Chavez threatens to cut off oil to US, 15% of US's supply!!!

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Chavez threatened that if his recent power grab is challenged, he will cease all export of oil to the US starting Monday. 15% of all the oil that the US gets currently comes from Chavez! So that would cause quite a spike in oil prices.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/11/30/venezuela.protest/index.html

But a part of me hopes that he goes through with this.

Yes it would be a blow to our economy.

It would really put pressure on developing alternative energy sources and would demonstrate unconditionally that we absolutely need to become energy independent.

What better way to get into people's heads how important energy independence is than to have our economy hurt noticably by an enemy cutting us off from some oil?

What do you think?

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When I get back to Hawaii I am thinking about selling my car and gettings a horse and buggy. A horse will be a lot cheaper to feed and it's only 120 miles to the opposite side of the island. Kona. And on top of that the horse can fertilizer my garden.

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Let's suppose he does stop selling us that crude oil. Is he going to stop producing that amount, thereby cutting his own revenues, or is he going to sell it to someone else? If he does sell it to someone else, then that someone else will stop buying the same number of barrels from whoever they are currently buying it from, freeing up an identical number of barrels for us to buy instead.

Centroles - I wish you were right, and people and the government could be convinced that we need to become energy independent. But if all the supply shocks we've had since the 70s won't convince people, and if $3+ gasoline won't convince people, then I do not know what will.

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Go ahead, Jim. Say oil is a fungible commodity.

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Jim,

But this wouldn't be like a spike in oil prices because a major pipeline had to close down due to leaks.

This would be an actual member of the axis of evil using oil as a weapon against us.

The red staters who laughed off the liberal environmentalists and still ride proudly around in their big ass trucks would finally see energy conservation and independence as a patriotic duty.

They would finally see environmentalism as a way to fight back against terrorism (Chavez apparently is a state sponsor of terrorism).

Even the politicians couldn't continue to give empty statements about energy independence for votes while sitting on their asses not doing anything about it.

Bush and the senate would be forced, by such an act by Venezula, to say screw you, we're going to become energy independent, atleast out of national pride.

Atleast one can hope.

Or atleast one can hope.

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We should take the dufe up on it and ban the importation of oil, and see who's crying a year later.

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gungasnake wrote:

We should take the dufe up on it and ban the importation of oil, and see who's crying a year later.

You really think no-one in the USA would cry if you ban the import of oil? Laughing

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

gungasnake wrote:
We should take the dufe up on it and ban the importation of oil, and see who's crying a year later.

You really think no-one in the USA would cry if you ban the import of oil?

The US should be exporting oil and not importing it but the only way you could ever get from here to there is the same thing as the only way anybody ever quits smoking cigarettes, i.e. just stop. We'd be messed up about as badly as we were in WW-II for about two years, and every idiot and every idiot regime in the world would be messed up permanently. The pain on our own side could be managed; we dealt with in in WW-II.

If we were to implement my little idea about neighborhood work sites, the pain period here might could be shortened to about six months.

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gungasnake wrote:

If we were to implement my little idea about neighborhood work sites, the pain period here might could be shortened to about six months.

Sure, my neighborhood could make all the kitchen appliances it needs.

And to prevent having to ship in parts, my neighborhood could make all the electrical wire it needs.

And to prevent having to ship in copper we could just mine whatever copper we need down the street too.

Of course the copper mine would have to be right next to the steel mill which would be right next to the iron ore mine.

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Meanwhile the barrel has fallen below $89...so his rhetoric isn't scaring the speculators at all.

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And since the dollar is falling as well - some really advantages for us now again, too.

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Brand X wrote:

Meanwhile the barrel has fallen below $89...so his rhetoric isn't scaring the speculators at all.

I think Opec talked about increasing production.

But as Jim said, the market for oil is worldwide. Unless Chavez shuts down production it just shuffles the suppliers.

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In any of our large metro areas, there could not plausibly be more than about 30% of the work force which really needs to be at a given site five days a week; granted most people are not organized enough to work at home, but the other 70% of everybody else could damned well be working from some neighborhood work site within a mile of their homes four of those five days. THAT would largely empty our roads with no loss of efficiency and we could tell the Opekkers to **** off.

Consider that God could come down out of the sky right now and give us all the gasoline we'd ever need for the rest of our lives and it would not fix the big problem in our large cities, i.e. the fact that too many people are starting to spend 3 - 5 hours a day in traffic getting to and from jobs. At some point, the psychiatric bills are going to become more than any nation could pay. My little idea fixes that problem straight off the bat.

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parados wrote:

Brand X wrote:
Meanwhile the barrel has fallen below $89...so his rhetoric isn't scaring the speculators at all.

I think Opec talked about increasing production.

But as Jim said, the market for oil is worldwide. Unless Chavez shuts down production it just shuffles the suppliers.

That is true...as long as they find as big a guzzler as the US. China would be number one on the hit list...the only thing is China is not well equipped to refine the type of crude exported from Venezuela.

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We should invade Venezuela then. After all it is our oil, even if its under their soil.

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Naw, China will go ahead and buy it then taint it, then sell it to us.

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It is frankly idiotic to think that Chavez cutting off Venezuelan oil to the US will result in some sort of nation epiphany about conservation or alternate energy sources. The OPEC boycott during Carter's days certainly didn't.

It is also frankly idiotic to think that Venezuela can easily survive giving the bum's rush to it's number one customer.

Assuming China can or would buy each and every drop of Venezuelan oil, the energy market is not like a Toys R Us selling Nintendo Wei Systems. Should Jeffrey the Giraffe not like the cut of your personal jib he can tell you to get bent and then sell his product within 3 seconds to some other sap.

The oil market is a bit more complex, and by the time China could replace the US as Venezuala's #1 customer, Venezuela would have experienced a cash flow crisis that would probably result in the disposal of Chavez.

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Venezuela's need to sell the oil to pay current expenses is as great as ours to import it. Chavez has apparently accepted the election result without accusing the USA of meddling, so the issue is now moot.

The point about excess American dependency on petroleum imports is valid. Our domestic production of petroleum is about equal of our consumption of it in the chemical and plastics industries. Virtually all of the energy used in our transportation system comes from imported petroleum. We cannot simply solve this problem through attempts at demand reduction or government design of automobiles (though some of that appears inevitable).

Indeed the only feasible method is to displace the natural gas we wastefully burn to produce electricity with nuclear and other renewable forms of power production. (I classify nuclear as renewable in that our present supply of enriched fuel will power the country for at least a century and new reactor designs can operate with nearly natural uranium fuel, while others can use the ubiquitous U-238 isotope - making this virtually an unbounded source). Natural gas can readily be adapted to power conventional (or hybrid) vehicles and to provide fuels for low-temperature power cells when they become available.

Nuclear reactors, by the way, are today the country's cheapest source of electrical power - even including the funding for storage of spent fuel and eventually decommissioning the plants, they are over 20% cheaper even than coal-fired plants (and 1/3rd the cost of wind turbine power).

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Nuclear Energy!

That's the answer, but the Liberal Luddites of America will have no part of it.

(Unlike their French counterparts)

Better Wind Farms, as long as they don't obscure the scenic view of Walter Cronkite, or present a peril to migratory birds in Texas.

Better ethanol despite the fact that it still cannot economically compete with oil --- despite the high price of oil and considerable government subsidies. And despite the fact that it will lead to higher food prices, and possibly shortages.

Better solar power despite the fact that no one has come up with a feasible way to produce it on a mass scale. Massive power cells in space. What objections will the Luddites have for that?

Better all the cool alternatives. You know, the ones that make you feel as if we are in synch with nature. Since, as we know, petroleum, coal and the splitting of atoms has nothing to do with Nature.

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Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Nuclear Energy!

That's the answer, but the Liberal Luddites of America will have no part of it.

(Unlike their French counterparts)

Better Wind Farms, as long as they don't obscure the scenic view of Walter Cronkite, or present a peril to migratory birds in Texas.

Better ethanol despite the fact that it still cannot economically compete with oil --- despite the high price of oil and considerable government subsidies. And despite the fact that it will lead to higher food prices, and possibly shortages.

Better solar power despite the fact that no one has come up with a feasible way to produce it on a mass scale. Massive power cells in space. What objections will the Luddites have for that?

Better all the cool alternatives. You know, the ones that make you feel as if we are in synch with nature. Since, as we know, petroleum, coal and the splitting of atoms has nothing to do with Nature.

I agree, yet don't believe that the private sector ought to be responsible, nor would they. i support a program that would allow the federal government to run all nuclear power plants run by a "Nuclear Corps," trained just like US Navy's Nuclear School, with both engineers, support, and security as members that rises to the standards and discipline of the American military.

the cost would be national, there would be no need for the convolutions found in the current legislation that curbs damages in event of a nuclear catastrophy.

only the federal government has the resources to build, maintain, support, and protect a nuclear power plant. other avenues will by the nature of the profit motive result in less safe nuclear plants.

and that is the issue, safety. once the public is molified about safety concerns the chance of building these plants will rise.

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Chavez threatens to cut off oil to US, 15% of US's supply!!!

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