Oil has to come down quite a bit farther than it has the past week to start generating some relief at the pump - most of the majors were taking the hit of negative refining margins during the recent price spike - as prices decline they will likely hold the line on motor gasoline prices to begin generating positive refining margins again. Also of huge import are prices on the middle distillates, diesel and home heating oil, diesel price increases in particular having out ramped motor gasoline.
The headline price for oil is for light sweet crude so the average price of all oil exports is going to be quite a bit less than what WTI or Brent sell for but presumably that is accounted for in this chart.
In any event this is a massive drain on our economy that need to be plugged.
Why the Democrats, who normally salivate over increased government revenue are so reluctant to try and staunch this untaxed outflow of funds from our economy is a mystery or an example of the power the environmental lobby has over them.
Nothing is as lucrative a deal to governments as oil and gas production. You get royalties from the leases, you get to tax the oil and gas and you get to tax the income of the producers.
Ahmadinijad has already won this game. the last several yrs of US inaction has convinced him of the oil grip he has on the rest of the world. he's just posturing btwn now and the election to prevent an Israeli independent attack.
By the way, somebody asked several threads down about my Grandpa. Yes, he got his pension. And the insurance company he was a manager for still exists in a much-merged version.
He repeated all his life how he was so lucky he sold his butter and egg business just before the GD I. I knew that my grandma was one of the people in front of a failed bank in one of the runs. What I just found out today was that that run happened before the depression, when he still had the butter and egg business. My mom said he lost quite a bit of money, since he had a couple of employees and their pay was in there. Never got anything back. Further details are lost in the mist of history as my mom was 6 at the time. Don't know if they had a hit after the depression started too. But they owned their own home 100% and he always had a job, so the depression was relatively easy for them. The bank was Chesapeake something in Baltimore.
His butter and egg truck was pulled by a horse. I've seen pictures. No gas problem there!!
Wow, such nastalgia. We get 70's oil shock with 30's financiqal meltdown at the same time. Damn! Interesting timews or what? Gosh, I feel lucky...no not lucky...maybe change the l with an f.
Why the Democrats, who normally salivate over increased government revenue are so reluctant to try and staunch this untaxed outflow of funds from our economy is a mystery or an example of the power the environmental lobby has over them.
Yeah, right.
Or maybe they have a clue that this won't do a whit to solve the problem long-term. I know, wishful thinking. But maybe someone with sense is actually looking at real alternatives to the energy crisis rather than dusting off the playbook from the 1970s.
CR - you were there for the 70s, so was I - when do we really start feeling the pinch (it was right now & in your face in the 70s) and why has it taken so long? SWF floating our boat - at least temporarily bailing us out? I've seen suggestions to that effect... but can't remember exactly where.
I think its because we have greater access to debt than in the 1970s. My parents didn't get a credit card till the early 1980s and even then it only had a 500 dollar line. Hell they gave me a 2500 dollar line while I was in college.
gotta save our most productive industry!
idoc | 07.20.08 - 12:10 pm | #
We are losing our SBux... about time too. They located way the heck out on the edge of town in a cheesy strip mall no one goes to & then proceeded to treat customers & local help 'surely'. Ya we're all gonna race out there to get bad coffee and crappy service.
Meanwhile a half dozen mom-n-pop smaller cafe & coffee shops in the town center provide better fair for less & great environment to boot. But you can't drive through most of them - oh well might have to slow down for a minute.
What was SBux thinking putting these stores out here?
absolutely. credit is a money substitute. you don't actually have to have any money to use credit. once you're hooked you're cooked. lenders hand out OTM and collect interest. if you default, no worries, we'll modify the terms to keep you paying interest forever.
same formula applies to avg joe to nations like the US.
Number2son, there are no 'long term' problems. Things happen in real time not the future. To get tomorrow's fuels you have to begin acting today.
Now, if the Democrats truly believe that high fuel prices are a necessary precondition to get to their largely science fiction technologies they should tax fossil fuels even more. Get the price up to European levels.
I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope.
The question is, will the Feds montitize the price spike like they did in the 70's?
If memory serves, the monitization in the 70's was a mistake since the world was awash in crude. The high prices were a function of mis-distribution coupled with OPEC temperary cuts and failed U.S. oil policy ie: new oil/old oil farces.
Obviously this led to a general rise in prices and wages.
If the peak oil boys are correct or even close, seems to me that we have no choice but to monitize the price spike. So, inflation peaks out around 2015 around 20%...
We are a debt society. Inflation favors the debtor. You do he math.
I know there will be a lot of 'what ifs' and 'buts' but the "The Road To Serfdom is not paved with gold intentions"/tm...
"Operators of refineries are responding to the rapid increase in diesel prices by bidding more and more for light, low-sulfur crude. The US could increase the available light-crude supply - and thus damp the surge in prices - by putting some of its reserve supply on the market," Verleger said in an interview.
Most crude, when refined, produces both diesel and gasoline; the lighter the crude, the bigger the share of diesel. Efforts to upgrade refineries to get more diesel from heavier crudes could take two years to relieve the pinch, Verleger said.
Do you mean lack of gas lines? We won't have gas lines (unless we do something stupid like bomb Iran). No, this "shortage" is a manufactured event. The movie Syriana pretty much sums up how the game is played.
unit472 @ 12:29 Writes: "I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope."
Any links or cites to your sources? My info is that Denmark, for example, has gone so far into wind power that it is now has a wind to hydrogen plant and is a next exporter of energy.
Ahmadinijad has already won this game. the last several yrs of US inaction has convinced him of the oil grip he has on the rest of the world. he's just posturing btwn now and the election to prevent an Israeli independent attack.
I disagree. There's no basis for thinking that Israel will postpone an attack until after the election. Surprise has always been their strength and strategic advantage.
Ahmadinijad is not pushing this confrontation. The fundamentalist religious establishment to whom he answers is. This has moved into serious brinksmanship, and you have to believe that establishment is ready for (and maybe even welcomes) war. Their military and nuclear facilities will be annilated. But maybe that is the price they are willing to pay to incite Muslims all over the world to jihad.
Everyone assumes Iran is (or will) act rationally. But the fact that they are irrational is the biggest reason we want to deny them nukes.
Will we need more diesel when all the trucks, trains and ships are sitting there with nothing to haul, and construction equipment sits rusting in the sun? I see oil at 20-30 a barrel in 2 years. Demand destruction is going to kill the price same as the last time. Just in time for GM to unveil the Volt while everyone scrambles to buy a used SUV.
Liz,ride behind a horse in a wgon for a while and you will notice a different kind of gas problem,especially if horse ate too many apples.And Lionel,the Stories in the "onion" are always plausible to some degree,providing an easy tell.
well coal is fine, the uk and germanies economies were rebuilt thanks to large amounts of coal deposits there but if you look at this Coal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
it looks like this:
Top reserves
United States USA \t111,338 \t135,305 \t246,643 \t27.1
Russia \t49,088 \t107,922 \t157,010 \t17.3
China \t62,200 \t52,300 \t114,500 \t12.6
India 90,085 \t2,360 \t92,445 \t10.2
Australia \t38,600 \t39,900 \t78,500 \t8.6
South Africa \t48,750 \t0 \t48,750 \t5.4
Ukraine \t16,274 \t17,879 \t34,153 \t3.8
Kazakhstan \t28,151 \t3,128 \t31,279 \t3.4
Poland \t14,000 \t0 \t14,000 \t1.5
Brazil \t0 \t10,113 \t10,113 \t1.1
Germany \t183 \t6,556 \t6,739 \t0.7
Colombia \t6,230 \t381 \t6,611 \t0.7
Canada \t3,471 \t3,107 \t6,578 \t0.7
Czech Republic \t2,094 \t3,458 \t5,552 \t0.6
the last number is % of world reserves
anyway green fundamentalist fanatics wont be happy about this but what can they do? throw tomatoes on women in fur
To get tomorrow's fuels you have to begin acting today.
Exactly, which is why mindlessly pursuing non-renewables is a mugs game.
That's something that Jimmy Carter, much maligned by the right-wing noise machine, tried to get people doing back in the 70s. While he now richly deserves having the last laugh on those short-sighted greedy fools, I doubt he is enjoying it all that much.
I was just reading some comments elsewhere about our SEC chairman. It seems like there's some preception he may have triggered a short squeeze and a stock market rally which has had the unintended consequence of scaring the bond market and sending mortgage rates flying upward (sort of like how oil prices went flying upwards starting on Aug 17, 2007).
In any case it'll be interesting to watch next week if this starts to become the next crisis -- e.g. 7% conforming fixed rate mortgages.
Of course again this is entirely consistent with past crises -- public officials keep trying to intervene and fix the markets, often just causing more uncertainty and scaring away more market participants.
My suspicion right now based on history is that the folks in DC will keep meddling with the markets until they cause some major panic or blowup that causes serious damage and is directly attributable to their actions. Then they'll step back a bit.
Ahmadinijad has already won this game. the last several yrs of US inaction has convinced him of the oil grip he has on the rest of the world. he's just posturing btwn now and the election to prevent an Israeli independent attack.
Well just imagine where we'd be if we spent the past 7 years building up some alternative energy sources and infrastructure instead of flipping houses.
There's a huge opportunity cost to focusing a nation's efforts on frivolous activities.
I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope.
Complete B.S. You need to broaden your sources of information. Fox and Limbaugh aren't the only news sources in the world.
it will be fascinating how long this money rotation from energy stocks to financials will go on for. i believe in the tinfoil theory of gov't sponsored short squeeze.
when will our gov't and bankers realize that the whole problem is one of distrust in everything they do?
Everyone assumes Iran is (or will) act rationally. But the fact that they are irrational is the biggest reason we want to deny them nukes.
rich
They are acting perfectly rational, u just don't think like they do.
Untold oil riches, yet the economy is a shambles. Who do we blame? the great satan. Maybe if we stopped giving a fuck about sidewinders like Iran & Cuba their people could recognize where the flaws lie.
But I guess I'm somee bleeding heart librul or sumthin.
Ethan, does your computer not have a search engine? Mine does so here is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article.
"Over the next 5 years, Italy will increase it reliance on coal to 33% from 14%...
And Italy is not alone in its return to coal... European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next 5 years."
You've been hornswoggled by the econuts if you believe that Europe is going to let their economies collapse just to please some greenies. We might be stupid enough to do it though.
New coal-fired plants are being shot down pretty regularly by Sierra Club attorneys all over the USA. One in Georgia a few weeks ago. One in Kansas just this week. Virginia did manage to get a new one approved though at the cost of converting an older one to natural gas which will help make sure prices stay high this winter and cause more homeowners to default on their mortgages.
Number2Son is the Democrats house organ a good enough source for you? If so, look at the excerpt I just posted above. Your complete and utter ignorance on the topic with your vitriol discredits this board. Please take it elsewhere.
New coal-fired plants are being shot down pretty regularly by Sierra Club attorneys all over the USA.
Good on them.
Sounds like the coal lobby is feeling threatened by the advances in technologies that are renewable and don't destroy the environment.
You, and they, should feel threatened.
And once we have a Democratic in the White House come January, this country can start making some real progress in creating long-term solutions to our energy needs.
Now, if the Democrats truly believe that high fuel prices are a necessary precondition to get to their largely science fiction technologies they should tax fossil fuels even more. Get the price up to European levels.
I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope.
My '83 dodge colt got 40+ mpg. How about we tax fossil fuels enough so that people try 1980's technology?
It'd be a heck of a lot cheaper than sending our money and our youth to the middle east...
I disagree. There's no basis for thinking that Israel will postpone an attack until after the election. -rich
i said i think Iran is posturing to prevent an Israeli attack BEFORE the Nov US elections. once Obama is in, i don't think Israel can act alone.
Alec is right; they're acting perfectly rational. they want nuclear power and the nukes that go with it. their aspirations for political power are no less than the US. and they sure don't want their countrysides decimated by air attacks.
I have no problem with increasing fuel economy though many people need a big pickup or van to do their work.
The problem with taxing fuels is that it is a regressive tax. I thought you liberals were compassionate people. Making a construction worker pay an extra dollar a gallon for fuel for his Chevy Silverado really pinches him but for the Obama's on half million per year they might not even notice.
Rich, in your comment "[The Iranian situation] has moved into serious brinksmanship, and you have to believe that establishment is ready for (and maybe even welcomes) war. Their military and nuclear facilities will be annilated. But maybe that is the price they are willing to pay to incite Muslims all over the world to jihad."
Are you speaking about Isreal, the United States or Iran? You treat this situation as if this is some kind of inevitable law of physics that would cause destruction, not that it would be hardliner and warmongering Cons that pushed the button.
And Rich continues, "Everyone assumes Iran is (or will) act rationally. But the fact that they are irrational is the biggest reason we want to deny them nukes."
You are not yourself rational, stating as a "fact" that all of Iran is irrational. But then the world is learning not to expect the US to act rationally any longer, having such proof as the endless war-making and ineptitude and quite frankly lies by the American Right.
America is a nation of immigrants born of liberty under two of the most liberal documents in the history of mankind--the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence--and the Right wing Republican conservatives have grown to be Americans that hate liberal thought and immigrants.
Some would call this treason; in any case I would be slow to call other countries "irrational." Unless you wish to start more wars, which I grant seems to be the purpose.
I think Picken's plan has a lot of merit to it, especially improving our electricity grid. I'm not so optimistic about using natural gas for a vehicle fuel.
I don't work in the coal industry but truth be told I do work for a natural gas utility. Therefore I maybe more current than Mr. Pickens on natural gas. Using this fuel for electricity generation has already caused it to more than triple in price since the turn of the century. People are going to get a real shock this winter when their heating bills come. They are already being 'shocked' by the rise in electricity rates as coal prices have gone from 60 to $130/ton and coal accounts for 50% of American electrical power generation. Nat Gas
provides 22% and we are barely holding our own in meeting demand for it.
We could import more gas but the econuts are blocking every attempt to build or expand LNG terminals. Sempra
had to put theirs in Mexico and the Sierra Club is fighting like hell to keep Dominion from expanding its Maryland facility and the one planned for Oregon is, again, tied up in the courts.
You gotta burn something people. That's what energy is HEAT
BTW those who cite Denmark had better realize this is country the size of a postcard with little heavy industry. It is one thing for the Danes to get by with some windmills and gas fired power plants and another matter entirely if you are Germany, Britain, France or Italy with 60 to 80 million people and car, steel, chemical and other heavy industries.
Iran hasn't started a war in 200 years. How is that irrational? Well, to anybody besides these warmongering neocons. And as to wanting nukes - well, that may be the only way to be really safe from the US. Certainly not irrational.
Unit472, this is a presidential election year and it is not in the best interest of the Democrats to bring gas prices down prior to the election.
As long as prices remain high and consumers are crying, the Dems retain an advantage at the polls. You won't hear a peep out of them prior to November on the issue. Look for prices to fall somewhat starting in October just like they did in 2004. The only question will be by how much - the real testament as to the power of the Republican oil cronies will be seen at the pump by mid-October.
And as to wanting nukes - well, that may be the only way to be really safe from the US. Certainly not irrational.
Fair Economist | 07.20.08 - 1:44 pm | #
Bush trained them well - compare outcomes btwn N Korea & Iraq.
It would be remarkably shortsighted to go heavy on coal, melt the icecaps and poison the oceans, just to put off for a few decades a transition to renewables we'll have to do anyway.
The economy of top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is surging on a more than six-fold rise in oil prices since 2002, which is driving investments in industrial projects, infrastructure and property, and giving local banks many financing opportunities.
But as inflation soars, the central bank has tightened bank lending curbs three times since November to rein in credit growth.
"I don't think these restrictions had much of an impact on banks in general as shown by the earnings that were announced so far," Alwan said
I'm not talking about the war in Lebanon Fair Economist. I am responding to your assertion that Iran has not started a war in 200 years.
Hezbollah is a fully owned subsidiary of the Iranian government. They entered Israel and attacked an Israeli Army outpost and then began the largest bombardment Israel has ever experienced. You must have seen it on TV. As I recall the Israelis even found a few dead Iranians amongst the Hezbollah bodies when they counterattacked.
Last week alone, Nigeria realised about $1.7 billion (or N200 billion) from oil sales, going by production rate of 1.8 million barrels per day and the week's average prices of $135 per barrel. Although the production rate plummeted further on Thursday after Niger Delta militants hit at a major oil rig off shore, Nigeria expects to keep earning beyond the budgeted oil benchmark of $59 per barrel as global oil prices stay afloat. This means much more cash than the nation has imagined will keep flowing in.
Ahmadinijad may be fairly labled a horse's ass, if only beacuse of his hosting of a holocaust denial conference! But he - and the mullahs of Qom - are not the nutbags that they are made out to be in the American media. According to Dr. Juan Cole, the top Persian scholar at Univ. of Michigan, at NO time in his speeches or writings has Ahmadinejad called for the destruction of Israel. Yet, the same damn neocons ( Doug Fieth, Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen, etc.) who got us into the disaster in Iraq keep repeating ad nauseum the Ahmadinijad wants to "level" Israel!
There's another huge problem beyond the resulting spike in oil prices such an attack would bring. And, that is, the currency pegs to the dollar that Persian Gulf oil producing states presently maintain, but with great difficulty. James Grant in the July 11th Edition of his Interst Rate Observer opines: "At last check broad money was growing by 22% in Saudi Arabia, 40% in the U.A.E. and 53% in Qatar. The excess liquidity then feeds into house prices, rents, food prices and other so-called non tradables...none of the GCC's (Gulf Cooperation Council) inflation fighting efforts have worked. Grant quotes one Abu Dhabi goverment agency report: " ... the dollar is falling relentlessly and oil prices are skyrocketing... the Gulf Cooperation Council States need to peg against a BASKET (my emphasis) of world currencies". If we think things are dicey right now, wait until the American Dollar loses its "World Reserve Currency" status!
These neocons are leading the Unites States to unalloyed disaster.
uler said India was also be included in the project and therefore a tripartite meeting would be held with the participation of Turkish, Israeli and Indian officials in the next 10 days. "This will be followed by a ministerial meeting," he added.
The project consists of five pipelines that would carry water, natural gas, oil, electricity and fiberoptics from Turkey's Mediterranean coast to Israel.
Ben-Eliezer also said his country was near to an agreement with Russia to secure natural gas for the planned Medstream project. "We are very close to reaching an agreement with Russia that would supply the pipeline with natural gas," Ben-Eliezer said. Azerbaijan has said it is interested in using the pipeline to ship its oil to eastern markets, Ben-Eliezer added.
Your number is high... Exporters exported 35Mb/d in 2007, down from 36Mb/d in 2006... with a delay, the decline in imports was mostly made up by the country that uses the most per capita, the US. Most likely imports will decline every year from now on, and this situation will firm prices through the recession, and will furthermore make the recovery longer and slower. The US can survive on what is produced internally, but the landscape will look different.
SOurce: theoildrum.com
The problem with taxing fuels is that it is a regressive tax. I thought you liberals were compassionate people. Making a construction worker pay an extra dollar a gallon for fuel for his Chevy Silverado really pinches him but for the Obama's on half million per year they might not even notice.
The problem with sending troops to the middle east is that it is regressive. The burden of military service falls disproportionately on the poor.
I have no problem increasing the gas tax by 5$ a gallon and then giving each serviceman the ability to waive the tax for 50?? 100?? of his/her family and friends...
Saturday's talks ended in stalemate, with Tehran now facing a two-week deadline to give a final answer to world powers seeking a breakthrough in a crisis which has raised fears of regional conflict and sent oil prices spiralling.
World powers have offered to start pre-negotiations during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and in return face no further sanctions -- the so-called "freeze-freeze" approach.
Convinced that the Iranians are seeking to build an atomic bomb, Mullen said he felt "that's a very destabilizing possibility in that part of the world."
"I'm fighting two wars and I don't need a third one," Mullen said, referring to US engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
World powers have offered to start pre-negotiations over a six-week period during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and in return no further sanctions would be imposed, according to some media reports.
Israel and the United States have both refused to rule out military action against Iran, which in turn has warned that any aggression against its soil will be met with a ferocious response.
"We have said clearly that if anyone takes any stupid action against Iran, our response will be decisive," Khamenei warned.
Khamenei said that even if US President George W. Bush ordered a military strike on Iran before leaving office "the Iranian people will pursue him and punish him even if he is not in power."
Iran last week intensified tensions in the nuclear standoff by staging two days of missile tests, which included the firing of a missile that it says can reach Israel.
Khamenei also gave strong backing to Ahmadinejad -- whose provocative comments on the nuclear crisis have caused controversy even inside Iran -- saying it was the president's job to speak on the issue.
Shortsighted or not the rest of the world is using coal and in a big way.
As I pointed out Europe is building 50 new coal-fired generation plants over the next 5 years. China a far larger number. South Africa also is bringing on line a number of new coal fired plants to help alleviate their electricity shortage.
Only the US is adhering to a moratorium on coal-fired generation and coal is the most abundant energy source we have. Further because of EPA's ridiculous rules it behooves a utility to keep an obsolete plant in operation and just run the shit out of it because if they install any new technology the EPA will say they have modified the plant and ends its exempt status!
Rather than continue this idiocy the FEDS should encourage utilities to scrap old plants and build new more modern ones but the utilities are terrified they will be tied up in court for decades if they try and replace a 50 year old plant with a new more efficient one.
Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Kisliak, who attended the talks, was quoted by the Ria-Novosti news agency as saying that he too expected a response from Iran in two weeks.
"We hope that the two weeks we agreed on with the Iranians will help Iran to specify its stance on our proposals," he said.
Iranian, European and US officials, including US State Department official William Burns, attended the talks in Geneva's historic Town Hall as part of a bid to resolve the long-running dispute over Tehran's nuclear.
There are points in common and points that are not in common," Jalili added. "We have agreed to discuss this."
The Iranian representative compared the diplomatic process to weaving traditional Persian carpets: progress in cases "moves forward in millimetres," he said.
"It's a very precise work, in certain cases it's a very beautiful endeavour and hopefully the end result, the final product, would be beautiful to behold," Jalili said.
4runner I don't subscribe to the notion that America's military men are poor. I enlisted in the US Army and my parents were well to do. I wasn't alone.
Now maybe serving in your country's armed forces is an alien concept to people like you and Obama but I can assure you not everyone shares your contempt for our servicemen.
Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer warned on Monday that Israel would respond to any Iranian attack by destroying the "Iranian nation
This is the guy in charge f building the pipelines??
I don't subscribe to the notion that America's military men are poor. I enlisted in the US Army and my parents were well to do. I wasn't alone.
The demographics of military service are apparently comparable to the population at large. I apologize.
Nevertheless, the burden of ensuring that we have access to a strategically critical resource is falling disproportionately on these young men and women and that remains obscene.
Number2son: RE Denmark, this is an excerpt from the Lodge Report -pdf: DENMARK IS Europes most-wind intensive state. With a population of 5.4 million, it has over 6,000 turbines that in 2002 produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used. In theory, at peak output, the Danish wind farms could account for nearly 64% of Danish peak power demand.
However, not a single conventional power plant has been closed in the period that Danish wind farms have been developed. Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants have had to be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity and to provide back-up.7
Furthermore, the Danes have found that it is not practical for large baseload plants to be turned on and off as the wind dies and rises: indeed, the quick ramping up and down of those plants, such as coal, would actually increase their output of pollution and carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas). Baseload stations have to keep running so that they can shadow wind turbines due to their intermittency. So when the wind is blowing perfectly for the turbines, the power they generate is usually a surplus and sold to other countries at an extremely discounted price; or the turbines are simply shut off. According to the Copenhagen newspaper Politiken, wind met only 1.7% of Denmarks total demand in 1999.8 And in 2003, for example, 84% of western Denmarks wind-generated electricity was exported (at a revenue loss). Denmarks grid accepted only 3.3% of electricity generated by its vast wind farms.9 This has undermined the green credentials of Danish wind farms. For example, the Danish grid used 50% more coal-generated electricity in 2006 than in 2005 to cover winds failings. The increase in the demand for coal, needed to plug the gap left by underperforming wind farms, meant that Danish carbon emissions rose by 36% in 2006.10</i>
I have yet to see a really good explanation of how to overcome the scaling problem of maintaining steady grid output with intermittent renewables. Hydro is generally different, because a dam serves as storage.
Anyway, sinking that much money into wind power and having to raise your coal consumption and carbon emissions that much doesn't bode well for the US. According to my googling, the Danish hydrogen "link" is supposed to be used to establish hydrogen fueling stations all over the country and shift to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. However hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not exactly economical right now.
In short, I am hinting that your strongly held convictions seem to have little basis in experience. Here is another article discussing the situation. It turns out that Denmark is selling most of their wind-generated electricity to Norway and Sweden, which often use it to pump water for hydroelectric projects. This suggests a potential application in the US IF big new hydroelectric projects are built in tandem with solar and wind installations, but it turns out that the net efficiency is extremely low (there is a power less in each step of transformation).
So basically Denmark is polluting more and subsidizing electric bills for Norwegian and Swedish consumers, but the cost to Danish consumers has been extremely high.
If anyone on this board knows of a proposed solution to the grid problem, please give me a print source or internet link. As far as I have been able to figure out, it seems as if one can go a total of about 5% into these periodic production, and after that, the grid problem makes adding more periodic renewables capacity of little use.
The life span of wind turbines is a problem as well. The estimate of 20 years doesn't seem to be holding up. The turbines need maintenance usually at least annually.
Oh, and the Germans and the Irish did studies released in 2005 and 2004 which concluded that wind power was expensive and polluted more than just installing filters on fossil fuel plants and insulating to conserve. Here is a link to a UK article discussing the German findings.
By the way, one of the major sources of anthropogenic CO2 is concrete. If you are worried about carbon, wind power can play a minor role but probably never more than that.
rich writes: There's no basis for thinking that Israel will postpone an attack until after the election.
idoc writes: i said i think Iran is posturing to prevent an Israeli attack BEFORE the Nov US elections. once Obama is in, i don't think Israel can act alone.
You're both right, sort of. Check out this recent posting at Information Dissemination. The claim is this is the negotiation, but not really with the Iranians. The goal is to "go the last mile" to complete bringing the Chinese on board. The attack will be after the election, but before inauguration.
And let's not forget sequestration technology, such as this neat German facility. The extra cost is that it uses 20% more coal than a conventional plant, i.e., pay a 20% surcharge and get a carbon-neutral energy source from nearly inexhaustible coal. Sounds cheap to me!
umber2son, Denmark's population is being taxed into oblivion and their economy is shinking into obscurity. Good example of what excessive government meddling into economic affairs yields. Renewables will be adopted when their economics, without massive subsidies, make them viable.
Big difference between the 70's and now is that you can buy oil now. You may pay more for it, but you can actually still get all you want. Not so in the 70's.
Prices staying at $120+ may be a "sine qua non" condition for development of new technologies. Even if prices were to drop, oil should be taxed and the money used to finance alternative techs or health care. (Tax refunds to low income drivers)
"4runner I don't subscribe to the notion that America's military men are poor. I enlisted in the US Army and my parents were well to do. I wasn't alone."
unit472 | 07.20.08 - 2:12 pm | #
There are a lot of idiots who are clueless about the military. I just ignore em less my bp goes through the roof. My entire family has served at one time or another.
It's nice how the conservatives live in their own bitter little world where everything is the fault of someone else (Liberals! socialists! Anarchists! Communists!), anybody who wises up is a liberal socialist eco crazy, and an invisible man in the sky controls the world via the market.
Put your liberal-mandated seatbelts on, people, because the ride is going to be very very bumpy from here on out.....
Neo-cons want war, and the following ARMAGEDON. Hope all those supporting the war mongering fools get their just deserts, which will include but will not be limited to $200/barrel oil.
@My suspicion right now based on history is that the folks in DC will keep meddling with the markets until they cause some major panic or blowup that causes serious damage and is directly attributable to their actions. Then they'll step back a bit.
Hey AC, you one of the 109 online? I've also been thinking something big's got to give as a result of all the meddling (and in my darker moments, been hoping something will just to humble these bastards). Any ideas as to what could precipitate it?
"Alternative energy"?...ummm...would that be like the winds farms the PETA types sue against, because they kill too many birds?...or would it be those wind farms proposed off the coast Cape Cod, and opposed by Kennedy and his cronies on "aesthetic" reasons?....excuse me, while I go puke, please.
Rather than continue this idiocy the FEDS should encourage utilities to scrap old plants and build new more modern ones but the utilities are terrified they will be tied up in court for decades if they try and replace a 50 year old plant with a new more efficient one.
unit472 | 07.20.08 - 2:07 pm | #
I think you have a point here unit, but until we get serious about sequestration, aggressively moveing in the direction of coal is a disaster int he making, and yes the world is making the disaster, coal in China or India is just as damaging (if not more) to the planet as coal burned here, but hard for us to argue for them to stop building those plants ifd we are doing it too. As an interim step, NG would be helpful, and I would support opening the OCS for gas drilling. But there is no reason not to go on a crash wind and solar program. Doubt we can meet Gore's timeline, but call that an asperational goal, and actually get 50% of the way there in a decade and 100% in 20 years.
To bring prices down right now we should tell the Israelis to STFU about attacking Iran. Iran having the bomb is not desirable, but is not the end of the world, if MAD worked against Stalin and Mao, it will work against the mullahs. Does anyone think that Iran would strike first? there is nothing to suggest they would. They want a civilian nuke program so they can export more of their hydrocarbons. Exact same thing we did in the 50's and 60's when we were the biggest oil exporter and were developing nuke power. If they are going for the bomb, A) they are everal years away, and B) the reason could be strictly defensive, since they have more reason to fear invasion than just about any country in the world, and nukes are pretty good insurance against that happening.
Oil has to come down quite a bit farther than it has the past week to start generating some relief at the pump - most of the majors were taking the hit of negative refining margins during the recent price spike - as prices decline they will likely hold the line on motor gasoline prices to begin generating positive refining margins again. Also of huge import are prices on the middle distillates, diesel and home heating oil, diesel price increases in particular having out ramped motor gasoline.
The headline price for oil is for light sweet crude so the average price of all oil exports is going to be quite a bit less than what WTI or Brent sell for but presumably that is accounted for in this chart.
In any event this is a massive drain on our economy that need to be plugged.
Why the Democrats, who normally salivate over increased government revenue are so reluctant to try and staunch this untaxed outflow of funds from our economy is a mystery or an example of the power the environmental lobby has over them.
Nothing is as lucrative a deal to governments as oil and gas production. You get royalties from the leases, you get to tax the oil and gas and you get to tax the income of the producers.
"Iran's refusal to consider suspending enrichment was an indirect slap at the United States"
WSJ Error Page - WSJ.com
oil back up? bought some USO Friday att $104.8. we'll see.
Ahmadinijad has already won this game. the last several yrs of US inaction has convinced him of the oil grip he has on the rest of the world. he's just posturing btwn now and the election to prevent an Israeli independent attack.
What happened to the Monopoly game?
By the way, somebody asked several threads down about my Grandpa. Yes, he got his pension. And the insurance company he was a manager for still exists in a much-merged version.
He repeated all his life how he was so lucky he sold his butter and egg business just before the GD I. I knew that my grandma was one of the people in front of a failed bank in one of the runs. What I just found out today was that that run happened before the depression, when he still had the butter and egg business. My mom said he lost quite a bit of money, since he had a couple of employees and their pay was in there. Never got anything back. Further details are lost in the mist of history as my mom was 6 at the time. Don't know if they had a hit after the depression started too. But they owned their own home 100% and he always had a job, so the depression was relatively easy for them. The bank was Chesapeake something in Baltimore.
His butter and egg truck was pulled by a horse. I've seen pictures. No gas problem there!!
Wow, such nastalgia. We get 70's oil shock with 30's financiqal meltdown at the same time. Damn! Interesting timews or what? Gosh, I feel lucky...no not lucky...maybe change the l with an f.
Cheers,
Why the Democrats, who normally salivate over increased government revenue are so reluctant to try and staunch this untaxed outflow of funds from our economy is a mystery or an example of the power the environmental lobby has over them.
Yeah, right.
Or maybe they have a clue that this won't do a whit to solve the problem long-term. I know, wishful thinking. But maybe someone with sense is actually looking at real alternatives to the energy crisis rather than dusting off the playbook from the 1970s.
CR - you were there for the 70s, so was I - when do we really start feeling the pinch (it was right now & in your face in the 70s) and why has it taken so long? SWF floating our boat - at least temporarily bailing us out? I've seen suggestions to that effect... but can't remember exactly where.
Your take/prediction?
Starbucks Gets Pleas Not to Close Stores - WSJ.com
gotta save our most productive industry!
His butter and egg truck was pulled by a horse. I've seen pictures. No gas problem there!!
Lawyerliz | 07.20.08 - 12:04 pm | #
Check out the prices for feeds - there's a problem there too.
dryfly writes:
CR - you were there for the 70s, so was I
yeah but you were a teenager like i was.
yes SWF keeping us afloat and they will manipulate the h*ll out of us in the decades to come.
The 70's were keen...well not realy. I'm gonna shower and catch a bus to go see Dark Knight.
Cheers,
technically its the CB's, not the SWF's mainlining us.
dryfly,
That was Tim Duy.
Dryfly,
I think its because we have greater access to debt than in the 1970s. My parents didn't get a credit card till the early 1980s and even then it only had a 500 dollar line. Hell they gave me a 2500 dollar line while I was in college.
idoc writes:
SB..._mostpop_viewed
WSJ Error Page - WSJ.com
gotta save our most productive industry!
idoc | 07.20.08 - 12:10 pm | #
We are losing our SBux... about time too. They located way the heck out on the edge of town in a cheesy strip mall no one goes to & then proceeded to treat customers & local help 'surely'. Ya we're all gonna race out there to get bad coffee and crappy service.
Meanwhile a half dozen mom-n-pop smaller cafe & coffee shops in the town center provide better fair for less & great environment to boot. But you can't drive through most of them - oh well might have to slow down for a minute.
What was SBux thinking putting these stores out here?
this is a bit off message but check out Sorry. Page not found.
this banker from hell is spouting a Tantasque seminar on ARMS...
his next spiel is on OIL I hear, stay tuned!
energyecon writes:
dryfly,
That was Tim Duy.
energyecon | 07.20.08 - 12:13 pm | #
I think you are right - still shaking the cobb webs out from last nights 'painflation fest'...
idoc writes:
technically its the CB's, not the SWF's mainlining us.
idoc | 07.20.08 - 12:13 pm | #
Ya but in China's case their pretty closely 'coupled'... [there's that damned word again].
Sequoia
absolutely. credit is a money substitute. you don't actually have to have any money to use credit. once you're hooked you're cooked. lenders hand out OTM and collect interest. if you default, no worries, we'll modify the terms to keep you paying interest forever.
same formula applies to avg joe to nations like the US.
"idoc writes:
SB..._mostpop_viewed
WSJ Error Page - WSJ.com
gotta save our most productive industry!"
I'm having increasing problems discerning real news from the Onion.
The oil shocks of the 70s were followed by sharp recessions. This data is just one more indication that we are nowhere close to a bottom yet.
Number2son, there are no 'long term' problems. Things happen in real time not the future. To get tomorrow's fuels you have to begin acting today.
Now, if the Democrats truly believe that high fuel prices are a necessary precondition to get to their largely science fiction technologies they should tax fossil fuels even more. Get the price up to European levels.
I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope.
The question is, will the Feds montitize the price spike like they did in the 70's?
If memory serves, the monitization in the 70's was a mistake since the world was awash in crude. The high prices were a function of mis-distribution coupled with OPEC temperary cuts and failed U.S. oil policy ie: new oil/old oil farces.
Obviously this led to a general rise in prices and wages.
If the peak oil boys are correct or even close, seems to me that we have no choice but to monitize the price spike. So, inflation peaks out around 2015 around 20%...
We are a debt society. Inflation favors the debtor. You do he math.
I know there will be a lot of 'what ifs' and 'buts' but the "The Road To Serfdom is not paved with gold intentions"/tm...
Asphalt will increases property taxes
Bloomberg, via GulfNews: Diesel demand driving oil prices, says expert
"Operators of refineries are responding to the rapid increase in diesel prices by bidding more and more for light, low-sulfur crude. The US could increase the available light-crude supply - and thus damp the surge in prices - by putting some of its reserve supply on the market," Verleger said in an interview.
Most crude, when refined, produces both diesel and gasoline; the lighter the crude, the bigger the share of diesel. Efforts to upgrade refineries to get more diesel from heavier crudes could take two years to relieve the pinch, Verleger said.
Dryfly,
Do you mean lack of gas lines? We won't have gas lines (unless we do something stupid like bomb Iran). No, this "shortage" is a manufactured event. The movie Syriana pretty much sums up how the game is played.
unit472 @ 12:29 Writes: "I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope."
Any links or cites to your sources? My info is that Denmark, for example, has gone so far into wind power that it is now has a wind to hydrogen plant and is a next exporter of energy.
See, e.g. Wind power in Denmark - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and associated links.
Ahmadinijad..'s just posturing btwn now and the election to prevent an Israeli independent attack.
idoc
Which election, his or ours?
I disagree. There's no basis for thinking that Israel will postpone an attack until after the election. Surprise has always been their strength and strategic advantage.
Ahmadinijad is not pushing this confrontation. The fundamentalist religious establishment to whom he answers is. This has moved into serious brinksmanship, and you have to believe that establishment is ready for (and maybe even welcomes) war. Their military and nuclear facilities will be annilated. But maybe that is the price they are willing to pay to incite Muslims all over the world to jihad.
Everyone assumes Iran is (or will) act rationally. But the fact that they are irrational is the biggest reason we want to deny them nukes.
Will we need more diesel when all the trucks, trains and ships are sitting there with nothing to haul, and construction equipment sits rusting in the sun? I see oil at 20-30 a barrel in 2 years. Demand destruction is going to kill the price same as the last time. Just in time for GM to unveil the Volt while everyone scrambles to buy a used SUV.
Liz,ride behind a horse in a wgon for a while and you will notice a different kind of gas problem,especially if horse ate too many apples.And Lionel,the Stories in the "onion" are always plausible to some degree,providing an easy tell.
well coal is fine, the uk and germanies economies were rebuilt thanks to large amounts of coal deposits there but if you look at this Coal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
it looks like this:
Top reserves
United States USA \t111,338 \t135,305 \t246,643 \t27.1
Russia \t49,088 \t107,922 \t157,010 \t17.3
China \t62,200 \t52,300 \t114,500 \t12.6
India 90,085 \t2,360 \t92,445 \t10.2
Australia \t38,600 \t39,900 \t78,500 \t8.6
South Africa \t48,750 \t0 \t48,750 \t5.4
Ukraine \t16,274 \t17,879 \t34,153 \t3.8
Kazakhstan \t28,151 \t3,128 \t31,279 \t3.4
Poland \t14,000 \t0 \t14,000 \t1.5
Brazil \t0 \t10,113 \t10,113 \t1.1
Germany \t183 \t6,556 \t6,739 \t0.7
Colombia \t6,230 \t381 \t6,611 \t0.7
Canada \t3,471 \t3,107 \t6,578 \t0.7
Czech Republic \t2,094 \t3,458 \t5,552 \t0.6
the last number is % of world reserves
anyway green fundamentalist fanatics wont be happy about this but what can they do? throw tomatoes on women in fur
To get tomorrow's fuels you have to begin acting today.
Exactly, which is why mindlessly pursuing non-renewables is a mugs game.
That's something that Jimmy Carter, much maligned by the right-wing noise machine, tried to get people doing back in the 70s. While he now richly deserves having the last laugh on those short-sighted greedy fools, I doubt he is enjoying it all that much.
I was just reading some comments elsewhere about our SEC chairman. It seems like there's some preception he may have triggered a short squeeze and a stock market rally which has had the unintended consequence of scaring the bond market and sending mortgage rates flying upward (sort of like how oil prices went flying upwards starting on Aug 17, 2007).
In any case it'll be interesting to watch next week if this starts to become the next crisis -- e.g. 7% conforming fixed rate mortgages.
Of course again this is entirely consistent with past crises -- public officials keep trying to intervene and fix the markets, often just causing more uncertainty and scaring away more market participants.
My suspicion right now based on history is that the folks in DC will keep meddling with the markets until they cause some major panic or blowup that causes serious damage and is directly attributable to their actions. Then they'll step back a bit.
Ahmadinijad has already won this game. the last several yrs of US inaction has convinced him of the oil grip he has on the rest of the world. he's just posturing btwn now and the election to prevent an Israeli independent attack.
Well just imagine where we'd be if we spent the past 7 years building up some alternative energy sources and infrastructure instead of flipping houses.
There's a huge opportunity cost to focusing a nation's efforts on frivolous activities.
I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope.
Complete B.S. You need to broaden your sources of information. Fox and Limbaugh aren't the only news sources in the world.
ack
it will be fascinating how long this money rotation from energy stocks to financials will go on for. i believe in the tinfoil theory of gov't sponsored short squeeze.
when will our gov't and bankers realize that the whole problem is one of distrust in everything they do?
Everyone assumes Iran is (or will) act rationally. But the fact that they are irrational is the biggest reason we want to deny them nukes.
rich
They are acting perfectly rational, u just don't think like they do.
Untold oil riches, yet the economy is a shambles. Who do we blame? the great satan. Maybe if we stopped giving a fuck about sidewinders like Iran & Cuba their people could recognize where the flaws lie.
But I guess I'm somee bleeding heart librul or sumthin.
Ethan, does your computer not have a search engine? Mine does so here is an excerpt from a recent New York Times article.
"Over the next 5 years, Italy will increase it reliance on coal to 33% from 14%...
And Italy is not alone in its return to coal... European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next 5 years."
You've been hornswoggled by the econuts if you believe that Europe is going to let their economies collapse just to please some greenies. We might be stupid enough to do it though.
New coal-fired plants are being shot down pretty regularly by Sierra Club attorneys all over the USA. One in Georgia a few weeks ago. One in Kansas just this week. Virginia did manage to get a new one approved though at the cost of converting an older one to natural gas which will help make sure prices stay high this winter and cause more homeowners to default on their mortgages.
7% conforming is a high rate? gee maybe prices could come down a bit,say to where a payment at 12% is affordable.
Next shoe to drop is the OTC derivatives, whatever happened to the FED sponsored clearing houses?
Think the drop in home prices will go on for another year or two in the very least.
Oil won't drop as long as china hums along. Look for it to shoot back up after this correction.
Does anyone sell 5 gallon cans of crisco? KY is petroleum based and getting too expensive for the average joe.
Number2Son is the Democrats house organ a good enough source for you? If so, look at the excerpt I just posted above. Your complete and utter ignorance on the topic with your vitriol discredits this board. Please take it elsewhere.
New coal-fired plants are being shot down pretty regularly by Sierra Club attorneys all over the USA.
Good on them.
Sounds like the coal lobby is feeling threatened by the advances in technologies that are renewable and don't destroy the environment.
You, and they, should feel threatened.
And once we have a Democratic in the White House come January, this country can start making some real progress in creating long-term solutions to our energy needs.
Now, if the Democrats truly believe that high fuel prices are a necessary precondition to get to their largely science fiction technologies they should tax fossil fuels even more. Get the price up to European levels.
I note though that even in Europe none of these futuristic technologies are being implemented and they are going back to coal and other tried and true fuels to try and cope.
My '83 dodge colt got 40+ mpg. How about we tax fossil fuels enough so that people try 1980's technology?
It'd be a heck of a lot cheaper than sending our money and our youth to the middle east...
I disagree. There's no basis for thinking that Israel will postpone an attack until after the election. -rich
i said i think Iran is posturing to prevent an Israeli attack BEFORE the Nov US elections. once Obama is in, i don't think Israel can act alone.
Alec is right; they're acting perfectly rational. they want nuclear power and the nukes that go with it. their aspirations for political power are no less than the US. and they sure don't want their countrysides decimated by air attacks.
So you stand corrected then eh Number2son and your retort is to change the subject.
Tropical Storm GRACE
just what we need.
sorry for not closing that tab, but the point still remains; look at Iran in the middle of their own race and all their policies make perfect sense.
So how do you fuck their shit up politically without doing a damn thing?
u know it.
Quit complaining. Just send your paycheck to the Middle East Anti-American fund, care of Dick Cheney.
Nope, Mr. Coal Lobbyist, we cross posted. But nice try.
If you want to cite Burlesconi's Italy as typical of European thinking on energy, go right ahead if it suits your biased agenda.
I'd rather look to more progressive governments, like Denmark for example.
Wind power pays well for Denmark / Nation at forefront of $4 billion industry
And then there is that notorious left-wing "econut" T. Boone Pickens.
http://www.pickensplan.com/
I have no problem with increasing fuel economy though many people need a big pickup or van to do their work.
The problem with taxing fuels is that it is a regressive tax. I thought you liberals were compassionate people. Making a construction worker pay an extra dollar a gallon for fuel for his Chevy Silverado really pinches him but for the Obama's on half million per year they might not even notice.
Some nice cartoons:-
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: David Horsey
http://img.timeinc.net//time/cartoons/20080718/cartoons_01.jpg
Rich, in your comment "[The Iranian situation] has moved into serious brinksmanship, and you have to believe that establishment is ready for (and maybe even welcomes) war. Their military and nuclear facilities will be annilated. But maybe that is the price they are willing to pay to incite Muslims all over the world to jihad."
Are you speaking about Isreal, the United States or Iran? You treat this situation as if this is some kind of inevitable law of physics that would cause destruction, not that it would be hardliner and warmongering Cons that pushed the button.
And Rich continues, "Everyone assumes Iran is (or will) act rationally. But the fact that they are irrational is the biggest reason we want to deny them nukes."
You are not yourself rational, stating as a "fact" that all of Iran is irrational. But then the world is learning not to expect the US to act rationally any longer, having such proof as the endless war-making and ineptitude and quite frankly lies by the American Right.
America is a nation of immigrants born of liberty under two of the most liberal documents in the history of mankind--the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence--and the Right wing Republican conservatives have grown to be Americans that hate liberal thought and immigrants.
Some would call this treason; in any case I would be slow to call other countries "irrational." Unless you wish to start more wars, which I grant seems to be the purpose.
I think Picken's plan has a lot of merit to it, especially improving our electricity grid. I'm not so optimistic about using natural gas for a vehicle fuel.
I don't work in the coal industry but truth be told I do work for a natural gas utility. Therefore I maybe more current than Mr. Pickens on natural gas. Using this fuel for electricity generation has already caused it to more than triple in price since the turn of the century. People are going to get a real shock this winter when their heating bills come. They are already being 'shocked' by the rise in electricity rates as coal prices have gone from 60 to $130/ton and coal accounts for 50% of American electrical power generation. Nat Gas
provides 22% and we are barely holding our own in meeting demand for it.
We could import more gas but the econuts are blocking every attempt to build or expand LNG terminals. Sempra
had to put theirs in Mexico and the Sierra Club is fighting like hell to keep Dominion from expanding its Maryland facility and the one planned for Oregon is, again, tied up in the courts.
You gotta burn something people. That's what energy is HEAT
BTW those who cite Denmark had better realize this is country the size of a postcard with little heavy industry. It is one thing for the Danes to get by with some windmills and gas fired power plants and another matter entirely if you are Germany, Britain, France or Italy with 60 to 80 million people and car, steel, chemical and other heavy industries.
Iran hasn't started a war in 200 years. How is that irrational? Well, to anybody besides these warmongering neocons. And as to wanting nukes - well, that may be the only way to be really safe from the US. Certainly not irrational.
Unit472, this is a presidential election year and it is not in the best interest of the Democrats to bring gas prices down prior to the election.
As long as prices remain high and consumers are crying, the Dems retain an advantage at the polls. You won't hear a peep out of them prior to November on the issue. Look for prices to fall somewhat starting in October just like they did in 2004. The only question will be by how much - the real testament as to the power of the Republican oil cronies will be seen at the pump by mid-October.
And as to wanting nukes - well, that may be the only way to be really safe from the US. Certainly not irrational.
Fair Economist | 07.20.08 - 1:44 pm | #
Bush trained them well - compare outcomes btwn N Korea & Iraq.
They aren't stooopid.
It would be remarkably shortsighted to go heavy on coal, melt the icecaps and poison the oceans, just to put off for a few decades a transition to renewables we'll have to do anyway.
The economy of top oil exporter Saudi Arabia is surging on a more than six-fold rise in oil prices since 2002, which is driving investments in industrial projects, infrastructure and property, and giving local banks many financing opportunities.
But as inflation soars, the central bank has tightened bank lending curbs three times since November to rein in credit growth.
"I don't think these restrictions had much of an impact on banks in general as shown by the earnings that were announced so far," Alwan said
Fair Economist is it your contention that Hezbollah's missile barrage into Israel was not sponsored by Iran?
Do you think Hezbollah manufactures its own missiles and even a robot airplane of the type that was used against the Israelis?
The war in Lebanon antedates the very existence of Hezbollah.
I'm not talking about the war in Lebanon Fair Economist. I am responding to your assertion that Iran has not started a war in 200 years.
Hezbollah is a fully owned subsidiary of the Iranian government. They entered Israel and attacked an Israeli Army outpost and then began the largest bombardment Israel has ever experienced. You must have seen it on TV. As I recall the Israelis even found a few dead Iranians amongst the Hezbollah bodies when they counterattacked.
GDP:
Last week alone, Nigeria realised about $1.7 billion (or N200 billion) from oil sales, going by production rate of 1.8 million barrels per day and the week's average prices of $135 per barrel. Although the production rate plummeted further on Thursday after Niger Delta militants hit at a major oil rig off shore, Nigeria expects to keep earning beyond the budgeted oil benchmark of $59 per barrel as global oil prices stay afloat. This means much more cash than the nation has imagined will keep flowing in.
Schwarzenegger Needs To Face Reality: California Is Insolvent
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Schwarzenegger Needs To Face Reality: California Is Insolvent
Terminated.
Ahmadinijad may be fairly labled a horse's ass, if only beacuse of his hosting of a holocaust denial conference! But he - and the mullahs of Qom - are not the nutbags that they are made out to be in the American media. According to Dr. Juan Cole, the top Persian scholar at Univ. of Michigan, at NO time in his speeches or writings has Ahmadinejad called for the destruction of Israel. Yet, the same damn neocons ( Doug Fieth, Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen, etc.) who got us into the disaster in Iraq keep repeating ad nauseum the Ahmadinijad wants to "level" Israel!
There's another huge problem beyond the resulting spike in oil prices such an attack would bring. And, that is, the currency pegs to the dollar that Persian Gulf oil producing states presently maintain, but with great difficulty. James Grant in the July 11th Edition of his Interst Rate Observer opines: "At last check broad money was growing by 22% in Saudi Arabia, 40% in the U.A.E. and 53% in Qatar. The excess liquidity then feeds into house prices, rents, food prices and other so-called non tradables...none of the GCC's (Gulf Cooperation Council) inflation fighting efforts have worked. Grant quotes one Abu Dhabi goverment agency report: " ... the dollar is falling relentlessly and oil prices are skyrocketing... the Gulf Cooperation Council States need to peg against a BASKET (my emphasis) of world currencies". If we think things are dicey right now, wait until the American Dollar loses its "World Reserve Currency" status!
These neocons are leading the Unites States to unalloyed disaster.
WW lll
uler said India was also be included in the project and therefore a tripartite meeting would be held with the participation of Turkish, Israeli and Indian officials in the next 10 days. "This will be followed by a ministerial meeting," he added.
The project consists of five pipelines that would carry water, natural gas, oil, electricity and fiberoptics from Turkey's Mediterranean coast to Israel.
Ben-Eliezer also said his country was near to an agreement with Russia to secure natural gas for the planned Medstream project. "We are very close to reaching an agreement with Russia that would supply the pipeline with natural gas," Ben-Eliezer said. Azerbaijan has said it is interested in using the pipeline to ship its oil to eastern markets, Ben-Eliezer added.
Your number is high... Exporters exported 35Mb/d in 2007, down from 36Mb/d in 2006... with a delay, the decline in imports was mostly made up by the country that uses the most per capita, the US. Most likely imports will decline every year from now on, and this situation will firm prices through the recession, and will furthermore make the recovery longer and slower. The US can survive on what is produced internally, but the landscape will look different.
SOurce: theoildrum.com
GDP Re-Distribution writes:
This means much more cash than the nation has imagined will keep flowing in.
Maybe less of this will occur then :-
Fraud Email Gallery
The problem with taxing fuels is that it is a regressive tax. I thought you liberals were compassionate people. Making a construction worker pay an extra dollar a gallon for fuel for his Chevy Silverado really pinches him but for the Obama's on half million per year they might not even notice.
The problem with sending troops to the middle east is that it is regressive. The burden of military service falls disproportionately on the poor.
I have no problem increasing the gas tax by 5$ a gallon and then giving each serviceman the ability to waive the tax for 50?? 100?? of his/her family and friends...
Saturday's talks ended in stalemate, with Tehran now facing a two-week deadline to give a final answer to world powers seeking a breakthrough in a crisis which has raised fears of regional conflict and sent oil prices spiralling.
World powers have offered to start pre-negotiations during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and in return face no further sanctions -- the so-called "freeze-freeze" approach.
Convinced that the Iranians are seeking to build an atomic bomb, Mullen said he felt "that's a very destabilizing possibility in that part of the world."
"I'm fighting two wars and I don't need a third one," Mullen said, referring to US engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
World powers have offered to start pre-negotiations over a six-week period during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and in return no further sanctions would be imposed, according to some media reports.
Israel and the United States have both refused to rule out military action against Iran, which in turn has warned that any aggression against its soil will be met with a ferocious response.
"We have said clearly that if anyone takes any stupid action against Iran, our response will be decisive," Khamenei warned.
Khamenei said that even if US President George W. Bush ordered a military strike on Iran before leaving office "the Iranian people will pursue him and punish him even if he is not in power."
Iran last week intensified tensions in the nuclear standoff by staging two days of missile tests, which included the firing of a missile that it says can reach Israel.
Khamenei also gave strong backing to Ahmadinejad -- whose provocative comments on the nuclear crisis have caused controversy even inside Iran -- saying it was the president's job to speak on the issue.
Shortsighted or not the rest of the world is using coal and in a big way.
As I pointed out Europe is building 50 new coal-fired generation plants over the next 5 years. China a far larger number. South Africa also is bringing on line a number of new coal fired plants to help alleviate their electricity shortage.
Only the US is adhering to a moratorium on coal-fired generation and coal is the most abundant energy source we have. Further because of EPA's ridiculous rules it behooves a utility to keep an obsolete plant in operation and just run the shit out of it because if they install any new technology the EPA will say they have modified the plant and ends its exempt status!
Rather than continue this idiocy the FEDS should encourage utilities to scrap old plants and build new more modern ones but the utilities are terrified they will be tied up in court for decades if they try and replace a 50 year old plant with a new more efficient one.
Fair you sound suspiciously like BDL.
Once again, pay attention to the oil shock topic.
That is where the true damage to the economy is manifesting.
Just wait until it stops being contained, and each emerging crisis is simply greeted with another groan.
After the shine of a new administration wears off and the decent continues, this is going to be very interesting.
Especially now that Iran will have won southern Iraq without a shot.
Someday this war's gonna end...
Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Kisliak, who attended the talks, was quoted by the Ria-Novosti news agency as saying that he too expected a response from Iran in two weeks.
"We hope that the two weeks we agreed on with the Iranians will help Iran to specify its stance on our proposals," he said.
Iranian, European and US officials, including US State Department official William Burns, attended the talks in Geneva's historic Town Hall as part of a bid to resolve the long-running dispute over Tehran's nuclear.
There are points in common and points that are not in common," Jalili added. "We have agreed to discuss this."
The Iranian representative compared the diplomatic process to weaving traditional Persian carpets: progress in cases "moves forward in millimetres," he said.
"It's a very precise work, in certain cases it's a very beautiful endeavour and hopefully the end result, the final product, would be beautiful to behold," Jalili said.
4runner I don't subscribe to the notion that America's military men are poor. I enlisted in the US Army and my parents were well to do. I wasn't alone.
Now maybe serving in your country's armed forces is an alien concept to people like you and Obama but I can assure you not everyone shares your contempt for our servicemen.
Israel's National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer warned on Monday that Israel would respond to any Iranian attack by destroying the "Iranian nation
This is the guy in charge f building the pipelines??
I don't subscribe to the notion that America's military men are poor. I enlisted in the US Army and my parents were well to do. I wasn't alone.
The demographics of military service are apparently comparable to the population at large. I apologize.
Nevertheless, the burden of ensuring that we have access to a strategically critical resource is falling disproportionately on these young men and women and that remains obscene.
Number2son: RE Denmark, this is an excerpt from the Lodge Report -pdf:
DENMARK IS Europes most-wind intensive state. With a population of 5.4 million, it has over 6,000 turbines that in 2002 produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used. In theory, at peak output, the Danish wind farms could account for nearly 64% of Danish peak power demand.
However, not a single conventional power plant has been closed in the period that Danish wind farms have been developed. Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants have had to be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity and to provide back-up.7
Furthermore, the Danes have found that it is not practical for large baseload plants to be turned on and off as the wind dies and rises: indeed, the quick ramping up and down of those plants, such as coal, would actually increase their output of pollution and carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas). Baseload stations have to keep running so that they can shadow wind turbines due to their intermittency. So when the wind is blowing perfectly for the turbines, the power they generate is usually a surplus and sold to other countries at an extremely discounted price; or the turbines are simply shut off. According to the Copenhagen newspaper Politiken, wind met only 1.7% of Denmarks total demand in 1999.8 And in 2003, for example, 84% of western Denmarks wind-generated electricity was exported (at a revenue loss). Denmarks grid accepted only 3.3% of electricity generated by its vast wind farms.9 This has undermined the green credentials of Danish wind farms. For example, the Danish grid used 50% more coal-generated electricity in 2006 than in 2005 to cover winds failings. The increase in the demand for coal, needed to plug the gap left by underperforming wind farms, meant that Danish carbon emissions rose by 36% in 2006.10</i>
I have yet to see a really good explanation of how to overcome the scaling problem of maintaining steady grid output with intermittent renewables. Hydro is generally different, because a dam serves as storage.
Anyway, sinking that much money into wind power and having to raise your coal consumption and carbon emissions that much doesn't bode well for the US. According to my googling, the Danish hydrogen "link" is supposed to be used to establish hydrogen fueling stations all over the country and shift to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. However hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not exactly economical right now.
In short, I am hinting that your strongly held convictions seem to have little basis in experience. Here is another article discussing the situation. It turns out that Denmark is selling most of their wind-generated electricity to Norway and Sweden, which often use it to pump water for hydroelectric projects. This suggests a potential application in the US IF big new hydroelectric projects are built in tandem with solar and wind installations, but it turns out that the net efficiency is extremely low (there is a power less in each step of transformation).
So basically Denmark is polluting more and subsidizing electric bills for Norwegian and Swedish consumers, but the cost to Danish consumers has been extremely high.
If anyone on this board knows of a proposed solution to the grid problem, please give me a print source or internet link. As far as I have been able to figure out, it seems as if one can go a total of about 5% into these periodic production, and after that, the grid problem makes adding more periodic renewables capacity of little use.
The life span of wind turbines is a problem as well. The estimate of 20 years doesn't seem to be holding up. The turbines need maintenance usually at least annually.
aipac...paging aipac.
Oh, and the Germans and the Irish did studies released in 2005 and 2004 which concluded that wind power was expensive and polluted more than just installing filters on fossil fuel plants and insulating to conserve. Here is a link to a UK article discussing the German findings.
By the way, one of the major sources of anthropogenic CO2 is concrete. If you are worried about carbon, wind power can play a minor role but probably never more than that.
rich writes: There's no basis for thinking that Israel will postpone an attack until after the election.
idoc writes: i said i think Iran is posturing to prevent an Israeli attack BEFORE the Nov US elections. once Obama is in, i don't think Israel can act alone.
You're both right, sort of. Check out this recent posting at Information Dissemination
. The claim is this is the negotiation, but not really with the Iranians. The goal is to "go the last mile" to complete bringing the Chinese on board. The attack will be after the election, but before inauguration.
Re: coal-fired plants
And let's not forget sequestration technology, such as this neat German facility. The extra cost is that it uses 20% more coal than a conventional plant, i.e., pay a 20% surcharge and get a carbon-neutral energy source from nearly inexhaustible coal. Sounds cheap to me!
umber2son, Denmark's population is being taxed into oblivion and their economy is shinking into obscurity. Good example of what excessive government meddling into economic affairs yields. Renewables will be adopted when their economics, without massive subsidies, make them viable.
MoM,
add Ti to your concrete
Wow, looks like the dinosaurs are out in force today.
Enjoy the sandbox.
Re: looks like the dinosaurs are out in force today
Nice comments!
@ barely
"their economy is shinking into obscurity"
Please back with links to actual facts. Not that we don't believe you it's just...well, yeah, we think you're full of it.
Big difference between the 70's and now is that you can buy oil now. You may pay more for it, but you can actually still get all you want. Not so in the 70's.
Prices staying at $120+ may be a "sine qua non" condition for development of new technologies. Even if prices were to drop, oil should be taxed and the money used to finance alternative techs or health care. (Tax refunds to low income drivers)
Watch "Who Killed The Electric Car" all the answers lie within the video
"4runner I don't subscribe to the notion that America's military men are poor. I enlisted in the US Army and my parents were well to do. I wasn't alone."
unit472 | 07.20.08 - 2:12 pm | #
There are a lot of idiots who are clueless about the military. I just ignore em less my bp goes through the roof. My entire family has served at one time or another.
Semper Fi,
Chris
It's nice how the conservatives live in their own bitter little world where everything is the fault of someone else (Liberals! socialists! Anarchists! Communists!), anybody who wises up is a liberal socialist eco crazy, and an invisible man in the sky controls the world via the market.
Put your liberal-mandated seatbelts on, people, because the ride is going to be very very bumpy from here on out.....
Neo-cons want war, and the following ARMAGEDON. Hope all those supporting the war mongering fools get their just deserts, which will include but will not be limited to $200/barrel oil.
War in noble. My family tradition goes back to 1776. Both sides, actually as there was a Brit and a Hessian on the other side.
I'm with Cobra boy on this one. You don't have to be a neocon or a flaming Lib. One does ones duty.
@My suspicion right now based on history is that the folks in DC will keep meddling with the markets until they cause some major panic or blowup that causes serious damage and is directly attributable to their actions. Then they'll step back a bit.
Hey AC, you one of the 109 online? I've also been thinking something big's got to give as a result of all the meddling (and in my darker moments, been hoping something will just to humble these bastards). Any ideas as to what could precipitate it?
Oy vey you Izraylly Firsters are so passe! Why don't you take it somwhere else,like dailykos or demounderground.
2son,
"Alternative energy"?...ummm...would that be like the winds farms the PETA types sue against, because they kill too many birds?...or would it be those wind farms proposed off the coast Cape Cod, and opposed by Kennedy and his cronies on "aesthetic" reasons?....excuse me, while I go puke, please.
Rather than continue this idiocy the FEDS should encourage utilities to scrap old plants and build new more modern ones but the utilities are terrified they will be tied up in court for decades if they try and replace a 50 year old plant with a new more efficient one.
unit472 | 07.20.08 - 2:07 pm | #
I think you have a point here unit, but until we get serious about sequestration, aggressively moveing in the direction of coal is a disaster int he making, and yes the world is making the disaster, coal in China or India is just as damaging (if not more) to the planet as coal burned here, but hard for us to argue for them to stop building those plants ifd we are doing it too. As an interim step, NG would be helpful, and I would support opening the OCS for gas drilling. But there is no reason not to go on a crash wind and solar program. Doubt we can meet Gore's timeline, but call that an asperational goal, and actually get 50% of the way there in a decade and 100% in 20 years.
To bring prices down right now we should tell the Israelis to STFU about attacking Iran. Iran having the bomb is not desirable, but is not the end of the world, if MAD worked against Stalin and Mao, it will work against the mullahs. Does anyone think that Iran would strike first? there is nothing to suggest they would. They want a civilian nuke program so they can export more of their hydrocarbons. Exact same thing we did in the 50's and 60's when we were the biggest oil exporter and were developing nuke power. If they are going for the bomb, A) they are everal years away, and B) the reason could be strictly defensive, since they have more reason to fear invasion than just about any country in the world, and nukes are pretty good insurance against that happening.