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July 25, 2007 09:14 PM UTC
49 Comments
Maybe someone should CORA the Commissioner’s e-mails dating back the last 5 years and see what they’ve really been up to?
This kind of arrogance is what is hurting Colorado (and America). It is what allowed W and his trash to take office. The truth is that we will be using oil and gas for QUITE some time to come. There is no way around it at this time. So we can import it, or drill it here.
Rather than being the opposite of W/Ownes/etc, take a true environmental stance. Look, the drilling can occur. Safely and with little to minimal damage. The tech is there. And if it can not be done safely, then it should not occur until the tech changes (and it will).
The dems need to change their policy and allow drilling. But unlike the pubs, they need to create laws that
The problem with Inc’s is that they have no soul (they are not living), and these days, they have no responsibility. Exxon is still fighting (and winning) over the Valdez spill and has paid just a fraction of the clean up costs. If the CEO had been held responsible (as in go to jail AND pay personal fines), then it would not have happened. The Captain is out of his couple of months of jail and now teaches how to captain ships. If dems would simply change the laws to keep things clean AND hold the companies responsible, then the pubs would have a VERY hard time backing out of that.
What do you think Ritter is doing? The Governor asked for additional time to review the management plan for “future” oil and gas drilling.
“Today’s tour was a great opportunity to see all of the areas where energy development is occurring, to see what the impacts are and to get a sense for what the future impacts might be,” Gov. Ritter said. “There is so much development happening now, and much more that is planned, that 120 days is a reasonable request. There’s no reason to rush the leasing or drilling of the Roan.”
The Moffat commission has their head up their own asses. They are taking the anti-democratic governor stance, in an attempt to make this a highly partisan issue, when all that has occured is a little questioning of the oil & gas practices in this state, how it effects our state, where the money goes, and the impact it all with have for our future.
I just searched in all the links and there is NOTHING about what you just posted. Where are you getting this from?
As to what is Ritter doing, I think that he is paying back old debts. If is really just putting 120 days on this, then it is not a big deal.
Vermillion Basin and Roan Plateau. On Roan, Ritter wants 120 days to review the plan before the feds lease 100% of Roan Plateau (and to consider alternative management to protect some of these popular public lands).
On Vermillion, the Gov (DNR director-Sherman, really) wants to take Vermillion off the table, not open it for leasing, under the pending land use plan (which generally are in effect for 20-30 years–BLM says 15-20, but they base that on their imagination rather than history). Vermillion, the largest unprotected roadless tract on Colorado’s BLM lands–at nearly 80,000 acres, and home to high concentrations of cultural sites, some dating back many thousands of years–is estimated to contain about 5% of the recoverable gas reserves in the County. In 1999, after a long public review process, BLM found that the majority of public lands at Vermillion Basin qualified for wilderness protection–then Bush came into office, sent out a fiat from Washington DC to the Colorado BLM telling them that the public process be damned to hell, that money spent to find and retain the contractor to write the new EIS be wasted, and reversed its public promises to consider and fully protect the area’s wilderness character. MoffCO cheered (including de-facto commissioner, Rac-member, Club20 persona-for life, B.Wrong Dick-in-son. I guess overturning a public process that B.Wring hated was A-OK (hell, the county even tried to seize control of all public lands in the county–although the US taxpayers would still maintain them–in the so called ‘working landscape trust.’).
If only 5% of what is available for the county, then the drillers and county are wasting efforts.
As I have indicated elsewhere, I really do think the dems SHOULD allow the drilling, just putting very stringent laws on it. In fact, in this case, it sounds like they should require a very high bond to get into it, putting up the restoration money for exit, perhaps requiring just helicopter access, and 10 mile separation between platforms using only slant drilling.
If you are looking at only 5% of the total from the county, then drillers will not be going there due to high costs and that will be a choice that they made. Rather than outlawing something that the pubs will remove on the next go around (and they will get that chance if the dems get comfortable), it is better to require businesses to only go if it is clean.
Some places should never be opened to drilling. Some places have values that supersede the value of the resource. Vermillion is one of those places.
Although the oil and gas industry (and the Dobson-Springs Gazette) like to pretend that anyone opposing drilling our few remaining roadless public lands, want to stop all drilling everywhere and force people to live in caves, in reality the argument is that a few places deserve to be kept off limits from these activities, especially since vast acreages of once undeveloped habitat is being rapidly converted into an industrial zone. Upwards of 50,000 new wells are coming to NW Colorado over the next 15 years.
Vermillion (at roughly 80,000 acres) is just over 11 sq. miles. Much of the gas could be extracted without occupying any of the roadless lands at all, via directional (and extended reach) drilling.
With my approach, it would remain wilderness and always be outside of drilling except in a major emergency. OTH, by trying to lock it out via regulations, it will only take another reagan or W to open it up again. I saw the damage that reagan did back in the 80’s, and the dems are stepping right back into the problems. They need to turn this from one of regulations, to an economic issue. Once you do that, the pubs can not touch this. Think about the situation in yellowstone. W. opened it back up. But the dems should have insisted on quiet and none-polluting snowmobiles. That will actually get them developed so that it will help all over.
At present there is only 1 way to get that – Nuclear Power. Now if only the Dem presidential candidates would start talking about it.
at present. Another alternative is for us to focus on energy storage combined with a better grid. Either way, we have to spend money. In the end, it should be a combination of all the above. In particular, we do need to speed up doing nukes as well as moving the IFR forward combined with alternative.
The sad thing is that the states are doing just superficial items. In particular, We are chasing Wind and Ethanol. But this is plain silly. For starters, many states are chasing wind. If ritter really wants to make a difference WRT wind, he will push an upgrade to our grid. In addition, he will push for storage. One of my favorites is to use salt for thermal. But a smarter move is to create an X prize for creation of a super capacitor with 2x the energy density of li-ion batteries (since I have been shot down on this from both owens and ritter, I am currently drafting a letter to send to richardson and schwartzinagger with the idea; they are interested in both global warming, bringing jobs to their state, AND have shown a willingness to adapt new ideas).
The current approach to Ethanol is just plain evil and stupid. The idea of using our food has to be one the WORST ideas that I have seen. Instead, our state should focus on using algae. Fortunately, Ft. Collins has a group who is doing that (and using the waste CO2 from power plants). Interestingly, a small lake in california which contains salt water from the ocean would supply ALL of our national needs (though not wise to put all eggs in 1 basket).
Finally, Ritter (or other states) should be pushing geothermal power. There is a LOT to be done here. Again an x-prize would be useful. In addition, to doing lower temp generation one quick useful idea would be to push geo-thermal residential heating. In particular, one idea is to combine an in the ground unit with 1 small solar collector. During the winter, it could be used in the day time to heat the home AND add heat to the ground. During the extreme summer months, at say 12am-5am, the waste heat that accumulated in the ground could be dumped (like right now). That way, the ground would heat up to say 65F during a hot summer day, but would then be cooled to say 45-50F at night. It is a nice way for the power companies to flatten their energy useage.
You seem to have a very good understanding of energy issues. Do you have an energy/science background?
I explained it once to parsing, but the gist is a BS in micro-bio/minor in chem., 1 or 2 classes shy of a BSCS degree (was doing the work for going to MIT for CS; Ran out of money, and thought that I would take some time off). And LOTs of extra classes that are all over the science, business and honor spectrum, but mostly in science (professional multi-year, multi-degree student that should have declared several extra minors). Had a strong interest in energy for eons.
But these days, I am taking an interest in policy (or lack thereof, in my opinion). I had been hoping to get one of gov. to do something progressive, but am now re-working some of this to send to other states in hopes that they will jump on it. Sad thing, is that our state is uniquely qualified for this. Only California is better (more schools, more geo and wind spots). But both Richardson and Arnie appear to be more progressive than Ritter is, though to be fair, he may have to grow into the job.
…let alone a job or some paying position with the administration? It’s obvious that Ritter strongly supports new energy forms, especially if it benefits our state with jobs. Considering that he is six months into a complex job, I think – regardless of Bitter on Ritter’s private reality – he’s doing a very good job.
First, I would not be interested in a position. I like coding and I like start-ups (I have temporarily stepped back to work on a none-high-tech one called Mrs. Claus Shoppe doing a unique xmas tree skirt 🙂 ). And I did write Ritter’s ppl on this, but got a “do not call us, we will call you”. That is why after waiting for more than 7 years, I am about to push other states on some of these. They want the jobs and are willing to step out of their boxes.
I am harsh on Ritter because he is doing the same thing as Owens. He is following a receipe that has been established by their party. Owens ignored a number of issues on this state, while staying focus on just keeping tax low. He ignored our roads, water, education, power, and jobs. His attempts are computers were pay-backs for his winning the state and they were HORRIBLE. He helped to shoot down the colorado monorail. He got us to refund money that was to be used to pay for our roads. Instead, he built road on expensive bonds based on money that we will obtain from an entity who is running monster deficits. IOW, he did a bush. His attention to education was to install brown, and then cut the other schools for not having a conservative enough admin. And as to water, he put up a bill that says that “we will do good things with your water, pay me and I will do that right things”. This from the guy who screwed over the west WRT to roads, education, and even the monorail.
Now we have Ritter. He is wanting to stop a number of drilling via law ( Once he is replaced by a repubican, then it will be re-opened, but will look like something planned by W). He is addressing the needs of education, but pulling similar actions to Owens (that is he is working around tabor by locking in the property tax; he should be pushing a fix on the tabor, but I am guessing that he is afraid to take it on and will wait until 2’nd term). He is pushing more roads similar to owens, rather than looking for new ideas. One thing that he is doing is paying attention to the farmers on the plain WRT to the water issue. He is now talking about dredging and increasing the size of the current storage systems, which is good. 1 thing that would be useful would be more aquifer injection. Another idea is that the fed were going to allow us to store water in chatfield, but have tabled it for 4 years due to budget constraints. Storage is important. He may need to check on the idea of our spending the money. If we can get 20K acres for a million or 2, then that is the cheapest storage that we have. Finally, we come to energy. He is acknowledging that global warming is an issue. But he is doing what other states are doing. That does not help much. In fact, if we really wanted loads of alternative, we would need to re-build the grid. The other choice is to add distributed generation, rather than “single” points (which is how you would treat the power from a wind farm). A good choice for distributed energy is the geo-thermal. Likewise, Xcell is about to build coal or natural gas base plants. If they build natural gas, then we WILL be using a fuel for electricity that is subject to wild flucuations in price. Coal and nukes are not. OTH, coal plants are NOT doing a good job of scrubbing due to the VERY high costs. As such, our current coal is polluting our water with large quantities of Hg and our air with all sorts of pollutants. In fact, Colorado’s mercury levels in our fish are approaching what is seen in the oceans, and we are suppose to be headwaters with the cleanest water. The coal plants simply shifts the costs to clean-up issues.
All in all, Ritter is not addressing the needs. He is simply doing what other dems are doing. Right now, this state needs new and innovative ideas as well as some intelligent risk-taking. But of course, that is what leadership is all about. That is what JFK, FDR, Abe Lincoln, etc did. They did intelligent risk taking.
…so much responsibility in the lap of any governor. Granted, Owens was a disaster in so many ways. In CO, we are very hamstrung by our budget process, laws, and constituional constraints.
In the end, I think that it will be private enterprise that will make most of the discoveries and implementations. I say that with you knowing what a big socialist 🙂 I am. Government can encourage and ease the paths, but I just don’t see it as the inventor.
What we need to do is run a big CO2 straw from the new coal plants to the Salton Sea……
Private Entreprise and individuals SHOULD do the discovery and work. None of what I am suggesting has anything to do with taking that away. It has everything to do with providing incentives to persue a result.
In fact, the DOD is now pushing something similar for battery storage. But the DOD is NOT inventing. They are simply trying to get the inventions to come. And what happens if nothing develops in the next year? Then no money is paid out. That is the nice thing about x-prize type deals.
is researching storage, and very unique ways to store wind power and have even brought the private sector in to help fund it. I know Ritter is behind this, so maybe you need to re-think part of your criticism.
I am familiar with the algae idea but it sounds kind of far out there and the most developed idea involves the creation of tons of mini man-made islands. Sounds like a potential environmental disaster made by a bunch of environmentalists themselves. Geo-thermal is also much more applicable to cali because they have the locations. Colorado is not nearly as suited for such massive developments of geo-thermal.
is a federal lab, and does not bring in that much private funding (though they do some private collaboration, it is not much). As to energy storage, they have a directive from W. to focus on hydrogen and oil extraction. It was part of the reason why their funding got played with. They were being asked quietly to shift projects around to support big oil. (and yes, I do know a few of the engineers there and yes, they told me about this; In fact, I knew a number of them back in the early 80’s as SERI ). Ritter is doing NOTHING innovative. So far, he is pursuing the same avenues that other gov. do. So what? He needs to take steps to jump way beyond this. My criticism of Ritter is spot on.
The algae is about the best idea that is going. It is trivial to increase the oil percentage in the algae. More importantly, it can be GMed so that it requires an extra supplement to survive. What exactly doe you consider bad about it? The algae is superior because it allows constant harvesting, is short on the land that it uses, can use our waste streams to produce fuel, is much faster at taking out CO2 from the air, and does not compete against our food streams. In contrast, even if we switched ALL of our corn over to ethanol AND added new poor land, we would still not have enough to cover our needs. Sounds like a lose-lose with corn and a win-win with algae.
Geo-thermal generation as it sits now, IS better suited for Cali. OTH, if a decent inexpensive generator can be designed to operate at about 3/4 of the current temps, then CO becomes almost as good. Check out the MIT report that came out just a bit ago. They are now major advocates of it. It is time for Colorado to move ahead and quit following others. We can become leaders or followers. If we are followers, then we will continue to lose out to Texas, CA, and even Wyoming.
Unfortunately, algae is not a silver bullet/”win-win”. Algae’s development was largely focused on taking CO2 out of the air around power plants, not in large-scale energy development and harvesting. The researcher who developed it even said the use of algae could be undependable because sunlight is required. I am guessing the body of water also must be stagnant in order for the algae to grow and be harvested. These studies were done in large cities where more CO2 exists for the algae to feed on and grow. It isn’t that I don’t like algae, but rather that I am not head over heels as yourself and doubt the ability for large-scale algae production and harvesting. I would love to be proven wrong though and have my car run off algae and not $5 gal gas, so please keep pressing on!
And the private sector doesn’t fund much of NREL on the whole, but you need to go back and talk with your friends for an update. 1 million dollars of the 2 mil tag on the wind energy storage project is being paid for by eXcel.
I don’t believe Ritter is being particularly innovative and I never thought he would be. The cost to the state of such innovation, of course, would be exorbitant. You seem to think Richardson is some great innovator. I believe Richardson, Ritter, Schweitzer, and Freudenthal are all in the same boat as Dems in the West who can’t rock the boat too much by putting millions towards some research project that may or may not have immediate results to show taxpayers.
How exactly are we losing out to Wyoming? You mean with geothermal? The report was interesting, and it seemed to say that the question is not if geothermal capabilities exist in Colorado because they do. What would be the cost of drilling? Would it interfere with O&G rights? Most importantly, what is the BLM process for affirming geo-thermal on public lands? What water law issues may exist in Colorado? I did not have time to read the whole report, but please let me know if those questions are easily answered.
Innovation is not about spending money to get results. That is what happens in large business on a constant basis. Sadly, they are rarely innovative (esp now, since so few American companies and our Fed are doing the basic research that NEEDS to be done). What is needed is an encouragement for problems, not pay for the research. In particular, we can use X-Prizes. I tried to get Owens and then Ritter to jump into doing X-prizes (the ideas and results were interesting; if you want leave an email addr (create a google or yahoo if you like) and I will send it). This can be used to not only create new innovations, but new jobs for the state. That is leadership and Innovation.
The group in F.C. are looking to modify the aglae to produce more oil (not ethanol) i.e. a higher lipid content; we will make them store more fat :). As to the scale of algae, it can operate in 3d space and in “real-time”. With corn, it is 2D, and is batched. In fact, there is a salt lake in california which has almost NO life now. It is below sea level. So the idea is to allow ocean water to come there and dilute the water, add the algae, and then ship sewage and other waste into there. In doing that, even with a low density, they could provide ALL of the current needs of our fuel. OTH, it is NOT a good idea to have our eggs in one basket (AQ and all). The real innovation would be to chase Capacitors as storage. That can be done for under 1 million and can bring in LOTS of jobs for say 3 million.
Wyoming is spending money to bring in research and new jobs. They are literally buying their way into new companies. It is similar to what we should have done in the late 90’s, early 2000. Sadly, we had a total loser for gov. He basically paid companies to bring in their extensions that were quickly closed down post 9/11. But we can do it for a fraction of what Wyoming and others are spending.
If you read the MIT report, you will see that we have LOADS of geo-thermal. What we do not have is loads of HIGH temperature spots. Most of ours is lower temps that would require different equipment. In addition, due to our water needs, we need to make sure that we use a dry well, not a wet well. We have the academia group to persue this. Combine this with X-Prize mentality, and we can have NEW businesses here.
All that is missing is real leadership who values innovation. That is what made California so big.
..even if I’m not sure that a state should spend tax money developing concepts. I can’t imagine our more conservative legislators, Dem or R, approving funds for radical, sometimes untested ideas. Jobs and the economy is what will get the nod, not a good idea alone.
This is money for results. This is beyond just an idea. It has to work. For example, say, that we offer .5 or 1 million for a super capacitor with 2x the energy density of li-ion batteries. In addition, part 2 to that is we will offer said developer, 1-2 million to base the company in Colorado. Worse case, is 3 million that it costs us.
Another idea would be for the state to offer up .5 million for this, and then have perhaps several investors match to this to increase the bounty (i.e. it is now 1 million). What do said investor get for that? Access to a winning company with the possibility of investing money in company for moving here. The one problem that I can see, is that if somebody has that level of a win, then MANY investors will swoop in. And I could see Texas or California offering up 20 million quickly to get that company. In fact, if smart, they would offer up 100 million. Why?
etc. That is HOW much of a difference a high density super capacitor would make. It makes alternative power possible. Even if this is expensive, the planes, the sats, the troops, and the tesla will happen. And that alone is a multi-billion a year company.
Keep in mind, Colorado offers up MUCH more than that for getting other businesses. IIRC, we offered up 20 million just trying to get Boeing’s 400 person office here. In the above case, we will likely see not 1 solution, but a number of other attempts. Take for example the X-prize that was won several years ago. That lead to a NUMBER of companies creating rocket attempts. The winner of that scaled composites (condolences to the 2 families from last nights explosion) is now working with virgin. Likewise, you have a number of millionares/billionares working on creating their own companies (carmack of Id with armadillo; Bezo of Amazon with Blue origin; elon musk of Pay pay with spacex; Robert bigelow of motel 6 with Bigelowaerospace; etc). The x-prize started all of this (save Bigelow’s).
The idea that I threw out to ritter for doing an x-prize was trying to figure out how to kill pine beetles. Interestingly, I think that a small guy has the best chance with it. The response that I got back was “do not call us, we will call you”. Owen’s response was more interesting and I did not put it all on-line.
…the state borders are too porous to hold ideas and capital. And the state is not involved in the production, transportation, and sale of energy. We could only do so on state lands, I think. And where are the jobs? The windmill factory near Greeley is a great coup and a great example of a long term base of employment.
Are something I know a lot about, and we already know how to kill them. The problem is the man-made way is expensive and capital intensive and there is a lot of misunderstanding surrounding them.
Eliminating pine beetles solves a small problem. The larger problems are the dead trees the other tree beetles eating aspen and spruce.
I like Windobourne’s comments about the X-prize. My suggestion would be to award it to someone who finds the best way to use the dead wood.
the dead wood. And excuse me, but when close to half of the state’s lodgepole pines have been killed off it is just “a small problem”?
If you are saying that the already-dead trees are the big problem then I could agree with that, I am just trying to figure out your comment. And what is the name of the beetle eating the aspen? Last I heard it was an unknown fungus issue, not a beetle.
As for dead wood, some of the new county offices/comm.center up in Summit Co. have been fitted to run off of what is basically a stove using beetlekill logs and chips. Kudos to them, but of course the amount of wood available is massive but there is a big cost-benefit issue with transportation to anywhere else.
Didn’t we go through this in the 70’s? Granted, I was “out of town” from 1981-1993, but I was back a few years or more before I heard of the PB scenario again.
Back then I had a landscaping company and I bought a lot of PB killed Ponderosa lumber and landscape timers from an outfit on the Diagonal Highway tween Boulder and Longmont….Guitierrez Brothers, I think. They trucked the dead logs down – I guess most logs are dead, aren’t they? – and sawmilled them there. The beetle killed wood was very pretty, I thought, due to the colored streaks in it. I made a waterbed frame from it once.
Anyway, I guess my point/question is, was there a lull in the beetle’s onslaught? I realize that our warm winters of late assist the beetles, but the winters were plenty cold back then, too!
Yes, the logs are dead. And one idea I have heard is marketing the “blue-stain” logs for furniture. Actually, the blue stain fungus is what kills the tree, the beetles just happen to carry the fungus on them.
This PB onslaught was much larger from everything I can find ( I wasn’t here in the 70s though). This was a result from the lack of fire in timber stands, as the denser the stand the easier it is for beetles to infest large numbers of trees. It was also, largely, a result of the drought. The tree’s natural defense mechanism is to repel the beetles with sap when they try to burrow into the bark. It was very dry and the trees did not have a lot of sap.
A severely cold winter would stop the beetle in its tracks, as it takes very cold temperatures for an extended period of time (1-2 weeks) to kill the beetle. Hope that answered some questions, otherwise I just have this PB knowledge for nothing.
…we probably are talking two humps in the time/space continuum. Always been around just got better for a time.
Yes, it’s that blue stain that made the wood so pretty.
A weird place, for sure.
Since it was created by a mistake, and is an environmental disaster due to all the runoff and lack of oxygen, I say do what we will to get some benefit from it.
and a great movie.
NREL’s research showed that one quad (7.5 billion gallons) of biodiesel could be produced from 200,000 hectares of desert land (200,000 hectares is equivalent to 780 square miles, roughly 500,000 acres), if the remaining challenges are solved
Here is more
Personally, I think that staying with the ICE is a huge mistake. It limits us and even the algae is VERY inefficient (but better than burning oil). By focusing on electrical storage, we allow for multiple systems to input, rather than just a few. Basically, it puts you in the most enviable position. If done right, it would even make Colorado the next “Silicon Valley”, only in energy. And once we have cheap energy, we can continue with a number of other industries.
…is just about 1/2 of what the NREL is asking for! Coupled with high temperatures (once that Pacific ocean water gets up to temp), lots of sunlight, and an area that can be expanded (the sea is usually only partially full), what’s not to like? As the Israeli’s proposed with the Dead Sea, we could also get hydro energy as the water flowed.
The only problem I see is, what happens as the sea increases in alkalinity as the seawater evaporates? Maybe breed super-salt tolerant algae to extend the life of the project?
Putting environmental concerns aside, why not fence off portions of places like the Sea of Cortez or the Red Sea for this? No long term issues. Could the CO2 from a coal burning plant be “recycled” for algae?
How does that 7.5 billion gallons of diesel compare with what we use annually?
But it doesn’t address jet fuel, a variant of diesel and home heating oil. LOTS used there. I see that the Air Force is experimenting with BD blends.
As of yesterday, the electric plane is becoming a reality. But what is needs it a high electrical density storage medium. Once they have that, then you will see a number of new companies spring up developing electric airplanes. Do you know of any states where a number of aircraft designers reside? I do.
Not sure about the total amount of oil used, but it will not matter. Texas has a company that is developing a super capacitor that is said to have 1.5 the energy of a li-ion battery. If so, then the auto industry WILL start a real move to hybrid or electrical. Our oil useage will drop. All the BD can go to such applications as flight.
While not ever needing the math involved in capacitor energy storage, I’ve been frequently involved with them over many years; I had electronics training way, way back when they were known as condensors.
Capacitors have huge initial inrush and outrush currents, but very little total energy, er, capacity. Yes, you can make a huge one from a roll of foil and some gargabe bags, but then there are issues with leakage across the electrolyte, current control, maximum voltage vs. maximum capacity (works on the square, as I recall.)
This page on alternative energy storage wasn’t exactly smitten with capacitors for that usage: http://www.mpoweruk…. Low energy storage per unit of weight. Of course, that’s not a factor for things just sitting on the ground.
I’m not sure how anyone would develop a new capacitor, probably every known material to man has been used, examined, and tabulated. Probably there are a few tweaks (porous electrodes or something?) but little to be discovered.
I would suggest that for mass energy storage capacitor technology would need to address the very uneven current vs. time curve, the storage loss with time across the electrolyte, and the low voltage w/ inverters vs. HUGE capacitors at high voltage needing just a DC to sine wave AC. Both are still rather expensive.
Are you crazy? Ever heard of toxic waste? Oh yeah and what about people changing their ways and using less energy. Nuclear is incredibly expensive, difficult to maintain, and makes waste that lasts for milenia.
the notion that our need to import oil for the foreseeable is a major foreign affairs liability for us is overstated. There is a large and thriving international market, with no one region being indispensible to the acquisition of the commodity sold on that market. A complete middle-eastern meltdown, and the complete evaporation of their oil from the worldwide petrolium market, would not deprive us of an ounce of gasoline: It would simply cause a spike in the price (which could be amply offset by increased refinery capacity here). And a spike in the price may be an inconvenience, but it is not a catastrophe: In fact, it increases the decentralized incentives to invest in and develop alternative fuel sources, which is not at all a bad thing.
Importing middle eastern oil is not what holds us captive to middle eastern politics; our shortage of political courage while doing so is.
If you look carefully at what happens, is that opec and others bump their prices up to the point where WE start to develop alternative. Once they see the development started, then they drop the price until it kills it. I saw this happen with Carter. OPEC dropped their prices because SA is afraid that if Carter’s program had been allowed to continue, they would have lost about 1/4 of the market, which would have dropped prices into the ocean.
Even now, Venezuela charges the “world” a price and then gives major breaks to everybody (esp china and cuba), but America (and somewhat Europe). We need to move off of oil imports as it is being used against us.
You’re referring to a cartel’s intentional setting of price, and I’m referrring to the unintentional consequences of political instability. The former is something that can be decided and easily manipulated (as long as the cartel acts as a unified decision-making body); the latter is out of their governments’ hands.
IF the price of oil goes up as the result of middle eastern political stability, THEN investment in alternative energy sources is promoted: OPEC has no significant role in such a process.
IF, on the other hand, our commitment to avoiding foreign oil dependence (the subject to which I was responding) is a reaction to OPEC’s (limited) ability to control prices, that does nothing to promote investment in alternative energy sources, since our purpose in freeing ourselves from dependence on foreign oil would be to lower, not raise, the costs of gasoline to the consumer.
Your claim that “we need to move off of oil imports as it is being used against us” based on the argument that countries overcharge us makes no sense: If the issue is that they overcharge us, it is strictly an economic calculation, not a political one. Let the American consumer’s search for the best price solve the “problem”: There is no need to impose a political solution. A seller can charge whatever they want, and neither OPEC nor Venezuela have abolute control over the petroleum market. If they are able to coordinate their prices to the extent that they affect world-wide prices on the petroleum market, then, again, that raises the cost to us and creates incentives to pursue alternatives. I don’t see why you insist that there is some political imperative embedded in all of this. Buy their oil or don’t buy their oil. Your argument that their ability to raise and lower prices creates alternative incentives and disincentives for innovation here, and thus a political need to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, makes no sense: If we can provide the same commodity, or an acceptable substitute, more cheaply, we should and presumably would, since the market would make it profitable to do so. If we can’t, and our objective is to create incentives to invest in alternatives, then we should tax petroleum, which we have no political will to do. But what you are suggesting is that we should remove ourselves as buyers in the global marketplace because you are offended by the poor sportsmanship of the sellers, though that is not how you choose to phrase it. It simply isn’t a suggestion that means anything, or accomplishes any positive end. What is meaningful is whether we want to raise petroleum prices by taxing them, or whether we want to constantly search for the best price, which includes what foreign producers are offering.
A seller can charge whatever they want, and neither OPEC nor Venezuela have abolute control over the petroleum market.
That is false. OPEC controls 51% of the international market. OPEC at times has voted to increase the price / barrel. It is normally in large jumps. When it gets too high, then SA will break from the others and dump some oil on the market. SA is at the focal point of everything (but they will not remain much longer; They have been damaging their fields to do some of this).
My argument is that too much of our economy is now tied to oil. In particular, when Carter sounded the alarm about imported oil, it was 5%. Now, we are importing roughly 2/3 of our oil. Back in the 70’s, we did not import ANY gasoline. Now, a major chunk of it is imported. If Russian, Venezula (controls 5% of our oil), Iran (controls not 1 drop of our oil, but if they stopped, the world market would double in price overnight), or any major OPEC were to stop producing or simply stop selling to America, it would cause total chaos to our economy.
The problem is that the oil producers can double the price for 6 months, and then drop it again for another 6. Would it be enough to make us move off oil? Nope. But it will destroy our economy.
So how do we get out of this? Simple. The first, is that you need alternative to head to. Imported Oil/Gas is mostly for our cars. Change them out to something different and the imports stop. The easiest way as I have said in numerous places IS to have a time-based tax increase (say .25 / 6 months per gal of gas or diseasl) AND announce that. This has the advantage to encourage us to move off oil BUT give us time to do so (though I believe that oil companies will jack up the price very quickly). As you have pointed out, politicians have no backbone (I do note that Clinton actually did an increase during his first 6 months, so it is possible with a leader). But we need to have good research started. I do not want to see the feds pick the winner. That is what is happening right now, with ethanol. BIG mistake. Instead, the feds should only help on lots of research. Nothing more. Their tax cuts are nightmares. It gives us large deficits, and the cuts always go to the friends, not the best solution.
What you described is not absolute control of the petroleum market: It is the ability to affect the petroleum market through collusion.
The fact is that OPEC has more often been crippled by their internal fractiousness than they have been able to act in unison.
I see no evidence that OPEC price controls have ever threatened to “destroy our economy.”
I’m all for replacing oil. There’s only one realistic way to do that: Raise the cost of oil through taxes, the revenues of which can be invested in R and D for alternative sources. Everything else is just talk. A national policy requires mechanisms for its realization. Otherwise, I would suggest that we all just get along, stop killing each other, give to each according to their need and expect from each according to their ability without complicating matters with currency, and so on.
Your suggestion that we announce a tax, so that we can benefit from the signal it sends without actually burdening people with the inconvenience won’t work: No one will act on the tax until it actually takes a bite out of them.
I really did mean a real tax for exactly the reason that you said. W./Ilk have announce numerous possible attacks just prior to voting. Half the time, it was just the FBI, but not DHS. So, where are we now? About the only one buying it, are the pubs. The tax needs to be real, and slowly incremental. If you don’t do it, then only a small number will adjust their buying. The reason for announcing this, is so that ppl make purchases, they KNOW that it will rise. When W. got into office, you saw lots of new vans and trucks sales. And just about every last one of them threw on a bush sticker. These ppl bought based on the hope that gas would remain at 1.25, because W. indicated that is what it would stay at. OTH, if these buyers see the price go up .25, it will not impact much. But if they KNOW that the price will go up another buck (minimal) over the next 1 (.5/6months) or 2(.25/6months) years, then they will push car builders to have high milage cars.
Yeah, I did miss the word absolute, which IMHO served no good in the first place. There are few absolute controls of a market. those are called monopolies, as you know, such as Microsoft (an illegal obtained and held monopoly) or Jeppesen maps (a legally obtained and held monopoly). The truth is, effective control is very useful, but it only allows for short-time control. Oil is just a step below an oligolopoly, since just a few entities control the market.
72% of polled 3rd CD Coloradans want the Roan Plateau protected as do the majority of local governments in the area. Thus, as our elected representatives, Sen. Salazar and Gov. Ritter ARE representing the majority of those they are elected to serve. Somehow I cannot recall Moffat COunty screaming about ‘ettiquette’ when the Bush administration reversed a decade long public process that found Vermillion Basin (and portions of Roan Plateau) to have wilderness characteristics. When the Bush Administration overturned those many years of colloborative and diverse public process, Moffat County applauded, just as they have worked to get the US Federal government to allow the BOCC (and even smaller number of unelected ‘representatives’ on the LUB) to unilaterally determine the fate of millions of acres of public lands (the ‘Working Trust’, RS2477, etc.
how Republican the city of Craig is.
Bill Owens could have done the exact same thing, wearing a cape and holding a sceptre, and there would not have been a peep.
And then oil and gas became an issue, and the Dems wiped the floor with the GOP in 2006. The Moffat county commissioners just made their lives much harder for 2008, when two of them have to run for reelection. Then we’ll see…
Bill Owens with cape and sceptre
Is that from club 20?
Do you have a link?