What is Digg?227 Comments
- Pherdnut, on 04/22/2008, -5/+41We've had alternatives for years. The oil lobby has delayed all of them.
- Morghin, on 04/22/2008, -2/+28Perhaps someone, out of desperation, comes up with a brilliant alternative that doesn't muck up the air we breathe and the world we live in. Soon. I hope.
- ziptnf, on 04/22/2008, -1/+24We as a nation have got to lead in production of better efficient cars, more efficient ways to save energy, and begin shying away from natural resources. Scientists have the plan all laid out to be energy independent, we just need a leader who is ready to take that action.
- IphtashuFitz, on 04/22/2008, -0/+22What the USA really needs is a president to step up and make a commitment like JFK did about putting a man on the moon, "not because it is easy, but because it is hard". The moon race was in large part a political race against the then Soviet Union to prove who could dominate space. Now I think the USA needs to embark on a similar no-holds-barred program to completely wean itself from foreign energy (oil), again not because it's easy but because it's hard. Ultimately this would also have huge political ramifications since it would drastically reduce, or altogether eliminate our dependence on oil in the Middle East. We wouldn't have to compete as much on the global market with growing energy consumers like China & India, and in fact it could dramatically improve our economy if we could become the leading producer of next-generation energy sources to those countries and others. Unfortunately I doubt anything like this will happen any time soon due to the immense power that the oil industry currently has in Washington.
- div2n, on 04/22/2008, -3/+20Three main factors:
1) Increased demand (think China and India)
2) Decreased production
3) Falling dollar value (hint: inflation)
An Unknown Impact Factor:
1) Speculators
This trend will likely continue for the short term. Global inflation will likely reduce demand which will in turn reduce production.
The net result will hopefully be, at a minimum, a stop in rising prices. With any luck, it will cause the price per barrel to plummet, but don't be optimistic about that. The dollar is still in the toilet. - jonthefisherman, on 04/22/2008, -2/+17Shocker Big Oil companies are money hungry
- Spuy767, on 04/22/2008, -1/+14That's not an accusation; that's absolute truth. Corn based fuel is rubbish. Corn is a very greedy crop, it depletes soil's nutrients, and it wastes a ot of energy deveoping useless biomass.
- RubineBoy, on 04/22/2008, -1/+13Oil is something of the past, bring me the future.
- fahrvergnuugen, on 04/22/2008, -4/+13So where do the OPEC countries buy their food from?
Doesn't the USA produce 1/3 of the world's food? Not to sound like a dick, but why aren't we tariffing the crap out of food exports? - CDoug03, on 04/22/2008, -1/+9Why don't we just go to war for oil to bring the price down?
/sarcasm off - crapmatic, on 04/22/2008, -0/+7I think he's being sarcastic.... "fw: fw: fw: re: fw:, etc"
- merper, on 04/22/2008, -1/+8Production rate of oil sands has a peak of about 5Mbarrels/day in 2020. And that's assuming they can get enough hydrogen and water supply to keep that up. The article says you're going to need about 30Mbarrels/day of production more by 2030, not to mention an additional 10-20 to offset declines in existing fields. Yeah, oil sands will not be much of a messiah.
- wsuvtx, on 04/22/2008, -0/+7OPEC are not the average middle east citizens. They are government and the extreme upper class. They do not care if the people have to pay alot for food. They care if they have enough money for nice cars, boats and to go to Dubai for booze and whores
- WhistlinTom, on 04/22/2008, -2/+9peak oil. look it up. we;ve been running outta oil (oil thats easy to get to.) for years.
- FulcrumVitesse, on 04/22/2008, -0/+7We'll have to wean ourselves off oil eventually, but I hope the process doesn't get as painful as the article suggests.
- phreak22, on 04/22/2008, -4/+11Funny there's no mention of the 2nd largest deposit of oil in the world right here in Canada... how production is increasing dramatically every year and should bring some relief to the oil shortage in the coming years.
- iamgreg007, on 04/22/2008, -0/+7Also a scary fact from the article...
"Over the past century, the world burned through a trillion barrels of oil. Another 1.2 trillion barrels of known conventional oil reserves wait to tapped, according to BP, one of the world’s biggest oil companies. It sounds like a lot. But given the current rate of growth in demand, a trillion of those barrels will be used up in less than 30 years. "
Gee, maybe it's time to start looking into some of those viable alternate sources of fuel. But what do I know...I'm just a guy with a desk job. - mcquitty, on 04/22/2008, -0/+6Actually, that's completely false. Oil is a commodity. As such, oil companies are paid to extract the oil. Remember $10/barrel oil? Texas, Alaska and Oklahoma oil companies and economies were devastated. Why didn't they raise prices?
The prices are actually set on the spot market. If a refinery catches fire or a pipeline fails, the market adjusts the prices, not the oil companies. - inactive, on 04/22/2008, -7/+13I say we use all the world's resources first, then we use ours last. Then we can charge 1000 a bbl.
- Spuy767, on 04/22/2008, -0/+6I'm just saying that getting ethanol from corn is a bad idea. There is a lot of biomass on a corn plant that is worthless as far as the production of biofuel is concerned.
- Spuy767, on 04/22/2008, -1/+6Actually, it's more about people prospecting the commodities market. Commodities are just like stocks, the more people buy, the higher the price goes.
- saigumi, on 04/22/2008, -0/+5Haha.. in other news SUVs and luxury cars are the largest growing market in China.
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/5657 - digghasnoethics, on 04/22/2008, -0/+5The tar sands will never produce more than ~3.5Mbpd - there just isn't the water, the gas or the high quality deposits to do it. It doesn't matter how much may be there in total, if you can't get it out and converted into something fit to put in a tank faster than that then its an also ran.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Canada would do well to kill Nafta and produce the tar sands for their national needs only. - inactive, on 04/22/2008, -0/+5That is one of the few issues that Obama has said that I agree with.
We need a "Manhattan Project" to address alternative energy sources.
It would create jobs for one thing, and it would be an all around good guy thing to do. - AoiTakuma, on 04/22/2008, -0/+5Oil will run out soon. The focus should be on getting away from energy derived from combustion. I am not going to pretend I'm smart enough to figure out how it will work, but it needs to happen. Instead we will dig up every part of the earth looking for oil and when its all said and done every natural environment will be ruined, our atmosphere will be trash and we will have waited too long to look for a good alternative.
- rockefeller2, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4From the article:
They argue that the oil industry is a cyclical one in which higher prices eventually push down demand. “We’re in a bubble right now,” said Robert Mabro, a well-known oil expert at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. “Prices are rising because everyone expects them to do so. We’ve seen the same thing in the real estate market.”
Is this the next bubble: Stock market late 90's, early 00's. Housing market mid 00's, next oil? I guess we'll know when your average neighbor starts bragging about the money they recently made trading oil. - orbit1979, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4Prices will drop in the short term, then Americans will begin buying gas-guzzling SUVs and "toys", driving up the price again. It happened in the late 80s into the 90s. Cars became smaller, more fuel efficient (for the time) and gas prices came down over time. When that happened, Americans were practically trampling over each other to buy their gaudy ass SUVs and hot rod "toys". Fuel efficiency went right out the window and in part, we have the current situation.
- IphtashuFitz, on 04/22/2008, -3/+7Simple economics, that's what. We slap huge tariffs on our exports and the countries that import it start looking for other alternative sources. If we're selling a bushel of grain for $10 and Canada is selling it for $12 we certainly can't go and suddenly start charging $15 for it because the customer will start buying it from Canada instead.
- hokie47, on 04/22/2008, -4/+8We need to start drilling for oil off the gulf coast right now. Stop playing around and just ***** do it, and don't tell me that it won't lower prices. If we start do drilling the future prices will drop fast.
- calipan, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4Kudos on being of sound mind and rational thinking.
- cambob76, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4Flubber!!!
- inactive, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4Mad Max
- skidooer, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4There is nothing stopping you from making a $0.01 bid. Just don't expect to find someone to fulfill that request. But by the same token, you could make a $1000 bid for a barrel of oil. And then suddenly the news would be all: "Oil hits $1000 a barrel"!
- mrgreen4242, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4Except that there's a fixed quantity of food available. If EVERYONE tried to go buy it from Canada, they'd either run out of product at $12/bushel or they'd raise the price to $15 to maximize profits (or $14.99 I suppose). If the US is growing 1/3 of the worlds food, though, it's not like everyone could just decide not to buy from us... someone will have to buy it or go hungry...
- xienze, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4Import it from Europe? Remember that a strong currency is a double-edged sword. European exports have become more expensive, thus reducing their desirability. On the other hand, with a falling dollar, US exports (food!) become more attractive.
- mcquitty, on 04/22/2008, -1/+5Is this another one of the mythical carbs? Like the one from 1929? Or the one from the 50s? Well, I call bullocks.
If it was out there, then it would have made it to market. The profit motive proves it. How, you say? Simple. Who will pay more, a business or every single driver in the world? Hell, you could charge $2000 for it, and it would sell like hotcackes. $2000 * 4 Billion. Hmm. Exxon/Mobile or the world? - Spuy767, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4Exactly. Milk is made for one thing, turning an 80 lb calf in to an 800 lb cow in 18 months.
- mrgreen4242, on 04/22/2008, -0/+4You can encourage consumer demand through legislation though. We encourage people to not buy cigarettes by taxing them highly, for example. We could encourage people to buy more efficient cars, even if oil was cheap, by putting a massive tax on gas guzzlers (say anything that gets under 25 mpg combined cycle using a fairly 'real world' test) and offer tax credits for people who buy very efficient cars (say anything that gets of 45 mpg using the same test). Most cars fall in between, but we can discourage people from buying "the worst" and encourage them to buy "the best" (in terms of fuel efficiency) even if there's no other market force at work.
Not ALL taxes have to be bad. When applied to things logically and used to promote the betterment of society, taxes can be OK. - FairDinkumMate, on 04/22/2008, -1/+5"The US uses 2.9 gallons of oil per day per person; the global average is 0.5 gallons; and in the rest of the industrialized world, the usage is 1.3 gallons per day. The US shapes the world oil market more than any other country does." Source:Oil and Efficiency Myths by Rick Wolff
The future of oil prices is in your own hands! - merper, on 04/22/2008, -1/+5Painful as the article says? The only real measure I saw there was that everyone could do better by switching to Hondas. If that's the worst that hits us, it would be a miracle.
- justinx0r, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3Shocker, all businesses are money hungry or they wouldn't be in business.
- Number23, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4Wow, you are an extremely stupid person.
Good lord, this mythical carburetor ***** has been peddled for decades.
Go read this retard:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_150.html - AZTriGuy, on 04/22/2008, -1/+4I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!
- SQUIDwarrior, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3I agree with you completely, but unfortunately the space program in the 50s and 60s was a lot more sexy to the public than alternative energy. Putting a human being onto the moon had such a romantic feel to it that we all got behind it. New source of electricity to power our homes? Not so much. We don't want change. We just want a different man behind the curtain providing us with power for our HDTVs and video games and Escalades.
That being said, I can't help but feel that the public opinion on alternative energy has never been more prominent. People are starting to realize that we need to do something soon, or we risk painting ourselves into a corner. - bagelmaster, on 04/22/2008, -2/+5Yeah, something tells me that if the world is even around by 2050, people will have killed off each other to the point that 9 billion will be a laughable number.
- sangjmoon, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3The fall of the subprime market has led to investors shifting from repackaged loans as investment vehicles to the oil commodity market. Speculators are multiplying the effects of demand by buying up their chunks of the oil market. Like the dot com and subprime bubbles, oil will become the next financial bubble to pop. For those who think they aren't affected by this, the bulk of the investors are retirement funds looking to recover from their subprime losses.
- digghasnoethics, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3Oil has always been too valuable to burn - this is just that reality coming home to roost.
There is literally no upside limit on a valuable, irreplaceable, basic feedstuff with high embedded energy. The few net exporting countries left know that they win big by conserving their production capacity - and that's exactly what they will do.
A more interesting question is at what level of price the US starts to breakdown as a unified country, and when that will occur at the current rate of price increase. - triskele, on 04/22/2008, -0/+3Here's an article I saw in a local paper last week. Who's to Blame? It might not be who you think.
http://www.longislandpress.com/main.asp?SectionID= ... - fulibs, on 04/22/2008, -2/+5This just in........... Big Oil is not, nor was it ever, in the business for charity!
In other news, any company that wants to make a profit will now and forever be defined as 'money hungry' and referred to as 'evil'.
more shocking news on digg later today!!! - leonidas333, on 04/22/2008, -2/+5Yeah what is up with that? why the sudden spike for no apparent reason?
I am a bike courier and ride 350km a week but I end up paying for the increase in petrol through all the food I have to consume to keep my energy up. My main source of protein, Milk, has gone up 60% in Australia in the 2 years since I started riding. I would advocate for a rationing of oil so it is limited to productive purposes (i.e. going to work, manufacturing, essential transport) instead of ***** and giggles (i.e. dog laps and hooning around town) -
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