Iran to attack the US....

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Geronimo
only if countries with lots of excess production capacity like Saudi arabia don't take advantage of irans reduction in production to grab more market share for Saudi arabia without lowering prices.

That is a possibility, although I have never heard a cartel that would not go for maximising profit margin.

[pchang]

To date, OPEC (and Saudi Arabia especially) have appeared to act to maximize cash flow, not profit margin.

[Gatekeeper]

The current problem with a hydrogen economy — other than the fact that there's not that many hydrogen fueling stations — is the fact that, in order to acquire the hydrogen, we'd have to pull it out of coal, oil and whatnot.

That particular process is a dirty one, although scientists are working on ways to get around that (and to get hydrogen from non-petroleum sources). So while vehicles and whatnot would burn hydrogen cleanly, how we get said hydrogen in the first place wouldn't be so clean, at least as it stands now.

Gatekeeper

[Q Classic]

Originally posted by Joseph
Guys

What would have happen, if the US did not buy a drop of Oil for a month from all of these little Oil kindom?

Well, with our strategic petrol reserves -I think- at 3 months, I'd expect the rest of the world to have cheaper oil prices, America's oil prices roughly the same, and not-too-pleasant results for the economy.

Besides, most of the oil in the reserve is second-string in nature, not the good stuff.

[Q Classic]

Incidentally, the article points to the notion that since some nations are considering putting their foreign exchange holdings to oil--a form of stored energy--one wonders how prescient the energy currency world of SMAC is.

[Urban Ranger]

Once you have fusion the bottom is going to fall out of the energy market.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper

Taxes and Americans generally don't mix, unless there's some obvious threat breathing down our necks. Dependence on oil doesn't count because most folks cannot — or refuse to — take the long-term view and see what awaits us just over the horizon.

But there are plenty of wealthy technologically advanced people who aren't Americans and who pay at least twice as much as we do for gasoline who haven't yet discovered a magical means for replacing petroleum. Some proven technologies just can't compete with petroleum on a cost basis even with a fair bit of competitive advantage due to taxes and supply difficulties. Other technologies seem to be waiting for a tech breakthrough or two before they can be realized even in demonstration modes.

This tells me that while there may be a lucky breakthrough that changes the way we produce energy, it is unlikely that this will happen soon. A lot of people have been looking into this for decades and there doesn't appear to be an easy solution around the corner. Which is too bad of course. I'd like to see some more taxes on petroleum in order to promote conservation and increase the potential payoff for anyone doing reasearch in the area, but I'm doubtful that this will itself produce a scientific breakthrough which could justify a Manhattan project style demonstration anytime soon.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Once you have fusion the bottom is going to fall out of the energy market.

I thought we were playing with random events off.

[Kuciwalker]

Yeah, but you still have the Planetary Council.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by pchang


If Iran artifically limits the number of bidders for its products, why would those bidders bid more than they have to? They would bid the minimum they could get away with. Fewer bidders means lower bids.

Huh? It's not limiting the number of bidders. If it was simply banning US bidders then this would be the situation, however it's not. If they denominate in, say, euros then they will get a large influx of bidders (europeans) and a small outflow of bidders (americans) given the cost of transportation involved.

Therefore they have more bidders overall.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Huh? It's not limiting the number of bidders. If it was simply banning US bidders then this would be the situation, however it's not. If they denominate in, say, euros then they will get a large influx of bidders (europeans) and a small outflow of bidders (americans) given the cost of transportation involved.

Therefore they have more bidders overall.

And the americans (and anybody else) could still bid in dollars right? so it doesn't actually leave any denomination in the cold?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Sikander


But there are plenty of wealthy technologically advanced people who aren't Americans and who pay at least twice as much as we do for gasoline who haven't yet discovered a magical means for replacing petroleum.

That's true; instead, they have found ways to limit the role of oil in their economies. For one thing, they tax the hell out of gasoline to discourage overconsumption. For another, they spend that tax money on a real public transit infrastructure and real railroads.

The fact remains that we have the highest motivation to wean ourselves off oil, because we are (by far) the greatest per-capita consumers. The solution isn't going to come from another G8 country, because the rewards for their own societies aren't worth the investment.

But I'm with Gatekeeper. We went from zero to A-Bomb in less than five years; we went from near-zero to moon landing in less than 10. There's no reason a concerted R & D effort couldn't rid us of at least gasoline dependency, if not oil dependency, within a decade. It just takes social and political will.

[Kuciwalker]

We went from zero to a-bomb, not zero to all electricity in the US supplied from nuclear. We went from zero to man on the moon, not from zero to a moon colony.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
We went from zero to a-bomb, not zero to all electricity in the US supplied from nuclear. We went from zero to man on the moon, not from zero to a moon colony.

Fair enough. First you need the technology though. You can then encourage/mandate adoption. Look at how quickly we got rid of leaded gas, for example.

[Urban Ranger]

US cities seem to have been designed with private transportation instead of public transportation in mind; the cities are all sprawled out with low population density. This also increases the time and energy required to go from one place to another.