Fixing oil ? What's your approach?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Whoha
"3) Next power plants powered by fuel oil use almost entirely foreign sourced fuel. This must end and they must be replaced with nongreen house gas creating nuclear power plants. In fact we should be replacing the coal and natural gas fired power plants while we are at it."

A minor nit about this, water vapor, which nuclear plants release a lot of, is the most prevalent greenhouse gas you earth murderer

Given the percentage of the earth's surface covered by water and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere I doubt that would be significant. Let's compare the total green house gas output of coal, oil, and natural gas plants to a nuclear plant and let's see which one is best from a global warming stand point. You know it will be nuclear.

[KrazyHorse]

Nuclear tends to be subsidised heavily indirectly. The real cost of power generated by a nuclear plant is significantly higher than that generated by a coal or gas-fired plant.

Anyhow, y'all should have had the foresight to locate yourselves within reach of hydroelectric power sources.

[Dinner]

We did though the damn environmentalists whine about damming rivers.

(Weak pun intended)

[One_more_turn]

China has price ceiling at gas pumps. The current rate I think is 4.4 RMB per liter. However, the price of crude oil is not regulated in anyway in China. Chinese oil companies make money in their exploration and prodiction operations, while lose money in their refining operations. It has worked out pretty nicely so far: all three Chinese integrated oil companies, PetroChina (NYSE: PTR), Sinopec (NYSE: SNP), and CNOOC (NYSE: CEO) have outperformed their US counterparts since 2004.

[Dinner]

That has a lot to do with small companies having an easier time growing percentage wise then large companies. It is very difficult for ExxonMobile to get double digit growth in revenue and profits since they already make $34 billion per year in profit but a company that's only making a few billion gets a bigger boost in percentage terms from the same $1b increase in sales.

There is simply less volitility in the larger company.

[Whoha]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Water vapour is a far less effective greenhouse gas than is CO2 (by a factor of 100?)

Plus the turnover in water vapour is much higher than is the turnover in CO2, so excess production tends to be rectified much more quickly.

I don't know if its less effective but there are cooling effects associated with it.

[One_more_turn]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That has a lot to do with small companies having an easier time growing percentage wise then large companies. It is very difficult for ExxonMobile to get double digit growth in revenue and profits since they already make $34 billion per year in profit but a company that's only making a few billion gets a bigger boost in percentage terms from the same $1b increase in sales.

There is simply less volitility in the larger company.

Do you know how big PetroChina is?

Data from Yahoo Finance：
Market Cap: $175B
Revenue: $57B
Net Income: $15B
Operating Cash Flow: $20B

It's not as big as ExxonMobil, but bigger than Chevron in terms of Market Cap and Net Income. PetroChina is also the highest valued Asian company, $7B more than Toyota.

[FrostyBoy]

Redesign and Rebuild cities so that people can get from A to B without needing a car.

Many thousands of problems solved.

[Sikander]

Who else wants the econ program that Kidicious attended to lose its accredidation? Price ceilings create / excacerbate shortages. Particularly in a highly developed global commodity market like that for oil.

I'm in agreement with Drogue, we want oil prices to rise, at least here in the U.S. I'd increase the tax incrementally to a target percentage of the market price and then maintain it there. This would provide producers with a predictable price target while recouping some of the subsidies which we provide to oil, and at the same time will provide greater incentives for substitutes.

[FrostyBoy]

Oh, I just realised my idea would cripple the car industry.

So I suggest the car industries focus their attention on developing automobiles that you don't buy, but 'hire'. Like a mono-rail type of system.

The way we build cities is a joke, it's no wonder we have so many problems.

We need to build arcologies, mini-mono-riders can be entered right outside your window, simply by calling for one, thousands of these mini-mono-riders are travelling down the rails all the time, so the longest you would have to wait for one is probably 1 minute. Also, it is personal to you, no sharing, no shoving, and it goes (or almost) directly to the place you request it to go.

Oh and its automatic.

And it must look futuristic.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Whoha


I don't know if its less effective but there are cooling effects associated with it.

It is less effective because it is present in far larger amounts in the atmosphere than is CO2, but is responsible for only slightly more of the present greenhouse effect (~18C global mean temp). And I believe that this includes the cooling effect of water vapour (clouds have low albedo).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Sikander
Who else wants the econ program that Kidicious attended to lose its accredidation? Price ceilings create / excacerbate shortages. Particularly in a highly developed global commodity market like that for oil.

The program where I got my degree was well rounded. We learned many different approaches to economic problems. I think it would be wrong to take its accredidation away just because of that. That's what's wrong with economics. Too much dogma.

[Arrian]

I thought it was too much data, actually Too much noise...

But hey, I never got past the 200 level courses before I switched over to History (thank goodness for that!!).

-Arrian

[One_more_turn]

Price ceilings will increase demand because gas is made artificially cheaper, while curtailing supply at same time.

The US had price ceiling during the 73/74 oil crisis, and what happened was that no many could get gas at all. The damage to the economy was extensive. Stocks suffered worse drops than the 2000-2003 bear market.

The US did not have price ceiling during the 79/80 oil crisis. Even though the crude price soared from $10 to $40 a barrel, the recession was mild and the stock market didn't suffer at all.

China's price ceiling had some minor damage done to the economy last year when Canton province ran out of gas. People were angry and price ceiling was increased more than 30% subsequently.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by One_more_turn
Price ceilings will increase demand because gas is made artificially cheaper, while curtailing supply at same time.

The US had price ceiling during the 73/74 oil crisis, and what happened was that no many could get gas at all. The damage to the economy was extensive. Stocks suffered worse drops than the 2000-2003 bear market.

The US did not have price ceiling during the 79/80 oil crisis. Even though the crude price soared from $10 to $40 a barrel, the recession was mild and the stock market didn't suffer at all.

China's price ceiling had some minor damage done to the economy last year when Canton province ran out of gas. People were angry and price ceiling was increased more than 30% subsequently.

The Nixon price controls were horrible. You can't really say that controls can never work just by that. They were implemented by people who originally never believed in controls in the first placed, but tried them anyway because their own policies were failing. Also, the controls were mostly politically motivated, and there may have been corruption involved.