Interesting Art. on Oil...

motordavid · #1 07-07-2008, 10:07 AM

Continuing the OilDebbilDilemma threads; this is from Sunday's NewYawkTimes, which I realize is not the "conservative bastion"
of the press. But, pretty well written, even as the very long art.
veers off on politicians making "changes", 50 mpg driving around
a Euro country the size of one of our small states, etc., "who's
to blame", and on and on. Rather than C&P the entire art., (as it
is long), I have posted some, imo, interesting segements ...

Link should take you to the article, for the non "15 second fix" readers
here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/bu...pagewanted=all

American Energy Policy, Asleep at the Spigot

JUST three years ago, with oil trading at a seemingly frothy $66 a barrel, David J. O’Reilly made what many experts considered a risky bet. Outmaneuvering Chinese bidders and ignoring critics who said he overpaid, Mr. O’Reilly, the chief executive of Chevron, forked over $18 billion to buy Unocal, a giant whose riches date back to oil fields made famous in the film “There Will Be Blood.”

For Chevron, the deal proved to be a movie-worthy gusher, helping its profits to soar. And while he has warned about tightening energy supplies for years and looks prescient for buying Unocal, even Mr. O’Reilly says that he still can’t get his head around current oil prices, which closed above $145 a barrel on Thursday, a record.

“We can see how you can get to $100,” he says. “At $140, I just don’t know how to explain it. We’re surprised.”

For the rest of the country, the feeling is more like shock. As gasoline prices climb beyond $4 a gallon, Americans are rethinking what they drive and how and where they live. Entire industries are reeling — airlines and automakers most prominent among them — and gas prices have emerged as an important issue in the presidential campaign.

Ninety percent of Americans, meanwhile, expect the pain at the pump to pose a financial hardship in the next six months, according to a recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll. Stocks now trade inversely to crude prices, and the Dow Jones industrials are in bear-market territory. Old icons have been written off, with Starbucks boasting nearly twice the market value of General Motors, which some on Wall Street say faces the possibility of bankruptcy.

Outside the thriving oil patch, it makes for a bleak economic picture. But it didn’t have to be this way.

Over the last 25 years, opportunities to head off the current crisis were ignored, missed or deliberately blocked, according to analysts, politicians and veterans of the oil and automobile industries. What’s more, for all the surprise at just how high oil prices have climbed, and fears for the future, this is one crisis we were warned about. Ever since the oil shortages of the 1970s, one report after another has cautioned against America’s oil addiction.

Even as politicians heatedly debate opening new regions to drilling, corralling energy speculators, or starting an Apollo-like effort to find renewable energy supplies, analysts say the real source of the problem is closer to home. In fact, it’s parked in our driveways.

Nearly 70 percent of the 21 million barrels of oil the United States consumes every day goes for transportation, with the bulk of that burned by individual drivers, according to the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan research group that advises Congress.

...In any event, added drilling is unlikely to generate sharply lower prices. A recent study by the federal government’s Energy Information Administration estimated that under the best-case scenario opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would reduce prices by $1.44 a barrel by 2027. Drilling in broader swaths off the continental United States wouldn’t affect prices until 2030.

* * * * *

A long art., and a touch fragmented, but it gives one a sense of how complex, interconnected,
convoluted and screwed up, our approach to energy, energy consumption is, and the politicos/experts
who think they can "fix" it.
BR,mD

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JCL · #2 07-07-2008, 08:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by motordavid

Nearly 70 percent of the 21 million barrels of oil the United States consumes every day goes for transportation, with the bulk of that burned by individual drivers, according to the National Commission on Energy Policy, a bipartisan research group that advises Congress.

...In any event, added drilling is unlikely to generate sharply lower prices. A recent study by the federal government’s Energy Information Administration estimated that under the best-case scenario opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would reduce prices by $1.44 a barrel by 2027. Drilling in broader swaths off the continental United States wouldn’t affect prices until 2030.

Thanks for the article, MD.

It is overly simple, but if we want the price of oil to go down, we have to use less of it. That's it. No investment in diesels, or extra drilling, or conspiracy theory about speculators, matters as much as the fact that we use too much for transportation. We have made urban planning choices in our cities that require the use of the private automobile simply to get by. That has to change. We complain about the lack of public transport, but continue to build suburbs that public transport cannot efficiently serve.

I think there is a direct analogy here to overeating, and complaining about our clothes not fitting. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat less than you burn every day. All the miracle diets, supplements, magic cures, are similar to the miracle fuel price cures. Just drive less. The challenge is that unlike dieting, we have to do this one collectively. That could be a challenge, given the current level of political leadership being exhibited across the spectrum.

AzX5 · #3 07-07-2008, 08:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JCL

Thanks for the article, MD.

It is overly simple, but if we want the price of oil to go down, we have to use less of it. That's it. .............. Just drive less. The challenge is that unlike dieting, we have to do this one collectively. That could be a challenge, given the current level of political leadership being exhibited across the spectrum.

that will help drive down the price. That and convincing the rest of the world (i.e. China & India) to use less of it too. Then we can drive more to drive the price back up again.

Wagner · #4 07-07-2008, 08:48 PM

I don't believe increased drilling is suppose to "lower prices" more so stabilize US interests

The media needs to stop the 'we could lower prices if..' non-sense, the only way to lower prices is to increase supply. Sorry folks, demand will not change. You aren't going to stop India and China from growing

You either increase oil, or get off it as an energy product. Either way, it isn't coming soon no matter what a politician may say. So the question is, how do you cope with the price changes? I think everyone can agree that oil as a commodity interest that is traded is WAY too volatile. What other product has daily 1-3% swings in value constantly?

I don't know about the rest of ya, but my driving consists of going to work and coming home...if I drove less...I wouldn't have a job...maybe you are all out joyriding...

Fill up our truck once every 2 weeks, fill up my daily driver once every week and a half. Not to mention that AAA is recording record drops in motorists on the highway, I guess I'm just not sure what this mystical 'drive less' number equates to. Seems to me that drive less is just a nice ambiguous comment by politicians when they realize they should have focused on energy interests in the '70s...when a lot of the older gents were in office

How much fuel is eaten up by commercial airlines and shipping again???? IMO, the US govis should be far more concerned with their dropping GDP and economy as citizens have to buy fuel and food, but discretionary spending will fall in huge quantities.

--

Just silly math:

28 gallons of fuel in a barrel of oil

At $4.30/gallon a barrel of oil converted to fuel costs you about $120.00.

300+ Million US citizens
21M bbl oil used a day
equates to 14% of the citizens are a barrel of oil a day and 86% are not.

Again, to quote R&T....you can't find a cheaper way to move 3,000lbs 20 miles then a gallon of gas

Quicksilver · #5 07-07-2008, 09:24 PM

Yep drive less, plan trips or just stay home.

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