Sick of these bull**** "environmentalists" and NIMBYs that force us to burn dirty polluting coal power plants by preventing the building of Nuclear power plants because of OMG CHERNOBYL, which didn't even have a containment building, modern designs of which can withstand a direct impact from a 747 airliner.
Grr!

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2008/06/i-received-this.html

That is all.

Drilling for oil in Alaska won't have any short term effects on gas prices, but it will help in terms of not being reliant on countries that don't like us for oil.

You're an idiot.

That is all.

I'm not going to read through that site because it hurts my brain, but I thought this picture was cute:

That bear has some mad skills.

There is no real oil shortage. CEOs of major oil companies have even stated this. The price of oil is up because speculators speculate the price of oil will increase, so everyone is like "oh <poop>! the price will go up" and the price of oil goes up. Then the speculators are like "Look! Prices went up! We speculate the prices will go up MORE!" and then people are like "OH NO MOAR!" and then they drive the prices up more.

Drilling in Alaska will not alleviate the oil shortage because THERE IS NO OIL SHORTAGE.

I pretty much agree with kirby and happydud.

Sure, there might not be NOW, but that's hardly the point is it?

Well... that's only partially accurate. A lot of the reason has to do with production capacity - the refineries in North America are maxed out, which is why popping open the strategic reserve didn't affect prices.

OPEC has been artificially constraining supply to punish the United States, but most of your oil comes from Canada. Incidentally, the hilariously corrupt democrats recently drafted a bill under the false premise of environmentalism - at the behest of the House of Saud - that would prohibit the United States government (including the Department of Defense) from using Canadian oil.
So enjoy your low prices while they last.

One: Speculation is not the cause. Oil companies are using speculation as a scapegoat. Speculation is a tiny part of the futures market. Oil companies hate speculation because it's cutting into their profit. Without speculation the party originally selling the contract would have had to spend money on a contract they didn't need, and the companies buying would have to pay market price when they needed it.

Two: Speculation doesn't mean what you think it means.

Integral Fast Reactor FTW!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor

Solves energy and environmental concerns. Recycles its own waste to prevent the environmental degradation of nuclear waste.

Too bad the US can't be counted on finishing a project like that. The Republican party is full of oil magnates, the Democratic party is on the Saudi dime, and the country is full of NIMBYs.

I'm unrealistically optimistic about ITER. But, once again, as soon as the Democrats came into power they zeroed the American contribution to the project. Yay!

I might be about to expose my own ignorance here, but aren't the Republicans on the Saudi dime too?

Very few of Americas politicians aren't linked to oil in some way or another.

Here is a thread where pretty much everybody is right. Well, except for Kirby and Happydud. No reason to call anyone an idiot here and speculators haven't created the inflated price.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn more and more about the oil business as new facts are discussed virtually daily. For example, today I learned just how much the airline industry is actually subsidizing our automotive fuel. Things are set to get real ugly when airlines start cutting service and/or going under as they falter under the extreme cost for the fuel they buy.

Anyway, we do have an oil production problem but Jon'C is quite accurate in that we could barely refine more if we wanted. The problem with production is our ever increasing reliance on foreign oil versus our own capability to export.

Another major problem are the crushing environmental regulations and political unwillingness to allow many oil endeavors to go forward. Someone with balls needs to put a stop to that especially when much of the restriction is for no reason other than to pander to "environmentalists".

The whole reason the speculation market exists to the extent that it does is due to the volatility of the business. If we really want to reduce the effect of speculation, or even reverse the effect, we need to enact policies that stabilize our relationship to the business.

This whole argument that these things won't do anything in the short term is stupid and moot. This is a long term situation and it is that type of think and political pandering that has led us to this point. Now you do have one political party that has basically desired ever soaring fuel prices and I think that is just down right despicable. Be that as it may, many people continue to vote for them so you can't fault the party.

Yes, we need nuclear, we need increased oil production and refinement capacity. We need common sense policy that will lead us back to an energy situation that will help America continue to be a prosperous place. If we continue in the direction we are going, with nothing but rhetoric on alternative energy and excessive oil profits, all but the richest among us are going to be severely affected more and more in the coming years.

http://kudlow.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjMyNDljNTQ5MThjNWE3YTAzYWYzMmZmNDVmMjA0ZWY=

This thread is bad and you should feel bad.

Nuclear power is by far the safest form of power we currently have. It's a lot like the airlines. One plane crashes, and everyone freaks out; meanwhile, more people die on the highways every day than have died on major airlines ever.

Environmentalists protest nuclear plants that might cause environmental damage, so instead we build several times that number of coal and oil burning plants that definitely cause environmental damage. It's rather stupid actually.

I happen to live within 'melt down range' of the Lake Anna nuclear power plant in Virginia. If it ever blows, I have to move. But I'm not worried about it at all.

Also, our nuclear power plants throw out the 'waste' which still has something crazy like 98% of the extractable power in it, instead of processing it and using it again. What the ****.

Your nuclear power plants aren't the most efficiently-designed, but the main reason you waste so much nuclear fuel is because Carter (see??) banned waste reprocessing out of nuclear weapon proliferation concerns. The ban was lifted by Reagan but reprocessing didn't resume because the facilities had already been closed down.

Bush and the Republicans have been trying to kick-start research and funding into waste reprocessing but it's opposed by the Democrats, who are in favor of literally digging a big hole and burying it.


Seriously, the democrats have the worst energy policy in the entire world. This is why I want McCain to win the next election, even though there's basically no way that's going to happen. Energy is going to be a huge issue over the next decade and the only thing the Democrats are willing to do is sell the United States to the Saudis (the terrorists who attacked you).

Only idiot Greenpeace-type environmentalists (most of them, maybe? Well, the non-professional ones anyway) oppose nuclear power. Nuclear is by far the most green energy option at the moment. Modern nuclear reactors have 20 (40?) feet of lead-filled, steel-reenforced concrete as shielding around the reactor. If a meltdown somehow did happen, you could probably be standing on top of it and not lose a single sperm.

Hmm, that may have only been a future design though, I can't find references backing that up. Nevertheless concrete is pretty goddamn easy to make so pouring a ****ton around a reactor isn't really hard to do.

Hmm.

but I can't help to wonder if that much shielding can actually stop the aftereffects of a nuclear reactor meltdown into the surrounding areas. Guess we won't know until we try. though i figure the army must've run several tests to figure out just how much concrete is needed.

And, er. How many nuclear meltdowns have there actually been? I can think of two, and both of them were in the early days of nuclear power; and one of them was built by the soviets, who tended to do things rather 'ad hoc'.

I don't think it's possible for modern nuclear plants to melt down. The coolant is the same stuff that makes the reaction possible. I don't know a whole lot about it, but it'd make a good read.

I really doubt that even 15% of the reason is environmentalism. It's because the senators are being bribed by foreign oil exporters, obviously.

As I recall Chernobyl's reactor "shielding" was sheet metal.

3 Mile Island wasn't actually a disaster at all. I mean, no one died. Not one person got sick. Not even a strange looking mole. Nothing. If anything it is an example of how well nuclear technology worked even back then.

I prefer the Daily Show's representation of politicians as regressing cocaine addicts.

Haha, the National Review.

[url]Associated Press[/url]:

Heres another spin to the argument.


Most of the oil in alaska and texas is controlled by OPEC companies anyway. Its not even american.



Why in god's name does america fail so bad at keeping things domestic? For a country with such patriotism and a "**** EVERYONE!!" attitude we are probably just as dependent on the rest of the world as Japan is, and we take up like 1/8 of the friggen world (canada included in that). AND we have just as much of a capable workforce as Japan does too. Educated, skilled, AND healthy. WTF. Naturally the argument to that would be that they demand higher wages, but the need for higher wages would decrease if we could at least balance our import/export ratio for god's sake, thus quenching the mass inflation we are experiencing.

(PS -- I'm not saying anything negative about Japan, its just obviously known that as a smalllllllllass island with a ****load of people, they are very dependent on other nations for certain things.)

So, first you make up a statistic and then you blame international bribery as the main cause? Come now.

WTF are you talking about?

^ do some research on it.

hahaha, what?

Typically it is customary for the original poster to cite references to remarks that are not common knowledge. I'm perfectly capable of using google or wikipedia to research your argument. I'm just not going to right now.

Okay.

One: ...No, the domestic oil is not controlled by OPEC. Most domestic oil falls under the umbrella of the Strategic Oil Reserve which is maintained and untapped specifically to prevent the United States from being in a strategically poor position should OPEC's control over the oil supply threaten American sovereignty. The major oil companies are American - the shattered remains of Standard Oil (remember them, Mr. Research?) - and the oil they're talking about tapping is on Federal property.

Two: The Japanese generally have the worst work ethics you can imagine. But it's okay because there aren't enough jobs to go around anyway. Japan's dependence on other countries is pretty standard when you consider their population density, how much arable land they have and what their chief exports are. Prior to the mid-90s the Japanese had a nearly religious outlook on business but ever since their financial crisis they've been a lot more jaded about it.

Three: Any explanation for why American corporations are bad at "keeping things domestic" would be voluminous so I will simply state that corporations' executives are (effectively) legally liable for not acting as profitably as possible. It's not smart, but if you don't save a fraction of a percent by exporting your manufacturing to China your richest shareholders will sue you.

Four: A part of the reason the jobs were exported is because nobody wanted to do them anyway. Everybody in the first world competes for the few white collar jobs are available and everybody else works for Wal-Mart. I mean, why do you think we have so many MBAs? They don't do anything. 20% of the people do 80% of the work in the business world. In major corporations nobody cares if you actually do anything as long as you get along with everybody.

Earth First/Earth Liberation Front != Environmentalists

Just so that's clear.

ffs I am so sick of blogs and news articles commenting on speculation. Like "speculators sold a lot so the price should go down :downs:"

Guess what? No! It won't!

I'm guessing at least a few of you don't know what speculation is, so I'll explain:


For this example we have three companies: Jon`Crude (ticker JONC), the oil company. Fishy Foodz (FSTKZ), an oil consumer. WookCorp (WOOK), another oil consumer. We also have a speculator named Happydud.

Because of the volatility of the oil business, Jon`Crude is an active participant in the futures market. The oil futures market lets companies like Fishy Foodz and WookCorp more easily predict their costs, and it lets Jon`Crude predict future profit.

What this entails is a set of contracts. Let's say the current price of oil is $230 a barrel. Fishy Foodz knows they will need 80,000 barrels of oil in 6 months, so they come to Jon`Crude. Jon`Crude sells them 100 contracts for a combined total of $20,000,000 - a little more than the current market price. Jon`Crude now has a guaranteed buyer for 100 contracts of oil. Fishy Foodz gains two benefits: guaranteed price and guaranteed supply; in 6 months Fishy Foodz will be delivered 80,000 barrels of oil and they will pay Jon`Crude $20,000,000 for it.

But the marketplace fluctuates. 4 months later Fishy Foodz is having a bad quarter, and they will only need 60,000 barrels of oil. What they can do is sell the outstanding contracts to a speculator like Happydud.

So Happydud buys the extra contracts, and Happydud is happy because the calligraphy is so pretty. He sits on them for about 2 months and hopes the price will go up in that time. It does. Let's say it's now $350/bl.

Come the deadline, and CEO Wookie discovers that his employees had a gasoline drinking contest over the weekend. He needs 20,000 barrels of oil FAST. He can buy it from the oil company for the current market price - costing him $7,000,000 - or he can head over to the futures market.
Happydud agrees to sell his outstanding contracts for oil (@ $250/bl) to WookCorp for $265/bl - WookCorp saves $1,700,000 and Happydud won a free ticket for $300,000 for guessing right. And everybody is happy.

...Except Jon`Crude, who is out $2,000,000. Jon`Crude is not happy. And because Jon`Crude has sole control over the favorite hobbies of American news journalists - drinking kerosene - Jon`Crude makes a lot of hubbub about how the speculators are ruining the economy. Ha ha! And the politicians love drinking kerosene too, so maybe Jon`Crude will be able to make not paying full market price in spite of prior agreements illegal! Maybe punishable by death! Who knows???

I made up a statistic that would be impossible to measure to illustrate my point. Do you really believe some herd a thousand miles away is keeping us from using our resources? I don't. That's why I think senators are making money by keeping our oil supply foreign.

Edit: and thanks for that, Jon`C. That was incredibly insightful.

I've come to the conclusion that I won't figure out how oil pricing works...I'll just keep paying for it.

However, I have a hard time believing in a shortage when I have yet to see a station run out of gas..

I must admit, that was good Jon`C.