Gas Prices -- Help at last?

Then don't ride a bike if it's too hard for you; not everyone is capable
of it. I'm not sure how you felt this was directed to you anyway; I was
simply pointing out to Jay that a 4 mile commute is usually quite
practical via bicycle. If it's really bad weather, use another means or
better yet stay home or at the inn.

You've actually got me thinking about it, John. I only realized what a
perfect candidate I was for riding my bike to work after this thread.

Until this year, I was driving my kids to school each morning. Now, my son
is riding his bike to school, and my daughter and I walk to hers. There
really isn't any good reason NOT to ride my bike, other than time and
laziness.

And we actually are seriously discussing selling our home and moving into
the Inn next spring, at least for a while. Man, that commute would be hard
to take! :-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:uCN2f.420540$x96.326280@attbi_s72...
You still don't get it. The number of refineries doesn't matter...the
output does.

Actually, we do a agree on that.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Then what is the significance of the fact that no new refineries have been
built.

Mike
MU-2

Here is the official data:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petro.../gasoline.html

Go there, then to the Production XLS file under History. Gasoline
production is up substantially in the past 20yrs as you would expect from
the increased number of cars and increased population.

The reason no new refineries have been built is that it is cheaper to expand
existing ones because they already have all the infrastructure for bringing
crude in, the real estate is already owned and they are often close to large
markets. The return on capital by increasing capacity at an existing
refinery might be double the return of building a new refinery. It doesn't
take a genius CEO to figure that one out. Is enviornmental and other
regulation a factor? Of course it is, but is not a big factor when
considering a multi-billion dollar refinery.

Mike
MU-2


"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
ink.net...

(You mentioned that refining capacity has grown despie the reduced number
of actual refineries)

(18.6 Mbbl in 1981 vs 16.8Mbbl today)

http://www.investors.com/editorial/I...0051010&view=1

Hey Roger! I did the same two years ago except I bought an old bike (for
$35) specifically for the trip and gave it away when it was time to fly
home. Having the mobility of a bicycle and not having to lock it up (due to
its low value) was great! I was staying at Basler and riding all the way
around the airport was much faster than the buses and going to the grocery
store was east too.

Mike
MU-2

"Roger" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 02:40:56 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote:


"JohnH" wrote

But even if you were completely adverse to riding in bad weather (not
*cold*
mind you), what does that really reduce your # of cycling days by? A
couple
weeks a year?

OOOOhhhh. You haven't spent much time in Iowa, have you?

There is also a factor of arriving to work so sweaty in the summer, that
nobody can stand getting near you for the rest of the day. Also, it does
get really hot there, and you can't take enough off to stay cool, unlike
rutting more on for the cold. Cold is also a real excuse, when you talk
about getting frostbite from a half hour outside, in the wind. Oh, did we
mention that it gets windy there?

One year, my wife and I took our road bikes to Oshkosh. We were able
to ride them on the grounds until about 3 days before the fly-in
proper opened. We then took them out to the stand "On the hill" by the
bus stop. When ready to fly home, we put them on the "welcome wagon"
for a ride to the Deb.

We stayed in town. Weather was near 100 most of the time, but for two
days where it was cold, windy and rain. Riding in 100 degrees
wasn't all that bad. It was when you stopped it got miserable.
Did I mention I came down with one of the worst colds I've ever had
the night after we arrived?

Every place I've worked had showers. Even when I worked 18 miles from
here we had one younger guy who rode his bike nearly every day unless
the weather was *really* bad. Really bad means thunderstorms and wind
too strong to ride, or ice on the roads. He didn't ride when the
temps got much below 15 degrees, but he'd ride in rain so heavy my
windshield wipers would hardly take care of it.

He'd get to work, shed his rain gear, take a shower and head for the
office. When I worked at the main plant here in town we had a number
of people who rode in, including some upper management. I know one
who was making well up into the 6 figure range. Normally they'd all
head for the showers as soon as they made it to work.

If Midland were laid out differently I'd bet we'd have hundreds of
workers riding into town. The problem is the town is bisected by a
river with only two bridges. A third river coming in from the WSW
joins the first river right between the two bridges. No place in town
is more than about 6 miles from me with the airport only being a tad
over 4, but it takes 10.6 to get there. The shortest route is via
suicide alley where no one with an IQ over 70 would ride. The safest
is across the other bridge which is only about 3/4 of a mile from the
first, BUT you have to travel 5 to 6 miles farther to get to it.
There's another river in the way and that can only be crossed 4 miles
west of town where you then have to go nearly 3 miles south and then 3
miles back north to get to the bridge. If you live north of the
express way (US-10) there is no safe route into town via bike. Heavy
traffic on narrow streets/roads with no, or almost no shoulders. No
place to be on a bike.

They really are working on making our streets bicycle friendly.
and plans call for bike lanes although we'll have to watch for
impatient drivers passing on the shoulder. We have a very long way to
go before getting any where near as bike friendly as Boulder Co.

OTOH my wife is getting rid of her 37 MPG mini, mini van and replacing
it with a Prius. Now if I could get that kind of gain with a
replacement for the 4-Runner which gets 18 MPG around town. Anyone
make a SUV that gets 36 MPG that I can afford?

Some have mentioned losing jobs to low cost labor, but several
corporations have mentioned opening plants in other countries due to
low energy costs compared to here. Depending on the product, a high
tech chemical company doesn't save nearly as much on cheap labor as
they do with cheap energy.

In our specific area we don't have all that many unskilled jobs as
most of the work around here is high tech due to the nature of the
work, not that we can get labor cheaper some where else.

We do have a lot of farms that could use unskilled help in the summer,
but try and find someone who'll work out in the field.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

"Dan Luke" wrote in message
...

"Matt Barrow" wrote:

... I tend to lose it when people make foolish caveats especially ones
that are logical fallacies such as "without all this regulation we'd be
in (insert Armageddon class crisis)".

...or "without all this regulation we'd be in (insert free market
Utopia)."

Gee!! I've been a student of free markets (Chicago, Austrian, Hoover under
Sowell, Georgetown under Williams) for 25 years and I don't recall any of
them making anything even remotely similar to that claim. If anything, it
claims the opposite and refers to it as "chaotic" and a great struggle to
stay competitive.

Perhaps you can refer us to someone making such a claim (besides, say, your
uncle, or a statist who used it disparagingly). Knowing full well that many
have claimed that libertarianism/classical free-market types are
actually..._fascist_. (yes, from such disparate luminaries as Bill O'Reilly
and Amitai Etzioni and Noam Chomsky.

So perhaps you can enlighten us..

Thanks,

Matt

---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:uCN2f.420540$x96.326280@attbi_s72...
You still don't get it. The number of refineries doesn't matter...the
output does.

Actually, we do a agree on that.

That's good! It's nice to see people get along and agree on something.

Here's some numbers you can pick apart:

"In 1981, the U.S. had 324 refineries with a total capacity of processing
18.6 million barrels of crude per day. Today just 149 refineries have a
daily capacity of 16.8 million barrels."

http://www.investors.com/editorial/I...0051010&view=1


--
Matt

---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
news

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:uCN2f.420540$x96.326280@attbi_s72...
You still don't get it. The number of refineries doesn't matter...the
output does.

Actually, we do a agree on that.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Then what is the significance of the fact that no new refineries have been
built.

That total output capacity is down?
--
Matt

---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:bFN2f.424183$_o.410547@attbi_s71...
It is they who have suffered the brunt of the crazy, over-blown
environmental regulations. That smell you and I haughtily disdained
was the smell of money to them and their families.

Right, cost of labor has nothing to do with losing all those blue-collar
jobs. And it probably really was environmental regulations that led to
the average American hourly labor rate of $18 plus benefits versus about
$1.50 in China.

Of course, there are many facets to the problem -- wages being one of
them.

Such as the fact that dealing with environmental regulations requires
hundreds of people, not merely making $18 an hour, but six figures, just to
deal with paperwork before a single iota of work gets done?


But that's a different thread.

Not really!
--
Matt

---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:BKN2f.420564$x96.88206@attbi_s72...
Then don't ride a bike if it's too hard for you; not everyone is capable
of it. I'm not sure how you felt this was directed to you anyway; I was
simply pointing out to Jay that a 4 mile commute is usually quite
practical via bicycle. If it's really bad weather, use another means or
better yet stay home or at the inn.

You've actually got me thinking about it, John. I only realized what a
perfect candidate I was for riding my bike to work after this thread.

Until this year, I was driving my kids to school each morning. Now, my
son is riding his bike to school, and my daughter and I walk to hers.
There really isn't any good reason NOT to ride my bike, other than time
and laziness.

And we actually are seriously discussing selling our home and moving into
the Inn next spring, at least for a while. Man, that commute would be
hard to take! :-)
--

24 feet for us. How far would yours be?

It's the customers/contractors that kill me. (Closest right now is 310
miles).


--
Matt

---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO

In article et,
"Mike Rapoport" wrote:

Here is the official data:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petro.../gasoline.html

Go there, then to the Production XLS file under History. Gasoline
production is up substantially in the past 20yrs as you would expect from
the increased number of cars and increased population.

The reason no new refineries have been built is that it is cheaper to expand
existing ones because they already have all the infrastructure ...[snip]

At what point will it become too expensive to expand existing refineries?

--
Bob Noel
no one likes an educated mule