5

5/13/2008 10:54:15 AM

I cant wait to see what they reach on memorial Day

Ill probably snap a picture

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 12:17 PM. Reason : ]

5/13/2008 12:17:16 PM

I'm worrying about food prices more than gas prices soon.

High gas is gonna start its ripple effects real soon.

5/13/2008 12:34:53 PM

if only we had started drilling in anwr...

5/13/2008 12:39:31 PM

Yes

The drop in a bucket that ANWR would have provided certainly would have kept prices low.

I mean, are you trying to be nonironic or was that just veiled sarcasm.

Also waiting on the LoneSnark seawall explanation on how gas prices will eventually come back down to 2.75.

5/13/2008 12:48:13 PM

And I'd take the same amount of stock in that post as I did when he predicted they'd go back down to $1.something about a year ago.

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 1:25 PM. Reason : -]

5/13/2008 1:24:39 PM

Quote :

"if only we had started drilling in anwr..."

Or more like if only you would explain the picture that I posted back on page two. . .

5/13/2008 2:11:45 PM

Inelastic demand.

What a bitch.

5/13/2008 2:15:08 PM

I think it's great. Granted I say that now that I have a vehicle that gets 60mpg but it's partly because of gas prices that made me change. Perhaps people will start being smarter about their consuming habits like buying locally, planning closer and fewer trips, or buying efficient vehicles/appliances. Americans should grow up out of the mentality that everything is just going to be handed to them at Wal-Mart prices.

5/13/2008 2:20:51 PM

i think people saying that we don't need to drill more are being a little naive.

that's like during a famine where there is a shortage of wheat saying, "by all means let's get more wheat on the market but whatever you do don't plant more wheat fields!!"

5/13/2008 3:11:27 PM

I am not advocating abstaining from drilling period. I am just against drilling in environmentally sensitive areas when there are already huge tracts of land that have been allocated for that purpose for nearly 90 years!

5/13/2008 3:26:12 PM

We need more drilling off our coast, if we don't take it everyone else will dammit!

5/13/2008 3:27:56 PM

Um

No Rat.

Thats not what its like at all.

5/13/2008 3:29:23 PM

So you are saying we don't need more oil?

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 3:35 PM. Reason : .]

5/13/2008 3:35:11 PM

I just sowed my field with petroleum seeds this morning.

5/13/2008 3:36:04 PM

wow, it's official: liberals are nothing but a stream of consciousness with no point at all except to get in the way of human progress and advancements in our societies

anarchy #1!!!111

5/13/2008 3:46:52 PM

See thats the kind of 5th grade Glenn Beck logic that makes me want to throw my laptop out of a window.

You're trying to compare a renewable resource to a nonrenewable resource with two completely different demand growth rates.

There isn't even enough oil in ANWR to sustain the US, at current rates, for a decade and the last ten years highlight profoundly in a manner where even you should be able to understand that cheaper oil drastically spikes demand.

So, billions of dollars and a ruined ecosystem later we'd potentially be worse of then we are now.

Like it or not, the uncertainty in the middle east mixed with strong Asian demand is going to accomplish what whining environmentalists couldn't ever hope of accomplishing: get the nation off of oil.

5/13/2008 3:48:54 PM

give me a break you filthy tree hugger. you have got to be kidding if you think we are going to run out of oil sometime next week.

lol

5/13/2008 3:54:28 PM

Quote :

"So it is more like too many intellectually lazy people who can't read maps and are naive enough to think we can drill our way out of this problem."

Why not? Oil becomes scarce every couple decades and we have always drilled our way out of it before. Or are you silly enough to think only permanent solutions should be considered solutions? Your next meal will not solve your hunger: just wait eight hours and you will be looking for another. Does that mean you should not bother eatting, since it is not a permanent solution? In the real world there is no such thing as a permanent solution, everything requires further effort down the line; be it food, attaining shelter, or attaining energy.

Quote :

"So, billions of dollars and a ruined ecosystem later we'd potentially be worse of then we are now."

So, drilling in ANWR would ruin the ecosystem, but drilling in downtown LA or the lush forests of Pennsylvania is fine?

Seriously, what the frick is in ANWR that is so friggin' sensitive that drilling would kill it? Certainly not the deer, they seem to servive in Raleigh no matter how many we run over with our cars.

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 4:12 PM. Reason : .,.]

5/13/2008 4:08:50 PM

Awesome counter point

Make sure to call me a liberal faglover as well next time ok

5/13/2008 4:10:13 PM

^well according to liberals we are fucked, and have no solution, yet they don't want to take away their precious coal and OIL power plants and replace them with nuclear energy.


on many levels i agree with your arguments sandsanta. we need to get off our addiction to oil, which is why president bush is probably letting the price get so high. but all i hear is obama ranting about how he'll lower gas prices if elected... that WONT solve the problem as you just stated

1) we need to quadruple our nuclear energy
2) build a shit ton of cheap electric cars to get around town in and use our gas cars for long trips only. *if you work more than 100miles from your house and your commute is that long you are fucked i guess. good luck paying the gas bills

but all the whinners(mostly liberals) say constantly is:

1) nuclear power is evil like hitler and
2) i can't get 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds and i can only get 200miles per trip on it.

5/13/2008 4:15:39 PM

If we are going to go nuclear, then we need to find a way to deal with the waste.

5/13/2008 4:28:07 PM

I'm sure the middle east could use it.

5/13/2008 4:31:43 PM

^^^I actually agree with most of what you posted, but

Quote :

"we need to get off our addiction to oil, which is why president bush is probably letting the price get so high."

come on, nobody can be that big of a Bush apologist.

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 4:32 PM. Reason : ^]

5/13/2008 4:32:29 PM

Quote :

"If we are going to go nuclear, then we need to find a way to deal with the waste."

---
but all the whinners(mostly liberals) say constantly is:

1) nuclear power is evil like hitler
--- ha!

drill big deep hole. dump it in earths magma or build a special cargo bay to store it in and every 50 years build put it in a rocket and launch it directly at the sun



well look at it this way nutsmacker, we either run the risk of losing a few hundred maybe thousand people from cancer from an accident or some spillage of nuclear waste.

or we risk the melting of glaciers/ heating of earth by many degrees and the extinction of mankind. take your pick

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 4:49 PM. Reason : .]

5/13/2008 4:42:47 PM

Quote :

"I'm sure the middle east could use it."

exactly. i guarantee it won't be 0.000000000001% of the amount of pollution and waste that all the burning oil they gave us through the years has caused. i say dump it all over the mountains of pakistan/afghanistan and root those fuckers out. think of it like 'weeding the garden' in the backyard. gettem at the roots. lol

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 4:47 PM. Reason : .]

5/13/2008 4:46:59 PM

^but then they might try to enrich to weapons grade and we will have to go to war again




[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 5:18 PM. Reason : nm]

5/13/2008 5:16:52 PM

yep you all are all fucked.



i'll still be smiling though with my new hybrid.

5/13/2008 5:23:38 PM

rat scares the hell out of me.

5/13/2008 8:21:35 PM

It just scares me that his type of mentality is rampant among the masses.

5/13/2008 8:35:05 PM

Quote :

"If we are going to go nuclear, then we need to find a way to deal with the waste."

we have had ways to deal with the waste for decades

for a comparable coal fired plant you have to burn one dump truck load of coal per second where that same dump truck full of nuclear fuel has about 10,000-100,000 times the energy (you wouldnt want to fill it because k > 1 but whatever)

reprocessing would allow us to get >90% of the energy out of nuclear and reduce the level of HLW down to about 10% or so of what it is now with the once through fuel cycle

you can thank jimmy carter for banning reprocessing though

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 8:40 PM. Reason : 

5/13/2008 8:38:55 PM

Quote :

"2) build a shit ton of cheap electric cars to get around town in and use our gas cars for long trips only. *if you work more than 100miles from your house and your commute is that long you are fucked i guess. good luck paying the gas bills"

Yes, but saying that we don't have any way to deal with the limited capacity of batteries is like saying we don't have any way of dealing with nuclear waste.

My favorite solution is the new kinds of electric cars they're coming out with now that can charge in a matter of minutes instead of a matter of hours. If we have to accept some change in lifestyle to counter the oncoming crisis, then imagine that person driving 120 miles to work has to drive an hour, recharge at a station along the way for 10 minutes while drinking his coffee and then drive the other hour.

Oh no, terrible right? The fact is, there are lots of ways to deal with "inconveniences" that come along with 100% electric cars. The greater threat to our way of life are these destructive, impractical other "solutions" that will never happen but get subsidized (cough hydrogen, ethanol).

A "filling" station for an electric car also will not be a million dollar investment. We already have power lines going everywhere (often conveniently next to roads), and all you need to install is a large plug and an optional coffee machine.

Nuclear should take a larger role, but there are a few good reasons it has it's detractors. Waste is not one of them. We will suffer a bit of an electricity pinch soon, but a simple logical argument should prove to you that making electricity in one place is <= the effort for making distributed low load internal combustion engines that will have the same output.

Is it bad that I find myself almost kind of respecting the opinion of some users on here?

[Edited on May 13, 2008 at 9:17 PM. Reason : ]

5/13/2008 9:14:14 PM

Quote :

"1) we need to quadruple our nuclear energy"

I'm not so sure about Nuclear power playing a larger role. Nuclear plants are now being estimated to cost somewhere between $9-13 billion. Thats a huge investment. I've read that wind power is getting a huge push from McCain. I believe he's looking at increasing the percent that wind power contributes to our overall energy supply from 1% to 20% (same amount as nuclear contributes currently) by 2015.

Quote :

"I am not advocating abstaining from drilling period. I am just against drilling in environmentally sensitive areas when there are already huge tracts of land that have been allocated for that purpose for nearly 90 years!"

I think its actually 31 years. The majors have sent almost 23 development plans to the Alaskan state government and each one has been rejected. The fault fails on Alaska here. Without allowing the majors to drill there, a new pipeline from Alaska to the midwestern states won't happen anytime soon.

Quote :

"We need more drilling off our coast, if we don't take it everyone else will dammit!"

I dont understand this quote. Who is 'everyone else'? Few states want off-shore platforms off of their coast. Even though they are 15-20 miles off coast, far enough away that they can not be seen from the shore, no one wants one in their backyard. California actually has one off of its coast though.

5/14/2008 12:46:21 AM

I am talking about the Alaskan National Petroleum Reserve which was allocated by Warren G. Harding in 1923. For an illustration go back to page 2. No one wants to talk about it though. Hmm....

5/14/2008 12:55:45 AM

Well obviously ANWR is a better place to drill since there is already a pipeline right next to it and the oil companies would much rather drill there.

ANWR alone won't lower the price of oil. But you open it up, drill the ANPR, lift the ban on offshore drilling, lease new drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico, liquify some of that coal in South Dakota, etc, and it'll boost domestic supply considerably. Combine that with higher fuel efficiencies, biofuels, nuclear power plants and other energy-saving measures, and the price should come down.

Or you can simply bitch about high prices and blame it all on Bush.

5/14/2008 1:57:01 AM

I am keeping my fingers crossed that polar bears will go on the endangered species list or that future President Obama declares the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge a national monument like Clinton should have done and the case will be closed.

5/14/2008 2:13:44 AM

Fat chance of polar bears going on the endangered species list, considering that they are flourishing right now.

It'll be funny to see these environmental groups trying to argue their case in light of the fact that polar bear population has more than doubled in the last 30 years.


[Edited on May 14, 2008 at 2:19 AM. Reason : 2]

5/14/2008 2:17:03 AM

^^You are the biggest pussy for a hockey player or whatever I have ever heard of....

Quote :

"future President Obama"

LOL good luck with that since he can't even win over his own party right now....but whatever you say.

[Edited on May 14, 2008 at 2:19 AM. Reason : .]

5/14/2008 2:18:43 AM

Very mature discussion you are generating. One could argue that it takes a deal of courage to stand against the stagnant thought of one's species and challenge them to actually look outside of their own narcissistic and often myopic viewpoint.

As for Obama he is leading in delegates, votes and super delegates so how is he not winning over his own party?

5/14/2008 2:55:18 AM

i wouldn't call obama's lead really "winning over" anything hockeyroman. if anything the democratic party has been splitting in half for a while now. like it or not, more drilling will end up happening. it will be a long time, if it ever happens, before people are able to significantly lower dependence on oil. i'm pretty sure the polar bears will be just fine. take your animal crying back to that thread you had over that hawk incident.

[Edited on May 14, 2008 at 3:47 AM. Reason : and that 'future' part... that means he isn't president, and very well may not ever be]

5/14/2008 3:45:50 AM

Obama's lead is tangentous and irrelevant. It is sad that you perceive concern for the well being of other creatures as "crying". But I suppose I can take solace in knowing that I am not in a race to pollute our atmosphere with the remains of dead dinosaurs even if it means trampling upon fragile ecosystems and the last great frontier of the United States.

5/14/2008 3:59:07 AM

you seem to suggest that i am in such a race. i'm not, if that's what you mean to imply. ecosystems won't be trampled. this isn't strip mining, it isn't strip mall parking lots... it's drilling we're talking about.

5/14/2008 4:09:20 AM

Quote :

"Inelastic demand. What a bitch"

5/14/2008 4:11:18 AM

Drilling and building roads and building wells and building facilities all for a resource they are not sure is even there and if it is in what quantity.

5/14/2008 4:13:59 AM

^ that is exactly correct

5/14/2008 8:01:38 AM

From this thread it sounds like many would prefer we stripmine the forests of pennsylvania for coal than make a carribou walk around an oil derrick.

5/14/2008 9:01:00 AM

Not at all. As someone from the coal region of PA, you can leave you hands off and not make everything look like Mt. Carmel. But you are the one who is prone to hyperbole and misrepresentation of people's views in order to propel your pro-oil agenda.

Let's face the facts, even if ANWR has as much oil as people are professing it to have, it would only deflect 5% of our international consumption. No matter how you look at it, fossil fuels are not renewable. in order to address our growing energy needs we need to look to renewable sources.

5/14/2008 10:42:26 AM

http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2008/05/14/lets-have-a-good-cry-for-the-poor-oil-refiners/

Quote :

"The New York Times has turned into a crying rag for oil refiners. It reports that these defenseless creatures are not making as much money as they did last year. Their profit margins have dropped to an average of $12.45 per barrel of oil, down 60%. The reason? Oil prices have doubled in the last year but the refiners have only been able to raise wholesale gasoline prices by 39%. I've posted about the problems at ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) and Valero Energy (NYSE: VLO), here and here. And the Times has done us a service by calculating these industry averages. It even quotes a a sobbing Lynn Westfall, the chief economist at Tesoro Corp. (NYSE: TSO), "We're just not able to pass along the increased cost of crude oil on the gasoline side." Someone hand Lynn a crying rag! Thanks to declining U.S. demand -- it's down 300,000 barrels a day -- refiners are reacting by trying to reduce their refining capacity. That's right -- even though many people are paying over $4 a gallon for their gasoline, oil refiners are not making enough money so they are going to cut back on their refining capacity. The utilization rate has dropped from 90.4% last year to 81.4% now -- and if they take refineries off line, they can go back up above 90%. This will give them an excuse to raise prices even more. In order for their margins to go back to "normal", I figure they'll need to charge you $5.37 a gallon. Of course, that presumes that oil goes no higher than its current $125.80 a barrel. If it hits $200, then $8.53 a gallon would be more like it. If the oil refiners get their $8.53 a gallon wish, you'll pay $171 every time you fill up -- if you have a 20-gallon tank. And then the oil refiners can toss away their crying rag. But you'll probably need to supply your own vomit bag as you watch the numbers run into the three figures."

5/14/2008 11:12:04 AM

i'd honestly like to know from some of the tree huggers some other reasons why they don't want to drill more

just because it's inelastic doesn't mean there isn't a fuckton more of it. and don't tell me b/c we are going to run out of breatheable air because we chop a few trees



[Edited on May 14, 2008 at 12:00 PM. Reason : .]

5/14/2008 11:59:09 AM

Quote :

"just because it's inelastic doesn't mean there isn't a fuckton more of it."

??

5/14/2008 1:43:22 PM