Oil Prices

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I guess there's a world wide summit. The Americans are blaming reduced production of Oil for the price, while the Saudis are blaming speculators for driving up the price...

 

The suburban areas are part of the city's metropolitan area, if you actually live in the city central you don't even need masstransit since walking or taking the bike become feasable options and I assume that within city central mass transit is fairly good even in US. It's the commuter traffic I've been talking about.

EDIT: The problem I believe with masstransit in US is that it (shoch and horror) would probably have to be subsidized by the government, something which Americans apparently are not very fond of. However as a long term solution it might be cheaper than trying to build a masstransit system out of the thin air by the time oilprices skyrocket and those with lower income start having difficulties with finding decent means of transportation.

On the topic at hand itself I'll say that oil prices will come down again on the short and medium term. The prices are allready cutting the demand and the short time rise will stop and prices will go down for some while. However on the long term there's no doubt that demand will increase and oil will become more expensive until some new techonologies are created to either increase the supply or reduce the consumption of oil.

 

Try driving less.

 

NoG - My wife is from Chesapeake and her family still lives there. I've been there and it seems, at least to me, that all the areas you mentioned would easily fit within the city limits of Houston. They are all within a very close range of each other, which may have been your point. Nevertheless, IMO, that makes mass transit an excellent idea for your area, espeically since the US Navy is a large employer for many who live in the area - Many from VB, P-Town and Chesapeake probably work in Norfolk, I would guess.

Sometimes, the most simplest of ideas are the most difficult to grasp, at least for some people....

 

The issues surrounding recent discussions on US offshore drilling for oil has significant impact for all Americans where Obama and McCain talk about in http://pollclash.com . The soaring oil prices are affecting the costs of everything from food to gas. There are also significant issues on local and global environmental impact. While there are many issues, we need to look at our next leader and determine which will have the best course of action going forward. Here's where your vote and voice can count. Watch the two video clips below submit your vote. Also, leave a comment if there is more you wish to say or an issue you think should be raised within the context of this clash.

 

The issue of US offshore drilling is really a non-starter, since as Obama points out, it will be a few years before any impact is felt as a result, even if they started now. Look, first the oil companies claim that they can't refine the crude fast enough, that there is not enough refining capacity; now they claim that offshore drilling is where it's at. They really need to get their story straight before they can regain any credibilty with the public.

 

Oil companies regain confidence? Have they ever had any? I was under the impression that oil companies have been the bad guys since, well, since oil companies came into existance.

As for the poor Americans, I have been there and during my 12 weeks in total in the US my strong impression is that you really need a car for everything. Everything is so spread out it would be impossible to implement a decent coverage mass transit system in most places. I remember one thing hte most from the my second trip to the states, I wanted to go out and have a beer and experience an American pub/tavern/place where people drink alcohol but that was impossible without either one of us ending up driving under the influence so I never got to have a beer outside the home.

 

The reason they want to open up the new off-shore drilling is because developing the off-shore acres that haven't already been developed would be much more expensive. In an industry with a questionable future, that's pretty sound business. I'm not sure I like it, though.

As for how long it will take, any solution will take a great deal of time. I think Americans are finally starting to realize that we're going to have to buckle down and endure for a little bit, but that if we ever want to fix anything, we have to start now.

Chandos, did the oil companies claim they had no extra refining capacity? I heard that accusation being passed around a lot, but I don't ever remember it actually comming from Big Oil (not that I payed that close attention).

So what do you guys thing the solution is? Drill more? Ethanol? Threaten/make nice with the Saudis? What about alternative energy systems like solar, geothermal, nuclear, etc? Is there a future in hydrogen fuel cells? How about electric cars?

 

With the new technologies available most industry officials believe we could see production in as little as a year from when they start drilling.
Heres a nice little article about how much is available here in the u.s.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=/Nation/archive/200806/NAT20080606c.html

Adding in what's available on privately held land, the figure rises to 139 billion barrels of oil, according to the government - more than the known oil reserves of Iran, Iraq, Russia, Nigeria or Venezuela, respectively. Here on our own land & off our own coast but we aren't drilling for it. Does anyone else see something wrong with this.

Oh ,BTW chandos obama seems to be real friendly with the ethonal crowd. If mccain was as chummy with the oil crowd you would be raising cain. Him & daschel(sp?) are as much in the ethanol industries pocket as any politician is in big oils pocket.

 

GWB and Cheney let the oll companies write their energy policy for the American People - hope you are enjoying it...

 

A legitimate concern, actually. Well. You overstate the case, but it's a legitimate concern. But then, you can't exactly use ethics as a reason to favor McCain (The Reform Institute, anyone?), so it's somewhat beside the point, at least as far as the '08 elections are concerned.

 

I completely disagree. Especially if you believe GW and crew let the oil industry write us into the current mess, just imagine what someone giving similar liscense to the ethanol industry would do.

 

Especially considering we can get sugar ethanol from south america cheaper than we can make corn ethanol here in the U.S.
Look at how much money the "splash & dash" in biodiesel has cost the US & EU over the last few years.
http://thehill.com/business--lobby/...lose-splash-and-dash-loophole-2007-06-19.html
I've seen reports from earlier this month that put the figure at close to $300 million just from the US, i'm not sure how much it is costing the EU however it is probably comparable.

 

I heard something interesting on the radio this morning. They speculated that China's demand for Oil and Steel are inflated as they build infrastructure and supplies for the Olympics. When the Olympics are over, their Demand will fall to what would be expected to be a normal level, and a slight relief in prices will be felt...

 

They have about 800 million people who would like to get a car and if that is not possible a moped. I think the long term demand is going to keep going up and up as the majority of the population have yet to even start to reap the benefits of the modern society.

 

Since it's rather more complicated than that, I don't have to contemplate such a scenario.

Of course, if I did believe it was as simple as your hypothetical, I'd have to weigh Obama's ties to ethanol companies against the fact that McCain's received more than twice as much money from the oil industry as Obama has. I'd have to consider that while Obama has a number of advisers with ties to Ethanol producers, McCain has a number with ties to the oil industry.

I'd also have to weigh the increased food prices (and, um, increased starvation) caused by corn ethanol and associated policies against the increased suffering that'll be caused when--note I don't say if--McCain starts another war.

From an American-centric perspective, Obama would be the better choice; more expensive gas but less war. From a global perspective, it's hard to say; McCain's policies would likely lead to less starvation but more conflict. Which one would end up causing more harm to more people? I dunno.

 

From an Albertan's perspective, Obama would be bad news, at least if he intends on following through with his sabre rattling. He is threatening to boycott Alberta oil because he claims it is dirty energy. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't -- I'm not sure of the details there. But money you spend on oil from Canada is money spent on a staunch American ally, as opposed to money spent on oil from the Middle East, wherein justifiably or not there's a lot of people who actively wish America harm. Peeing on Canada may make the Americans feel all green and holy, but it's a bad move and will only alienate an ally and drive up gas prices even more.

 

Consider this: money spent on oil in the Middle East goes to the governments of oil-producing countries there. The majority of the oil happens to be in the hands of the following countries: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq. Of these, all but the latter have been staunch American allies for decades and the last one is, for all intents and purposes concerning oil, owned by the USA. Now consider this: each of the countries listed above (except Iraq) are dictatorships to varying degrees (Kuwait may seem like a nicer place to live in than Saudi Arabia, but it's still a dictatorship) and the "government getting money from oil" means "the ruling family and their friends getting money from oil". Now consider where said ruling families end up investing their oil money: in American companies. There's a reason the Petrodollar is called that.

 

AMaster, for the reasons you supplied below, and a myriad of others, I'd rather have an oil puppet than an ethanol puppet any day.

That being said, I don't buy the arguements that the Iraq war was really about oil at all. Whoever planned something like that would have to be not just a soulless, corrupt, greedy politician, but a complete incompetent as well, and those two rarely co-incide in levels higher than local administration (though I have seen some stunning examples, recently).

 

One of my professors a year back said something that I absolutely loved. Mind, this man is a former SEAL (Vietnam veteran to boot), worked under Rumsfeld for a few years, and thought that the Iraq conflict might serve to forestall a greater conflict (I didn't quiz him about that, so I'm not sure what exactly he had in mind). Anyway, he was discussing the absurdities of the slogans of both the left and right, and asked, "On what planet will there be no blood for oil?"

Look at American policy in the Middle East for the past century and tell me it hasn't been fixated on oil. Tell me blood--American, yes, but much more local--hasn't been spilled for oil. Tell me that if the Middle East's oil wells were as dry as its deserts we'd have the slightest interest in the area.

Yes, yes, the notion that we invaded to steal Iraqi oil is woefully simplistic and willfully ignorant. It is, however, slightly more accurate than the view that the war wasn't "really about oil at all".

Of course it was.