Gas prices, and something to think about.

[Adjuster]

Over on SF, there has been much talk about the rising price of gas. I thought I'd respond, and get this going over here too.

My thoughts on gas prices, and who's responsible. (Ok, so I'm slightly opinionated, but your welcome to add your opinion here since we are ALL getting reamed at the pump currently.)

The gas prices sure suck, but everyone is enjoying this current round of being bent over by the oil companies/OPEC due to tree huggers everywhere.

Yep, they have made it so hard to build new refineries, drill for new oil wells, and generally improve the supply lines that we now have a situation where a very common commodity is being limited, so as in all free market goods, prices go up as supply goes down. (Demand is growning, and supplies are flat at best.) There is a point where demand will drop as prices continue up, but I don't know where it is. (Somewhere in the 5.00 range I'd wager here in the USA. Higher elsewhere as you guys are used to being reamed by your governments with higher taxes, so your gas prices have been higher for decades v/s the prices here in the USA.)

Another part of the problem is the lie that we've all been taught, and is still told today that fuel comes from dead dinosaurs and rotted plants. (Fossils.) This is total bull shit, and the oil companies know it. The Sierra Club and the rest know it too, but it takes the wind out of their sails when the public finds out that hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas are just products of the earth, and that the estimates of running out in 30 years, or 100 years, or 500 years are all TOTAL CRAP. The reality is the earth has huge amounts of hydrocarbons in it, and as these migrate up to the surface, they are re-filling the oil fields from the bottem.

A good example is you sucking down a drink with a straw, but the cup your drinking from is being re-filled from a virtually limitless supply of drink from below. The cup is the oil field on the surface crust of the planet. The amount of hydrocarbons in the make up of the earth is vast to say the least. (And we have only just barely tapped it at the easy to reach places where oil is close to the surface, like the Middle East, or even the Gulf states.)

So, now that you know oil and gas are plentiful, makes you really want to pay 5.00 a gallon for it to be refined and used by you? (Should be more like 1.00 or less for premium, and .85 cents for low grade. All oil products should be realatively cheap, plastics are a huge user of oil, and soon your going to see the cost of everything go up due to this little problem we have created for ourselves.) Inflation is just the start.

It's too bad that Bush will not take this opportunity to present an energy bill that really addresses the problem now while those in congress can't ignore the high cost of gas at the pump, and everyone's attention is drawn to the subject. The environmentalists would shit a brick since conservation of oil and gas fields in the USA is a major reason we are dependant on oil from elsewhere. (The idea is based on flawed science. We thought we were going to run out of oil, so we MADE the choice to buy it from elsewhere now, and then use ours later when the rest of the world runs out... What a total mistake that is. There are idle oil wells, entire oil fields put on hold by the US Government, being held in reserve based on 1950's science of fossil fuels, and the idea that in 100 years or less we would be out of oil globally, and would need this saved up oil to fuel the military defense machine.)

The Canadians have found a huge series of oil fields in the artic areas, and are just starting to work at adding this oil to the supply. In Alaska, we have known for YEARS about large oil fields, where it's easy to remove the oil as it moves up in the crust, but the tree huggers have stopped the drilling, and the oil companies love it. (Makes the supply problem worse, so they get to charge more for gas... Not a bad deal eh? If I was an oil company, I'd support the Sierra Club and others who make the product I sell more scarce.. It makes me more money as I know demand is going to go up while my product is limited by chicken little laws made by mis-informed old men and women in Congress.)

Just something to chew on and think about as you pump the 5.00 gas we might see this fall in the USA.

 

[Chad]

I learned somthing today!

Nice job on bringing up this topic.

 

[supraman7mgte]

VIVA LA BUSH!!! No wait,I was just joking...
Would it be that hard to get Clinton back? Even if we said please? So what if he screwd around,our nation was running fine...my 2 cents

 

[mrnickleye]

Adjuster, even if there is 'some' truth in what you've said, it is just a 'venting' for your frustrations over the endless increases in fuel costs. I feel the same agony you do. But... the story is 'much' more complicated than you've shown.

And the bottom line to all the dialog we may waste space on here is simply stated: "we 'pee-ons' cain't do a damn thing about it !"

 

[tlo86]

i have heard this same song for years, when people were complaining about $2.00 a gallon...

i say ethanol! from sugar cane! oh yeah for alternatives!

 

[SupraOfDoom]

In a way I think raising gas prices will help in the long run, people might eventually stop buying dumb SUV's which will never see over 20mpg.... and gaigantic hummers... jeeze. Maybe it will help people to think forward in better alternatives anyway, nothing wrong with that.

 

[tlo86]

yeah i agree. i hate... HATE ... H A T E ... SUV's and the crazy women that drive them (no offense....) and Jeeps (the ones that look like SUV's that get just as bad gas mileage). convinced my grandma already to trade in her Jeep for a Prius

 

[grsupra87]

I agree with Adjuster. Its all more complicated than can be put here, but essentially thats it in a nutshell. My brother is a chemical engineer and he travels the earth for his university and he gets SO pISSED over this crap( because he knows the truth). Check out what China pays for gas...

 

[Adjuster]

Well, so far, in all the Western countries, the governments are holding on to 50's science where it comes to oil and gas production.

It really is money driven, I don't disagree with that observation at all, but I think that you can only sell a product to an customer who either has no other choice, or does not know any better.

As far as us being the pawns in this the chess game, well that's true, but in any democratic country, the next time you vote, don't just listen to the sound bites, or other advertising selling the candidates. Vote on their reccord.
1) Clinton had no reccord. He was a mediocre Gov. But he was charming, and he told everyone what they wanted to hear. (Still does.) Did he improve our country? Nope, we just setup the USA to be a second rate nation under Clinton. (Our failure in N. Africa and to get a grip on the start of Osama BinLadin and his little band of zelots was more of the same. That the Balkens did not blow up in a huge war still amazes me.) Clinton also did nothing for energy production because we were enjoying cheap gas since the Saudi's were dumping oil on the market after the first gulf war ended.
2) Now with the Arabs not happy with how we dealt with terrorism and the religious reality that 99% of Cleric's support terrorism, but don't want to admit it, they have cut back on production, and raised the prices, plus the reality of war makes the traders and buyers of oil uneasy, and that raises prices too.

70.00 a barrel is nuts. This stuff is plentiful, and in places like the Saudi, is so "sweet" it's easy to move, and refine to petrol. The Saudi's have to be laughing all the way to the bank right now. We are pouring billions of dollars every day into their pockets, and they are raising the next generation of Jihadists to cause us grief in the future.

We know where the oil is. We know how to get it. We know how to make it safe for the environment. Why are we not drilling in these places?

Tree huggers, and fish worshippers have mananged to clog up the ability to use domestic oil and gas resources. The big oil companies have just enjoyed the higher profits as a result of the decreased supply, but they have to know that events like this where prices go nuts will hurt them in the end. (Points out how greedy they really are.) And people start to do research, and not just listen to the sound bites fed to them by the media. (Well, more people than normal anyway. the vast majority will continue to get fed the soundbites, and plod on paying the extreme prices.)

IF there was a world leader brave enough to come out and present what we know to be true. Oil is NOT a fossil fuel, it's NOT scarce, and it's not going to run out anytime soon, but we need to as a nation develop the resources we have here in North America, and not depend on cheap oil from overseas.. Well that leader would be on the right track, and in a few years the economy would be growing at reccord pace, we would get more for our money energy wise, and the Terrorists would lose a huge source of income by raping the world while selling them oil.

I think the oil companies should make a profit, I think everyone who sells something should make a profit. But the amount of profit needs to be reasonable, and right now we have allowed some special intrest groups (Tree/owl huggers and Fishworshippers) to ignore common sense, and we are paying for it at the pump with every gallon.

 

[SupraMario]

to tell you the truth, its %80 of congress not know WTf they are talking about period. they are all old and fuckin stupid. ill run im 19, and i could do a better job than %50 of those fuck-ups. technology WTF is that to them i bet u %60 of them dont know what email is. they dont read the laws anymore you know y, cause they are 600-700 pages. thats fucking redicules. the wording of a law or bill should not have to be this damn complecated. we need judges that have fuckin common sence, not some judge that is illiterate to even the simplest of problems. the whole system needs to change not just oil companies. people that are law makers and law inforcers need to continue to learn, you cant finish school and jump on the job wagon and say hey im done ill use what they gave me and thats it. hell no, you thing programers and engine mechanics do this, haha they would be so far behind they would be fired.
i know most wont read what i have here, but to the jist of it we, us, the people of the world need to step up, we cant let huge companies run us into the ground, we are in trouble if this continues, the mom and pop type stores need to come back, we cant continue to barrel down this slop. cause its going to be the end of a lot of countries, a government isnt a government with out the people.

 

[americanjebus]

everyone is so busy looking at alternate fuels and such but thats not what we REALLY need.

if anyone had some time to STOP, think about what we need. transportation and propullsion. ok, so all they do is try to find new ways to make our old ways keep working such as the internal combustion engine. its ancient. its awsome but ancient.

if we are really going to get somewhere and stop this crap we need to look elsewhere, not new fuels for our machines. new machines.

hard to consider but isnt it time we had a technological breakthrough, the last one we had was internet. replace the internal combustion part, hell replace the combustion part. new drawing board see if it helps us out A LITTLE bit.

just a thought.

 

[IJ.]

Clean safe reliable affordable mass public transport would help a lot but no one wants to spend the $$$ on infrastructure as Govt's are only interested in winning another term so won't do anything unpopular!

 

[americanjebus]

Clean safe reliable affordable mass public transport would help a lot but no one wants to spend the $$$ on infrastructure as Govt's are only interested in winning another term so won't do anything unpopular!

society in a nutshell

 

[rakkasan]

In a way I think raising gas prices will help in the long run, people might eventually stop buying dumb SUV's which will never see over 20mpg.... and gaigantic hummers... jeeze. Maybe it will help people to think forward in better alternatives anyway, nothing wrong with that.

LOL, and you're better off because you're driving the model of fuel efficiency, a modified Supra Turbo that weighs 3600 lbs? Little tip, my '03 Expedition gets better mileage than my Supra.

 

[lagged]

only read the first post so....

with ALL due respect, and i mean that sincerely,

get the fuck out of here and wake up.

the people behind the high gas prices are the people who are MAKING MONEY from those prices. you really think that they were FORCED to raise gas prices cause of "hippies"? they used katrina as an excuse to raise the prices.

guess what? people are paying them. SINCE people are paying these prices, they will continue to charge these prices. they will probably go back down but hey, those CEOs can all take home a nice christmas bonus from this disaster.

 

[YoNkErS87t]

I read the newspaper about the people in louisiana this moring because i realy haven't paid to much attention to the news. I mainly just heard from word of mouth of whats going on down there and i took time to read the paper at work today because i know its important to know whats going on in the world, especially in my own country.

Well the point i'm getting at is that after reading the paper and hearing all the stories about the living conditions and people not know if there loved ones are alive or not, and how people are just losing it and forgetting what is important in life. I felt greatfull that after all that happened to these people and there families, the only effect it had on us was the gas prices. I felt very blessed to be somewhere safe with very little worries.

My feelings are still the same, but after reading this post i mainly realize how corrupt this country is and how much our leaders are so money craved. They want to make the poor; poorier and the rich; richer

At the beginning of the week i watched the gas station across the street from my job raise the price of gas without a shipment in. They raised the price of the same gas that was probaly in there from a week before the hurricane hit twice in one day. Not even a ten cent increase each time. I talking 20- 40 cents a gallon it was raised. This country runs on corruption.

And to anybody on here with family, friends or even yourself that lose anything due to the hurricane, god bless and stay strong.

 

[limequat]

Over on SF, there has been much talk about the rising price of gas. I thought I'd respond, and get this going over here too.

My thoughts on gas prices, and who's responsible. (Ok, so I'm slightly opinionated, but your welcome to add your opinion here since we are ALL getting reamed at the pump currently.)

The gas prices sure suck, but everyone is enjoying this current round of being bent over by the oil companies/OPEC due to tree huggers everywhere.

Yep, they have made it so hard to build new refineries, drill for new oil wells, and generally improve the supply lines that we now have a situation where a very common commodity is being limited, so as in all free market goods, prices go up as supply goes down. (Demand is growning, and supplies are flat at best.) There is a point where demand will drop as prices continue up, but I don't know where it is. (Somewhere in the 5.00 range I'd wager here in the USA. Higher elsewhere as you guys are used to being reamed by your governments with higher taxes, so your gas prices have been higher for decades v/s the prices here in the USA.)

Another part of the problem is the lie that we've all been taught, and is still told today that fuel comes from dead dinosaurs and rotted plants. (Fossils.) This is total bull shit, and the oil companies know it. The Sierra Club and the rest know it too, but it takes the wind out of their sails when the public finds out that hydrocarbons like oil and natural gas are just products of the earth, and that the estimates of running out in 30 years, or 100 years, or 500 years are all TOTAL CRAP. The reality is the earth has huge amounts of hydrocarbons in it, and as these migrate up to the surface, they are re-filling the oil fields from the bottem.

A good example is you sucking down a drink with a straw, but the cup your drinking from is being re-filled from a virtually limitless supply of drink from below. The cup is the oil field on the surface crust of the planet. The amount of hydrocarbons in the make up of the earth is vast to say the least. (And we have only just barely tapped it at the easy to reach places where oil is close to the surface, like the Middle East, or even the Gulf states.)

So, now that you know oil and gas are plentiful, makes you really want to pay 5.00 a gallon for it to be refined and used by you? (Should be more like 1.00 or less for premium, and .85 cents for low grade. All oil products should be realatively cheap, plastics are a huge user of oil, and soon your going to see the cost of everything go up due to this little problem we have created for ourselves.) Inflation is just the start.

It's too bad that Bush will not take this opportunity to present an energy bill that really addresses the problem now while those in congress can't ignore the high cost of gas at the pump, and everyone's attention is drawn to the subject. The environmentalists would shit a brick since conservation of oil and gas fields in the USA is a major reason we are dependant on oil from elsewhere. (The idea is based on flawed science. We thought we were going to run out of oil, so we MADE the choice to buy it from elsewhere now, and then use ours later when the rest of the world runs out... What a total mistake that is. There are idle oil wells, entire oil fields put on hold by the US Government, being held in reserve based on 1950's science of fossil fuels, and the idea that in 100 years or less we would be out of oil globally, and would need this saved up oil to fuel the military defense machine.)

The Canadians have found a huge series of oil fields in the artic areas, and are just starting to work at adding this oil to the supply. In Alaska, we have known for YEARS about large oil fields, where it's easy to remove the oil as it moves up in the crust, but the tree huggers have stopped the drilling, and the oil companies love it. (Makes the supply problem worse, so they get to charge more for gas... Not a bad deal eh? If I was an oil company, I'd support the Sierra Club and others who make the product I sell more scarce.. It makes me more money as I know demand is going to go up while my product is limited by chicken little laws made by mis-informed old men and women in Congress.)

Just something to chew on and think about as you pump the 5.00 gas we might see this fall in the USA.

Adjuster, I love ya, but I think you're a bit off base. As much as I'd love to blame the environmentalists, they are only a small part of the problem. Ok, so there's oil in Alaska. If it's so plentiful can't we get it somewhere else? Venezuala, Soviet Union?

Can you give us some links about the origins of "fossil fuels"? My understanding is that it's the pressures and heat of the earth's core that converts the natural elements in the earth to oil and natural gas. Regardless of how it came about, it takes a while to formulate. If there was a way to synthesize the stuff, I'd appreciate a clue. There'd be millions to be made...
The reality is that there is a fixed supply and nobody knows exactly how much is left. We do know where the reserves are...places that seem to be targeted for invasion for one. ANWR for another.

I'm not entirely sure of all the causes for the recent gases prices, but I'm pretty sure of some of them:
Booming China: They're eating up our steel and oil. More demand.
Inflation: Chicken or the egg? High oil prices or inflation? The value of the US dollar has been plummetting for several months now. It just so happens that OPEC rates the value of barrels according to the USD. Changing yardstick.
Iraq: We went in their to secure the second largest oil reserve on the globe and screwed it all up. Reduced supply.

Ok, so gas prices are out of hand. Let capitalism go to work. If there is a market, they will build it. Maybe we need to look at ethanol again. Maybe Honda is on track with it's in-home fuel cell.
Maybe not. Either way, politics is not the answer. Bills and policies are how we got into this mess. We could drop gas prices 60 cents a gallon right now if gas taxes were eliminated. What we need is TRUE free trade, which includes -yes- drilling in "protected" areas.

More important than all of this, is the effect it will have on our economy. As prices go up, more and more US dollars head over to the middle east. The trade deficit grows, and there is literaly less money in America. What's sadly ironic is that as we lose money overseas, the dollar loses value. That's a story for another time, but know this: Right now there are billions of USD in the hands of foreign banks. They would have unloaded it already, but they know that flooding the market with greenbacks would start a world economy collapse that would dwarf that of the great depression. That's not good for anyone: environementalist thugs, world capitalist cheats, or scumbag politicians.

Moral of the story: This sucks. Pray the wheels don't come off, and enjoy your Supra you still can.

 

[limequat]

everyone is so busy looking at alternate fuels and such but thats not what we REALLY need.

if anyone had some time to STOP, think about what we need. transportation and propullsion. ok, so all they do is try to find new ways to make our old ways keep working such as the internal combustion engine. its ancient. its awsome but ancient.

if we are really going to get somewhere and stop this crap we need to look elsewhere, not new fuels for our machines. new machines.

hard to consider but isnt it time we had a technological breakthrough, the last one we had was internet. replace the internal combustion part, hell replace the combustion part. new drawing board see if it helps us out A LITTLE bit.

just a thought.

Well, fuel really *IS* where it's at. As far as practicality, Gasoline is the shit. Doesn't matter if you burn it in a piston engine, wankel, or jet turbine. It all depends on the energy within the fuel.
Even if we were to design a machine that extracted 100% of the energy from Gasoline, we'd still be consuming millions of gallons a day.
It all comes from the sun. Maybe some day we'll figure out a better way of maying photons into motion, but right now gasoline and the IC do a pretty good job.

On the flip side, just to blow your mind, work through the E=MC^2 equation for a 1 kg mass of anything. Hint: C = the speed of f***ing light! If a kg of gas was converted to 100% energy it would be 3 MILLION JOULES OF ENERGY. Wow.

 

[RacerXJ220]

The most efficient ICE engine only used approximately 33% of all the energy through combustion.

Simply put, we need to invent another type of engine, specifically engineered for another type of fuel.

I do agree that the government needs to be aggressive with any new approach with energy. With the money we've "invested" in Iraq, we should see some dividens.

The spike due to that bitch Katrina will linger on for several months to come. There is nothing anyone person can do about it. We need a plan that will work, and so far, there is none

 

[Adjuster]

Best book out there on the Deep Hot Earth theory of oil/gas is by Thomas J Gold. (IIRC, I'm trying to find the book right now.) I read it a few years ago after reading the Wall Street Journal article, and a short note about this in Turbo magazine actually.

The fact is we can blame the environmentalists for a few things. They have stopped dam building in the USA with lawsuits, and they stopped the building of new refineries, and drilling new wells for oil with lawsuits. (Just like they stopped lumber production in much of the USA, and now we are paying for it. Have you priced lumber lately? Ouch it's not cheap anymore, and it's going to get worse as the demand for lumber to rebuild from this hurricane comes in.) We don't have the lumber capacity in the USA we used to just 20 years ago due to tree hugger lawsuits. And the worst part of it is not that I have to pay more for my house to use lumber products from outside the USA, it's that we now are allowing the forrests to just burn up every summer, so the situation is not better for the "great outdoors" it is now worse for everyone.

Back on topic. With new refineries, and just opening up the known, proven wells that have been idled by the US government and US based companies tired of being sued to the point that oil production in some areas is not profitable anymore, we could make a dent in this problem on the short term.

We need to work with the Canadians to help develop the oil fields there, and ones in Alaska we know exist. We need more pipe lines, and less shipping. (Good for everyone.) We need more refineries that can produce cleaner gas, and do it for less money, and we need to do all of this in short order, so lawsuits and other stalling tatics from the left need to be culled. (The reason we need to do this now, while gas prices are stinging everyone who buys it, and while we are thinking about it.)

Just my .02 gal of Light sweet crude oil... LOL

On the engine thoughts. I agree it would be great to have a wonder motor that burns water, and does not pollute. However, any engine that uses heat will put off "greenhouse gases" as even water vapor is the biggest GHG of them all. (Clouds are very good insulators, and keep in the heat from the sun better than any of the other gases like methane, Co2 etc.)

The reality is engines that burn hydrocarbons are as good as it get's right now. They are very advanced, especially when you look at how far we have come in such a short time. (Heck, we were just flying reciently, and now we have super clean burning jet engines that don't leave nasty soot everywhere, and are pretty quiet too.) If you look at the engines used in cars, the technology is just as advanced, and the vehicles of today emit very litte out the tailpipe compared to cars just 20 years old. Let's put this in perspective. The wheel was invented many thousands of years ago, but never really went anywhere untill gas burning internal combustion engines were deveoped to power them. I don't know what the future holds power train wise, but I have to say that what we have now is not a bad deal. Cars in just a fraction of time, have elevated the wheel to a completely new standard of transportation, removing the need for horses, horse barns, large stocks of hay and the work to keep and train those horses. We have "buggies" now that don't stink, leave shit on the roads, and are a blast to drive. I'm looking forward to see where the IC engine takes us in the next 50 years or so. (You guys might see 80 or 90 years, but I'm in my late 30's, so I'll be lucky to see 55 more years of automotive advancement before my time is done.) LOL

Sorry about the long posts, but I think everyone is pretty riled up about this, so it's a good thing we have people thinking about it at least.

Oil is not going away any time soon. (Contrary to a post before this one.) I don't know how much there is, but it's going to be around for many hundreds of thousands of years or more.