Our planet is being destroyed, does anybody care?

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Iran
Abadan Refinery (NIOC), 450,000 bbl/d (72,000 m3/d)
Arak Refinery (NIOC), 150,000 bbl/d (24,000 m3/d)
Tehran Refinery (NIOC), 225,000 bbl/d (35,800 m3/d)
Isfahan Refinery (NIOC), 265,000 bbl/d (42,100 m3/d)
Tabriz Refinery (NIOC), 112,000 bbl/d (17,800 m3/d)
Shiraz Refinery (NIOC), 40,000 bbl/d (6,400 m3/d)
Lavan Refinery (NIOC), 20,000 bbl/d (3,200 m3/d)
Bandar Abbas Refinery (NIOC), 232,000 bbl/d (36,900 m3/d)
Kermanshah refinery (NIOC),21,000 bpd

kennethamy wrote:

The fact remains that they depend on petrol imports. That was my point, since they cannot run their cars and trucks on either money or crude oil. If petrol were cut off their trucks and cars would soon run out of petrol. And, even if they were willing to pay for the petrol, unless they could get it from the West, they would not have it.

That isn't a fact at all - they make some of their own petrol, petrol refinement is not exclusive to westerners, and Iran's trading partners aren't all western.

So you're indulging in a fantasy, frankly. If the west suddenly ceased selling petrol to Iran (which they don't seem to wish to do as a gestalt) it would presumably cause some temporary problems whilst they searched for new trading partners or built more refineries. A set back. This would hardly cause bankruptcy whilst they sell so much crude - if the worst came to the worst they could just requisition fuel sold domestically and reserve it for industry and commuting.

Not nice for ordinary Iranians, perhaps, but since when has either the Iranian regime or OPEC cared what they think?

And none of this addresses the fact that they make huge amounts of money selling oil, so it's just an irrelevant tangent really.

But that list does not tell me what kind of refineries these are. For instance, do they refine oil for transportation or for industrial purposes? If only or mostly for the latter, they cannot put that stuff into cars or trucks. And neither does the list tell me whether, if any of that can go into cars, how much of that is made, and whether it is enough for the demand, and to what extent it is. So that list doesn't tell me very much. Does it you?

In that any better than just doing that something? My point was only that if refined oil were cut off there would be severe shortages of transportation fuel, since Iran does not have the capacity to fill its needs in that area.

Is that particularly controversial.

Anyway, environmentalists should be praising the Iranian government for that incapacity, since that would show how dedicated the Iranian government was to the environment, since that would show how they were opposed to fossil fuel use. I mean that, of course, as a gestalt. (Whatever that means).

kennethamy wrote:

In that any better than just doing that something? My point was only that if refined oil were cut off there would be severe shortages of transportation fuel, since Iran does not have the capacity to fill its needs in that area.

You could cause that setback with the full cooperation of China, UAE and Germany I suppose - though how likely it would be to secure that cooperation and whether or not Iran could just negate it by reallocating some resource is dubious.

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Is that particularly controversial.

Controversial? No.

Fantasy? Yeah - pretty much, it just isn't likely to happen.

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Anyway, environmentalists should be praising the Iranian government for that incapacity, since that would show how dedicated the Iranian government was to the environment, since that would show how they were opposed to fossil fuel use. I mean that, of course, as a gestalt. (Whatever that means).

Well if you don't know what it means your response is nothing but an insincerity.

The Iranian government - a gestalt by definition, really - conserve oil in part because they realise that to waste it is to deny themselves their greatest asset. They could ramp up production - but the more they do that the sooner they run out.

As a further point of order - there is no incapacity.

Why environmentalists "should" praise a regime that merely looks after its assets for its own benefit and commits many abuses besides is beyond me.

Of course, if countries currently buying from OPEC moved to their own nuclear or renewable energy concerns - that asset would decline in value and the Iranian regime would no longer be able to reap the riches of the oil trade.

Oh, I know what "gestalt" means, all right. It is German for "pattern" or "whole", and it is the name of a school of theoretical psychology, and clinical psychology. What I don't understand is why you call everything that walks or talks a "gestalt". What on earth would that mean?

How the hell is the Iranian government a "gestalt" and, "by definition" to boot?! And moreover, it is a gestalt "really" which probably makes it even more of a gestalt than it otherwise would be.

The incapacity is to provide enough fuel for domestic needs.

And I would doubt very much whether Russia or China have the refining capacities to supply Iran with fuel, let along the long haul it would be, as well as the expense, to import it from China.

kennethamy wrote:

Oh, I know what "gestalt" means, all right. It is German for "pattern" or "whole", and it is the name of a school of theoretical psychology, and clinical psychology. What I don't understand is why you call everything that walks or talks a "gestalt". What on earth would that mean?

If you want to choose a particular time I used it that you don't understand I'll be happy to explain - though I don't refer to everything that walks or talks as such - so its another exaggeration.

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How the hell is the Iranian government a "gestalt" and, "by definition" to boot?! And moreover, it is a gestalt "really" which probably makes it even more of a gestalt than it otherwise would be.

Well, yeah - so why ask?

You don't have to talk about the decisions of a government representing the government on the whole - because governments are institutions that make decisions on the whole, on the whole. So when people talk about the actions of a "government" they are not necessarily acknowledging exceptions, so to underline that is redundant.

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The incapacity is to provide enough fuel for domestic needs.

A manufactured famine for the purposes of some repression and/or pleasing trade partners is not an incapacity, and it is a manufactured shortage that see in Iran. Russia was capable of producing food to feed everyone during the five year plan - but people starved anyway.

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And I would doubt very much whether Russia or China have the refining capacities to supply Iran with fuel, let along the long haul it would be, as well as the expense, to import it from China.

UAE is short for United Arab Emirates - not Russia.

Plenty of petrol travels further than the distance between China and Iran.

And in comparison to China the UEA are right next door.

And have plenty of refineries.

But then so does Iran.

Dave Allen wrote:

kennethamy wrote:

Oh, I know what "gestalt" means, all right. It is German for "pattern" or "whole", and it is the name of a school of theoretical psychology, and clinical psychology. What I don't understand is why you call everything that walks or talks a "gestalt". What on earth would that mean?

If you want to choose a particular time I used it that you don't understand I'll be happy to explain - though I don't refer to everything that walks or talks as such - so its another exaggeration.

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How the hell is the Iranian government a "gestalt" and, "by definition" to boot?! And moreover, it is a gestalt "really" which probably makes it even more of a gestalt than it otherwise would be.

Well, yeah - so why ask?

You don't have to talk about the decisions of a government representing the government on the whole - because governments are institutions that make decisions on the whole, on the whole. So when people talk about the actions of a "government" they are not necessarily acknowledging exceptions, so to underline that is redundant.

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The incapacity is to provide enough fuel for domestic needs.

A manufactured famine for the purposes of some repression and/or pleasing trade partners is not an incapacity, and it is a manufactured shortage that see in Iran. Russia was capable of producing food to feed everyone during the five year plan - but people starved anyway.

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And I would doubt very much whether Russia or China have the refining capacities to supply Iran with fuel, let along the long haul it would be, as well as the expense, to import it from China.

UAE is short for United Arab Emirates - not Russia.

Plenty of petrol travels further than the distance between China and Iran.

And in comparison to China the UEA are right next door.

And have plenty of refineries.

But then so does Iran.

That, "the decisions of the Iranian government represent the government on the whole makes the Iranian government "a gestalt"? Well, if you say so.

But what does calling that a "gestalt" add to simply saying that the decisions of a the government represent the government as a whole, which probably is not true anyway, since most reports have it that the Iranian government is divided between various factions?

In any case, calling everything you can, a gestalt, does not add anything to talking about that thing as a whole, and is just confusing as well as somewhat pretentious.

You mentioned that Iran might get fuel from Russia.

And whether the UAE have extensive refining capacities, and whether they would be willing to sell fuel to Iran since the Arabs do not seem to think of of Iran as particularly friendly, is as questionable as anything I have written.

Of course, I mean that as a gestalt, since I am talking about the UAE as a whole.

They are bent on sending us back to the 18th century when all the pollution was horse dung.

Did you see Katie Courich last night flashing her 53 year old thighs while interviewing the mother of a dead soldier.

Any hysteria fits Media's bill of fare. They need to be "concerned" or "very concerned" to stop us laughing at them.

Did you see Katie Courich last night flashing her 53 year old thighs while interviewing the mother of a dead soldier.

By JOHN CAREY, environmental writer

Where is all the oil? Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.

So where did the oil go? "Some of the oil evaporates," explains Edward Bouwer, professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. That’s especially true for the more toxic components of oil, which tend to be very volatile, he says. Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist with the environmental group Oceana, told the New York Times that as much as 40 percent of the oil might have evaporated when it reached the surface. High winds from two recent storms may have speeded the evaporation process.

Associated Press

And so, another chicken little hysteria bites the dust. Thank goodness the courts have prevented the Obama from succumbing to the hysteria and closing down the oil drilling thus destroying (to coin a term) the jobs of 40, 000 workers, together with the economy of the Gulf region. But will the chicken-little climate warmers or climate changers (or whatever the flavor of the month is) learn a lesson about long term prediction of such volatile events? Don't bet on it. They are bent on sending us back to the 18th century when all the pollution was horse dung.

kennethamy wrote:

By JOHN CAREY, environmental writer

Where is all the oil? Nearly two weeks after BP finally capped the biggest oil spill in U.S. history, the oil slicks that once spread across thousands of miles of the Gulf of Mexico have largely disappeared. Nor has much oil washed up on the sandy beaches and marshes along the Louisiana coast. And the small cleanup army in the Gulf has only managed to skim up a tiny fraction of the millions of gallons of oil spilled in the 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon rig went up in flames.

So where did the oil go? "Some of the oil evaporates," explains Edward Bouwer, professor of environmental engineering at Johns Hopkins University. That’s especially true for the more toxic components of oil, which tend to be very volatile, he says. Jeffrey W. Short, a scientist with the environmental group Oceana, told the New York Times that as much as 40 percent of the oil might have evaporated when it reached the surface. High winds from two recent storms may have speeded the evaporation process.

Associated Press

And so, another chicken little hysteria bites the dust. Thank goodness the courts have prevented the Obama from succumbing to the hysteria and closing down the oil drilling thus destroying (to coin a term) the jobs of 40, 000 workers, together with the economy of the Gulf region. But will the chicken-little climate warmers or climate changers (or whatever the flavor of the month is) learn a lesson about long term prediction of such volatile events? Don't bet on it. They are bent on sending us back to the 18th century when all the pollution was horse dung.

Let's not run off with the story before all the facts are in. The oil didn't just disappear, there will most likely be tar balls on the beaches for a long time.
Lets not forget the damage to tourism and the shrimp industry either.
Lets hope for the best, but lets not just come out of the storm shelter and shout how grand it is the wind stopped blowing.

Well--Tony Hayward had said at the beginning that the vastness of the ocean and natural forces of degradation would take care of most of the pollution and mix it in with all the rest of the other pollution by the side of which it was trivial.

But he hadn't reckoned on Media's deep and heartfelt need to have dramatic BREAKING NEWS constantly on tap, even if it had to invent some of it, and its desire to frighten everybody so that its experts could be seen to be leading us all to safety and get in some nice holidays and expense account applications.

Which might be the only, or main, cause of most of the business losses on the Gulf coast. In which case Media might be in the frame to pay out some compensation for shouting "FIRE!!!" in a crowded cinema.

Yes--where is the oil? Where is the 20,000,000 barrels a day the US consumes as a matter of course. It has not vanished scientifically.

Well--Tony Hayward had said at the beginning that the vastness of the ocean and natural forces of degradation would take care of most of the pollution and mix it in with all the rest of the other pollution by the side of which it was trivial.