White House Explains Transport-Energy Future 358
blair1q writes "Today on the White House Blog, the President (ok, his staff) released an infographic showing various facts about transportation energy, and how current gas prices need not be so worrisome. Highlights include rapidly increasing domestic production and rapidly decreasing prices for electric-car batteries, requesting Congress to shift tax breaks from oil producers to wind/solar/geothermal energy producers, and increasing domestic oil production (yes, there's a conflict there)."
Domestic production? (Score:2, Insightful)
If you magically shifted to 100% domestic production overnight, at the current burn rate of 20 million barrels a day, the known reserves of 20 billion barrels would be all gone in 1000 days. Also known as "about 3 years". All gone forever. So be careful what you wish for.
Re:Domestic production? (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
134 billion barrels known, just requires more work/legislation to get at some of it. So 18 years. Still, your children would get to experience a Mad-Max style collapse of civilization.
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And that's not including oil shale and oil sands (which we'd need to annex Canada to get most of, but that's just a minor technicality).
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Oil shale is the Thunderdome of oil production: two barrels of oil go into making one come out.
-Masterblaster!
Re:Domestic production? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also not including the fact that the known global reserves keeps growing, not declining, despite our huge rate of consumption. In 1920, the world estimate was 60 billion barrels of reserves. In 1950, 600 billion barrels. From 1970 to 1990, estimates increased from 1,500 to 2,000 billion barrels. In 1994, the USGS estimated world reserves at 2,400 billion barrels. In 2000, the same estimate was raised to 3,000 barrels. Note that these estimates are not limited to "proved reserves" and only cover conventional crude. In short, we've been finding conventional crude faster than we've been taking it out of the ground, and faster than we've been expecting to find it -- at least in the long term.
There's a lot of distortion about oil reserves from the doomer crowd. For example, doomers love to point to graphs like this:
Link [rowetel.com]
Dear god! Run out and panic, right? Well, no. This graph is about as distorting as a graph can get. It's all based on backloading data. For each field, its current proven size is marked at the point in time when the field was discovered. What that should tell you is that regardless of however the actual rate of oil discoveries, you'd expect that shape on the graph! Oil fields aren't suddenly proven at their maximum capacity they're discovered. An oil field isn't proven until you start to produce from it, and there are even supergiants out there that we haven't started producing from yet. And the proven size continues to grow as you expand and explore the field. So for example, Ghawar, when it was first discovered in 1948, it was estimated to have "billions" of barrels. This grew to "60 billion barrels" in the 1970s. It's now produced 65 billion, and is estimated at 100 billion. Graphs like this backload that whole 100 billion to the 1940s.
It's trivially easy to disprove graphs like this. Let's just list some of the more noteworthy discoveries of the past decade or so. Jack 2 (3-15B), Noxal (~10B), Azadegan (~42B), Ferdows/Mound/Zagheh (~38B), Sugar Loaf (~25-40B), Tupi(5-8B), Jupiter(5-8B), West Kamchatka (10.3B), Tahe (29B), Jidong Nanpu (7.5B; potentially 146 in all of Bohai Bay), Kashagan (9-13B), and on and on. See those on the graph? But I guarantee you that a graph like that made a few decades from now will have them all conveniently showing up for this point in time.
There's this notion that "the biggest fields are found first, then everything else goes on the decline". Really? The US drilled its first well in 1859. It took us another 109 years to find Prudhoe Bay. And today we've got the absurdly massive Bakken field looming which back in the 1970s was assumed to be small and impossible to extract (Elm Coulee has proven otherwise). The same can be pointed to all over the world. Just simply pointing to Ghawar is not a counterexample. Look at coal; a single subsea coal deposit found off Norway in 2005 more than triples the world's known coal reserves [energybulletin.net]. Or natural gas -- Israel has spent pretty much its whole existence in a vain search for sizeable deposits of oil or natural gas, only to hit the motherlode last year. How is this sort of thing possible? Simple. New exploration tech beats the pants off old exploration tech; new production tech makes far more things that used to be unviable, viable; there's always more "down" (especially with advancing technology); and most of the world haven't even been surveyed at all or has been only poorly surveyed -- sometimes even in known oil-rich areas (a good example of this is Iraq, which due to decades of war and sanctions is poorly explored and has just been living off its earlier finds).
Hubbert Peaks are the epitamy of fitting a particular curve to whatever arbitrary dataset you want (sometimes by hand) and the insisting that it matches. The US is a popular one, but the best-fit curve for the US is closer to a poisson than a normal (the US oil production
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There's a lot of distortion about oil reserves from the doomer crowd.
Of course there's no distortion from oil companies who's stock price is partially based on the size of the reserves they control. Nor is there any distortion from the Saudi's and other oil producing hell-holes, who's only leverage in international politics is the size of their reserves.
Re:zounds wall of text (Score:4, Insightful)
all the easily accessible, cheap energy has been found
Rei posted some real facts to the contrary. You reply by just blindy asserting this - is this a religion to you or something? Cause this reads so much like the posts asserting the evolution must be BS.
is it reasonable to argue that peak oil is a bit further out than now? sure. but you seem to be arguing that oil/gas/coal are infinite in supply.
Rei is arguing that for all of human history the "oil peak" has moved out by more than one year per year. That's a simple, checkable fact. That's not saying it will never come, only that there's no data about when it wil come.
The "oil peak" isn't necessarily a problem - eventually there will be some source of power so cheap that no one would dream of using oil for power. The interesting question is whether a marvelous new power source is invented before or after the ultimate limit on the oil supply matters. One thing's for sure the more expensive oil becomes, the more motivation there is to fins/use somehting better. The solution to high commodity prices has and always will be high commodity proces.
Re:zounds wall of text (Score:4, Insightful)
I personally am not worried so much about how much oil is left. I'm worried about the pattern we're in with respect to it. It's polluting our planet and causing wars, regardless of the amount you say exists worldwide. I'm hoping we can get nuclear fusion working. Cheap, nearly unlimited energy would be a huge boon to all of us. Except the oil companies in the short run, but even they would benefit, taken as a collective of individuals.
Actually, it's your oil companies that are investing the most in other forms of energy. These guys know that as soon as a "better" form of energy is found, they are out of business. If they are the ones to discover this new form of energy, they put their competitors out of business.
I know everyone likes to call the "oil companies" or "big oil", but the fact is, these are "energy companies". Oil just happens to offer the best profit margin right now. If cars and plants start to run on milk, oil companies will gladly become dairy farmers.
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You'd be wrong. Texas is actually a purple state, slightly blue, that was gerrymandered into a red state.
(but then I'm a Texan)
Yeah. That's why the state has voted for Republican candidates in statewide elections like senator or presidential for the last... what... 30 years?
Actually, I looked [270towin.com] it up. The last time Texas went Democrat in a Presidential election was 1976.
Now, sure. No state is completely red or completely blue, but I think it's safe to say that Texas is has a LOT more red than blue mixed in.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]
134 billion barrels known, just requires more work/legislation to get at some of it. So 18 years. Still, your children would get to experience a Mad-Max style collapse of civilization.
Well, with the increase of production, oil prices would drop substantially. With lower oil prices, we could tax imported oil by the barrel and still have us paying less at the pump. Take the money you make from taxing imported oil by the barrel and invest that money into "green energy" research. With that much money invested, we will either find a cheap, sustainable energy source or it there's not one to be found and we're all screwed anyway.
*Note: The reason you tax imported oil only is to spur domesti
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Sorry, can't tax imports. That would be against WTO rules.
Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to put our collective futures into the hands of the WTO in the name of open and free trade. We have seen now how free trade works - it is neither open nor free when your trading partners simply have a complete block on importing most anything for various cultural and quality reasons. So we have this huge trade imbalance that can't ever be resolved.
And for some reason, we are still in the WTO. Until we ge
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Mad-Max style collapse
Disagree.
That sort of future didn't seem to have any alternatives. Just an ever-dwindling supply of go-juice.
We, both deliberately and through natural economic forces, are moving towards energy systems that can give us mobility without raising the cost of a gallon of gas to a literal arm and a leg.
The most important stat on that graphic is the learning curve of pricing for the car batteries. It's got a half-life of about 2 years. About 3-5X as fast as I thought it might be. That's an implosion of the co
Already hit peak oil... Mad-Max didn't happen (Score:2)
Saw this recently:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/02/environmental-fixes-all-greens-lost [guardian.co.uk]
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Re:Domestic production? (Score:4, Funny)
"Still, your children would get to experience a Mad-Max style collapse of civilization."
Just move to Detroit and beat the crowd!
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Replace 2/3 % of the gas guzzlers with non-gas guzzlers and you end up saving 2/3 % of the gas.
Is that not supposed to work out that way? You're expecting some amplification?
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What cars use is a drop in the bucket compared to ocean going vessels, powerplants, plastic production and everything else Oil is used for.
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1. Ocean going vessels burn bunker oil
2. powerplants don't burn oil normally, that is the most expensive thing you could use coal and gas are far cheaper
3. plastic can be made from other sources, or more likely glass will make a comeback
Anybody believe this? (Score:2, Informative)
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How do we expect to continue increasing oil production when he's not approving permits? The fact is, people are not going to be able to afford heating oil and gas for their home this winter.
the good news is, if all the poor people freeze to death next winter we can finally hear about something else whenever domestic policy is discussed.
much as you "progressives" like to talk about your love and compassion for the poor fact is, if there were no poor you wouldn't have a political platform. something that would actually help the poor stop being poor would mean no more winning elections for you. do the math. who benefits from poverty more than politicians who use it as their core campaign issue
Re:Anybody believe this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone modded this down to -1 but honestly, I'd like an answer to this question myself. It really is a simple question. It's also a legitimate question. Answering a legitimate question would be much more respectable than modding it down and hoping it goes away like an insecure person. So, is anyone of the Progressive persuasion willing to put numbers to this?
Of course, I say that knowing that in politics you don't advance your career by actually solving problems so that they aren't problems anymore. There's not much "political capital" to be gained in coming up with solutions, particularly not practical and relatively simple solutions that don't require the creation of new bureaus to perpetually administer. But I'm not a politician and neither is anyone who is likely to respond, so I am hoping to receive a real answer here that I won't see in the media anytime soon.
What I want is for someone who truly believes in Progressivism to attempt a real answer at this question, even if you sincerely feel that no politician is adequately representing your position: at what point would you be satisfied and feel that you have gotten everything you wanted with regard to the tax code?
I usually try not to be this blunt but it's appropriate this time: anyone who knee-jerks and feels an overwhelming temptation to respond with something like "but the other party did so and so" should frankly shut up because the adults are talking. Tired of wading through the "us against them" noise whenever a serious question is asked.
Re:Anybody believe this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone modded this down to -1 but honestly, I'd like an answer to this question myself. It really is a simple question. It's also a legitimate question. Answering a legitimate question would be much more respectable than modding it down and hoping it goes away like an insecure person. So, is anyone of the Progressive persuasion willing to put numbers to this?
It was posted AC. They are guilty until proven innocent as far as trolling is concerned.
What I want is for someone who truly believes in Progressivism to attempt a real answer at this question, even if you sincerely feel that no politician is adequately representing your position: at what point would you be satisfied and feel that you have gotten everything you wanted with regard to the tax code?
I believe in income redistribution when it comes to the tax code. Let me get that out right up front. Globalization has been very good to the United States. I have not seen any economists argue that we should have or should now economically isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. But, the middle class and lower class has not benefited from Globalization. All the money and power has gone to the Upper-Middle and Upper classes. That is why income inequality is so high in this country. In the 60s and 70s, the difference between a CEO salary and the average worker salary was something like 20:1 or 30:1. Now it is somewhere around 300:1. They are getting most of the benefits from our system of government. Why should they not shoulder the higher tax burden?
My view of the "American Dream" is that it should not matter where you start in life. If you are the best, smartest, and hardest working then you should be able to become one of the richest. And you can measure this by measuring Intergenerational Mobility [wikipedia.org]. And you find that the US ranks pretty low on the list. If you are rich in the US, then your descendants probably will be as well, no matter how stupid or lazy they are.
The tax system that I would theoretically like to have (though would have no idea the best way to actually implement it) would be one that aims to have a income distribution in the population (most likely would be a poisson distribution). If the rich are getting richer, and the middle class is getting left behind, then the rich should be taxed more (relatively). If there are not enough poor people, then the middle class should be taxed more (relatively). I am leaving out of the discussion how much taxes we should aim to collect. I am positing a system that stays revenue neutral. Now, I still want poor people. I think that we should build in opportunities for them to make something of themselves, but I still want people to be motivated to work knowing that if they don't their life will be uncomfortable. But, I also want the working man to have the incentive to work real hard, knowing that a few rich families at the top do not have a monopoly on real wealth. I do not want to assign an arbitrary tax percentage that is "enough". It is enough when it makes this a better country.
Also, I want to correct the previous post. The 40% do not "not only pay no taxes but actually get credits". They get a credit on their federal income taxes. They still pay FICA taxes (medicare and social security) which account for 15% if you count what the employer has to "match". They also pay sales taxes, possible state income taxes, gas taxes, property taxes, and whatever other taxes there are. I would also like to point out that those taxes tend to be regressive taxes. So, as a percentage of income, the middle class and below pays a much higher amount of tax than the upper class does.
I hope that was the kind of response you were asking for.
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The question:
Please explain how I am getting more benefit now than I was before.
The answer:
by a mere tripling of my income
Re:Anybody believe this? (Score:4, Insightful)
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1) They have approximately 80% of the wealth.
2) Income tax is a giant red herring. Income tax its those who are well-off hard, but not the super-wealthy. It's capital gains that hit the super-wealthy, and only at a measly 15 for long-term capital gains. Anyone here remember the challenge to Fortune 500 CEOs to demonstrate that their secretary pays a lower percent of their net income in taxes than they do?
Re:Anybody believe this? (Score:4, Informative)
They do, actually. If you come up negative, the tax return you receive after filing is greater than the sum total of income taxes you paid that year. Though technically they probably won't cut you a check. In most cases they will deposit the money electronically into your account. So maybe that was your point?
Jests aside, it's a form of welfare though we strongly prefer not to call it that. It'd be easier for us all to admit that there's something seriously wrong with our economic system if mass media openly acknowledged that some 40% or more of all adults are receiving a type of federal welfare. Most people who work for a living, pay their bills, etc. would like to feel independent, and would not like to think of themselves as welfare recipients.
A more neutral (though also loaded) term would be "redistribution of wealth". Euphemisms like that help keep the average person from realizing that we're seriously doing something wrong. That, in turn, preserves the status quo and that seems to be the only thing that matters to the people who run the show.
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Unless you're talking about the EITC, no, they don't. They simply refund you what you had withheld, nothing more. If you're talking the EITC, that's not anywhere *close* to 40% of the public. In 2004, it was about 7% of the population [irs.gov] who claimed it, and most of those did not receive more back than they spent on income tax alone, let alone all taxes combined (EITC was designed to offset payroll taxes). The number of people getting more back than they spent on all taxes combined, including local and sta
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1) Have you ever even filed your own taxes? Do you not know how tax credits work? You make it sound like you think that the government cuts you a check if you come up negative.
Have you ever filed a 1040ez? The Earned Income Credit says just that:
"The Earned Income Tax Credit or the EITC is a refundable federal income tax credit for low to moderate income working individuals and families. Congress originally approved the tax credit legislation in 1975 in part to offset the burden of social security taxes and to provide an incentive to work. When EITC exceeds the amount of taxes owed, it results in a tax refund to those who claim and qualify for the credit."
http://www.irs.gov/in [irs.gov]
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You want an answer? It stops when there are no rich people or poor people.
I want unicorns and ponies to fly out of Janet Napolitano's ass too. Just about as likely to happen. You want a change in basic human nature. As long as humans are human, there will always be rich and poor.
Capitalism is actually the best system ever known for lifting poor people out of poverty and empowering them. It has lifted more people out of poverty and given more of them a higher standard of living and greater economic power than any other system in the history of mankind. It's what enabled the US t
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How do we expect to continue increasing oil production when he's not approving permits? The fact is, people are not going to be able to afford heating oil and gas for their home this winter.
Yeesh!
Better stock up on insulation!
http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=tax_credits.tx_index [energystar.gov]
Re:Anybody believe this? (Score:4, Informative)
Obama administration approves fourth Gulf deepwater drilling permit [thehill.com]
Um... It is about EROEI (Score:4, Informative)
The amount of energy you get out compared to the amount you put in.
Oil from Saudi huge. Oil from Canada, not so much.
The lower EROEI is, the larger the proportion of the economy must be dedicated to energy production.
Re:Um... It is about EROEI (Score:4, Interesting)
Good. Consider it a jobs program. The benefits of efficiency accrue only to the wealthy anyway, so what should the rest of us care?
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There's a lot of labor going in to that expensive equipment, much (most?) of it to American manufacturers like Caterpillar. Jobs will be created one way or another.
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"The benefits of efficiency accrue only to the wealthy anyway"
You are so very right in this in any system where a bit of "green" technology is swapped in like a spare part for a broken, crazy machine. We're not going to get anywhere by switching a bulb or an appliance or a way to keep doing something with a huge waste of electricity.
If we designed our homes with the mind for convection and efficiency that we're designing our servers, and took advantage of the energy that's already there, we'd not need to w
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All that works great when you have a bit of land to put the house on. While I won't say that when you are trying to fit a 1200 square foot home on a 1400 square foot lot only current construction techniques are possible, I will say that having walls two feet thick isn't going to work out all that well.
I think the first step is to empty out the cities and reduce the US population to around 10 million people. Then we can start talking about sustainable construction and green, environmentally friendly living
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The GP is saying the amount of energy you get out compared to the energy used in extraction is greater for Saudi oil than for Canadian oil.
This has nothing in particular to do with how much oil we buy from either country.
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Go look up the word fungible. After that come back and talk to the grownups.
Something blowing (in the wind) (Score:3)
And then charge us for how many miles we drive because gas consumption decreases. As discussed yesterday. [slashdot.org] Move us to clean energy and then tax the wind.
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And then charge us for how many miles we drive because gas consumption decreases. As discussed yesterday. [slashdot.org] Move us to clean energy and then tax the wind.
Or not, for those with a clue [slashdot.org]. But sure, if those conspiracy theories are what give meaning to your life, keep believing them.
Is there anything in there about suburbs? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see anything in the graphic about urban planning. If they incentivized development near light rail hubs and discouraged car-dependant suburban development it would do a lot.
First, there's the carrot of new development projects. There's the houses themselves, and the light rail. Secondly, don't tax the suburbs as that would be very unpopular and counterproductive. Instead, simply give Federal money to jurisdictions based on their ability to reduce non-walkable development. This would reduce the *supply* of this type of development. Buyers who still want 0.25 acres of grass and a 5 mile drive to the store would see their home values increase due to the supply side effect.
Done right, we could kill two birds with one stone: The real estate slump, and gasoline consumption.
Re:Is there anything in there about suburbs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just use the Reverse Pol Pot method, forcibly relocate the population to hives, and empty the countryside.
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The existing concept of the suburb is crazy and wasteful, especially with all the irrigated and chemically sprayed lawns, but you have only to turn those lawns into food gardens, to get neighbors talking, to set up things like "tool libraries" to share resources that a lot of people are up to their ears in, and make some space for people to enjoy being - and then, you get zero food miles, reduced transportation costs, and given good land management an eco-positive development.
Most of our best soil is covere
Re:Is there anything in there about suburbs? (Score:4, Informative)
Imagine if there was no FDR, the recession of 1929 could go the route of the recession of 1921 and there would be no public projects and no Great Depression (which is not going to seem so great once the current one really hits with the debt and currency crisis).
Which just shows that you're out of your gourd.
You're just a fear-mongering conservative trying to push your agenda, or have succumb to that ilk. Who modded this up?
What alternative universe are you living in? (Score:4, Insightful)
When the stock market crashed in October of 1929, Herbert Hoover was in office. Other than the notable exception of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, his response to the Great Depression was for the most part to do nothing and let the economy take care of itself. He refused to run a budget deficit, and didn't use federal money to stimulate the economy. In fact, he was such a deficit hawk that he ended up raising taxes in order to keep the budget balanced with declining revenues.
FDR was inaugurated March 4, 1933, and by this time the economy was a complete basket case. This was over three years and three months after the market crash of 1929, so your suggestion that FDR's policies turned a small correction into the Great Depression is simply wrong. The US was already three years into the depression, and Hoover's relative inaction, which for the most part would have made today's Ann Rand acolytes happy, clearly didn't allow the economy to heal itself as you suggest.
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You are correct, that following the market crash of 1929 the US stopped printing for a little while and that Hoover was in office.
However the monetary expansion just before the crash was the largest in US history, as USA was propping up UK pound and buying UK debt.
Also do not forget what the Federal reserve did in 1929 right after the crash. The Fed doubled the holdings of government securities, added over $150 million in reserves and discounted $200 million for member banks. They bailed out the wall stree
Re:Is there anything in there about suburbs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine a world with no government interference -- with no long private railroads (no eminent domain, no free land parcels out west, no westwards expansion). Imagine a world where cars are always slow (no roads mean no cars; no cars mean no roads). Imagine a world with no sewers, and no telephone (telephones are possible only because of telegraphs; telegraphs are only possible because of the railroads).
But imagine a world with lots smallpox, diptheria, and polio. A world with short, nasty lives. A world with plenty of Victorian virtues like polluted water and air, and childen living and dying in poverty.
Yup, that's the world for me!
Re:Is there anything in there about suburbs? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey, I like Switzerland too. One of my favorite places in the world. Government is a bit distrusting of the outside world, but people are nice. Oh wait, did I say it had a government? Surely from all your comments that government kills everything it touches, Switzerland can't possibly be any good place to live. I mean, it has an official Chronometer agency. Surely that means that all swiss chronometers are the dregs of the watch world? Or the fact that there's a motorway tax designed to fund roadways means that there are nothing but suburbs and everyone drives 2 hours to work? And are you sure you don't resent the government telling you what kind of tires to equip when? And that's just government interference I can quote from the top of my head.
The fact that Switzerland is less idiotic about its laws than the US has nothing to do with the amount of government in play and all to do with what citizens consider important when voting for politicians.
And in case you haven't noticed: your message is what makes it impossible to take you seriously. Man. Are you sure you mentioned to your neighbors what you think is the ideal government? They might want to have a word with you.
Don't worry, be happy! (Score:2, Insightful)
I never thought I'd see a President pretty much ACTUALLY SAY THAT.
Obama's an amalgam of the worst of Jimmy Carter, Bush I, and Bush II.
Does that mean we're going to be lucky enough to have Hope and Change limited to four years?
Restrict oil speculation (Score:5, Insightful)
If the commodities speculators weren't running amok, the price of gas (and every other commodity) would come down. I read somewhere recently that oil speculators add $.70 to the price of a gallon of gas at the pump.
Re:Restrict oil speculation (Score:4, Interesting)
I read it in a Slashdot comment.
Is your source more reliable than that?
(A company like Southwest Airlines is a huge oil speculator, they spend money today to make sure that a certain amount of their future supply is available at a predictable price. Is the benefit Southwest gets from that activity really such an evil thing?)
Not a speculation problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Speculation does not exist in a magic vacuum. For every point speculated for higher prices, there's essentially someone else who speculated a point for lower prices. You can't make a bet with no one, you need someone to take that bet.
Don't believe the excuse of the day meant to distract from the government's failures.
If you want to lower price, think taxes. Direct taxes on gas average 50 cents per gallon. On top of that, the oil companies are heavily taxed, Exxon alone paid over $26 billion last year in taxes, half its profits. Who pays corporate income tax in the end? You do, by paying more for that corporation's products.
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Sounds great, gas will be cheap and we will have no roads on which to drive our cars. Any other genius ideas?
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If you want to lower price, think taxes. Direct taxes on gas average 50 cents per gallon.
In my country, the tax is about US$5 per gallon.
Your government failed by tying you to your cars. For many people in Europe a car is a common luxury, a convenience, but not a necessity.
(Also, where do you thing those 50s go? They don't just disappear, if there was no gas tax the money would need to come from somewhere else.)
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I just found out this week that the US government has been spending money from the gas taxes on mass transit while letting the road infrastructure suffer at the same time they're bleating about not having enough tax money to keep the roads in good repair. So in a sense that 50 cents did disappear. It hasn't all gone into road maintenance, that's for sure.
The federal government needs to stop wasting the money on mass transit that no one rides. If that mass transit was, you know, actually useful and desirable
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Re:Not a speculation problem (Score:4, Informative)
The price is set by supply and demand. When demand far exceeds supply, as it does with oil, taxes don't figure into the price, they just cut into the oil company's very substantial profits.
I don't know where you come up with the $26 billion figure. What I have found is Exxon claiming they pay substantial taxes and proving it by pointing to sales taxes and payroll taxes.
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Government loves to blame everybody else for the inflation the government is causing by printing money.
Speculators enter markets that are hot, they do not create these markets. The markets for commodities become hot because of all the money that the government prints.
The real culprit - Federal reserve of USA as well as other national banks, which peg their currencies to the US dollar (what a joke of a 'reserve' that is.)
Sure, speculators can increase volatility in the market, but they also do at least 4 oth
Side note (Score:3, Insightful)
Im not saying that we all have to go out and buy a hybrid or electric vehicle. I would caution against it. It is still expensive to manufacture those batteries and i dont think that the technology isn't there yet. Wait a few years.
Just as a tip for saving money, don't drive as much. Carpool, dust off that old bike in your garage, take the bus or train, even walk. These are all alternate modes of transportation and are a lot cheaper then driving. I personally make the effort to ride my bike more miles then I drive in a week and as a result i can fill up about once a month.
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I blame moronic urban planning for much of the late 20th century that forever locked us into the suburban, car-addicted model.
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A mazda2 can be had for $10k or so, are you suggesting that larger cars are free?
I'll bite (Score:2)
Now i certainly could get that down to one refill a week if i tried some alternate forms of transportation. Let's see, the commute to work is definitely well over half of my fuel usage so i'd have to start there. I don't have a bike, but if i was willing to buy one and learn how to use it Google maps
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The multi-vehicle solution works well for me. Ride a motorcycle when that's the best choice, drive the F-150 when that's the best choice, or use the 460-powered F-250 for heavier hauling.
One new hybrid would cost more than many years of fuel and wouldn't be nearly as versatile. I'm a mechanic and would love to have a hybrid or PHEV to play with, have the cash to buy it outright, but that's not an economic choice at the moment.
Timing (Score:4, Insightful)
If the tax breaks are eliminated, or decreased, before we are fully prepared with alternative energy sources what do you think will happen. We will pay the difference at the pump, is my opinion.
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If there is no market pressure to actually prepare the alternatives, then the government will have to pay the full cost of research, development, and deployment of the alternatives. Reducing the subsidies on gas prices will gradually push the market in the right direction so that economic forces can decide the best alternatives, rather than the politics of research and development grants. Artificially-low gas prices only perpetuate the current state of using more fossil fuels and depressing investment in
This will all be solved shortly... (Score:2)
Rare earth minerals? (Score:2)
I didn't see anything in his presentation about the rare earth minerals that are (currently) needed to produce all of those "green" electric cars. Does the US have enough rare earth reserves to put all of these cars on the road, or will we be dependent on China?
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you have more than enough but due to some Nimby's you cant mine them....
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You necessarily don't need lots of rare earth elements to make an electric car. Sure, when Toyota was designing the Prius in the mid 1990s, they chose to go with rare-earth magnets in their motors because they were the latest, fanciest, lightest magnets you could buy. On the other hand, Tesla Motors (and other companies) in the 2000s took a more cautious direction and built their propulsion motors without permanent magnets, therefore using no rare-earth elements there (the power windows probably still hav
This entire graph is built on a series of lies (Score:3, Interesting)
First, we already know from various scientific papers, that you can use wind energy to provide power for full scale freight trains in Canada, using fuel cell engines, and do so while reducing both carbon emissions and particulate pollution. Economies of scale kick in, you just split the H20 into fuel cell engine components at the wind farms along the route, which also allows you to handle the variable nature of wind.
Second, it supposes that our insane blockade of Cuba and other countries cane ethanol will continue, and that we will continue to divert corn food/feed crops to ethanol with massive farm and energy subsidies that are unsustainable - the most anti-capitalist thing we could be doing.
Third, it assumes that our country won't shift from using mostly air travel (high energy) to rail travel along the dense urban corridors in the East, South, and West. It also ignores Boeing's and SA's and Airbus higher mpg planes and jets and the use of turboprops and algae/switchgrass biodiesel to get twice the air miles using mostly alternative non-oil-based jet and turboprop fuels.
It is an insane plan written by deadenders who fail to understand that the world has already changed, and that all our exports and imports already have a carbon tax imposed on them - when we sell to NZ, Australia, Canada, Mexico, South America, and the EU we get charged for our lack of a carbon tax and end up paying a higher amount of taxes on the exports - and the imports already have a carbon tax built into them, which we don't get a refund for, since we lack a carbon tax.
EPIC FAIL.
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First, we already know from various scientific papers, that you can use wind energy to provide power for full scale freight trains in Canada, using fuel cell engines, and do so while reducing both carbon emissions and particulate pollution. Economies of scale kick in, you just split the H20 into fuel cell engine components at the wind farms along the route, which also allows you to handle the variable nature of wind.
Can you point to some of these papers? In particular the wind-power one. Large scale wind farms are just that - large scale so I'm curious how maintenance of a thousand turbines fits into the economics. Plus I'd like to see studies about environmental effects of these large scale wind farms.
Second, it supposes that our insane blockade of Cuba and other countries cane ethanol will continue, and that we will continue to divert corn food/feed crops to ethanol with massive farm and energy subsidies that are unsustainable - the most anti-capitalist thing we could be doing.
Agreed - using food crops for fuel is a bad idea in many ways and is likely a net loss in energy.
Third, it assumes that our country won't shift from using mostly air travel (high energy) to rail travel along the dense urban corridors in the East, South, and West.
The graph only goes out to 2030 - there's not likely going to be a large scale shift to rail by then because there's likely
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There is not much maintenance on wind turbines these days. The environmental impact is damn low since the blades are honking huge so the birds avoid them.
Oil company "subsidies" (Score:4, Informative)
Detailed here [powerlineblog.com]:
1) oil depletion allowance, [which is only available to smaller, independent companies, not "big oil"]
2) expensing indirect drilling costs, [which is an accelerated expensing schedule. It changes the timing of expense writeoffs, not the amount.] and
3) a tax credit for taxes paid to foreign nations during foreign operations (foreign tax credit) [which every multinational company gets, not just oil companies.]
When you hear about oil company "subsidies", this is what they're talking about.
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4) free military interventions in oil-rich but politically unfriendly nations.
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Don't forget minimum parking requirements and non-user fees (sales taxes, etc.) used to finance freeway construction!
Save $3000 (Score:3)
I like the fact they post that the more efficient mileage will save $3000 over the life of the car. So I should spend $15000 more than I just spent so I can save $3000. Doesn't sound like a good deal to me.
BTW, I went from car that averaged 30 mpg to one that averages 20. I enjoy having 300hp vs 130hp, and not having car payments.
How far we (should) have come... (Score:2)
It still floors me how far we've come in the last 20 years in the computer industry. By comparison, we should be beam-me-up-Scotty teleporting by now, or at least running 1000% more efficient than 30MPG. Gee, I wonder which one of the greedy fuckers in the oil industry is paying off anyone and everyone to keep all that technology under wraps.
Oh, and nice collection of industry-stifling patents you got there too...
Who made that graphic? (Score:2)
I got my Leaf a few weeks ago, and that graphic looks like it came right off the Leaf customer web site (where you login to see all the data the Leaf uploads about energy usage etc, "Carwings"): the colors, the style, the fonts.
Not that I disagree with it...just sayin'...
Yet these jerks were crawling up GWBs ass (Score:3)
about prices when they exceeded $3 and nearly had a cow when they were at $4.
Just wow.
They don't concern themselves with current gas prices; watch this change in months leading to the election; because it doesn't fit their model. See, we, the public are too ignorant, too stupid, etc, to do what is right so those who are obviously much smarter than us have to "hurt" us because they love us so much, even though we don't really deserve it.
The sad part is, the people who propose policies rarely would ever adhere to them for their personal consumption. Thats for the little people, leaders need exceptions to rules and laws to be effective, y'know, after all they are so much better and smarter.
Smart to Import Oil (Score:5, Interesting)
Nuclear (Score:3)
Cold fusion and/or nanosolar anyone? (Score:3)
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2011/05/swedish-skeptics-confirm-nuclear-process-in-tiny-4-7-kw-reactor [renewableenergyworld.com]
http://www.nanosolar.com/power-plants/technology-advantages [nanosolar.com]
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You think the rug pissers did this?
Re:Lower Taxes & Cut Regulations. Poison the E (Score:4, Insightful)
There are no "tax handouts" to the oil companies. Oil companies can depreciate their oilfield assets just like any industrial company can depreciate long-term tangible investments (factories, mines, etc). That's all.
Re:Lower Taxes & Cut Regulations. Poison the E (Score:5, Informative)
So how do I parse these "liberal guys" from CATO, published in Forbes, saying that [forbes.com] oil and gas firms get special tax breaks?
Or this guy over at The Volokh Conspiracy claiming that [volokh.com]:
Because, I wouldn't want to look dumb and uneducated, thereby hurting my claim.
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$ perl -p -e 's/liberal/OTHERGUY/g; s/conservative/liberal/g; s/OTHERGUY/conservative/g;'
Hey don't let facts get in the way of a good liberal rant. If you backup their claims with facts they will look dumb and uneducated. Thus hurt their primary claim that I am liberal because I am smarter then the conservatives.
Hey don't let facts get in the way of a good conservative rant. If you backup their claims with facts they will look dumb and uneducated. Thus hurt their primary claim that I am conservative because I am smarter then the liberals.
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Re:Lower Taxes & Cut Regulations. Poison the E (Score:4, Interesting)
If Obama's energy strategy doesn't involve tax handouts to the oil companies and shortsighted environmental rules then I don't support it.
Of course, I'm retarded so I was probably going to vote for a Republican anyway...
The retards (or if you want to be polite, the misled) are the ones who keep supporting this Democrat-Republican duopoly that's gotten us nowhere, eroded liberty, and steadily run the nation into the ground for the last several decades. They don't even pretend to be our servants anymore.
Granted, it's a masterpiece of social engineering because it exploits a few simple principles without trying to be overly elaborate. It's classic divide-and-conquer: get the voters bickering over relatively trivial issues, each "side" thinking the other "side" is a bunch of morons who don't understand the facts, meanwhile all of the important decisions are made by the corporatocracy which can afford media campaigns, lobbyists, and real representation. It exploits the baser facets of human nature that date back to our hunter-gatherer days: members of my group good, outsiders bad, us against them. Isn't it funny how the status quo never really changes, it just becomes more so, just moves farther down the path it's already on? This is why.
Here's the failure of basing an educational system on memorization and authority instead of principle and discovery: most people would recognize why a duopoly with a stranglehold on an entire market is undesirable, why it guarantees that customers get screwed. Those same people need to have it pointed out to them that a duopoly with a strangehold on the entire political process is worse, that with money and power the stakes are higher than with money alone, that the voters get screwed quite badly.
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Of course, I'm retarded so I was probably going to vote for a Republican anyway...
Why are such childish arguments usually made by those attacking Republicans? I wonder if it's simply the age disparity; kids tend to be liberal, adults conservative.
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Kids can't vote so I don't believe you are correct on that one.
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What's retarded is that we can be virtually assured any new strategy will be devoid of meaningful investment in viable alternative fuels.
We might see more good money thrown after bad (ethanol) but we aren't going to see a Manhattan/Apollo project around cheap full electric vehicles and corresponding upgrades to the power grid, which is what we really need.
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Lets get tax credits for every mile that we ride on a bicycle. That should help solve these problems.
Mark
Great idea! You could put an odometer on my bicycle and pay me for every mile I ride and save the world!
Pay no attention to that modified lawn mower engine hooked up to that bike over there.
Re:Can we please get bicycle tax credits? (Score:5, Informative)
Lets get tax credits for every mile that we ride on a bicycle. That should help solve these problems.
Mark
Already done since 2009: http://www.bikeleague.org/news/100708faq.php [bikeleague.org]
Ask your employer about it!