Oil, will it be the last straw for America?

I must admit I am fascinated and not slightly alarmed by peak oil.

The analogy I like to use is a family who depend on their water on one small tap that is running all the time. As the family grows, so does their water needs, so they turn the tap on a bit more. Then slowly the supply falters a bit because the pressure drops...no problem turn it on a bit more. Suddenly there is a realisation that the tap is nearly at full bore, but you dont know where full bore is exactly...thats where we are with oil right now.

The crunch will come when we turn on the oil supply tap all the way and it still fails to meet demand. In fact the pressure continues to drop slightly, no more flows, no matter what the demand or the price. Its not limited by economics, its limited by geology. Blame God, not the oil companies, He didnt put enough oil in the ground to supply all the energy hungry economies of the world.

It may interest you to learn (I know an oil exploration engineer working in the North Sea fields) that as world oil prices are now rising, a lot of offshore oil which formerly was uneconomic to get, is now becoming an attractive prospect and they are working full-out on this, on projects which were previously shelved.

It seems to me that place like China and India will be required to float their currency to compete in the world markets as they must buy their oil like everybody else. They can't continue to produce products at low cost while their energy prices continue to escalate upwards. They've been squeezing worker wages too long, and somethings got to bust.

I dont doubt that McT. The high price encourages them to work harder to squeeze out the last knockings. But at some point, before the oil well is "empty" the effort is not worth it. The Energy Return on Energy Invested has approached unity, and they walk away, regardless of the oil price. Often as much as 40% of the oil they know is down there is un recoverable, and the rate of extraction affects the ultimate amount of extractable oil too. UK oil was extracted at break neck speed. The north sea is now significantly past peak and depletion rate of nearly 8% (that is annual production as percentage of whats left) is the highest in the world. Just another legacy of Thatcher if you ask me. (The Norwegians have been somewhat better at 'husbanding' their resources but not much)

Gorbachev Urges G8 to Back Solar Power, Not Oil or Nuclear
By Philip Thornton
Agence France-Presse

Thursday 27 April 2006

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev urged the world's biggest industrialized nations to set up a 50-billion-dollar (44-billion-euro) fund to support solar power, warning that oil or nuclear energy were not viable energy sources for the future.

Gorbachev - who chairs an environmental thinktank, Green Cross International - called on leaders of the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations to invest in renewable energy sources, in a statement marking the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

As leader of the Soviet Union in 1986, Gorbachev led the immediate response to the world's worst nuclear disaster, which led to at least 4,000 deaths and sent a radioactive cloud over parts of Europe.

The Green Cross proposals were contained in a letter sent to the leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations who are due to meet in Russia in July. Some of the proposals were reported last week in the Financial Times.

"This idea reflects our vision of a way of helping the energy-impoverished in the developing world, while creating concentrations of solar energy in cities that could be used to prevent blackouts," Gorbachev said.

Solar energy would also "lower electricity bills, and would provide a source in the future for generating renewable hydrogen fuels," he added.

"The fund could easily be raised by cutting subsidies for fossil fuels like oil and coal."

Rising oil prices and supply concerns, as well as the growing need to combat global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, have raised the profile and economic viability of some renewable energy sources.

Those concerns have also sparked renewed interest in nuclear power as a source of climate-friendly energy.

The debate has been amplified by the need for some European countries to plan soon for the replacement of earlier generations of nuclear power stations that are due to come to the end of their lifespan in the next two decades.

But Gorbachev has said that nuclear power "doesn't add up economically, environmentally or socially."

"Nuclear power is neither the answer to modern energy problems nor a panacea for climate change challenges," he claimed.

Green Cross said nuclear technology requires huge amounts of initial capital, while decommissioning plants is hugely expensive and costs continue to be incurred long after a nuclear power station is closed.

Direct subsidies to nuclear energy in the United States totaled 115 billion dollars between 1947 and 1999 with a further 145 billion dollars in indirect subsidies, according to the non-governmental agency.

It said they dwarfed those spent on solar or wind power.

The G8 brings together Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Yep, this is the guy with such a great track record, we should all listen to him now for solutions to the energy problem?

Right, we should only listen to Dick(I am a Texas oilman, I just moved to Wyoming so I could be VP.) Cheney, who, if we ever get to see the secret documents from the year 2001, orchestrated the Enron dance through the rolling brownouts in California and Don(I am trying to be the biggest bungler in the administration since Brownie) Rumsfeld, who now famously has been killing alternative energy sources since his work in the Reagan White House.They both continue their work by presiding over the unnecessary deaths of American and British soldiers in the pursuit of oil.

Gorbachev is the world's best pragmatist. Who else could have presided over the dissolution of the USSR and lived to tell about it? Have you followed his career since leaving the his post at the head of the USSR and the Communist Party? Or is your reaction just the usual kneejerk response to everything and anything foreign?

Meanwhile, it scares me to death that the person in charge of the world's largest set of weapons of mass destruction is George W. (Proud to be a C-Student) Bush.

Joe(***Overheard in a Florida restaurant)Nation







*** "George Bush is the worst President this country has ever had, and I say that after voting for him twice. I laughed when people said he was just a prophecy believing Christian trying to bring on the Apocalypse, but I think they were right. He's crazy as a loon."

The Trilogy of Evil are Bush, Cheney, and Rummy.

There is a lot of baloney put out by the oil lobby about water and oil in the oil wells. Oil is lighter than water so they just pump water into the wells to get the oil. Also, many oil companies are pumping sewage water into the wells as the anaerobic bacteria that consume the sewage produce methane gas that could be used to add pressure to the wells to pump out the oil.

This is too funny to contemplate; the republicans are running for their lives, because nothing has gone right for them. They're now trying to save their party by giving rebates to taxpayers for the high gasoline prices. They are a bunch of idiots and incompetents that doesn't understand anything about economics. Their frightful looks from drowing in their own muck is too funny!

G.O.P. Senators Hurry to Quell Furor Over Gas


By CARL HULSE
Published: April 28, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 27 ?- Senate Republicans tried on Thursday to get the upper hand in the escalating political battle over high gasoline prices by proposing a $100 rebate for taxpayers and by suggesting that they might increase taxes on oil-industry profits.

Joshua Roberts/Getty Images
Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, took questions from reporters after announcing a legislative plan to combat high gasoline prices.

Related
Second Thoughts in Congress on Oil Tax Breaks (April 27, 2006)The Republican proposal also called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production, a provision sure to draw opposition from many Democrats and even some Republicans.

"The American consumer is the one that needs the break today, and we need to be taking steps to make sure that they aren't emptying their wallet every time they fill their tank," said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, as the leadership unveiled its legislative response to an issue quickly taking over the Congressional agenda.

The Republican plan includes a provision that could levy a significant tax on oil company profits, a provision that President Bush promised to veto when a version appeared in a Senate bill last year. The proposal came on a day when Exxon Mobil reported a 7 percent gain in its first-quarter earnings. [Page C3.]

Greeting surprised customers at a BP service station in Biloxi, Miss., on Thursday, Mr. Bush compared rising gasoline prices to a new tax. In brief remarks there, confronting an issue that is adding to his political woes, he endorsed one aspect of the Senate proposal by encouraging Congress to give him the same authority to set standards for gasoline mileage of cars as he has over light trucks, sport utility vehicles, pickups and minivans.

The president also promised to curb price gouging, increase refinery capacity and support alternative fuels.

"One of the things we've got to do is make these trucks run on ethanol and batteries that won't require gasoline," he said. "That's what the future is going to be."

Democrats quickly dismissed the new Republican approach as a backdoor effort to overcome deep-seated opposition to drilling in the Arctic refuge.

"Americans are struggling to pay the rising cost of gas," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, "and they are not interested in handouts to help oil companies make more money by letting them drill in wildlife refuges."

Democrats pressed their own ideas, including a proposal by Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, for a 60-day suspension on the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal tax on gasoline and 24-cent diesel tax.

"It is direct relief at the pump," Mr. Menendez said.

Some Republicans, including Mr. Thune, have also endorsed a suspension of those taxes.

Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, tied up the Senate for almost five hours on Thursday in an effort to force a vote on his proposal to prohibit oil companies from escaping federal royalties for drilling on public lands when oil prices exceeded $55 per barrel. (Prices recently rose above $75 a barrel.) But Republicans blocked that effort.

"You cannot get a vote up or down in the United States Senate on a rip-off of taxpayer money," Mr. Wyden said.

The exchanges in the Senate and elsewhere on Capitol Hill illustrated both the political dangers and potential opportunities presented by the rise in gasoline prices and the accompanying consumer discomfort.

"This gas price issue is huge," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.

Democrats say they believe that the public unhappiness will play into their efforts to regain control of the House and Senate this fall as they try to convince voters of the close ties between Republicans and oil companies and remind voters of industry-friendly legislation advocated by Republicans.

"High gas prices are going to be the final nail in the G.O.P.'s coffin this election year," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

But Republicans say they believe that their new proposal, which is promoted as an eight-point plan and which was announced at a news conference attended by several senators facing re-election this year, could strike a public chord, particularly with its promise of a $100 check to millions of taxpayers.

It is unclear when the Senate might move forward on the issue or how the Bush administration and the House, where Republicans and Democrats have their own ideas circulating, will respond.

But a chief aide to Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, said the midterm elections would be a catalyst for Congressional action.

"The political will is there," said Eric Ueland, chief of staff to Mr. Frist. "The need is very real. And the urge to help constituents directly and quickly is omnipresent."

The price tag for the Republican package had not been calculated, but aides said it would cost less than $20 billion. The proposed rebate was patterned after a refund sent to taxpayers early in Mr. Bush's first term as a down payment on an initial set of tax cuts.

The $100 payment would not be tied to gasoline consumption but would be sent to taxpayers at the end of the summer, going to single-filing taxpayers with adjusted gross incomes below $145,950, and to couples earning less than $218,950. The Finance Committee estimated that at least 100 million taxpayers would qualify.

Republican authors of the plan said opening the Arctic refuge to drilling was essential because it could provide federal revenue to pay for the initiative as well as increase domestic oil production.

"We need to open up the reserve of oil and gas that we have in this country," said Senator Jim Talent of Missouri, one of the Republicans up for re-election. "With all due respect, I cannot understand what coherent political philosophy cuts its own country off from oil."

The Republican package would also ease environmental regulations and provide other incentives to add to oil refinery capacity, outlaw unjustifiable price increases and increase tax breaks for owners of hybrid vehicles.

In a proposal expected to draw significant opposition from the oil industry and perhaps the business community at large, the Republican plan would repeal a method of accounting for inventories, known as last in first out, or LIFO. The method, which is used in many industries, gives oil companies a chance to avoid some large capital gains taxes through its accounting of sales from inventory.

The Senate had previously considered a similar provision that would have prohibited major oil companies from using the LIFO method for one year. It was expected to raise about $5 billion, but it generated a storm of opposition from oil companies and Mr. Bush threatened to veto the bill unless lawmakers rejected it.

The new proposal would prevent all companies from using the LIFO method, not just oil companies, and the prohibition would be permanent, instead of limited to one year.

On the fuel-economy issue, federal transportation officials say they need new authority to set higher standards for cars. as they did for trucks last month. The Senate bill would give them that ability.

But any change in federal standards for mileage would be a long-term fix since automakers are required to have 18 months' notice of any change and creating the new rule would involve a process that would take months in itself.

At the White House, a spokeswoman said the administration would consider the Congressional proposals but would make no commitments.

"We are taking all options into account that seek to relieve what is certainly the burden of high gasoline prices on American consumers," said the spokeswoman, Dana Perino.

Ms. Perino said the president remained focused on solving the fundamental problem of supply and demand "so that we can end a vicious cycle."

Lawmakers were grappling for other ways to contend immediately with gasoline prices and oil industry profits. On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee quickly passed legislation that would make it a violation of antitrust laws to manipulate oil supplies to drive up prices.

In the House, Republicans, voting largely along party lines, rejected a symbolic effort by Democrats to urge House tax negotiators to support the Senate on rolling back tax breaks for oil companies.


Matthew L. Wald and Edmund L. Andrews contributed reporting for this article.

okie, yeah right. Screw solar energy and common sense.

Okie

It is becoming obvious that you are in some way connected to the oil patch. That you defend that way of life, peopled by some of the dumbest s.o.b.s to ever put on show leathr, is admirable. Not bright but admirable.

About as admirable as bristling at the notion that Gorby, a commie, could have a viable suggestion that might challenge the need for oil. 25 years ago I was arranging financing for wind machines. Unsightly as they are, they save oil and money. At that time Atlantic Richfield was doing research on solar panels. There were test sights in Arizona. They abandoned the project because in the short-run it wasn't going to pay.

They turned out to be as short sighted as you. We, the US taxpayer, can no longer afford to subsidize oil. We can no longer pay our taxes when oil companies are being subsidized while making record profits. When citizens of the "greatest?" nation on the planet have to hock their watches and ring to fill their tanks so they can go to work, the country is broken.

We are morally destitude. Not because of Gays, or abortion, or stem cell research. We are morally destitude because we no longer are outraged at the level of greed exhibited by corporations, individuals, and our elected representatives. We are morally destitude because we have sinned against the greatest document since the Bible: the American Constitution.

Where is the outrage? People in this country are being spied by our government. People in this country are being taken off the street and imprisoned and called enemy combatants without benefit of habeas corpus and due process of law. Our corporations, companies that were granted the right to exist as a body with protections against the investors so that they could grow and provide jobs HERE, have turned their backs on the US and are taking jobs with them. Our representatives are the paid lackeys of the corporations and spend their time giving lip service to the destruction of the middle class which is the backbone of any democracy.

There is no outrage. We are too damned busy trying to survive to be bothered with anything else unless it is bashing Gays or professing our faith in God while calling for the destruction of naything and everything that is different than we.

We are a broken country and will fade in the memory of this world if we don't fix it and now.

Speaker caught ditching hydrogen car for SUV immediately after leaving photo-op

RAW STORY
Published: Friday April 28, 2006

The Associated Press has photographed Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL) ditching his brightly colored hydrogen automobile in favor of a gas-guzzling black SUV after exiting a news conference and photo opportunity at a Washington, DC gas station.

After the conference, which addressed high gas prices, Hastert and other Congressmen had been carted away in fuel saving and alternatively powered automobiles. Just blocks away from the scene, Hastert is reported to have ditched his in favor of his usual official car.

The conference reportedly took place just blocks away from the U.S. Capitol to which Hastert was returning, making the motivations behind the car switch-off all the more puzzling.

Hastert is not the only Congressman to have made "the switch" in the middle of the very short trip, according to the Associated Press, which has thus far named no other perpetrators.

You people would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Delusional is about as nice a label as anyone can use here. While we sit here and do nothing about the problem, now if you wish to talk about pragmatists, as has been referred to Gorbachev by Joe Nation as the "world's greatest pragmatist," perhaps somebody needs to explain the meaning of being pragmatic here. Well, the Chinese are being pragmatic about the problem now, by going out and trying to secure more oil, one place being some miles off the Florida coast. I suppose thats okay because it isn't an oil company, its a communist government doing it "for the people?"

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,193484,00.html

Meanwhile, the kooky environmentalists and other business / oil company haters sit here and argue over whether an oil company is supposed to make a profit. Idiocy. Now, we see the picture in Washington with all the politicians scrambling around trying to look good, trying to figure out who to investigate and who to blame. Form their stupid committees and investigate somebody for the next 6 months while they do nothing else productive. I would suggest looking in the mirror for a change and quit acting like a bunch of school kids pointing fingers. And do something "pragmatic." Encourage more drilling for oil and gas and encourage more progress in other alternatives, all of the above. Something they should have done years ago, as suggested by the hated oil men, Bush and Cheney.

Gorbachev, the "world's greatest pragmatist." Now that has to be the joke of the century.

Okie

you obviously don't know the meaning of pragmatist. Gorby saw the end of th Soviet Union and engineered the breakup without starting world war III in the process. He accepted the inevitable outcome and made it as painless as the breakup of the second most powerful nation on earth could have been. It could have meant his life and many more in the process.

As for your Bush, Cheney bipolar pain, they no more want alternative energy than they want to be removed from power. Lip service is what it is bull. as for oil companies making profits, we hope they do, just not at the expense of the majority of American and not during a time of war. Profiteering during wartime is treason. Did you know that? I think not.

Being Gorbechav admirers is rather revealing in terms of where your affections lie. I look at Gorbechav as a failed leader of a failed system of a failed Soviet Union. Among all the disastrous effects of it all, were economic and environmental, wherein millions of people suffered, and you hold the man in high regard. That is pathetic.

You are dead wrong on other counts. Bush would love alternative energy. Economic conditions are not allowing a sudden switch to solar and other alternatives for very real, pragmatic reasons. They are not totally competitive economicly and technically at the present time. The Chinese know that. It isn't that hard to figure out. Open your eyes. And your definition of treason is simply stupid. Without some profit to operate, the companies go broke.

In the first place I don't admire Gorby, I respect the touch decisions he had to make.

As for alternative energy costing more, the cost can't be more than the bankruptcy we are facing now. You are naive to think that alternative is a Bush desire. he is a puppet of the oil interests and will not allow real money to be spent on advancing solar, wind or hydrogen power until the last barrel of oil is gone.

Profit. You were likely not alive when Nixon put in taxes on windfall profits. The profits the oil companies are making are obscene. They are ripping at teh economic fabric of this country and if you had a lick of scence you would realize that underneath it all is an attempt to turn this democracy into a fascist state controlled by the corporations.

McG

You had something to say?

And, okie, no one was more surprised (and dis-pleased) about George W. saying we were addicted to oil in the most recent State of the Union than your hero Dick Cheney. (Of course, we are addicted to oil, I help plan that addiction!!) Actually he said that not too much should be made of the President's remarks. How's that for loyalty? Not too much... .

Meanwhile, you are right, George has been listening to his co-believers and has come to the revelation (no pun intended) that we have been poor stewards of this planet's resources. Not that he has fallen for all that scientific data regarding global warming and such, oh no, he just now feels that we ought to be doing more than just drilling and invading countries unilaterally for oil, we should be looking for ways to produce hydrogen cars more economically and combine technologies to accelerate the making of alternative fuels. (Al Gore has filed a plagiarism lawsuit or ought to.)

Joe(Golly, the greenies were right all along. Who could have foreseen that?)Nation