Argument against high gas prices

On Jun 8, 11:03 am, "Matt Barrow"
wrote:

I use my SUV to go to the corner store to buy tooth picks...one at a time.

I'd like to think that this was sarcasm, but I'm afraid you might be
telling the truth.


In the US, fuel consumption per GDP is down; everywhere else it's UP.

Maybe. But lowering consumption from a ridiculous high level might
leave you still much higher than someone else who rose from a low
level. (i.e. if you go from 100 to 98 on some scale, you're still
higher than someone who went from 10 to 20.)

Hangovers hurt, but they do
serve their purpose.

Maybe to go and get more petrol.

We could produce ten times more than we could "conserve".

Perhaps, but that not the point. To do so would only hasten the
consumption of what is left, and reduce the time for conversion to
some sustainable alternative.
It also adds a bunch of pollution.

On Tue, 05 Jun 2007 14:31:23 -0700, wrote:

How can there be a
refinery shortage if the capacity has been increasing, but deliveries
are flat?

How many refineries have been built in your county in the past thirty
years? None, right?

The refineries aren't where the demand is. Indeed, some of the
refineries are in Europe, especially in Holland. Whereas Europe used
to send us gasoline, now they need it themselves.

Other refineries are in the Caribbean. Did you factor those into your
"flat" deliveries?

U.S.-based refineries are only a part of the picture.

Blue skies! -- Dan Ford

Claire Chennault and His American Volunteers, 1941-1942
forthcoming from HarperCollins www.flyingtigersbook.com

wrote in message
ups.com...
If you follow this link:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a103600001m.htm

You will see that the gas deliveries in Mar 2007 are lower than they
were in Mar 1984. This is despite the claims by oil companies that
they have been constantly expanding their refining capacity, and the
reason for the over $3.00 a gallon pricing is due to refining
capacity. Sorry, but I just don't see the demand being much higher
now than it was in the early 80's from this data!

How much was China and India buying 23 years ago?

On Jun 5, 3:31 pm, wrote:
If you follow this link: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/a103600001m.htm

You will see that the gas deliveries in Mar 2007 are lower than they
were in Mar 1984. This is despite the claims by oil companies that
they have been constantly expanding their refining capacity, and the
reason for the over $3.00 a gallon pricing is due to refining
capacity. Sorry, but I just don't see the demand being much higher
now than it was in the early 80's from this data! How can there be a
refinery shortage if the capacity has been increasing, but deliveries
are flat? Add to that the fact that crude oil is $10 a barrel less
this year than it was last year, and you can figure that the oil
companies are going to report huge profits this year...

I think the truth is that the gasoline futures market is being
manipulated to maximize profits. Why else would the prices of av-gas
rise so much when demand has dropped by nearly 50% since 2000? Why
would auto-gas prices rise rapidly, when demand is flat?

The table does not yet show the auto-gas deliveries for April, May, or
June 2007. That data should be interesting given the sharp rise in
prices that occured in that time period. I wonder if demand has
dropped as a result of prices going up.

Dean

Well, it looks like we may be seeing a significant drop in gasoline
prices by July based on the Futures contract prices:
Unleaded Gas (NYM)
July 07 ($US per gal.) 2.22 +0.03 2.23 2.20 2.19 6/7 10:22am

I suspect that there has been enough of a drop in actual demand, and
enough profit taking to drive the prices back down. I also heard that
there has been a lot of stocking by wholesaler's that has driven the
supply up in the face of declining demand with the amount of price
elasticity that does exist in the market...

Oh, and Kontiki, you probably consider this to be whining as well....

In response to the original post, the oil companies are doing what
they are supposed to do; maximize value to their shareholders, which
you could become if you care to.

In the long run, though, it's worth considering that worldwide oil
production will probably peak and trend down in the next 5 years,
while demand from China and other emerging economies continues to
rise. There's only one outcome from that unless we learn to use
what's there more efficiently.

Ethanol is a bum's rush because it requires a lot of energy to
produce, and so its cost of production can only go up. Same for tar
sands.

I guess it's time to really get to work on that fission reactor for my
PA28. But if everybody did that, the supply of yellowcake would
probably run out too.

We have an entire world economy built around the assumption of
unlimited supply of cheap energy.

Whatever became of those guys who swore they had observe a fusion
reaction in a laboratory bottle about 20 years ago?

Paul kgyy wrote:
I guess it's time to really get to work on that fission reactor for my
PA28. But if everybody did that, the supply of yellowcake would
probably run out too.

Yup - used up in only a few million years - so it's a waste of time! :-)

Seriously though, the supply of uranium on earth could probably supply
all of humanity's energy needs for millions of years even at per capita
consumption an order of magnitude greater than today.

In the November 2004 "Physics Today" magazine Bernard L. Cohen stated:

"The world's energy needs could be provided by uranium-fueled breeder
reactors for the full billion years that life on Earth will be
sustainable, without the price of electricity increasing by more than a
small fraction of 1% due to raw fuel costs[1]....

The cost of extracting uranium from its most plentiful source, seawater,
is about $250 per pound—the energy equivalent of gasoline at 0.13 cent
per gallon! The uranium now in the oceans could provide the world's
current electricity usage for 7 million years. But seawater uranium
levels are constantly being replenished, by rivers that carry uranium
dissolved out of rock, at a rate sufficient to provide 20 times the
world's current total electricity usage. In view of the geological cycles
of erosion, subduction, and land uplift, this process could continue for
a billion years with no appreciable reduction of the uranium
concentration in seawater and hence no increase in extraction costs."

Here's the letters section, online:
http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-11/p12.html

[1] 1. B. L. Cohen, Am. J. Phys. 51, 75 (1983).

And here's a report on an experiment actually carried out on extracting
yellowcake from seawater:

"Aquaculture of Uranium in Seawater by a Fabric-Adsorbent Submerged
System"
http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nt/va-144-2-274-278 :

"The total amount of uranium dissolved in seawater at a uniform
concentration of 3 mg U/m3 in the world's oceans is 4.5 billion tons. An
adsorption method using polymeric adsorbents capable of specifically
recovering uranium from seawater is reported to be economically feasible.
A uranium-specific nonwoven fabric was used as the adsorbent packed in an
adsorption cage 16 m2 in cross-sectional area and 16 cm in height. We
submerged three adsorption cages in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 20 m
at 7 km offshore of Japan. The three adsorption cages consisted of stacks
of 52 000 sheets of the uranium-specific non-woven fabric with a total
mass of 350 kg. The total amount of uranium recovered by the nonwoven
fabric was 1 kg in terms of yellow cake during a total submersion time
of 240 days in the ocean."

"Paul kgyy" wrote in message
ups.com...
In response to the original post, the oil companies are doing what
they are supposed to do; maximize value to their shareholders, which
you could become if you care to.

I could become a pornographer, pimp or mercenary, too.

Ethics.


Whatever became of those guys who swore they had observe a fusion
reaction in a laboratory bottle about 20 years ago?

Scientific ridicule, but just think if the US had spend $500 billion on cold
fusion research instead of chasing WMDs around Iraq while our actual enemies
hide out in Afghanistan. Might be half a trillion dollars closer to giving
OPEC the star-spangled finger once and for all.

-c

"gatt" wrote in message
...

"Paul kgyy" wrote in message
ups.com...
In response to the original post, the oil companies are doing what
they are supposed to do; maximize value to their shareholders, which
you could become if you care to.

I could become a pornographer, pimp or mercenary, too.

Ethics.

It is not unethical to sell your product for the highest price possible.
People tell you what they are willing to pay because they stop buying or cut
back when the price gets too high. In the US there is still quite a bit of
gasoline use for recreational purposes and people driving SUVs that are the
size of small neighborhoods. I don't believe that the price is anywhere
near as high as it could actually go before the people doing the complaining
start to think about conservation.

BTW, I suspect that if you had your own business you would sell your
products at the highest price possible too.

Whatever became of those guys who swore they had observe a fusion
reaction in a laboratory bottle about 20 years ago?

You can see one right now - just look up in the sky. That's all it takes.

BDS

"BDS" wrote in message
et...

It is not unethical to sell your product for the highest price possible.

It is if people are going hungry or out of business because of it.

I don't believe that the price is anywhere near as high as it could
actually go before the people doing the complaining
start to think about conservation.

Don't think about recreationalists, think about FBOs, flight instructors,
charter services, independent truckers, couriers, farmers and everybody else
who is suffering because people still make excuses for record profits.

BTW, I suspect that if you had your own business you would sell your
products at the highest price possible too.

Is that what Jesus would do? I wouldn't do it if I was making billions
while my neighbors and my nation suffered.

-c

"gatt" wrote in message
...

"BDS" wrote in message
et...

It is not unethical to sell your product for the highest price possible.

It is if people are going hungry or out of business because of it.

I don't believe that the price is anywhere near as high as it could
actually go before the people doing the complaining
start to think about conservation.

Don't think about recreationalists, think about FBOs, flight instructors,
charter services, independent truckers, couriers, farmers and everybody
else who is suffering because people still make excuses for record
profits.

BTW, I suspect that if you had your own business you would sell your
products at the highest price possible too.

Is that what Jesus would do? I wouldn't do it if I was making billions
while my neighbors and my nation suffered.

YOUR NATION ISN'T SUFFERING!

Some people are suffering, other's aren't. If everyone had a "Mr. Fusion"
powering their cars and planes tomorrow, would that be a good thing? Think
of all the suffering of the gas station owner, FBO, etc. There are always
winners and losers. Any system that attempts to make sure there aren't
losers, keeps other people from being winners. And the funny thing under
such systems, is that even in an absence of winners, there will still be
losers.