Plan B Forum

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... .DTL&tsp=1

(02-25) 17:46 PST Burlingame --

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, aiming to revive his stalled GOP presidential drive, on Saturday promised cheering Republicans in California - home of the nation's highest gas prices - that his energy policies will deliver the country $2.50-a-gallon gas, enough royalties to pay off the national debt, and "at least 8 million new jobs."




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And unicorns and rainbows will fill the land...

Apparently there's oil on the moon and only Mr. Gingrich knows about it.

On the other hand, when Obama, tries to insist that if we expanded drilling that it would have no short term effect on the price of oil, he's just plain wrong, (and he must know this)

If the US were to show that it was finally going to get serious about vastly expanding domestic energy production using proven technologies that could actually produce a meaningful amount of energy in our lifetimes, (Obama always pays lip service to doing "all of the above" on energy, but the only things he seems to have any real interest in are solar panels and windmills....I find it downright painful to watch Obama deliver a speech on energy...it's his weakest area, in my view) expanding domestic and off shore drilling, extracting more natural gas, mining more coal, and building more nuclear power plants, (Obama says he supports nuclear power, but the only action he taken was to buy votes in Nevada and with the greenies by canceling the much needed multibillion dollar nuclear waste storage facility)

If this were to happen, the price of a barrel of oil would drop overnight, because a large percentage of the price is based not on current supplies but on speculation about likely future supplies.

I also found it kind of cynical of him to accuse the GOP Presidential candidates of "rooting for bad news" on the economy....

Of course the opposition candidates are doing that, (even if they won't say so publicly) because that's what they need to win. (I'm sure they rationalize it by also believing that in the long run people will be much better off if Obama loses, even if there's short term pain)

And of course it's also true that Barack Obama, as the opposition candidate, was rooting for bad economic news in 2008. If he wasn't he's an idiot, and I don't get the impression Obama is an idiot.

I think one can credibly make the argument that a shift in U.S. policy on exploiting our petroleum resources would have no short-term effect on gas prices. It would take a while.

But to use that argument as a basis for FAILING TO DO EVERYTHING IN HIS POWER TO PROMOTE ENERGY PRODUCTION is irresponsible.

This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that today's polls that show results for any R candidate in a one-on-one matchup against B.O. are meaningless. The general election campaign will give the R candidate the opportunity to put Barry's irresponsible behavior front & center, while now he is able to dance around and put out phony factoids.

His many and profound failures have not exactly been ignored, but compared to the public colonoscopies that the R's have been subjected to, he has been relatively immune from criticism in the non-Fox media.

This will pass.

Oh, I dunno...our previous "Teflon President" seems to be still getting a free ride from almost everybody.

How fucking totally dirt-stupid are Republicans?

Do they even read the newspapers?


The US has become a net exporter of oil products. Mostly refined products (higher profits, good for us!). And oil products are the largest US export.

Second, the HEEEEEEUUUUUUge increase in domestic natural gas production in the past 3 years has completely changed the global markets for chemicals. Because of the amount of 'wet' gas (which contains more propane and butane) we can make propylene and nylon much cheaper than most of the world. And the natural gas by itself will be an economic way to cut use of coal (nasty and dirty) very cheaply.

More U.S. drilling for oil will have no effect on the price of gas at the pump. Zero. All it will do is allow the people who have bribed Republican politicians to make a lot of money and fuck the environment as hard as they can. Petrochemicals are a global market.


yrs,
rubato

1 word...Futures

The price of oil has very little to do with production, US production in particular

is this YOU, rube?

http://web.archive.org/web/199901281807 ... 03_96.html

(Highway 17 Page of Shame via Wayback Machine)

keld feldspar wrote:1 word...Futures

The price of oil has very little to do with production, US production in particular

I was gonna say the same thing, Keld, but no matter how many times you explain this, people would rather believe that a "simple" increase in domestic production (or, in this thread, merely a plan to increase production) would somehow have a major impact.

As stated before, reducing pump prices is only one reason to exploit our known resources. Depending on one's own economic situation, the other reasons are even more compelling.

Reduce or eliminate the trade deficit.

Reduce vulnerability to foreign developments (wars, embargoes, mining the strait of Hormuz, etc).

Jobs.

Domestic investment.

To fail to exploit these resources is classic executive malfeasance. To try to explain it away by saying that the pump prices would not be immediately affected is despicable.

I ran down the numbers once over at CSB, and the ultimate result is that even using the most optimistic projections of untapped domestic crude reserves, and even assuming it could all be accessed, there is simply not enough domestic supply to even keep pace with US demand -- not to mention the exponentially increasing demand from China, India and Southeast Asia -- and within 50 years the entire domestic supply would be exhausted. Moreover, increasing crude oil production is meaningless without refinery capacity, and refineries are currently operating at or close to 90% capacity (you're never going to get more than about 95% sustained capacity due to maintenance shutdowns, weather, accidents, etc.). And pray tell me why the oil companies doing the pumping and refining would ever want to do anything to depress oil and gas prices? Is it not their goal to make as much money for their investors as possible, charging as much as the market will bear? You know, capitalism?

Further, the cost of a gallon of gas has risen more than 150% over the last 10 years, while inflation has had a general effect of increasing prices only about 20% during that same period. The rise in commodities trading of oil futures as a derivative market accounts for almost all of the additional cost.

The only sensible solution is to move off a fossil fuel-based energy model as quickly and completely as possible, and to start doing so yesterday.

the problem being no viable replacement has been found yet. Futhermore once it is the changeover will have to move much faster than "allowing the market to decide" which will invairably lead to "the Government picking winners and losers".

Ever notice how these arguments always favors the status quo to the detrioment of the people as a whole?

Whatever happened to hydrogen?

It takes more enery to create than you can get out of it as a fuel.

Until they find a better way of creating/collecting hydrogen it just moves it's emmisions from the end user to production.

Adding to what Sue has offered.

Bringing the oil to the surface is one thing, the other is the infrastructure required to get the oil to where it is required to go.

We have already seen the pipeline problem with Canada...

dales wrote:is this YOU, rube?

http://web.archive.org/web/199901281807 ... 03_96.html

(Highway 17 Page of Shame via Wayback Machine)

In '96 we moved from South Pasadena to San Jose for my wife to start her residency. We were living and working on the north side of 17. The great joy of our lives that year was buying a washer and dryer.

yrs,
rubato

Sue U wrote:Whatever happened to hydrogen?

Making hydrogen requires using energy which must come from another source.

yrs,
rubato

dgs49 wrote:As stated before, reducing pump prices is only one reason to exploit our known resources. Depending on one's own economic situation, the other reasons are even more compelling.

Reduce or eliminate the trade deficit.

Reduce vulnerability to foreign developments (wars, embargoes, mining the strait of Hormuz, etc).

Jobs.

Domestic investment.

To fail to exploit these resources is classic executive malfeasance. To try to explain it away by saying that the pump prices would not be immediately affected is despicable.

The biggest and cheapest way to reduce oil imports in the short term is to improve efficiency, which he is doing. The biggest and cheapest way in the middle and long term is to replace oil with wind, photovoltaic, natural gas, and other sources of energy; which he is also doing. Another thing is to promote the development of advanced technologies; The WH has done this by helping US industry become the world leader in Lithium-ion battery production (these are used in everything from cell phones to hybrid cars).

The 'cash for clunkers' program got a large swathe of low-mileage cars off the road kept the US car industry alive when it would otherwise have tanked. If Bush had not ignored (lied about) global warming we could have replaced most of the in-service vehicle fleet with cars and trucks which use 25% less fuel reducing us imports by more than drilling would even achieve and keeping fuel prices low.

yrs,
rubato