BS: gas prices

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 12:17 PM

WE haven't got nuclear fusion. Nobody knows whether we ever will have it, and whether it'll be possible without all kinds of unfrtunate side-effects we don't know about yet.

Depending on that to sort our problems out is like counting on winning the lottery to pay this winter's fuel bills, and stop the rain coming through the roof.

The technology that would help is there in principle already, far closer to being developed than nuclear fission. But market forces can only start to bite when the costs using fossil fuel get high enough to make it profitable to turn to other ways instead. And most of the increasing costs of burning fossil fuel are falling on people who have no financial or political power. We have to pay a bit more for petrol. They die.

And I'm afraid that is a situation which is bound to produce the most terrible things. "Natural" disasters and conflicts in the poor countries, escalating terrorist outrages in the rich ones.

The only hope for things getting better will be if enough people who do have economic and political power determine to use it to turn things around. Which might sound like altruism, but it's really just enlightened self interest.

How's it go? "On the 31st floor your gold-plated door won't keep out the Lord's burning rain."

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Midchuck
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 10:58 AM

Seems like breaking down water for hydrogen would make sense if you used non-polluting energy sources that are available now but not mobile enough - solar, tide/wave, geothermal, wind.

Of course, the long-term solution is nuclear fusion - but people are scared of "nuclear" (and rightfully so, as regards nuclear fission) power, because of meltdown threats, radiation hazards, theft of fuel for bombs, etc. - and simply can't grasp that fission and fusion are totally different processes - opposites, in fact. So they oppose any nuclear power. Closed minds. Good thing there aren't any closed minds on this list. (smirk)

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: GUEST,bobschw
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 10:57 AM

Whatever happened to the shale oil progams?

Bob S.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Llanfair
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 04:19 AM

There are a number of windfarms here in Wales, but there is strong opposition from local people because of the noise and the view being spoilt by a row of wind turbines against the skyline.
The Centre for Alternative Technology has loads of ideas and literature for people wanting to change the way they consume fuel, but they do tend to be rather expensive initially, although they appear less eccentric these days.
Cheers, Bron.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 01:42 AM

Well, of course. As I said before, it is not in the Petrol. Industries (Amoco, Exxon, Mobile, Phillips,Texaco, Conoco, et. al. )finacial interests to have alternative fuels available. It is also not (apparently) in the US Gov'mts interets to develop alternitives--they (IT) have too much invested in the petroleum industsry to want to investigate other alternatives. Sort of like the tobacco industry in the US.....real hypocritical situations, both of them.

Let's hear it for government subsidies.....

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Amergin
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 01:32 AM

There are other energy sources out there.....they just need to be refined and mass produced....that is if the oil companies would stand for it...

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Sorcha
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 01:26 AM

Doug, as it stands now, the petrol. companies are incapable of delivering/producing petroleum products without destroying the environment. Alaska would be totally devasted and probably beyond redemption.

It's not that they can't do it...it's that they won't. It might cost them a few cents more per barrel to protect and restore the environment and they aren't willing to give up a few cents clear profit.

Alaska is also different in that the tundra ecosystem is much more fragile than any other petroleum field thus far exploited on the planet. US developers seem to think that all fields are alike---Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas, Saudi, Kuwait, Alaska.....etc. and this is just not true.

Every localized ecosystem has its own requirements, and Alaska is very different from any of the others, unless oil has been discovered in Northern Siberia. If it has, Russia is keeping it quiet, for understandable reasons.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: DougR
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 12:54 AM

I said that, Ebbie, more as a jest than anything else. I do believe there will be an effort to develop the oil reserves in Alaska, and I would favor it if it can be done without totally destroying the environment up there.

We (the U.S.) simply must find an alternative to depending upon the Middle East to supply us with oil. At least that is my opinion.

I seriously doubt, Kendall, that any kind of boycott would work. Until there is a viable alternative, Americans are going to continue to drive cars that require a lot of oil and gasoline to operate them.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Burke
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 09:33 PM

I heard that same report & just checked an online newswire. There was actually a ban on Alaskan oil exports that was lifted in 1996. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon has asked President Bill Clinton to reimpose a ban on exports of Alaskan crude oil.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: GUEST,Sorcha
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 09:26 PM

Does that surprise you? Stuff like this has been happening since at least 1979, and probably before that. "We" only got into the Patch in 1979, and got out in 1985. Amoco is just as dirty as any other company, they just have not been caught in public.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 09:23 PM

Heard on National Public Radio just this morning that BP-Amoco has been unmasked as having manipulated the market in order to raise prices in California and elsewhere. Some of their own records, including emails from their executives, show that they exported Alaskan oil at ultra-cheap prices, purposely to to tighten supplies in the market that would have been served by that oil so that prices could be raised markedly.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Sorcha
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 08:27 PM

Trust me, hubby is an ex-petroleum industry emplyee, and NOTHING in the petroleum industry makes sense. And of course, the Petrol industry has a vested interest in making sure that alternative fuels are NOT easily acessible or financially feasible.

I don't think we can even buy Exxon or Moblile in Wyoming....I can't recall seeing stations. All we have in Torrington is Amoco, Conoco and Texaco. (not that any of them are really any better in the long run......) Oh, we have the Convience Store generic also.....who knows who they buy from?

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Dave Wynn
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 07:22 PM

The price of Petrol is a factor that limits the amount used. Unfortunately it only affects the middle and lower earners. Drastic rationing per capita would also work but create a black ecomomy (and probably a change of government).

Self control will only work for people who care.

What is needed In my humble opinion is a quantum leap in technology to create cheap and non polluting energy.

....and having just read my post it shows that I can talk a lot and not say much. It's mostly self evident and probably didn't need saying. I'll post it anyway.

Spot

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 07:02 PM

Doug R, you wanna bet that will be the result?

Ebbie in Alaska

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 06:58 PM

WEll you're very likely right Doug - after all "the millions of people who are going to be drowned, and starved and flooded out of their homes, and forced to live in unwelcome exile" won't be citizens of the USA (apart from some from Florida and a few other places. And most of them are poor and powerless to start with.

THe only viable way forward is to use less energy, and to get that energy from renewables, like biomass and from solar and water and wind power. And that requires the political will, from people wanting it to happen and giving the politicians reasons to want it to happen, and changes which will mean it'll be more profitable to do it that way.

The trouble with increased petrol prices is that, up to teh point at which people stop using the stuff, it makes it all more profitable for the people in the oil business. And for government getting tax revenue.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: catspaw49
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 06:45 PM

Well, I'll fart for you for nothin' Kendall.........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: mousethief
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 06:42 PM

Actually, Mark S, not WHAT THEY WANT, but rather WHAT THEY ARE CAPABLE OF CHARGING and still selling the amount they wish to sell. There is SOME elasticity in virtually any curve.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: MarkS
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 06:38 PM

You can extract hydrogen from sea water right now. The problem is the amount of energy you need to seperate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms making up the water is more than you get back as heat when you recombine the resulting products by combustion.
The problem with gas prices is easy too. As long as you choose to consume something, gas, oil, guitar strings, whatever, and you do not produce it yourself, you either have to pay the producer what they want or do without.
Sure, it is commendable to conserve, but even if you reduce demand for a product, say, oil, by 20% and you do not produce it yourself, the producers can then just raise the price of the remaining 80% to make up revenue lost to the "loss of demand."
MarkS

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: DougR
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 06:31 PM

Pretty soon the companies will be drilling for oil in the Alaskan preseve and there will be plenty of oil available. Then the price of oil will come down. :>) DougR

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: mousethief
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 06:31 PM

We have a way to extract hydrogen from seawater. It's quite easy. But it costs more in energy than we can recoup by burning the hydrogen. And we're still talking about combustion here to recover the energy in the unoxidized hydrogen, although the release of greenhouse gases isn't an issue.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 06:27 PM

We must start small. You are right about cutting our energy use, but, it gives me pleasure to target Exxon. Someone will figure a way to extract hydrogen from sea water.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 05:03 PM

FRom the point of view of the planet, the best thing will be if the price goes so high that noone can afford it any more and we find better ways to run things.

And when I say "the planet" I'm thinking in the first palce about all the millions of people wh are going to be drowned, and starved and flooded out of their homkes, and forced to oive in unwelcome exile.

Subject: RE: BS: gas prices
From: Burke
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 04:42 PM

I don't think it will work to boycott one company & just give our business to another. To bring the overall price down, the overall demand has to come down. To really boycott we have to drive less, use vehicles that get better gas mileage, and use less energy in our homes in terms of heat, AC, etc.

Subject: gas prices
From: kendall
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 04:32 PM

Someone came up with the idea that we should send a message to the oil companies to protest the price of gasoline. It is suggested that we target the biggest of them, Exxon and MObil, and stop buying their gas. The idea is, if enough people do that, the price will drop. Personally, I have not bought Exxon since the Exxon Valdez disaster, nor have I bought Mobil since they merged with Exxon.