Gas prices about to skyrocket (again)

I hope they pass a budget.....

 

You'll never convince conservative America of that simple fact. As far as they're concerned oil will be around forever, and so will the 10mpg stupid trucks they drive...

 

You can blame Obama for scrubbing the XL Pipeline for his pal Warren.

 

The thing that really puzzles me is the geopolitics of this. Even if you disbelieve in peak oil, and disbelieve in climate change, how is getting off of oil not a good thing? We all know that our economy is being held hostage by the likes of OPEC, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. If we could reduce our dependence on oil even a little bit, that could fundamentally change. Not only would we no longer have to care about the Middle East, it would take away those regimes' main source of income. Isn't that something that all of us, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican, can agree would be a very good thing? Is this possibility not worth any investment at all? I can understand people being concerned about disrupting the economy, or spending large amounts on something that won't pay off. But so far conservatives have been saying absolutely not to any sort of program, no matter how minimal the investment or non-intrusive the approach. I really don't understand that.

 

There is currently no viable alternative to oil. Why liberals can't grasp that fact is a mystery. There will be an alternative in the future. But until that alternative is available and mastered, the environmental freaks and liberals are continuing to hold this country hostage to obscene oil prices.

These people care less about how high gas prices are becasue they're either a. too pathetic to have anyplace to go ever (no job, no vacations, no family, etc), or b. too rich to be affected by it (Al Gore gives a (*)(*)(*)(*) about $5 gas as he flies over the country in his private jet?).

 

Of course reducing oil consumption is a good thing. Nobody said it wasn't.

But its important to realize that all these environmental activists that block oil pipelines and other economic development are all funded by banks and big oil. And they all got their start blocking hydro-electric dams and every other feasible alternative to petroleum.

All you're doing is adding to the confusion, repeating al this oil-propaganda about us running out of oil and being at the mercy of OPEC.


We're not running out of oil. And there's no reason we should be paying $5 a gallon for something we still have lots of. If we are going to pay $5/gallon for gasoline, that extra money should be going to developing alternatives, and not into some con artists pocket.

Oh good grief. Banks and big oil control the economy. Banks and oil companies choose to do business with the likes of Saudi Arabia because all are criminals, willing to facilitate one another for personal gain. Liberals like yourself are the "useful idiots" who help them accomplish their objectives.



At $5 a gallon, the United States could easily produce enough oil to meet its own needs, and be creating well-paying jobs in the process. But this isn't happening. How the hell do you plan on creating a sustainable energy policy for the 21st century, when you can't even keep your own people gainfully employed using 20th century technology. It's a joke. Go read some more Kessy, you still haven't got a clue.

 

Congress is guilty. Last deficit by a Republican Congress $160.7 billion. Last deficit by a Democrat Congress. $1,299 TRILLION.

All time record highest deficit by a Republican Congress $412.7 billion.
All time record highest deficit by a Democrat Congress,,$1,412.7 TRILLION.

Take note of the exact ONE TRILLION DOLLAR DIFFERENCE! If you spent ONE MILLION DOLLARS A DAY, you could match that TRILLION dollar difference in just a little over 2700 YEARS.

So yes Democrat and Republican controlled Congresses have done a bad job. With the Democrats doing many, many times worse. That does not make the Republicans good, it just shows the Democrats are very, very bad.
As opposed to Democrats that think making Bush look bad makes obama good.

Bush was bad, obama is many times worse and a completely incompetent fool. But that doesn't make Bush any better or worse.

 

You're right, there isn't a good alternative now, and there will be one in the future. But that alternative isn't going to just materialize out of thin air. It's going to take work and research and resources. And yes, "resources" means money, among other things. Private industry isn't going to make the investment unless they see the prospect of pretty near term profits. If left to the market, that means when oil prices get very high, so in that scenario the burden is shouldered almost entirely by the consumer. I think a better alternative would be a market based program by the government to provide the incentive for industry to make that investment now, rather then later. Conservatives have a long history of coming up with inventive ways to use the market to our advantage with minimal intervention. Their refusal to apply that market savvy to this problem only hurts the country, I think.

And yes, creating an alternative can be done, and it can be done now. The Brazilians did it decades ago, when the oil shocks of the 70's made them decide that they were not going to leave their economy vulnerable to that sort of thing. They made the investment and now have a domestic sugarcane ethanol industry that makes them largely energy independent.

I haven't got a clue? You're the one who can look at a graph showing US oil production steadily falling to half of what it was 40 years ago and still claim that peak oil is a myth. For the umpteenth time, peak oil does not mean we're running out of oil. It means the rate at which we can produce it is steadily decreasing. Or that the rate of return on capital investment is steadily decreasing - they boil down to about the same thing. The US never produced enough domestic oil to meet our current demand, and the idea that we ever will is just a fantasy. Show me anyone in the oil industry who says otherwise.

I admit that saying that OPEC is holding the economy hostage is a bit of hyperbole. Never the less, it's undeniable that they have a lot of power in the current arrangement. You can blame banks or big oil or whomever you like, I don't really care. Regardless of who's ultimately at fault, the fact remains that things are not going to fundamentally change until we make the investment to find an alternative. If we all agree that would be a good thing, why procrastinate about it? It seems to me like this really ought to be a consensus issue, not a divisive one.

 

Let's see......conservatives held that Bush wasn't responsible for high gas prices because a President doesn't have any control over the price of oil.

And so now they accuse Obama of increasing the price of oil.

Got it.

As for Bush. One of the common reasons sighted for the record high gas prices was the highly volital situation in the middle eastern oil producing region. Yes, a war will do that. A war started by.....GWB....without provocation.

It's well documented in this thread that oil demand in the US is actually DOWN and US oil production is UP? So, how do you make a case tying the price of oil to Obama again?

 

How many times do you need to be told that politicians have no control over international oil market prices? You can whine about 'liberals' all you want but a conservative president won't have any more likelihood of lowering prices.

If there is no viable alternative to oil right now who do you think is to blame for not investing in your future? I'll give you three guesses...

 

Well there will be an alternet in just about two years. That is hydrogen vehicles. But Obama cut almost all the funding Bush set aside for it in favor of battery vehicles. Meanwhile Germany and Japan are funding up to 1,000 each to build refueling stations for hydrogen. Our government isn't doing anything.

 

Yea ... the FACT that your Head-Line indicates "Again" ... indicates you've experienced this before.

Chart your own ... http://www.illinoisgasprices.com/Retail_Price_Chart.aspx


Illinois =

 

why of course it was just the Republicans , everyone knows the Democrats are as pure as a new snow . . . lol

 

Battery technology is over 250 years old. Its a dead end. Hydrogen should have been seen as the obvious answer. Just another obama screw up. His list of mistakes will go on and on unless he is stopped Jan 20 2013.

 

Terrapinstation;1060864128]Remember the good ole days when a gallon of gas was $1.60 when Bush left office?


WTF are you talking about ? LOL $1.60 / gal ? ..

 

Ummm, wait, aren't you guys always saying that the government shouldn't be picking winners and losers, the free market should do that? I happen to agree with that, which is why I favor a market based approach along the lines of cap and trade. I'm sure conservatives could really improve on that general idea if they put their minds to it. But so long as Republicans are simply saying no to absolutely everything, we're not going to get anywhere, and nothing is going to change. Both sides need to listen to each other and compromise. Arguing about who deserves the most blame is not helping - we need to focus on moving ahead.

 

depending who is in office, they are also responsible for socks lost in the dryer and people who wont shut up in theaters.

 

When the govt wastes BILLIONS on electric and battery cars, that depresses research into a real or possible answers. Converting our EXISTING internal combustion autos over to burning hydrogen is a relatively easy conversion. And using natural gas as the interim fuel gives time to iron out the hydrogen conversion problems.

Whereas batteries, ALL BATTERIES, are toxic and create a disposal problem. Plus all batteries have a fixed usable life. Plus all batteries that can power autos are incredibly heavy. All of this was KNOWN before any of us on this forum were born. And I was born BEFORE WWII, battery limitations were known then. Did you know that every early telephone in the world operated off batteries? In the 'old days,' pre computer, Ma Bell had a building in every town. That building was filled with gigantic batteries. And the research into "better batteries" was constant and intense. Today what we "learn" about batteries just reinforces what we knew about them decades ago.
Electricity is terrific as "fixed" power, it is nearly useless as "mobile" power. In fact there is NO mobile electric power that does not consume fossil fuels as well.

 

Which is more or less my point. We should leave the engineering to the engineers, and the business end of things to businesses. That's why we should take a market based approach along the lines of cap and trade.

Incidentally, that's not how hydrogen cars work. They use something called a fuel cell to react the hydrogen with oxygen across a membrane, directly producing electric potential, instead of burning the hydrogen. If you tried to adapt a gasoline engine to burn hydrogen, I suspect you'd either get a whole lot of nothing or it would blow up.

 

A fuel cell is a type of battery. Hydrogen cars will burn hydrogen just as they can burn natural gas now. Hydrogen is less volatile than gasoline. Had it not been for the Hindenburg, we most likely would have been driving hydrogen BURNING cars for years by now.

 

You get an A for science class.

 

Cap and trade is government picking winners and losers.

Because it is that idiot in the White House who will decide what to cap and who to trade.

 

Cap and trade?????????????

That is the GOVERNMENT putting a CAP on the carbon emissions EVERY company may put into the air. When a company hits its CAP, it may BUY [TRADE] with a company under its cap, to allow more carbon emissions.
One of the ways this would happen is exchanges like the Chicago Carbon Exchange would tally the emissions of all companies and they would handle the trades done by companies that have EXCEEDED their carbon emission allotment. And, of course, the CCX would CHARGE a FEE for handling this trade. Guess who is deeply involved in the CCX? Al Gore, and B.H. obama. and the Tides foundation. All stand to make BILLIONS from Cap 'N' Trade Laws. So 2 things happen, one crooked politicians make billions, and energy costs skyrocket. Does any less carbon enter the air? No.

Revealing to know you're FOR that.

 

You are serious claiming that if Obama had giving 100% OK to the keystone pipeline as 6 months ago oil prices would be lower now?

Apparently there is no limit to the extent of the delusion to which some will engage.