Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 16:47:43 -0500
Reply-To: Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Marc Perdue <marcperdue@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject: Re: gas prices going up.....more...
In-Reply-To: <4228DB7D.1000009@charter.net>
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John Rodgers wrote:
> Now you know someone who limits driving because of the price of gas.
>
> I have a fixed income, and the gas thing is making me take a hit. I saw
> this coming some time ago, and rearranged my life because of it. I no
> longer make the long commute drive to work every day. I get up, walk 50
> feet to my home shop - from which I make my living, and work there all
> day. If I leave the premises more than twice a week I have had a busy
> week. This is now my "normal" routine. I may make a trip once in a
> while, and that increases my cost, but just for daily living, I'm very
> cognizant of this fuel price stuff.
>
I feel your pain and you are a smart man for changing your lifestyle as
a result of gas prices. I have also done so within the constraints of
my job and my environment. I shop locally whenever I can and that saves
me 28 miles of driving every time that I do. I now reserve my
gas-guzzling Vanagon for those trips for which I bought it, to camp out
at music festivals, and only periodically will drive it to work because
I'm working on my other car.
> I think the oil shortage is hoakum - partly the consequence of extremely
> poor planning on the part of our government, partly because of
> contrived conditions on the part of industry, and partly because of
> stupidity of the public. We have allowed ourselves to get snared into
> this relation with foreign oil interests, haven't developed our own
> resources, haven't developed more fuel efficient technology, haven't
> developed conservative habits. We burn fuels like there is no tomorrow.
> There is plenty of oil. It has just been easier to purchase from the
> middle east than to develop our own resources, even when purchasing at a
> higher price. There is plenty of oil!! But our infrastructure won't
> handle the processing of more. Our refineries are limited. in their
> capacity to the point they can't meet production demands. So, marginal
> availability is the result, which drives up prices. Has every one
> running scared. Part of the oil scare right now is to try and drive
> through the development of ANWAR in Alaska. It is stupid! Alaska
> politicians are looking for another boondoggle circa 1970's. If you
> look around, the gulf of Mexico off the coast of Alabama has oil rig
> after oil rig after oil rig sitting out there with capped wells. They
> are simply not pumping. Same is true for Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, and
> parts of New Mexico, and I don't know where else. And then there are the
> shale oil fields that are in the western states, just waiting to be
> tapped. This oil thing is crazy. Add to that the fact that Alabama, and
> other Gulf coast states, as well as Alaska, have an absolutely untold
> amount of natural gas that could be tapped, liquified, and distributed,
> giving us a relatively contaminant free byproduct of combustion.
>
Where to start with this? There are a lot of reasons for the current,
short-term oil supply situation, too numerous to really get into. There
is, however, only a fixed amount of oil in existence. You can determine
the conditions and resources (biomass) needed to create oil and
determine the total possible amount that could exist. This has been
done. You can use various technologies to determine where you might
find oil and determine how much might be there. This has been done.
The length of time that our FIXED supply of oil will last depends on our
rate of consumption and how that changes over time. Most estimates put
that at 50-100 years. These are the undeniable facts of the long-term
supply situation.
Our ability to supply domestic gasoline is NOT limited by our refining
capacity; we have the infrastructure in place to handle that and can
relatively easily increase that capacity if need be.
There are valid reasons that American pumping stations and wells are
sitting idle. We have harvested all of the easily accessible oil, with
the exception of Alaska, in our American oil reserves. This is not to
say that we have no more oil left, just that what remains costs a great
deal more to pump out. This makes it relatively uncompetitive with
foreign oil sources. The western shale oil reserves are another
story. That oil is even more difficult to extract and requires the
pumping of water, steam, or some other material into the reserves to
force the oil out of the seams in the shale. This technique is FAR MORE
expensive than traditional pumping technologies. Of course, once the
price of oil gets to a point where it's economically feasible to pump
these more inaccessible reserves, we will do so. In the meantime,
though, it makes more sense to buy it from the middle-east.
Although it is a clean-burning and efficient source of energy,
relatively speaking, natural gas has its own set of problems, most
related to distribution and storage. It's much more volatile than crude
oil and gasoline, so there are more safety precautions that must be
observed when dealing with it.
> The fuel thing is manipulated to get the most money out of all of us. I
> believe that. If you had a refinery sitting in an oil field, why would
> the gasoline produced there cost (sell) for as much as gas produced
> anywhere else. Fuel costs increase the further they are distributed from
> the cracking plant. But get this......Alaskans pay the same prices for
> gasoline as those in the Lower 48 States. And they have the Cook Inlet
> Oil Fields in their backyard, and a Tesoro Cracking Plant right there.
> The plant takes the oil from the oil field - the oil platforms being
> with in eyesight of the refinery , cracks it, sends it 100 miles through
> a pipeline to Anchorage where it is delivered to various Distribution
> companies,- Shell, Texaco, Mapco, to name a few - and it is all the
> same gasoline from one plant. And Alaskans are charged the same price as
> if they were "Outside" buying gas in California or some where. Why??
> Because of "Rules" that allow the manipulation of the prices.
>
Yep, the prices are manipulated, but not necessarily to get the most
money from us as individuals. The costs are distributed over a much
larger infrastructure. It's the same kind of economic model that allows
us to have cable, phone service, and roads in remote locations where it
would not be economically feasible otherwise. If we were to allow
pricing that catered more to the local market, then we might as well be
50 independent countries rather than the United States. It may seem
locally unfair, but it's a much better system for the whole country.
Now, I'm not considering global influences on pricing here; that's
another issue that brings OPEC into the mix and that can be quite
illogical at times . . . :^)
> We Americans really can be stupid about things, sometimes.
>
Too true . . .
> OK, Rant over, and the soap box is put away.
>
> Regards,
>
> John Rodgers
> 88 GL DRiver
>
>
Guess I'll put away my soapbox for now too. This is a topic that I
relate to deeply and could go on and on and on about . . .
Marc Perdue
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