Fixing oil ? What's your approach?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Kidicious


Those are impressive ideas, but we can't lower oil prices alone if world demand doesn't decrease. Your solutions are very costly, so we might have trouble getting from here to there.

China likely wouldn't be able to meet the evironmental and worker protection laws which would be required to not get hit by the massive new tarrif which would be placed upon none complient nations. Since this new trade policy would be coordinated with other first world countries the noncomplient nations (meaning those which don't cap GHG output, don't enforce worker protections, and environmental laws) would quickly find they can't export anything more valuable then toy rubber dog poop to the first world. Mean while those countries which do agree to the new Kyoto, the minimium wage laws, the worker rights laws, the environmental protections, etc... will get free access to the first world markets so much of the inflation impact would be off set by the increased free trade among the countries who follow the rules.

Costly? Yes, but we won't need a $1 trillion military and we can easily cut that in half and we won't need the farm subsidies so we can get another hundred billion (I'm guessing) there. Next we'd go after the corporate welfare which is most defense contracts. Re writing the medicare drug benifet so that it no longer has to pay twice the price of everyone else to get the same drugs will also help. There is more then a little waste, fraud, and abuse in that budget. We'd still have to end Bush's regressive tax policies and his give aways to wealthy donors but the end game could be reached and the budgtet would still be much closer to balanced.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by TCO
I would encourage production in the US. This would be more in the nature of trying to fracture the cartel than for the production itself. I beleive that a large part of the current pricing and even futures pricing is related to the expectation of a strong cartel.

There is not much room for increasing production in the us except by artifical means like thermal cracking of coal or thermal depolimerization of sewage or municiple waste. That would require a lot of upfront capital.

The better bet would be to increase fuel efficency to the levels Japan and the EU already experience, replace oil power plants with nuclear power plants, fund mass transit in urban areas (where most energy is consumed), do what Brazil does and force every gas station to sell gasohol since that would off set a HUGE amount of imports and spur demand for agricultural goods, force developers to make new communities dramatically more energy efficent (more insulation and urban designs which aren't urban sprawl), and similiar type actions.

Slashing demand and replacing imports with domestic energy is the only way to even get close to the goal. Bush won't do either and that's why he's full of ****.

[TCO]

There "wasn't much room for more production in the US in the 80s", or so people thought. But when restrictions were lifted, a great deal of development took place and this served as a useful wedge to reduce the cartel effectiveness. Once the cartel fractures and starts cheating, you're golden.

Before ROADIE-influenced oil from trash schemes, I would start by opening up Alaska to production as well as off-shore California and Florida.

[Az]

11. Build a National high-speed rail system connecting all cities over 5,000 people and to all suburbs.

Not economical, especially in the US. Seriously.

[Sandman]

High-speed intercity rail links are nice, but it's the everyday commuter stuff which is more important. And more unlikely for America.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by TCO
There "wasn't much room for more production in the US in the 80s", or so people thought. But when restrictions were lifted, a great deal of development took place and this served as a useful wedge to reduce the cartel effectiveness. Once the cartel fractures and starts cheating, you're golden.

Before ROADIE-influenced oil from trash schemes, I would start by opening up Alaska to production as well as off-shore California and Florida.

TCO, you have noticed that US total petrol production has been steedily declining since the 1970's, right? We can bring a few smaller supplies on line but the general trend will continue to be downward. PRice spikes can get us to increase production from marginal fields by making them viable but we will never have the level of production we had in the 1970's again.

The best hope for increased production is off shore but that is also the most expensive so it is the most sensative to price variations. Like it or not the long term trend for domestic production is down.

[Barnabas]

Isnt ethanol that thing made with Sugar cane, I think brazil is a world leader in that.

It may even help quite a few tropical third world countries.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Isnt ethanol that thing made with Sugar cane, I think brazil is a world leader in that.

It may even help quite a few tropical third world countries.

At the expense of jungle environments.

Yes, Brazil has converted the vast majority of their cars to an ethanol blend... but they've laid waste to a section of the Amazon rain forest equivalent to the size of Massachusetts in order to grow the sugar cane needed to fuel the country.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[Dinner]

Ethanol is alcohol made from any sort of fermentable sugar. In the 1980's Brazil's domestic sugar indsutry was suffering terriblely from competition from subsidized first world crops such as sugar beets (big in Europe) and corn suryup (mostly made in the US & Canada) so the Brazilian government tried to find something to do with all of that excess sugar cane they had lying around. Since much of their agricultural sector relied upon sugar cultivation the government couldn't just let the farmers go unemployed plus they wanted to cut their dependence upon foreign oil. Their solution was to have a government agency buy all of the excess sugar cane and then use it to create ethanol which the state oil company then blended with gasoline creating something similiar to E85. This, combined with new off shore oil production, has taken Brazil from being a net oil importer to a net oil exporter. Increased supply of domestic oil has helped but the big change was decreasing domestic demand for oil by substituting ethanol for much of that imported oil.

[Odin]

Originally posted by TCO
I would encourage production in the US. This would be more in the nature of trying to fracture the cartel than for the production itself. I beleive that a large part of the current pricing and even futures pricing is related to the expectation of a strong cartel.

US oil production peaked in the 70's and world oil production is about ready to peak. oil alternatives live ethanol, and cutting car use is the only way to go, you can't drill your way to energy independence.

[Kidlicious]

You have a couple of assumptions that I disagree with.

Originally posted by Oerdin
China likely wouldn't be able to meet the evironmental and worker protection laws which would be required to not get hit by the massive new tarrif which would be placed upon none complient nations. Since this new trade policy would be coordinated with other first world countries the noncomplient nations (meaning those which don't cap GHG output, don't enforce worker protections, and environmental laws) would quickly find they can't export anything more valuable then toy rubber dog poop to the first world. Mean while those countries which do agree to the new Kyoto, the minimium wage laws, the worker rights laws, the environmental protections, etc... will get free access to the first world markets so much of the inflation impact would be off set by the increased free trade among the countries who follow the rules.

You're talking about disrupting the world economic order and creating inflation. I don't think that the other nations have the capacity to take over the Chinese exports, and even if they did, China currently accounts for something like 30% of the world economic growth. That's very significant. World economic growth clearly depends on China's economic growth. What hurts China is going to severly impact the world.

Costly? Yes, but we won't need a $1 trillion military and we can easily cut that in half and we won't need the farm subsidies so we can get another hundred billion (I'm guessing) there. Next we'd go after the corporate welfare which is most defense contracts. Re writing the medicare drug benifet so that it no longer has to pay twice the price of everyone else to get the same drugs will also help. There is more then a little waste, fraud, and abuse in that budget. We'd still have to end Bush's regressive tax policies and his give aways to wealthy donors but the end game could be reached and the budgtet would still be much closer to balanced.

There's a couple of assumptions here that I disagree with. One, there's not a significant amount of waste in the budget. Two, you couldn't remove it if it were there.

[Kidlicious]

I was also comment

Originally posted by Oerdin
6) increase the gas tax to discourage wasteful use and encourage things like car pooling, walking, biking, and the purchase of more fuel efficent vehicles.

Isn't this counter productive. You want lower prices, but you want to add a tax? Should businesses get tax credits for this to offset their expense?

7) protect what competition we do have in the fuel market blocking mergers which would impact the market more then a few percentage points of market share.

To you have any reason to believe that this will lower prices. In this day in age the efficiencies of larger companies is more significant than competition in determining prices.

10) Domestically produced ethanol to offset imported oil. That just makes sense.

Is this going to increase food prices?

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by TCO
There "wasn't much room for more production in the US in the 80s", or so people thought. But when restrictions were lifted, a great deal of development took place and this served as a useful wedge to reduce the cartel effectiveness. Once the cartel fractures and starts cheating, you're golden.

The price of oil isn't controlled by OPEC right now, and increased production in the US won't do a damn thing to the price of oil. It's just that simple.

[Dinner]

Isn't this counter productive. You want lower prices, but you want to add a tax? Should businesses get tax credits for this to offset their expense?

I don't want lower prices. I want less GHG output and I want national energy independence. Low prices only encourage frivolous use of oil and keep us dependent upon energy from people who want to kill us. The government has a obligation to stop sending money to those nations which continue to support terrorism against us. Even in "friendly" muslim like Saudi Arabia the majority of the citizens support funding of terrorism and the majority of terrorist money comes from these people.

National security demands we find ways to stop giving money to deranged people who are evil and seek to kill innocent people.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Oerdin


I want less GHG output and I want national energy independence.

Less GHG is possible but I don't see the US with national energy independence. The US is so dependent on Canadian oil and gas that I can't really see that changing any time soon.

Originally posted by Oerdin

Low prices only encourage frivolous use of oil and keep us dependent upon energy from people who want to kill us.

Here I agree. There is a heck of lot of frivolous consumption. I have been surprised at the lack of major changes in consumption patterns with oil at $60 and higher. I would have thought we would have seen a more immediate disruption and more obvious changes in behavior but it hasn't happened