Coyote Blog

delurking, perhaps you are right. Perhaps a more precise (but less eloquent) way of putting it would be to say that "the only organization that receives my money involuntarily and gives back what IT thinks I should get back is the government."

I agree that to say we get nothing back from the government is inaccurate. It is more accurate to say that we might be getting what we want or in the quantity we want it. In short we don't have any choice. If I don't like Big Oil (tm)...I can choose to not spend my money with them (obviously I must find alternatives...but I have the option). If I don't like what the government is doing with my money, my choices and options are far, far more limited (or even non-existent.)

Uh, irrelevant.

The companies (i.e. CVX, XOM, BP, etc) who are “capitalizing” on the high price of oil are PUBLICLY TRADED COMPANIES YOU ABJECT, PUNKASS, SNOTNOSED, PINK-COMMIE LIBERAL HOSEMONKEY MORONS.

GO BUY THE SODDING STOCK, COLLECT THE GODDAMN DIVIDENDS AND SHUT THE HELL UP.

It’s really quite simple…

When I hear that kind of spray, I wish they'd collectively all go try and run their own alternative petro-energy operation, Congressionals included. They'd blow themselves to hell just getting a refinery organized.

BTW, milk in CA is still way more expensive per gallon than gas. And, that's with no sales tax on the milk.

I'd bet oil companies give quite a lot back in taxes.

Government:

"In fact, the only organization that takes my money and gives me nothing back in return in the government." But don't you drive on roads? Or do you vet your own food and medications? Or certify the doctors treating you? And do you print your own legal tender? Or enforce your own contracts? Or catch your own criminals? Or do your own mosquito abatement? etc., etc., etc.

Trying to pretend that you are not the beneficiary of lots and lots of collective action, public works and public policies ignores far too much reality. Unless you're crazy -- then, our sympathies.

And no, this is not defending government as perfect. I'm just not throwing the baby out with the bath water. People need intelligent, effective public policy, unless they want to revert to cave-dwelling.

The principle is this: It's cheaper to have a community pool than to have everyone buy their own swimming pool. Many modern problems are simply too large to be addressed by individuals, and require concerted, group action. You know, "government," or "public policy."

Pretending otherwise serves some very powerful interests who want to avoid regulation or "meddling" in their affairs. You know, like Enron, Worldcom, Adelphia, and those Savings & Loans... Remember? (But wait, they're private, aren't they not crooks like the government?)

Oil:

The comments above about oil are amazingly uninformed too. For example: "Nope, can't drill in ANWR; can't drill off huge sections of the coasts; can't use oil shale."

First, a little context: Oil production generally, for a single well or a collection of wells, resembles the classic bell-shaped curve. There's some debate about when the peak of that curve for the world occurred or occurs, but there's absolutely no controversy whatsoever about when U.S. domestic production peaked (according to the American Petroleum Institute -- that's the oil lobby -- or Daniel Yergin, industry historian, and author of "The Prize").

The U.S. oil production peak occurred in 1970-71. Then, the U.S. was importing 30% of domestic consumption, and the price was roughly $1.75 a barrel. Currently imports account for nearly 70% of domestic consumption and the price of oil is headed toward $150 a barrel.

Not even the lease-holders of ANWR will tell you that drilling there -- or any of the environmentally sensitive offshore areas -- will return the U.S. to that 1971 peak. It will take 10 - 20 years to produce ANWR, and the Dept. of Energy estimates its production might lower gas prices by about 1¢ per gallon. In other words, it's a sparrow fart -- so insignificant in the larger picture, it's really not worth discussing (unless, of course, you own an ANWR lease).

Of course ANWR was the centerpiece of Bush's attempt to address this problem in a recent speech. Darn those enviros! (And thanks for the campaign contribution, Exxon!)

Calling for such domestic production to pull us out of the current disaster is beyond ignorant. See theoildrum.com or even (warning, very scary) dieoff.org for discussions of how far peak oil can go.

As for oil shale...Yow! You have to be abysmally ignorant of the process of petroleum production to suggest this is a viable source of petroleum (and we have more oil shale than the Saudis have light, sweet crude...Dang!).

More context: At current price levels, the relatively easier to produce Canadian oil sands are economic, but what they are producing is a sludge that experts will tell you was discarded from conventional refineries (I have family in the business). This sludge is so difficult to handle that there is literally only a single refinery in the world that can handle this Canadian sludge.

That just shows how desperate for oil we are, too...

Anyway, global warming concerns aside, oil shale is *much* more difficult and expensive to produce than oil sands, so it is not (yet) economic to mine. Environmentally, it is a nightmare too (as are the Canadian oil sands).

So "liberals" aren't the obstacles to producing more oil domestically, no matter how much "conservatives" say it (I still don't know what they're conserving). It's economics. Saying this is just more propaganda serving the oligarchs.

The key concept here is Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI). Scientists can probably synthesize hydrocarbons atom by atom, but it doesn't make economic sense because the energy required to do so would far exceed the energy produced.

In fact that is the problem with Hydrogen -- it requires more energy to produce than it provides. It might be useful as a battery to store energy produced elsewhere, but even that is problematic.

The other "alternative" fuels have similar problems -- the most optimistic EROEI for corn ethanol that I've seen says it produces 1.4 units of energy for each unit of energy required to produce it -- some estimate it takes more energy to produce than it produces itself.

Wind, and perhaps solar cells make a little more sense (4:1 for wind). Nuclear might be credible if it didn't have the waste problem, *and* if it weren't so heavily subsidized. I've seen 4:1 for nuclear, but the Price-Anderson Act makes the U.S. government the insurer of last resort, otherwise zero nuclear plants could get construction financing -- quite a subsidy, if you ask me.

And the question is not "Why is solar so expensive," it's "why is oil so cheap." One answer is that the U.S. subsidizes oil producers. The World Resource Institute (wri.org) estimated this subsidy at $300 billion annually -- and that was before Gulf War I. The subsidy includes things like tax breaks (the "depletion allowance" -- a write-off for oil producers), free infrastructure (gas taxes don't pay for all roads), and military protection for overseas oilfields and pipelines (estimated at $50 billion by WRI, but clearly more now).

Another answer is that oil stores the energy from thousands of years of sunlight, while solar cells or wind can at most produce the energy from a few days, so the energy density is *much* lower.

Oil's EROEI in East Texas is 100:1, in the deep gulf waters: 6:1 to 7:1. Replacing it with alternative fuels is not going to be easy. And, without adequate preparation, a sudden drop in oil's availability, as is predicted by the dieoff.org folks, would literally kill billions. (that is correct: "b")

There is a precedent for such a precipitous drop in oil: Cuba stopped receiving Soviet oil in the early '90's (from 13,000 tons a year to 4, virtually overnight). The result there was a 34% drop in GNP from 1990-94 (comparable to the U.S. Great Depression 1930-34) and the average adult Cuban lost 20 lbs -- although the government continued to offer free education and healthcare. The kindly U.S. increased the severity of its sanctions against the Cubans. (See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VHt5QchfdQ for the rest of this story)

The "adequate preparation" that might avert such a disaster means putting together the alternative to the current oil-dependent infrastructure. That would mean a return to organic, local farming (food on American tables travels an average of 1,000 miles).

It would mean building cities of pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use neighborhoods -- an alternative to sprawl's insistence that every single trip be in an auto.

Ignoring such alternatives, particularly conservation (the best EROEI), is the real danger of the oil companies' domination of public policy apparatus (i.e. the Bush administration).

Changing our oil addiction would also mean big changes. Ignorance like what is expressed in previous posts is *very* dangerous. It can literally kill us all.

The colossal arrogance that believes individual human effort is the be-all and end-all of what it takes to get along on this planet is even more dangerous. We are all in this together. If you have a better way to make public policy than voting, or representative government, make your case. But don't tell me public policy gives you "nothing back in return." That is the very definition of hubris.

"The principle is this: It's cheaper to have a community pool than to have everyone buy their own swimming pool. Many modern problems are simply too large to be addressed by individuals, and require concerted, group action. You know, "government," or "public policy.""

But if I don't want to use a swimming pool, I should not be compelled to pay for one for other people to use.

Yoshidad1:

Thank you for the seminar. You should refine your presentation before your orals. Committees can ask embarrassing questions. Some thoughtfully provided hints:

--"It would mean building cities of pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use neighborhoods -- an alternative to sprawl's insistence that every single trip be in an auto."

Name one. Name just one such city that doesn't enjoy its liberal utopia by importing the stuff of life, human and material capital, from beyond its limousine liberal boundaries. This tripe has been around over fifty years.

--"Ignoring such alternatives, particularly conservation (the best EROEI), is the real danger of the oil companies' domination of public policy apparatus (i.e. the Bush administration)."

Arrrrrgh! Blame it on Bush. Had to come out sooner or later. "Conservation." Bullshit, only a marginal offset at best. Market forces will accomplish "conservation" without further intervention anyhow. Isn't the ultimate "conservation" something like living in a cave? Checked SUV prices lately?

--Your seminar is long on gibberish, short on facts, and bereft of realistic alternatives.

--Regarding Oil and your "context" arguments, do some more reading, and for goodness sake, avoid the outdated data cherry picked with citations from leftist alarmist sources. Apples and avocados belong in salads.

LT

"As for oil shale...Yow! You have to be abysmally ignorant of the process of petroleum production to suggest this is a viable source of petroleum..."

Nice try at a dismissive one-liner, to halt the devastating counter-argument, but in fact one has to be abysmally ignorant of the process of petroleum production from oil shale to suggest that it's NOT viable. In fact, it's likely to be the 21st century's LARGEST SOURCE of petroleum.

Nothing like living in the past, eh Yoshi baby ?

Come on Yoshi...Peak Oil is a pretty tired argument at this point...To say that there is such a thing as "Peak Oil" is to say that exploration and recovery techniques are static with respect to time...We all know that is not the case as methods today are many times more efficient than in the 1970s, and certainly light years beyond what was done in 1900...So, the concept of "Peak Oil" makes no sense unless tied to the technology of the time period being discussed. Peak Oil in 1971 only means the peak recoverable with 1971 exploration and recovery technology.