This is all Obama's fault.

9/2/2010 11:46:09 AM

Obama hates black people pelicans?

9/2/2010 12:14:49 PM

A real leader would have made his moratorium on offshore drilling stick, not bow before the Judicial Branch. Ineffectual.

9/2/2010 12:20:19 PM

A real leader would have made his moratorium on offshore drilling stick, not bow before the Judicial Branch. Ineffectual.

9/2/2010 12:20:34 PM

You do realize the ban was on NEW oil exploration while all of the resources were allocated dealing with the current fuck-up, right? Nvm, this is a troll thread. Reality has no place here.

9/2/2010 12:25:24 PM

Then the ban was ESPECIALLY ineffectual!

We need a leader with the foresight and fortitude to shut down an entire industry!

[Edited on September 2, 2010 at 12:27 PM. Reason : .]

9/2/2010 12:26:23 PM

Getting pretty tired of corporate elites taking major dumps on our country.

9/2/2010 12:32:11 PM

what we need is for Obama to pump tons of money into alternative energy research

9/2/2010 12:52:06 PM

Fusion Power : 60's Space Program

9/2/2010 1:06:23 PM

o.O?

9/2/2010 1:12:27 PM

Here is an explosion and New Orleans in the same picture:

9/2/2010 1:27:21 PM

Quote :

"what we need is for Obama to pump tons of money into alternative energy research"

what we need is for republicans to set the agenda and pump money directly into the veins of the rich

fuck everything, this is our top priority

9/2/2010 1:30:23 PM

We continue to use fossil fuels because there is nothing currently available that can replace them for electric power generation. Anyone who doesn't realize this is either fooling himself or herself or simply is a fool.

The only states in America that are getting less than 50% of their electric power from fossil fuels are those that have plentiful hydroelectric resources and have made a significant investment in and commitment to nuclear power. And this doesn't even get into the issue of fuel for vehicles.

9/2/2010 3:00:43 PM

I would say the wars, Recession and the upcoming Recession Part II have pushed back the cause of alternative energy by 15 years at least.

9/2/2010 3:03:59 PM

^ Doesn't matter. And you're not even considering conversion costs.

9/2/2010 3:06:44 PM

We'd be able to figure out alternative energy, but there's so much momentum behind oil. Unsurprisingly, when people powder their ass from the profits of a particular industry, this creates momentum that takes an excessively long time to halt.

People seriously give no fucks about anything except themselves. It's kind of unbelievable that we're not exploring alternative energy with more gusto for the sake of some crooked assholes and their profits

9/2/2010 3:07:34 PM

^that'll just lead to more crooked assholes and their profits in another industry. Just b/c the type of energy is different doesn't mean the people are.

Oil isn't going anywhere for a while b/c it's cheap and plentiful.

9/2/2010 3:27:05 PM

Quote :

"We'd be able to figure out alternative energy, but there's so much momentum behind oil. Unsurprisingly, when people powder their ass from the profits of a particular industry, this creates momentum that takes an excessively long time to halt. People seriously give no fucks about anything except themselves. It's kind of unbelievable that we're not exploring alternative energy with more gusto for the sake of some crooked assholes and their profits"

McDanger

This is an example of the type of leftist ignorance I was referring to. You continually and unfairly bash people here for being uninformed, but you have absolutely no idea what the hell you're babbling about.

First, we have "figured out" alternative energy to a great extent. The main problem is that we simply can't generate enough electric power from it for a superpower.

Second, profits are not inherently a "bad" thing. They drive research and development and new ways of doing things, among other "good" things. Alternative energy (I doubt that some of you even know what you mean when you use the term) is just not profitable here on a large scale--sure, there are success stories, but nothing that would satisfy this large nation's energy needs completely.

Third, I'm not sure which "crooked assholes" you're referring to--probably some Monopoly Man conservative caricature you've created in your head. The North Carolina Utilities Commission, for example, is controlled by Democrats and has been for many years--carry your pipe dreams of alternative energy and those of likeminded individuals to them and see how far you get.

NB: I am not against alternative/green/renewable/sustainable energy. I wish it worked here as many hope--but for the most part, it just doesn't. Still, it does have a role to play in our energy production.

[Edited on September 2, 2010 at 3:49 PM. Reason : ^ And don't forget powerful. ]

9/2/2010 3:28:08 PM

End the fossil fuel subsidies and maybe we can give alternatives a fighting chance. Its atleast one of the best places to start.

The trouble is neither party has ever REALLY considered doing this, IMO. So who are you gonna vote for?



http://www.alternet.org/environment/146532/we're_being_shortchanged:_obama_administration_subsidizes_dirty_energy_at_an_unprecedented_level_/
(some of the article is related to Coal not oil but Im sure the story is similar)

Quote :

""You know, solar, wind, efficiency, these things get about $12 billion on an annual basis, as compared again to $70 [billion] for fossil fuels," said Kretzman of Oil Change International. "So that's a really imbalanced energy market"

[Edited on September 2, 2010 at 3:42 PM. Reason : can we even be sure coal/oil would turn a profit if it wasn't heavily subsidized?]

9/2/2010 3:28:13 PM

^ Subsidies do tip the scale somewhat in a free market--but the regulatory environment and many other factors have an effect, too. And in nearly all states, renewable energy is incentivized.

9/2/2010 3:32:43 PM

Yes alternatives are subsidized.

But coal and oil receive 6 times as much money (and those are conservative estimates according to the article)


I don't care what the regulations or other factors are. There is no way that is fair competition.

9/2/2010 4:00:38 PM

^ I never said it was fair--many things in markets and life aren't fair. Another thing that's not fair is some pretending that we can power the nation that is the United States with solar panels, wind farms, and geothermal, and so on--at an acceptable cost.

9/2/2010 4:18:42 PM

The point is:

how do you expect those alternatives to compete when oil and coal get so much more free money?

Yes, I realize that renewables in their current forms wouldn't be able to power our entire nation at our current rates of consumption. I think its also important to note that energy conservation initiatives are given even less money than renewable energy. I wonder what our energy consumption would be if we had to pay the true price (without all the subsidy) for it .

9/2/2010 4:47:34 PM

gasoline is too good to get off of. There is nothing anywhere close that is as portable, as energy dense, or as cheap.

Its not a hurp durp subsidies thing, its a goddamn there is really fucking NOTHING that works as well as gasoline. Anyone who claims electric is worth anything is a fucking moron or a shill for a bettery company.

Electric with gas generation (volt) is probably the next step, but electric only will never happen because battery technology sucks dicks.

As far as electric generation, its entirely the blame of evironmental retards that we stopped building and investing in nukes. We keep blowing up hydro to let fish though. Wind and solar only work in specific places and are no where close to load bearing. And if you got rid of subsidies for wind, the industry would disapear over night because its just not a widely applicable technology.

I mean Im all for nuclear and im a huge fan of individual power generation via small scale in-house/in-business wind/solar/geothermal, but even if you got rid of every oil subsidy there is, alternatives still wont be viable without the fed proping them up.

9/2/2010 5:25:03 PM

Quote :

"Alternative energy (I doubt that some of you even know what you mean when you use the term) is"

It really takes a certain sort of asshole to make this comment.

Quote :

"But coal and oil receive 6 times as much money (and those are conservative estimates according to the article)"

I didn't read the article yet, so forgive me if this is answered, but how do the subsidies compare on a MWh basis?

[Edited on September 2, 2010 at 6:06 PM. Reason : oops]

9/2/2010 5:50:57 PM

According to http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/overview.html

Production sources:
Coal: 21.578%
Natural Gas: 21.5%
Crude oil : 11.241%

Wind: 0.697%
Solar: 0.109%
Geothermal: 0.373%

And thats electric generation alone. Doesn't figure in the ammount of power generated in transportation. So yea. alternative energy does not come anywhere close in terms of generation per subsidized dollar.

[Edited on September 2, 2010 at 6:03 PM. Reason : o]

9/2/2010 6:03:14 PM

Quote :

"Electric with gas generation (volt) is probably the next step, but electric only will never happen because battery technology sucks dicks."

Like all technology, this will improve. Problem is, we have nowhere near the number of nuclear plants we need to switch to full electric, even if it were viable. We should have started building dozens of them, like...25 years ago.

9/2/2010 6:06:25 PM

Heres the thing. If alternative energy sources were viable (they aren't) then these big evil companies you hate would be lining up left and right to get into the business. They would go to their representitives and get them to give them subsidies for alternative energy.

The only source that could come close is nuclear and (to only a retards surprise) the oil/coal producers are big into building the few newly permited reactors.

9/2/2010 6:06:59 PM

full electric wont happen because battery technology has reached its peak. electric with onboard generation is the future and even that suffers from battery deficiencies.

The only chance full electric would have is if you standardize the battery and stock replacement stations everywhere. Drive up, swap your battery for a charged one, move on. This probably wont ever happen because the batteries would be too cumbersome to do by hand, they're more dangerous than gasoline, the auto companies would never agree on a standard, and you probably couldn't charge replacements to meet demand.

9/2/2010 6:10:12 PM

Quote :

"End the fossil fuel subsidies and maybe we can give alternatives a fighting chance."

What subsidies are those? The $38 billion paid in gasoline taxes in 2007? The vast sums paid by drillers for access to nationalized territory?

Even if we accept your bogus number that fossil fuels get six times the subsidy, that would mean that fossil fuels provide a hundred times the energy for only six times the subsidy?

9/2/2010 6:20:59 PM

ugh. fucking oil companies!!! Maybe if we increased wind subsidies little guys like GE could compete!!

9/2/2010 6:23:16 PM

^^^Isreal will have a nationwide battery-swap sytem operational within a year. Europe will have it within 5 years. They'll also have access to cheap concentrated solar power to make the whole thing work.

The big problem with wind right now is that we have no way to store power. Wind produces most of it's electricity at night when we don't need it. We had the exact same issues with constant load nuclear plants that were built in the 60s and 70s, and we had to build massive stored hydro facilities to act as major batteries. Environmental groups will ensure that there is never another stored hydro facility built in this country, so we're forced to turn to other means of storing power. Compressed air will get built where it can, but the geological requirements of compressed air will limit its usefulness. Utility scale batteries are a horrible idea; most of the utilities that experimented with NaS systems wish they could get rid of them.

My gut instinct is to hate the concept of V2G to solve the issue with night-time wind, but I have a feeling it's going to get pushed along in this country by the people who want to make wind power viable at any cost.

Solar power is following it's own version of Moore's law right now, and it's expected that Solar will be cheaper than coal in 4 years. That is making utilities incredibly skeptical to invest any money in solar right now, because the technology keeps dropping in price.

Quote :

"Problem is, we have nowhere near the number of nuclear plants we need to switch to full electric, even if it were viable"

switching all passenger vehicles to full electric would only drive up total demand in this country by 15%, and it would have minimal impact on peak load. We size generation capacity in this country off of peak load, and we could currently make the transition without the construction of a single new generation facility. It will be a long long time before electric tractor trailers are a reality, and these are larger fuel consumers than passenger vehicles.

[Edited on September 2, 2010 at 6:34 PM. Reason : GE will take a loss on windmills to push the rest of their product line]

9/2/2010 6:33:33 PM

Quote :

"We size generation capacity in this country off of peak load, and we could currently make the transition without the construction of a single new generation facility."

Not that I don't think we couldn't make the transition if it was in our interests, but I find this rather difficult to believe given the black/brown out issues that seem to pop up every summer just over increased AC usage.

9/2/2010 6:54:25 PM

Quote :

"gasoline is too good to get off of. There is nothing anywhere close that is as portable, as energy dense, or as cheap. "

Biodiesel is as energy dense and portable as gasoline. Gasoline is only cheap because it is so heavily subsidized. I will say I don't think we would ever totally do away with gasoline though, like you said its a really useful fuel in some situations, we just have to be less reliant on it. If you subsidized things like battery technology for cars and biodiesel as heavily as coal and oil I think they would easily compete.

I support nuclear energy and individual power generation too. I realize that wind and solar don't generate enough in their current forms for base load, but they might be able to cover the peaking loads that natural gas, diesel, and coal (all heavily subsidized) take care of right now. Conservation measures could be a big help for the problem too.

Quote :

" but how do the subsidies compare on a MWh basis"

no idea, It may be that because fossil fuels are responsible for way more energy that they may actually have a lower subsidy-dollar per MWh.

9/2/2010 6:58:40 PM

I can't believe no one has pointed out the obvious solution. A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY. American society is not sustainable in its current form. There is no way we could ever find a technology to solve our energy demands. Even with fusion technology, there is just way too many people, too far spread out, using too much energy.

9/2/2010 7:39:37 PM

A sustainable society isn't a solution, just a desired outcome.

9/2/2010 7:51:03 PM

Quote :

"Environmental groups will ensure that there is never another stored hydro facility built in this country, so we're forced to turn to other means of storing power."

There are obvious environmental issues that should be addresses as much as they realistically can but an energy company in Califorina is doing feasibility studies on one of these facilities now.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/08/pumped-hydro-storage-electricity-grid-california-pge.php

Quote :

"What subsidies are those? The $38 billion paid in gasoline taxes in 2007? The vast sums paid by drillers for access to nationalized territory? "

Most of that gas tax is passed directly to the consumer.
Im talking about the $36.5 billion Obama wanted to eliminate in 2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6103RM20100201

of course that doesn't consider the environmental problems we have had with fossil fuels (I don't necessarily mean just climate change either). Some might consider our military operations in Iraq as a form of subsidy as well.

also, America has some of the least expensive royalty payments on oil leases when compared with our peers
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07676r.pdf

9/2/2010 7:56:03 PM

Quote :

"Biodiesel is as energy dense and portable as gasoline."

Biodiesel comes with its own problems, namely that to get it we have to use productive land to generate fuel. Where we can get gasoline from sources in places that are otherwise unproductive, biodiesel uses growing land for production. I know that there are efforts to come up with biodiesels that don't use our growing lands for production, but I think the corn industry will lobby hard to see to it that those fuels don't become the national standard.

9/2/2010 8:08:28 PM

^^O it most definitely is.

How about taking subsidies out of ALL types of energy and increasing energy taxes. Take that money and put it into urban redevelopment, mass public transit and energy efficiency.

Taxes would create reverse incentive on energy use, sprawl and the things that make our society unsustainable.

Moving so many goods and people to and from such low density areas is not feasible. No technology will change that fact.

9/2/2010 8:11:26 PM

Then be part of the solution and turn your computer off right now.

9/3/2010 12:22:13 AM

Quote :

"American society is not sustainable in its current form"

American society has been sustained for hundreds of years. Forgive me if I need more than just your word that it cannot be sustained for hundreds of years more.

Quote :

"Most of that gas tax is passed directly to the consumer. Im talking about the $36.5 billion Obama wanted to eliminate in 2011"

From your link that was $36.5 billion over 10 years. Otherwise known as $3.65 billion in one year. Otherwise known as 1/10th the revenue collected just by the gasoline tax, never-mind the money earned through leases, the corporate taxes paid by oil firms, etc.

There is no rational way the numbers can be twisted to suggest fossil fuels are on-net being subsidized.

Compare that to alternative energies, where almost half the installation cost comes straight out of the government treasury.

9/3/2010 1:10:04 AM

Quote :

"American society has been sustained for hundreds of years."

but in its present form, with ubiquitous cars and electronic devices, for about 30 years

9/3/2010 1:59:21 AM

No, she said society, not current technological paradigm. In the future we may dig up the roads and all fly to work, or telecommute, or take the transporter. But that would still be a sustained American society.

9/3/2010 2:11:11 AM

Quote :

"ugh. fucking oil companies!!! Maybe if we increased wind subsidies little guys like GE could compete!!"

9/3/2010 4:33:40 AM

Quote :

"Otherwise known as 1/10th the revenue collected just by the gasoline tax, never-mind the money earned through leases, the corporate taxes paid by oil firms, etc. "

The gas tax is mostly passed on to consumers. I already showed that the royalties paid to the US are some of the lowest in the world.

Their effective corporate tax rate is also one of the lowest (just 9% on rigs)
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/67xx/doc6792/10-18-Tax.pdf
check out pages 10 and 11

and there may be no way to really account for some of the accounting gymnastics that some of these companies go through
http://www.tax.com/taxcom/taxblog.nsf/Permalink/UBEN-86GPTN?OpenDocument


a study that estimates an unsubsudized gallon of gas would cost between $5 and $15
http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price%20of%20Gasoline.pdf






[Edited on September 3, 2010 at 8:07 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on September 3, 2010 at 8:08 AM. Reason : ...]

9/3/2010 8:05:47 AM

As such, even if you can jump the hoop of arguing that paying less to the government is a subsidy (I guess a top tax rate of 35% means we are all being subsidized by at least 65%?), In that damn pdf they include tax breaks that every corporation in America receives. Many of the other things they list as subsidies are not even that, all they do is allow firms to back load their taxes, not pay less.

But the vast majority of their figure came from including every dollar spent on infrastructure in this country, as if we didn't build roads and bridges before oil and wont continue to build them after oil. And they included every dollar spent on defense, as if we didn't have an army before oil and wont have one after oil. Then they included every dollar spent on police and fire services, you know, because oil burns and can be stolen.

So, I stand corrected, through lies and deceit you can claim we subsidize fossil fuels in this country. But that doesn't mean even you should believe what you are saying.

9/3/2010 10:11:28 AM

a tax break is just a subsidy by another name, its preferential treatment. Why should one industry, that has been doing pretty well for itself, be taxed at an effective rate of around 11-13% while most other industries are taxed at around 18-22% ?



I'll grant you that including all infrastructure and emergency response costs may be overkill, but Id maintain that some of these costs need to be included when accounting for subsidies. I personally think the conservative value associated with military spending might be pretty accurate. The environmental costs could be debated until the cows come home (especially if you're anti-science).








also, Fuck You!! for calling me a liar. I guess thats what I get for providing any sort of link?











[Edited on September 3, 2010 at 12:18 PM. Reason : better make sure my grammar is in order too.]

9/3/2010 12:15:52 PM

the government makes more money in tax revenue by giving tax breaks to energy producers. They enable every other sector of the economy to be more productive and pay taxes on their earnings.

9/3/2010 12:20:48 PM

They also cement the status quo (fossil fuels being our primary source of energy) in place

9/3/2010 12:32:18 PM

^^ Then what would you call it? Merely misrepresenting the facts? Building bridges is NOT a subsidy of fossil fuels. Calling it such is a lie.

Quote :

"I personally think the conservative value associated with military spending might be pretty accurate"

How? If anything, I am thoroughly convinced that all our military activities have the effect of driving up oil prices. Iraq today would be exporting far more oil had we lifted the sanctions, instead we invaded the country and wrecked it. Maybe you mean it as a subsidy to oil companies in the sense of driving up the price paid for oil?

9/3/2010 1:05:37 PM