Fezziwig
SF bay
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Jimbo,
So, did you price out, for comparison, what it would cost you to power your off-grid house with electric generators? And what it would cost you to either (1) constantly import fuel to operate your generators, or (2) drill an oil well in your backyard and refine your own oil?
Seems to me that, in spite of all your complaints, you chose solar. You're just complaining about the price.
Even if you operate your genset from commercially available fuel, to be honest in your ROI calculation you would have to take into account the indirect costs of a long history of subsidies to oil development and distribution. Those subsidies were paid for with Your Tax Dollars (and they get bigger every year!), so you can't fool yourself by pretending they don't exist. Tax money spent to prop up the creaky old oil system are dollars spent by us just like any other.
And in spite of all we spend the price just goes up!
We would better spend our tax dollars on startup capital requirements for the alternative energy systems that we KNOW will work, and we KNOW will be common in the future. We need to invest in R&D and pilot model systems and even tax incentives to end users (citizens) so that we can start directing subsidies away from multi-national corporations and towards individual USA citizens.
We know from American industrial history that we can bring asymptotic technologies to market rather quickly and, blessed by mass market economies of scale, rather cheaply. And we improve Free Market benefits by moving decisions downward to the consumers, instead of government/industry ministries. We need to apply capital in the right places.
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Fezziwig
SF bay
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Look at it this way: if we had no energy system in 2008 and had to create one, would we ever choose to build the oil system we have instead of other systems?
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slowlane
Millersville, MD
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TrueLarry wrote:Reading this forum does put a smile on my face if nothing else. If we geniuses can't come up with (or agree upon) a solution to our future energy needs, how do we expect a bunch of stupid lawyer congressional representatives and senators who only care about the next election to come up with one? I'll just toodle along on flat tires and burn gas until somebody comes up with a better idea. ![[emoticon]](http://www.coastresorts.com/sharedcontent/cfb/images/biggrin.gif "biggrin")
Here's the better idea: Let the market work. Get government out of the way. Stop wasting taxpayer dollars on uneconomic "alternative energy" boondoggles - when we need alternatives the market will supply them.
07 Rev 40E
Happily and guiltlessly maximizing my carbon footprint
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Fezziwig
SF bay
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The problem is that we DON't let the market work. The government is up to it's neck in the energy business. It's been subsidizing oil, gas and coal for a hundred years. We the taxpayers have had our tax dollars wasted propping up uneconomic conventional energy boondoggles. The market has produced alternatives but they have been strangled by discriminatory government legislation and SUBSIDIES.
The government is in cahoots with oil companies to suppress competition and market supplied solutions.
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cjoseph
WV
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Most of the coal subsidies have been because of government-FORCED air quality regulations. (OK, a bunch of safety stuff, too.)
It was real nice watching mine after mine close because of regulations. (Can you say high-sulfur?) How good of the tax payers to pay part of the clean-coal technology bill. Billions of tons of coal are locked out of production because of these new (last 30 years) regs. I’m all for clean air, but its only right that the government helps with R&D and scrubber installation, etc... Call it highly subsidized if you want, but thirty to forty years ago we either wanted to clean the air or shut the lights off.
One day, electric companies had LEGAL and PERMITTED power plants. The next day, the government was telling them they had new, more stringent air quality limits. Why shouldn't that be subsidized.
If the government came knocking on your door and said, "You know, that pipe you used in your house isn't environmentally friendly." Then, suppose the cost of retrofitting was 1/3 the original cost of the house. You'd be screaming LAWYER!
Now, back to the power plant. OK, we'll install scrubbers, etc... However, we'll be contacting the public service commission for a BIG FAT RATE INCREASE to cover the cost of installation. Now, who pays? --the little guy who has to heat the house, light the lights. So, they got subsidized on the back of the rich --who pay most of the taxes, anyway.
I don't know about the oil industry, but we have a bunch of natural gas, too.
Maybe you can fill us in on the subsidizing of that industry. I hope you don't think oil and gas leases are subsidies. The highest bidder gets the rights. What can be more free-market than that. You don't like the price the government is getting --GO BID ON SOME LEASES yourself, invest millions in the extraction equipment, and hope the world price will allow you to get the resources out of the ground at a profitable price.
Some people think all government land should be pristine and never touched. Let them burn whale oil! OH, wait, aren‘t many of them left. Remember, all those ugly coal-fired power plants replaced whaling, just in time to save them. No doubt, they’d be gone if not for electricity.
My main point is: coal, oil and natural gas are the cheapest sources of energy and will be for a long time. If we use them all up, we’ll pay more for solar or wind or hydrogen. When alternatives become cheaper and give us the bang for the buck that oil, coal and NG give us, we will buy it.
Don’t try to shove alternatives down our throats while they are more expensive and less convenient. Especially, while the developing world hasn’t done their part to clean up their act. One of the reasons (small, I admit) that our steel industry can’t compete is the environmental regs we follow, but they don‘t.
I say drill here, drill now.
I don't care if the price of oil doesn't drop one cent. At least $700,000,000 will be staying HERE in some of our countrymen's pockets.
Chuck, Heidi, Jessica & Nicholas
2013 Tiffin Allegro 35QBA
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mrjimboalaska
Abilene, Tx. at the moment
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Fezz DEFINATELY has the "NO OIL" agends going on. Also has that Global WARMER mentality going on. We will not be able to change his mind. SO, IF HE CHOOSES to spend more and give his excess money to the GOOBERMENT then let him. I myself am ready for a POTOMIC OIL PARTY, and we will probably have to have one after November.
CJOSEPH, the EPA is a LARGE PART of the reason our Manufacturing Might in this country has dwindled to near nothing, combine that with piss poor trade agreements allowing foreign product to further decimate our industries.
I also put some blame on Unions.....demands that give a high school grad $60/hr on an assembly line are a little unreasonable.
I prefer profit sharing Companies, and have worked for 3 that have shared the wealth pretty darn good during profitable times.
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Fezziwig
SF bay
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Nonsense. The US government was in bed with oil, coal and gas long before any regulations existed. All the ports that were built for oil, the railroads built for coal, etc., all involved government financing and support for private oil and coal companies.
When you say "DRILL DRILL DRILL" you expose your foolishness because WE do not have the power to command drilling be done anywhere. It is all at the convenience of oil companies, 55% of which are foreign owned.
All we can do is let oil leases to oil companies. And this is not a good time to let such leases because of the 1998 "oversight" in our contracts which costs us billions in lost royalties. Current leases under these leases will cost us $62billion. Why repeat a bad policy? The oild companies WANT us to lease those OCS tracts RIGHT NOW, but they have no intention to begin drilling. they will hold those leases until it better suits their convenience.
you guys would do better to readup on USA oil leasing practices instead of mounting stupid ad hominem attacks on anyone who departs from your prejudices.
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Fezziwig
SF bay
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Nevertheless, after all the political posturing, it remains that 'drill drill drill' will not solve our energy problems.
And 'lease lease lease' wouldn't even lead to 'drill drill drill'.
Even if we were so foolish as to let more leases at the current contract terms (which, due to an "oversight" will cost us $60billion in lost royalties already) the timing and use of those leases would be determined by oil companies that are 55% owned by foreigners, and 2/3 of the extracted oil will be sold to foreign countries anyhow. They will simply hold on to those cheap leases and the disposition will be determined by foreigners on behalf of foreigners.
One would think that any loyal American patriot would be adamantly opposed to leasing more oil fields.
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cjoseph
WV
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OK, OK, Fezzwig has the answer --NO more drilling anywhere in the world.
According to his model, stop drilling, the price plummets.
Lease or drill more and the price will not drop.
However, if we all properly inflate our tires, the price will drop. ![[emoticon]](http://www.coastresorts.com/sharedcontent/cfb/images/scratchead.gif "scratchead")
* This post was
edited 08/18/08 11:30am by an administrator/moderator *
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Fezziwig
SF bay
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Not at all.
But conservation works, as evidenced by the fact that when US consumers cut gas consumption 20 billion gallons in recent weeks the price fell about $20 per barrel. But if we lease OCS lands, as pointed out in the Energy Information Administration article I posted, it'll be 2030 by the time oil reaches market and it will have negligible effect on price.
Our best bet to reduce oil prices is to use a combination of new energy sources and conservation to reduce US oil demand and drive prices down.
Even without the current crisis it would behoove us to diversify our energy sources in order to give us backup and load-leveling capability. In your own business, don't you make sure you have backup vendors in case your primary vendor tries to hold you up? Don't you even buy a few supplies from backup vendors to worry your primaries and keep them honest?
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