Repercussions for people outside New Orleans

john smith wrote:

Any thoughts as to how the SPR oil will be allocated?
Auction?

Can't say, but we built a metering skid for the one in the Sulphur, La.
area (West Hackberry). That was after the salt dome got penetrated by a
well digger and set on fire. They had no idea how much was in there nor
how much was lost. So they used the skid to meter what was pumped out
and from then on, what was pumped back into it... Badly twisted my ankle
on that b*tch when I jumped off of it from making final adjustments, a
steel toed boot got hung between the fins on the explosion proof box. 3
days later I put down my crutches and limped down the isle that weekend
to marry my wife, 25 years ago come January...

"john smith" wrote in message
. ..
Mike Rapoport wrote:
If the SPR oil goes to refineries in the midwest (where the supply of
crude is unaffected) how will that really help? I agree that announcing
the availiiblity of SPR oil has some marginal calming effect on the
markets in the immediate term, but it is not going to affect the supply
of gasoline in any meaningful way.

Any thoughts as to how the SPR oil will be allocated?
Auction?

No. The SPR "lends" the crude to the refiner and the refiner than replaces
it at a later date.

Mike
MU-2

Mike Rapoport wrote:
HELLO!!! ARE YOU LISTENING JAY???

Where do you get this BS?

IT IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO BUILD NEW REFINERIES.

sorry for shouting.

Mike
MU-2

True, it's not physically impossible to build a new refinery here in
the US, but it's nearly financially and enviromentally impossible. EPA
regs and enviromental studies and all the paperwork that has to be
accomplished and signed off prior to even designing the plant has
pretty well made new construction a non-starter since the late 70's.

On 2005-09-01, wrote:
You know, I could care less about "the environment" (I mean, a 10-day
forecast fore one city is as good as a ouija board, but these guys
think they can forecast global weather patterns 100 years into the

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between a
meterologist and a climatologist.

Now imagine this analogy. You have a pan of water on a stove. The
meterologist is predicting where the bubbles will appear, and where the
convection will happen, and what it will do over the next 30 seconds.
The climatologist is looking at the flame, and noting that if you turn
the gas up, the water as a whole will heat faster leading to more
bubbles and convection. The climatologist isn't trying to predict where
the bubbles and the convection will happen, but just noting that turning
up the heat will certainly increase them. His job is quite frankly much
easier than the guy who has to predict the actual small scale
convections and the location of the bubbles.

In the same way, it is well understood and well known that increasing
the concentration of CO2 (and other gases) keeps more of the sun's
energy in Earth's atmosphere. It is therefore a certainty that if you
keep more of the Sun's energy, the Earth warms up, as certain as 1+1=2
or as certain as turning the gas up on the pot of water causes it to
heat more quickly. Just because the guy who predicts where the
convections are can't easily predict them 10 days from now, it doesn't
mean the guy who sees the heat has been turned up can't predict that the
whole system will contain more energy in 100 years time.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

"Darrel Toepfer" wrote:

On another note, anyone who lives near the ocean in a city that's 18
feet below sea level is living on borrowed time until the next
disaster. If businesses were refused insurance and government aid
for disasters such as this, and the poor were forced to work for a
living, no one (or very few) would live in areas like New Orleans
because the financial risk would be too great. Since the government
swoops in to cover much of the financial loss, there's less at risk
for the individual, and lives are needlessly lost.

The people still struggling to make repairs from hurricanes from the
past 3 years, ain't living off of a gov'nment teet. And lots of them
are 50 miles or more from any coast... It took me over 5 months to
have my roof and fence replaced and that was with insurance and my own
money. Lots of people can't afford that luxury...

Isn't it wonderful that we dumbasses living down here are able to
benefit from the wisdom of all the smart people in the rest of the
country?

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

Thus, we find ourselves in the pickle we're in. One hurricane, and we're
*all* dead, economically.

Now that's just hyperbole, sorry. You're not all dead economically - far
from it.

True enough.

But this event will have a devastating impact on our economy, thanks largely
to incredibly poor governance.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay, you simply have no idea.

Really?

I grew up in a city that hosted the largest tractor plant in the world (JI
Case's "Clausen Works"), right on the shores of Lake Michigan. Ten
thousand men worked there every day.

Racine was also host to Modine Manufacturing, Twin Disc, Walker
Manufacturing, and a hundred other smaller manufacturing plants. The skies
overhead were black with soot, and the lake water was very polluted.

Throughout the '70s, as more and more environmental laws were enacted, the
air slowly cleared, and the water quality improved. And, one by one, each
of these plants closed.

The Clausen Works survived, at a much diminished capacity, until just a
couple of years ago. It's now a great, barren, concrete and asphalt plain.
Although a couple of those companies maintain a presence in Racine, their
production facilities are long gone.

Now, our Lake water is so clear, that the lake perch have been devastated by
the salmon -- the poor things simply have no place to hide, because the
water is actually *too* clean. And the boating is great -- for those few
who can afford it.

And all those jobs? All those families? All that infrastructure? All
gone.

Now, obviously, there's a lot more to the utter demise of the Rust Belt than
merely environmental lunacy. The unions got greedy, and came to expect
that a guy turning a nut with a wrench all day was really worth $60K per
year. And management got fat and lazy, thinking that the gravy train would
last forever.

But if you don't think that over-the-top, complex and expensive
environmental regulation played a major part in our economic collapse (and
that is truly what it was/is), you are either a fool or you just haven't
been paying attention. And now we're seeing it happen in the oil
industry -- the very heart and mainstay of our economic system.

We have seen the enemy, and it is us.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

As I understand it, refining is actually a pretty low-margin business,
which tends to discourage investing in one iota more capacity than you
can sell tomorrow.

Right -- and why do you suppose that is? It certainly didn't used to be.

Let's see. The price of crude is sky high. Oil company profits are sky
high. Yet oil refining is a low-margin business. Hmm.... What's going on
here?

Can anyone say "Regulatory Insanity"? That industry can't fart without
filling out reams of EPA paperwork, in triplicate. And each one of those
forms is filled out by a very highly paid person -- that you and I are
directly subsidizing at the pump.

So, in my mind the high price of gas is the best way to spur
conservation. The government could mandate things but all of us as
individuals will figure out better and cheaper ways on our own. I would
not support a tax increase however, because I don't support increasing
the size of government, period.

True enough. But what a stupid time to have this happen, when there's a
real surplus of oil on the market.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Your assumption is not correct. It is not enviornmental regulation that
is
preventing new refineries from being built. The biggest reason that no
"new" refineries have been built is that it is cheaper to increase
capacity at an existing refinery than to build a new one.

Your point is irrelevant. Their costs are lower largely because of the
onerous environmental regulations that essentially prevent the construction
of new refineries until the cost of gasoline has risen so incredibly high
that consumption will fall to a level where the refinery is no longer
needed.

This phenomenon is called "social engineering", and is diametrically opposed
to the laws of "supply and demand." Educated observers have always known
that this was the ultimate goal of the most radical environmentalists (and,
hell -- the ADMIT it) -- to make construction of refineries (or nuclear
power plants, for that matter) economically impossible.

They have succeeded.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote:

Jay, you simply have no idea.

Really?

I grew up in a city that hosted the largest tractor plant in the world
(JI Case's "Clausen Works"), right on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Ten thousand men worked there every day.

Racine was also host to Modine Manufacturing, Twin Disc, Walker
Manufacturing, and a hundred other smaller manufacturing plants. The
skies overhead were black with soot, and the lake water was very
polluted.

Throughout the '70s, as more and more environmental laws were enacted,
the air slowly cleared, and the water quality improved. And, one by
one, each of these plants closed.

The Clausen Works survived, at a much diminished capacity, until just
a couple of years ago. It's now a great, barren, concrete and asphalt
plain. Although a couple of those companies maintain a presence in
Racine, their production facilities are long gone.

Now, our Lake water is so clear, that the lake perch have been
devastated by the salmon -- the poor things simply have no place to
hide, because the water is actually *too* clean. And the boating is
great -- for those few who can afford it.

And all those jobs? All those families? All that infrastructure?
All gone.

Now, obviously, there's a lot more to the utter demise of the Rust
Belt than merely environmental lunacy. The unions got greedy, and
came to expect that a guy turning a nut with a wrench all day was
really worth $60K per year. And management got fat and lazy, thinking
that the gravy train would last forever.

But if you don't think that over-the-top, complex and expensive
environmental regulation played a major part in our economic collapse
(and that is truly what it was/is), you are either a fool or you just
haven't been paying attention. And now we're seeing it happen in the
oil industry -- the very heart and mainstay of our economic system.

We have seen the enemy, and it is us.

Incredible. You have actually argued that gross pollution of the Great
Lakes was acceptable.

As for who is a fool and who isn't, your recent posts haver settled that
matter for me.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM