Judah wrote:
kontiki wrote in
:

Oil companies profit margins are about average compared with other
industries. As far as the price of oil... its not controlled by the
oil companies, it is set by the world-wide marketplace. The US could
be a bigger producer of oil but it chooses not to (for a number of
reasons) therefore it is much more at the mercy of Opec and the
geopolitical forces throughout the world.

If the US actually had a *real* energy policy to _include_ more
production, nuclear and alternatives then there would be immediate
downward pressure on worlwide prices. But we don't (that requires
actual intelligent leadership and the US has none) so we are in
the situation of paying out the nose with dollars that are worth less.

An increase of production of alternatives would only stand to drive the price
of oil even further up, based on the law of supply and demand...

There are no alternatives to oil.

The electric grid uses a vanishingly small amount of oil.

The transportation system uses a vanishingly small amount of electricity.

Electric transportation will never be viable until and unless a dramatic
advance in battery technology is made that will enable electric cars
to go 200-400 miles and power all the trucks on the interstate.

And of course you would have to build more electric generation
facilities.

We'll ignore ships and airplanes for the moment.

Technically the problem is trivial; manufacture synthetic fuels. We've
known how to do that for half a century.

Practically the problem is enourmous; the estimated costs I've seen
for synthetic fuels would be many times the current cost of gasoline
and diesel.

Synthetic fuel will never be viable until and unless a dramatic
advance in the cost of electricity production is made.

So called "renewable energy" isn't the answer; all those cost serveral
times what conventional electricity costs and the odds of making the
costs comparable to coventional methods is slim. Making the costs
a fraction of conventional costs isn't going to happen.

So, the bottom line is, either someone invents a wonder battery
making electric transportation practical, or someone invents Mr. Fusion
making production of synthetic fuel practical.

No free lunch.

--
Jim Pennino

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