Ramblings on Alternate Power Sources

[flaboy]

At the risk of all you Texans out there, do you think the higher prices have anything to due with our current president (lower case intentional) being from Texas? I heard most of his campaign contributions (the big ones) were from US based oil companies. Just thinking here that maybe there is some payback being made

You must live near Orlando. Disney World is one of the few places I can think of that would support a conspiracy theory that grand. What kind of awesome power do you think belongs to the US President, such that he would be able to control the price of oil?

Naw, actually the Magic Kingdom is not magic and I am nowhere near it. I figured it would ruffle a feather or two. I just remember seeing statistics about who gave to the campaigns for the candidates. Now, after hearing his speech the other night basically saying he can't do anything to control the oil shortages. Well all the news says we have a surplus. He also told us that the prices would be coming down as the oil wells in Iraq we put back in action and I understand many have been. This was months ago when the price first jumped. He didn't mention this the other night. I guess he forgot huh?

Hey, I voted for him but if I found out there was some hanky panky between him and oil chiefs, I will be just a little upset. I mean come on, anyone who tries to milk a horse, male one at that will do just about.....oh that's right that was his wife making a joke....I think it was a joke...

Anyway he keeps asking us to do out parts in trying to conserve. I would think he could ask the oil chiefs to give a little also. My fuel bill has basically doubled in 1.5 years and yes I blame it on him.

 

[Frankie]

Frankie for someone so smart you can really be dense at times just try not being a know it all on everthing. The largest refiner in the US as others purchase crude from other countries, and companies. You really have a tough time with supply and demand economics. The refinery I work at used to target for a penny gallon profit on 520,000 barrels thats 21,840,000 gallons x .01 = 218,000 a day 79 million a year profit on one refinery. if the profit goes to .03 a gallon numbers get astonomical very fast. Exxon has roughly 1 million barrels a day capacity is 420,000 dollars a day profit at a penny thats 153,300,000.00 profit on gasoline not counting there other products. Of course the Oil companies make no profits from credit cards and no one buys a Coke or chips when they fill up, no one uses plastic etc.

Awww, you're too kind, CC. I don't consider myself especially smart. But when Exxon Mobil's second-quarter profits rose nearly 40 percent to $5.8 billion, everyone should ask how that happened. I'm a great beliver that every company should be able to make a profit, but I also remember "windfall profits taxes" imposed on oil companies in '83 (?). President Bush says he can't do anything about prices at the pump, but Richard Nixon imposed price controls on wages and gasoline in '71. Why can't Bush do the same?

The price of a gallon of gas is 45-50% crude oil. I'll say it again: there's no shortage of oil. The Saudis even say so. Our oil reserves here in the US are the highest in years. Why are we paying almost twice as much for gas as in 2003?

But what really p***es me off is when a Saudi prince stands there and trys to tell me that higher gasoline prices are America's fault because we haven't built gasoline refineries here in the US! That's not the truth.

 

[brokenmouth]

I'm a great beliver that every company should be able to make a profit, but I also remember "windfall profits taxes" imposed on oil companies in '83 (?).

it was carter in the 70s not bush in the 80s and all it did was cause the prices to go even higher in the long run. where do you think they got the money to pay the extra taxes. more taxes dont punish companies. more taxes only hurt working americans

 

[Frankie]

I'm a great beliver that every company should be able to make a profit, but I also remember "windfall profits taxes" imposed on oil companies in '83 (?).

it was carter in the 70s not bush in the 80s and all it did was cause the prices to go even higher in the long run.

I never said Bush imposed any taxes on the oil companies. And no Bush is likely to ever impose anything on the oil companies. You're full of BS about prices. Prices have held reasonably steady for the last 10-15 years. But in the last 12-18 months alone, they've either doubled or close to it.

where do you think they got the money to pay the extra taxes. more taxes dont punish companies. more taxes only hurt working americans

The name was "windfall taxes". That's where they got the extra money, from the "windfall" profits they collected. Tell me why Exxon-Mobile has increased their profit 40% in the last quarter? That money came out of your pocket and mine. High gasoline prices are driving inflation up, hurting job creation.....

 

[Wewild]

Another approach might be to use a windmill to pump water from a lower elevation pond to a higher elevation pond (say 30 ft higher than the lower one). The higher elevation pond would drain back into the lower one thru say a 6 inch pipe which had a hydroelectric generator connected to it. This would produce a steady rate of power as long as the upper pond had water. The pond sizes would determine how long you would have power when the wind wasn't refilling the upper pond. The windmill(s) would have to be sized to keep up with the drain rate, evaporation rate etc.

They have one of these type on Carters Lake in GA

"Another type of hydroelectric power plant— called a pumped storage plant— can even store power. The power is sent from a power grid into the electric generators. The generators then spin the turbines backward, which causes the turbines to pump water from a river or lower reservoir to an upper reservoir, where the power is stored. To use the power, the water is released from the upper reservoir back down into the river or lower reservoir. This spins the turbines forward, activating the generators to produce electricity. "



http://www.nrel.gov/clean_energy/hydroelectric_power.html

http://georgiamagazine.com/chamber/murray/carters.htm

Thought you might be interested.

 

[TUCO]

there aint none so blind as them that wont see

 

[Campground Cattle]

About a week ago I saw a news item on PBS news where the guest said there had not been a refinery built in this country in the last 15 or so years, and that none were planned to be built any time soon because of all the enviromental regulations. Don't remember the guys name though.

Actually, it has been over 25 years since the last U.S. refinery came on line. There is one in the plans, however, in the Yuma, Arizona area. The environmentalists seem to be doing their best to kill it by demanding extraordinary air quality permit requirements. If it ever gets built, it will be the cleanest oil refinery in the world. Probably the most expensive also due to all of the polution control equipment.

Try to convice Frankie of that we are out of refining capacity. Oil companies do not set oil prices Opec does. It really is that simple she might be one of those people that is so smart they can't see simple things.

 

[Texan]

Some of you guys just don't get it. Let me try to help you out----

Rising profits for Big, Greedy, Evil Oil companies is a bad thing. All can be traced back to corporate greed and Bush family hijinks. Supply/demand is never a factor.

On the other hand----

Rising profits for Angus breeders is due strictly to supply/demand. Angus bulls are an excellent product. Their numbers simply cannot keep up with increasing demand. Therefore, higher prices for them this year. Certainly that has equated to rising profits for Angus breeders?

*** Note: This is true except for Texas Angus breeders. In the case of Texas, you have the Lt. Governor in the Angus business. Undoubtedly, he sets the price for Angus bulls statewide. Probably even higher profits for Texas Angus breeders than the national average.

In summary:

Profits for Big Oil=Bad thing

Profits for Angus breeders=Good thing

 

[Jake]

Some of you guys just don't get it. Let me try to help you out----

Rising profits for Big, Greedy, Evil Oil companies is a bad thing. All can be traced back to corporate greed and Bush family hijinks. Supply/demand is never a factor.

On the other hand----

Rising profits for Angus breeders is due strictly to supply/demand. Angus bulls are an excellent product. Their numbers simply cannot keep up with increasing demand. Therefore, higher prices for them this year. Certainly that has equated to rising profits for Angus breeders?

*** Note: This is true except for Texas Angus breeders. In the case of Texas, you have the Lt. Governor in the Angus business. Undoubtedly, he sets the price for Angus bulls statewide. Probably even higher profits for Texas Angus breeders than the national average.

In summary:

Profits for Big Oil=Bad thing

Profits for Angus breeders=Good thing

there was a man from Texas that came up to a bred cow and bull sale Tuesday in Salina and bought a pot load of black bulls to take back with him....

 

[dcara]

Thanks for the links Wewild - very informative

 

[Frankie]

About a week ago I saw a news item on PBS news where the guest said there had not been a refinery built in this country in the last 15 or so years, and that none were planned to be built any time soon because of all the enviromental regulations. Don't remember the guys name though.

Actually, it has been over 25 years since the last U.S. refinery came on line. There is one in the plans, however, in the Yuma, Arizona area. The environmentalists seem to be doing their best to kill it by demanding extraordinary air quality permit requirements. If it ever gets built, it will be the cleanest oil refinery in the world. Probably the most expensive also due to all of the polution control equipment.

Try to convice Frankie of that we are out of refining capacity. Oil companies do not set oil prices Opec does. It really is that simple she might be one of those people that is so smart they can't see simple things.

I'm not arguing that we don't need more refining capacity. But I am arguing that a lack of refining capacity in this country has nothing whatsoever to do with the doubling of oil prices in the last two years. So take time, resident oil guru, to explain why gasoline prices dropped 50 cents here in the last couple of weeks while oil prices are still above $50 a barrel and we haven't added any refining capacity?

 

[Campground Cattle]

About a week ago I saw a news item on PBS news where the guest said there had not been a refinery built in this country in the last 15 or so years, and that none were planned to be built any time soon because of all the enviromental regulations. Don't remember the guys name though.

Actually, it has been over 25 years since the last U.S. refinery came on line. There is one in the plans, however, in the Yuma, Arizona area. The environmentalists seem to be doing their best to kill it by demanding extraordinary air quality permit requirements. If it ever gets built, it will be the cleanest oil refinery in the world. Probably the most expensive also due to all of the polution control equipment.

Try to convice Frankie of that we are out of refining capacity. Oil companies do not set oil prices Opec does. It really is that simple she might be one of those people that is so smart they can't see simple things.

I'm not arguing that we don't need more refining capacity. But I am arguing that a lack of refining capacity in this country has nothing whatsoever to do with the doubling of oil prices in the last two years. So take time, resident oil guru, to explain why gasoline prices dropped 50 cents here in the last couple of weeks while oil prices are still above $50 a barrel and we haven't added any refining capacity?

It is called supply and demand gasoline reserves are growing, due to several things a lot of refiners do TAR's(Shutdown for maintanece work) on productiun units in Feb March to be able to run through peak gasoline season. You can't tell me people are not driving less due to the cost, they are having to give up something. As gasoline reserves go increase the traders and speculators calm down. One 100,000 barrel a day unit is 3% of the US supply you get several refiners doing the same thing in a strained system it gets worse instead of better.

 

[Campground Cattle]

http://www.platts.com/Oil/Resources/New ... /index.xml

 

[icandoit]

How bout them Dodgers?

 

[Frankie]

cc said

It is called supply and demand gasoline reserves are growing, due to several things a lot of refiners do TAR's(Shutdown for maintanece work) on productiun units in Feb March to be able to run through peak gasoline season. You can't tell me people are not driving less due to the cost, they are having to give up something. As gasoline reserves go increase the traders and speculators calm down. One 100,000 barrel a day unit is 3% of the US supply you get several refiners doing the same thing in a strained system it gets worse instead of better.

Supply and demand. My point exactly. Now tell me what happened to supply and demand in the last two weeks that caused gasoline prices to go down? When you can do that, you can explain what made them go up so dramatically over the last 18 months or so.

There has never been a shortage of oil. Most OPEC countries are busting their quotas on a regular basis and way exceeding their quotas now. There has been no major drop off in usage; China is still booming. Yet gasoline prices are down more than 50 cents in my area (from $2.53 to $1.98 ). That's a major decrease in price. In other parts of the country, of course, the price varies, but all over the country there has been major drops in the price of gasoline. No refineries have been built. So tell me, slowly so that I will understand, that if (as the Saudi prince and you have claimed) if a lack of refineries in the US is a major cause of high gasoline prices, why had the price of gas dropped so dramatically in the last couple of weeks?

As far as maintenance goes, we found out after the Enron debacle that energy companies were pulling units offline for unneeded "maintenance" during California's energy crises several years ago. I don't have a doubt that they'll do it to gasoline refineries, too.

 

[Craig-TX]

what happened to supply and demand in the last two weeks that caused gasoline prices to go down? When you can do that, you can explain what made them go up so dramatically over the last 18 months or so… if a lack of refineries in the US is a major cause of high gasoline prices, why had the price of gas dropped so dramatically in the last couple of weeks?

If one used the logic that oil company greed caused prices to go up for 18 months, one would have to conclude that the recent 50 cent drop was due to sudden oil company generosity. For the logic to be sound it must work both ways. While all those big oil companies aren't evil, they certainly aren't benevolent – ha. So the logic is flawed. When looking at long term trends it doesn't pay to make assumptions on short term data. That's like trying to forecast next week's rain based on what happened in the past ten minutes.

Long term price increases are due to long term demand outstripping long term supply. Short term price movements work the same way except that you also have non-producing suppliers and speculators involved. Just like in the cattle market.

As far as maintenance goes, we found out after the Enron debacle that energy companies were pulling units offline for unneeded "maintenance" during California's energy crises several years ago. I don't have a doubt that they'll do it to gasoline refineries, too.

The Enron execs were nasty people, may they rot in jail. But let's not blame all that is wrong with the world on crooked people. Enron was one of those non-producing suppliers and also a speculator. And they were crooked.

But they didn't cause California's energy crisis. California caused it. For years the tree-huggers made it difficult-to-impossible to build generation plants in CA. Demand finally outstripped supply and CA didn't have the capacity to make enough electricity on their own. That meant they had to go buy it from whoever could supply it – often on an emergency basis – which made them vulnerable to unscrupulous non-producing suppliers and speculators.

Enter Enron. Yes California was ripped off. Yes Enron was at fault. But yes it was mostly California's own fault for putting themselves in the ridiculous position to be ripped off.

Our nation has done the same thing with our production and refining capacity. We have allowed the environmentalists to choke off our own production and refining to the point that we are now owned by foreigners – many of whom hate us. They make the crooks at Enron look like saints.

There has never been a shortage of oil. Most OPEC countries are busting their quotas on a regular basis and way exceeding their quotas now.

The OPEC members bust their own quotas because of that same greed you were talking about. They stab each other in the back just like they stab us. An additional problem is that OPEC is pretty much producing at full capacity and still can't keep up with world demand.

The near term answer is to become less dependent on them and more self sufficient, just like California should do re electricity. You are correct in that there is no shortage of oil. But much of the oil we have in N. America might as well be gold on the moon. Doesn't do anybody any good if we can't get to it.

Again, take the crazy regulations off the industry and the greedy taxes off the products and many of the big problems will be solved. Costs will go down. Supply will go up. Prices will be more reasonable. Greed and corruption have definitely been factors in our gasoline prices. But it has mostly been on the part of government.

Craig-TX

 

[Campground Cattle]

cc said

It is called supply and demand gasoline reserves are growing, due to several things a lot of refiners do TAR's(Shutdown for maintanece work) on productiun units in Feb March to be able to run through peak gasoline season. You can't tell me people are not driving less due to the cost, they are having to give up something. As gasoline reserves go increase the traders and speculators calm down. One 100,000 barrel a day unit is 3% of the US supply you get several refiners doing the same thing in a strained system it gets worse instead of better.

Supply and demand. My point exactly. Now tell me what happened to supply and demand in the last two weeks that caused gasoline prices to go down? When you can do that, you can explain what made them go up so dramatically over the last 18 months or so.



There has never been a shortage of oil. Most OPEC countries are busting their quotas on a regular basis and way exceeding their quotas now. There has been no major drop off in usage; China is still booming. Yet gasoline prices are down more than 50 cents in my area (from $2.53 to $1.98 ). That's a major decrease in price. In other parts of the country, of course, the price varies, but all over the country there has been major drops in the price of gasoline. No refineries have been built. So tell me, slowly so that I will understand, that if (as the Saudi prince and you have claimed) if a lack of refineries in the US is a major cause of high gasoline prices, why had the price of gas dropped so dramatically in the last couple of weeks?

As far as maintenance goes, we found out after the Enron debacle that energy companies were pulling units offline for unneeded "maintenance" during California's energy crises several years ago. I don't have a doubt that they'll do it to gasoline refineries, too.

Frankie we have been taking gasoline units down every winter for the thirty plus years I have worked in the refinery to have them in good shape for summer. Thats no secret there is a website I will try to find for you that refiners list upcoming unit outages and the reason. The maintainence outages I told you about are planed 2 years in advance,
Example Refiner has 4 gasoline units Unit 1,2,3and 4 Unit 1 will have work 2/2003 unit2 3/2003 then both again in 2005 unit 3 2/2004 unit 4 3/2004 and both again in 2006. This is done to try and keep supply steady. Prices went down as I said earlier due to rising inventories, In part to gasoline imports from Europe which come in everyday which became more attractive as prices rose. Frankie we are so hurt in refining capacity we have to import gasoline to supply demand. Frankie the government has made it so rough on the industry several refiners are talking about downsizing older facalities because of regulations. The Saudi's offered to build 2 new refinerys of 500,000 brrels each . Thats great we need it the shame is what happened to the American Oil companies that gave us the cheapest energy in the world are gone due to goverment regs. You now have to depend on the Dutch Brits and Saudis for energy, Frankie I think your almost blinded by your hatred of oil companies. This time you are blaming the wrong people. If the profits make you mad don't look at the insurance industry.

 

[D.R. Cattle]

With all the storms we had last summer I got a lot of exposure to "doing without" and generators. When using a small economical generator you learn to be frugal, especially with the big boys like hot water. All in all we went about a month without juice from the 2 storms back to back. I realized we really didn't need all the modern things we think are necessities. Went without AC in Fla for that long, realized it didn't need to be as cool as we used to think. Had to ration hot water, realized the showers didn't need to be so hot. A pretty good lesson in being frugal when you cut your light bill in half. I run about $80 most of the time except for the hottest months gets up to about $120 at worst.

 

[Tod Dague]

Some of you guys just don't get it. Let me try to help you out----

Rising profits for Big, Greedy, Evil Oil companies is a bad thing. All can be traced back to corporate greed and Bush family hijinks. Supply/demand is never a factor.

On the other hand----

Rising profits for Angus breeders is due strictly to supply/demand. Angus bulls are an excellent product. Their numbers simply cannot keep up with increasing demand. Therefore, higher prices for them this year. Certainly that has equated to rising profits for Angus breeders?

*** Note: This is true except for Texas Angus breeders. In the case of Texas, you have the Lt. Governor in the Angus business. Undoubtedly, he sets the price for Angus bulls statewide. Probably even higher profits for Texas Angus breeders than the national average.

In summary:

Profits for Big Oil=Bad thing

Profits for Angus breeders=Good thing

there was a man from Texas that came up to a bred cow and bull sale Tuesday in Salina and bought a pot load of black bulls to take back with him....

Probably to sell them at the higher Texas prices.