflicted to start with... just burn all the gas-powered vehicles u can find, and the gas stations! this way you'll get results, guaranteed http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=74407 fyi... quite edifying!
just asking, is this old news? me not intimately familiar with US fuel subsidies regime... http://capwiz.com/taxpayer/issues/alert/?alertid=8862876&type=CO http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/fuelsubfact.htm separately, anyone knows whats happening with a carbon tax in the US? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_tax or propping up gas taxes to increasingly slap the gas-addicted US consumer on the wallet? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline_tax methinks $75 is a good price for oil actually makes fuel cell & hydrogen & other alternatives economically viable! other than Sweden - see earlier post - not everybody is standing still! http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/review/
Nuclear reactors and electric cars. Advantages 1) Cheaper 2) Very efficient 3) No Polution 4) Abundant supply of energy Disadvantages 1) Oil companies can still make trillions off of us. 2) Government officials are highly invested in oil companies.
Not really, 1. nukes are very expensive to build and when the cost of disposing of the waste fuel and decommisioning costs are factored in become about the same or more expensive than conventional plants. Some recent estimates by groups that favor their construction show better economics but it is speculative until some new ones are built. Also, there is still no place to permanently store the waste fuels as NIMBYs are preventing it. 2. nukes are far less thermally efficient than modern gas fired combined cycle plants, running at about 32% vs. 60% for modern combined cycle plants. The nuke generates far more waste heat that is released into the environment. 3. while I like the idea of electric cars, something must generate the electricity and so far coal fired power plants are the choice of the public utilities. RE the oil companies making $$$, that is why they are in business. Someone will make billions so is there a better type of company to do so, say like a drug company? DS ps=I favor nukes over coal and gas fired power plants but remain skeptical of the economic studies that show new nukes being cost competitive with coal or gas fired power plants.
Good points: We do need a better way to get rid of nuclear waste. We also need to recycle that waste. If it's more expensive, why is France almost totally nuclear and why are the asian countries building nuclear reactors. The puplic utilites prefer coal because it's more accepted or conventional to do this, right? We also need high-speed electric trains. Two are planned right now in the US--One in Californial and one in Florida. How can BP be racking in billions in revenues but can't afford to keep up with pipeline repairs? The oil companies are sucking us dry, and they're not even taking care of themselves. It's pretty sad.
If I recall the French have no fossil fuels and they got hurt badly during the first oil shock in the mid 70s. As a result, they went nuclear for almost all their electric. Now, most people there accept it. They are having nimby problems with waste disposal also. BP apparently is poorly run as also can be seen by the refinery explosion in Texas where poor maintenance was a key factor. IMO, they put profits way ahead of maintenance. A bunch of their top management need to be put to work cleaning up their oil spills and digging graves for those they killed in Texas at minimum wage as they don't know how to run an operating company. DS