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Topic:
The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
6/3 1:31pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
- Date Edited:
6/3 1:33pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Jabbadabbado
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Here are the basics:
The U.S. in all consumes 20 million barrels a day of petroleum products, somewhat less than a quarter of global production. The % of imports has been increasing over time. U.S. oil production peaked at 9.6 million barrels a day around 1970 and is now below 5.1 million barrels a day.
The crude oil imports don't tell the whole story. Because U.S. refinery capacity is relatively fixed now, it can only process so much crude. To make up the increasing gap between domestic refinery capacity and domestic demand, the U.S. imports a lot of gasoline in addition to crude.
There aren't really any alternatives. Even assuming biofuels create more energy than is consumed while making them, we will never be able to ramp up biofuels to the level needed to replace more than a tiny fraction of petroleum products - not without crashing the global food supply at any rate.
Coal-to-liquids probably can't be scaled up to that level either.
Electric vehicles are the answer, with petroleum or synthetic fuels set aside for vital industry: maintaining an air force/navy/mechanized army, agricultural production, transportation where electrified rail isn't practical.
If we're going to use the coal no matter what, and I think we will climate change be damned, then we probably should burn it to produce more electricity to power a new electrified vehicle fleet.
The basic alternative of course is that most people will have to learn to live without personal motorized transportation. Most people in the world already do live without it.
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/3 2:21pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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If possible to do it, would it be wise to invest in a company that is developing electric car technology? I've seen saying that for years now, but I know their development was shut down for some time.
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
6/3 2:27pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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Absolutely. I saw a neighbor take delivery of two electric-assist bicycles yesterday. Electric scooters with grocery carrying capacity will be all the rage within 2-3 years.
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/3 3:25pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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Jabbadabbado posted:
Absolutely. I saw a neighbor take delivery of two electric-assist bicycles yesterday. Electric scooters with grocery carrying capacity will be all the rage within 2-3 years.
Any specific recommendations? The more info, the better.
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"There's a special place in Hell for women who don't support other women."--Sarah Palin
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HawkNC
Title: FanForce RSA
Oceania
Registered:
Oct '01
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Date Posted:
6/4 2:26am
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
- Date Edited:
6/4 2:29am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
HawkNC
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Nissan-Renault would be my bet, currently - they're developing electric vehicles in conjunction with PBP for Israel and Denmark, nations where EVs are much better suited than the US, and the products will be on the road in (I think) 2009. Carlos Ghosn, the CEO of Nissan-Renault, has a pretty agressive plan for rolling out low-emissions vehicles over the next five years. The smaller startups can be risky, and there's been enough vapourware companies (Zap anyone?) that it's not always easy to tell who will pay off and who won't.
EDIT: To that end, investing in electric utilities could be a wise move as well, much like oil has been paying off over the last few years. The electricity grid isn't going anywhere just yet and they only stand to make more profit as plug-in vehicles start consuming power. Companies with investment in green energy would be even better, particuarly if the cap-and-trade bill passes.
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LtNOWIS
Registered:
May '05
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Date Posted:
6/6 10:56am
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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At $4, Everybody Gets Rational
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king_alvarez
Registered:
May '07
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Date Posted:
6/6 11:09am
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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LtNOWIS posted:
At $4, Everybody Gets Rational
From the link:
For 25 years and with utter futility (starting with "The Oil-Bust Panic," the New Republic, February 1983), I have been advocating the cure: a U.S. energy tax as a way to curtail consumption and keep the money at home. On this page in May 2004 (and again in November 2005), I called for "the government -- through a tax -- to establish a new floor for gasoline," by fully taxing any drop in price below a certain benchmark. The point was to suppress demand and to keep the savings (from any subsequent world price drop) at home in the U.S. Treasury rather than going abroad. At the time, oil was $41 a barrel. It is now $123. As much sense as this makes, the idea of such a tax ever actually passing seems completely laughable.
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
6/6 11:09am
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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I think it's almost too late for an energy tax. That would have been helpful ten years ago and five years ago. If we had followed a rational national energy policy through the Clinton and Bush years, we might be in a far better economic position today.
Now the impact of increasing energy prices is probably too burdensome to compound with additional taxation.
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/6 11:15am
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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Question: Is the American public knowledgeable and educated enough, either now or in those years past that you mentioned, to accept necessary energy policy changes? People hate doing or paying anything more than necessary, and few people look beyond the next few days.
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"There's a special place in Hell for women who don't support other women."--Sarah Palin
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
6/6 11:31am
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
- Date Edited:
6/6 11:43am (3 edits total)
Edited By:
Jabbadabbado
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Sure. We could have incentivized small-scale energy efficiency through additional federal tax breaks for solar water heaters and geothermal systems and PV panels and fuel-efficient cars and large scale industrial energy conservation projects.
We could have really funded alternative energy research. We could have mandated changes in consumer product packaging to minimize wasted resources and energy. We could have mandated efficient building standards and incentivized more responsible community planning.
Instead, the Bush administration gave tax breaks to people who bought Hummers and Lincoln Navigators. The DOE has just killed the nation's only pilot carbon capture and storage project in Mattoon, Illinois. The White House says it will veto the Renewable Energy and Job Creation Act H.R. 6049 and thereby kill the renewable energy tax credit program.
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/6 11:45am
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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Is most of that being done to protect a small number of big corporations that will ultimately be forced to either adapt or die?
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"There's a special place in Hell for women who don't support other women."--Sarah Palin
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Jabbadabbado
Title: Senate Floor Moderator
Registered:
Mar '99
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Date Posted:
6/6 12:09pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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No, it's just the political maneuvering that in the U.S. takes the place of developing national strategic approaches to big problems.
This is one thing I think Obama would be good for - he would make a good figurehead for a broad-based governmental process to create and implement a national energy strategy.
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chibiangi
Registered:
Jun '02
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Date Posted:
6/6 5:51pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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It's $4.50 here 
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KnightWriter
Title:
Administrator Emeritus
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
6/6 7:06pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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Color me unimpressed by all the people driving their whaaaaaabulances. Far too many people who don't need them own SUVs and are complaining about gas prices, among other offenders. The price of gas is only going up over the long term. It's going to get much worse, most likely.
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chibiangi
Registered:
Jun '02
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Date Posted:
6/6 7:22pm
Subject:
RE: The Price Of Gas Around the World-We are getting ripped off !
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I could drive a smart car and $4.50 a gallon still sucks.
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