JamesGarfield
SEGUIN TX
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I am by no means any kind of expert on this. I'm just another
Joe Shmoe feeling the pain at the pump and trying to make the
best of it as this mess progresses.
Allow me to toss in my 2c worth on some points that have been mentioned here.
1) Sueing OPEC. HAHA, good luck buddy. Last time I checked, our
pals in OPEC are OUTSIDE the US, which more or less kinda puts them
equally outside any legal US jurisdiction. Or did I miss something?
Actually, if OPEC DID exist within the US, they could and should be immediately disbanded, because they openly practice Price Fixing, which is outlawed in this country.
2) There's a lot of talk about revolting against the 'environmental wackos' protecting ANWR and US shoreline drilling. Actually I believe that might happen sooner than OPEC's demise. For the immediate time, we still have the luxury of debating whether we should or shouldn't exploit these domestic oil resources. But if this progresses as I expect it might, the time will come when national security issues will have the government / military saying effectively, "Look, you've got it, we're taking it, step aside."
3) What's people's opinions here on how much farther this will go before rationing kicks in? I know we haven't done that since WWII, but conditions may again demand it.
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bfast54
Traverse City ,Mi.
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And on TOP of all this, Folks............Think about what is going on................WE ARE BURNING OUR FOOD SUPPLIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ethanol, which is now being made from corn, is the new "Saving grace" BUT, it does not have the amount of BTU's , makes more global warming, and BURNS our food supplies!!!!!!!!!! Look at the prices of meat, milk, eggs..........etc.......
Look what happened to the other countries , who consumed, burned, exhausted their "natural" resources.
Look at all the 3rd world countries that have NO TREES, no resources left all relying on US to help them out.
WHO IS GOING TO HELP US?????????????????
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TroyD
Orange County
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wing_zealot wrote:Speculation - lots of speculation but very little hard evidence. Prices are high because Big Oil companies are closing refineries to lower the supply and drive up demand Prices are high because Oil Speculators are jacking up the price. Prices are high because Bush is in office and he is an oil man. WE got enough oil for the next 60 years, its ________ fault. yadda yadda yadda.
Folks, in the United States alone we burn through 20.7 Million barrels of oil each and every day. You have any concept on how huge a pile that many barrels of oil is? Every day - being pumped out of the earth. And all that oil for just one little corner of the world? Now add in China, Canada, Japan, etc. etc. etc. How long do you think we can sustain that thirst? And you speculate about what is driving up the price of oil. It's hard to put the blame squarely on our own shoulders, it's easier just to blame someone else. Seems pretty clear to me. But hey, what do I know.
Yes, I do know how big that is, its a cube of oil about 475 feet square. A little more than 2 square acres.
Do you know how small 2 square acres is when you compare it with the enormity of the entire earth???
Running out of oil my foot.
Imagine, the entire USA uses a pool of oil every YEAR only 1.25 square miles by about 5 stories tall.
You would have to use the entire continent of the unites states to grow enough corn or soybeans and then you wouldnt have anywhere to grow food if you wanted to replace petroleum oil with biofuels.
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TroyD
Orange County
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Skid Row Joe wrote:Big Oil is making very low margins, versus their expended capital.
Find another boogie-man.......oil companies ain't it. ![[emoticon]](http://www.coastresorts.com/sharedcontent/cfb/images/rolleyes.gif "rolleyes")
LoL! You obviously dont know what creative book keeping is.
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rvdogmom40
Western Washington State
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Joined: 03/18/2004
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Once we paid $4 per gal. numbness replaced shock and indignation. Life may never be the same. There are many more consumers worldwide now that China and other emerging economies are becoming greater consumers. I hope the old American "can do' inventiveness will be able to come up with a solution--but I don't know.
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lostmarbles
Sacramento, CA., USA
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Joined: 05/23/2004
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After reading all of these messages. I have not seen anything about why we have not seen those alternatives fuels... Either to help us cut our fuel cost, or just go alternative completely. (I'm not talking about biodiesel or alcohol from crops). They're here! Who's dragging their's feet at these fuel cell plants (different make dealerships co-op) here in West Sacramento, when over at Davis UCD, the engineering dept has cars doing high mileage, then we do not hear them again. And not the Prius either. Why is it that it takes them 10+ years to developed the stuffs that have been quieted down? Over in livermore, we can delay time by several seconds, time travel type of thing? Also, we now have flying spy machines like dragon flys, and spiders that spy for us under it own powers that the military is supposedly using... We must be at the mercy of someone here. Down in Florida was a news station last week doing a clip on a 4000 model hydrogen converter to increase mileage up to 60%, only to report back in july when they already seen the results! So, where is the tech at??? More like we need to start seeing with our eyes wide shut???? NOT! Sounds like big bussiness to me. Or, corporate amerika. It's just like the puters... they just give you an extra byte next year, till you realized that you have already outgrown the puter with the new softwares, then they do it all over again, telling us we need to fork out more $ for new puter, (back in the lab, they are planning on how to bilk us every year for the next 10 years by adding a little tech and bytes, when they already had it at that time). And we keep letting them do it. So, are the oil companies bilking us, probably...
I know... I need more wine...
I left the livermore thing in there, just to drive ya nuts, even tho I didn't finished that part.
Good nite!
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TroyD
Orange County
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The obvious thing to do would be to take over the oil wells if we were being ripped off and our economy put in jeopardy, problem is, "Our Representatives" in government are friends with the gougers.
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eltejano1
Woodville, Texas
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Jimbo:
You keep saying we have "plenty of oil under our own ground." We have some oil left, but certainly not plenty. My understanding is that if we drilled every existing pocket under US soil we would, at our present rate of consumption, only buy ourselves a few years respite - and even with that we would still have to buy a lot of foreign oil. Wringing every last drop out so we can drive our rv's a couple more years just doesn't sound right - I would hate to try and defend that position!
Also, I wasn't aware that we had cut consumption. The data I've seen indicates that we have been increasing consumption every quarter, with a slight flattening last quarter.
I don't think we can drill our way out of this mess. We're not dried-up yet, but we better get cookin' on an alternative - and damn soon!
Also, the environmental lobby is much more powerful than you realize, and they have liberal friends that would back them up (Hollywood money, human rights groups, animal rights groups - all sorts of highly motivated people with funding). ANWAR would be "Custer's Last Stand" for them - and they have enough power to keep it tied-up in the courts for years, or decades. It's not a viable solution. Forget it - more trouble than it's worth.
The figure I have heard is that if we tapped every known reserve we have, including ANWAR and offshore Florida and Calif, and pumped for all it's worth, we could only supply 60% of our current daily needs - and only keep that up for about eight years. Maybe someone can provide some accurate stats on this.
Now if people would only cut back, painful as it is, we could make it last a lot longer, buying more time to develop nuclear fusion, lighter battery packs and viable electric cars.
No matter how you cut it, Jimbo, no matter what side of the political fence you're on, our very survival as a nation depends on our ability to curtail our usage of petroleum. And I'm confident that reluctant persons like yourself will accept that pretty soon, as the plot continues to thicken.
Right now we're all suffering withdrawal.
Jack
* This post was
edited 05/23/08 01:26am by eltejano1 *
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eltejano1
Woodville, Texas
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Sea Dog:
We're the same age (born in 1936). That's the sort of conservation I'm talking about - common in our youth, but seems draconian to today's generation. Our HS parking lot is packed with kid's cars - and not a blasted one of them needs a car!! We pay-out big taxes to provide a school bus system that serves every backwoods dirt road in this 900 sq mile county (pop 18K). And virtually nobody rides them except black children and what they call "white trash" around here. It's ridiculous - these kids driving 40 mph down these dirt roads in new cars to get to min wage jobs that pay, maybe, just enough to cover insurance and gas on the car.
Last weekend at our camp, the ladies were preparing to cook a pasta recipe for the potluck that called for dried basil spice. Nobody had any in their trailers - so she gets in her 3/4 ton Ford gasser and races to Wal-Mart in Woodville, 30 miles round trip! A total WASTE of 2 gal of gas so the #$@& noodles would have a hint of $#%@#! basil flavor!!! Multilpy that 2 gals by a hundred million and it starts to add-up to real money! And she was old enough to know better. I didn't say anything - I can get away from y'all, but I see her every weekend! :-)
We have a bad attitude toward fuel consumption - and we need to do some serious soul-searching! If not, the day is coming when we won't even have any noodles, let alone basil!
Jack
* This post was
edited 05/23/08 02:10am by eltejano1 *
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eltejano1
Woodville, Texas
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One other little tidbit - I was recently helping a young man at church put his budget together to attend TX A&M over in Bryan this fall. He had his expenses listed, which were beyond his family's ability. Now, I'm going to shout at you, like Jimbo does, HIS CAR, GAS TO COME HOME ON WEEKENDS, AND INSURANCE WERE INCLUDED AS NECESSITIES!!! I told him to get rid of that car, spend most weekends in the dorm and come home on the bus and his budget will balance. He looked at me like I was absolutely out of my mind!
One thing I forgot - Greyhound doesn't serve Woodville anymore because there were not enough passengers. No wonder we're in trouble!! How can expect anything less than a fuel crisis with this kind of absurd abuse of a finite resource?
Jack
* This post was
edited 05/23/08 02:34am by eltejano1 *
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