This Week in the Mercury
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Green The Northwest: Now Less Gassy.
Posted by Sarah Mirk on Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 11:23 AM
Pat yourself of the back, Portlanders—according to Northwest enviro think tank Sightline you're each using an average of 40 gallons less gasoline per year than the average American. And, importantly, our gasoline consumption has declined over 15 percent over the last ten years. Check out this graph from their new report (pdf):
What do the researchers credit for the change? An environmental ethos is never mentioned. Instead, Sightline points to practical changes like smarter urban growth policies, investments in transit and high gas prices. And don't get too excited because even though we're below the national gas consumption average, America consumes a miserably high amount. Twenty million barrels of oil per day! Woo! We're #1!
1
Just remember people - the western hemisphere will never be free of mideast oil dependence in your lifetimes - NEVER! - and petroleum makes bike tires - HAHAHA!
2
Also makes the keys you typed with and every portion of every object between your keyboard and my monitor, including routers, switches, servers, fiber, copper, etc.
If we covered AZ and NM in Concentrated Solar Power arrays, built up nuclear and geothermal, we would subvert the need for mideast oil, and it would take ~25-40 years, of which I plan on still being alive.
If we covered AZ and NM in Concentrated Solar Power arrays, built up nuclear and geothermal, we would subvert the need for mideast oil, and it would take ~25-40 years, of which I plan on still being alive.
3
But that solar would involve violating protected national wildlands and harm the environment, so that will never happen.
Too bad!
Too bad!
4
Peak oil (which actually is peak demand once the economy ramps up) and all that pretty much make it guaranteed to happen.
You aren't going to see <$4/gal gas again when demand picks back up. Better get those energy sources ramped up quick.
You aren't going to see <$4/gal gas again when demand picks back up. Better get those energy sources ramped up quick.
5
Peak oil ~theory~ relies on the false assumption new reserves of petroleum and synthetic petroleum production will not happen anywhere on earth in the future.
6
Uh, no it doesn't, and a cursory glance online would educate you beyond a definition you just seemingly made up on the spot? It relies on observable reporting of past and current production, all easily measurable and verifiable traits, and geologic evidence to back it up.
Of course new reserves will be discovered under peak oil theories. Not only are those discoveries fewer and further apart, they are more expensive to extract over time. Those discoveries simply will not be able to keep up with demand in the current petroleum-based economy. Since the vast majority of this economy revolves around Petroleum-based manufactured items, the shit hits the fan when you can't effectively make jack-shit cheaply anymore.
If you know otherwise, bet with the futures markets. I have.
Of course new reserves will be discovered under peak oil theories. Not only are those discoveries fewer and further apart, they are more expensive to extract over time. Those discoveries simply will not be able to keep up with demand in the current petroleum-based economy. Since the vast majority of this economy revolves around Petroleum-based manufactured items, the shit hits the fan when you can't effectively make jack-shit cheaply anymore.
If you know otherwise, bet with the futures markets. I have.
7
If new exploration is going to find new oil, how come the last year that more oil was discovered than was produced was in the early 1980s? Even the "huge" find in the gulf of Mexico a few years ago was only a few months supply. Oil companies are huge operations with huge reseach budgets, combined, they are comparable to say, all the armies of the world combined. It isn't like they are looking for the remote under the couch cushions and need to pick up the other ones, they've already X-rayed the couch and they built a cat scanner for it and still didn't find it, and now they are building a scanning electron microscope to find atoms of the remote to show were it last was. And they've been that way for generations, and they found a lot of oil back in the 60s and 70s, and they are still looking, but they aren't finding it in the quantity and quality that they were in the past...
That said, Peak Oil != High Prices either. Oil prices reached 7% of world GDP last summer and they killed the economy. (Yeah, bad banking didn't help, but it didn't kill it, and a banking based "cure" isn't working cause it isn't the problem.) Adjusted for inflation, oil will stay below $400 for 25 years. Less of us will be able to afford it, (because we'll be unemployeed,) but we can't spend all of our money on oil so the price will only rise so far...
That said, Peak Oil != High Prices either. Oil prices reached 7% of world GDP last summer and they killed the economy. (Yeah, bad banking didn't help, but it didn't kill it, and a banking based "cure" isn't working cause it isn't the problem.) Adjusted for inflation, oil will stay below $400 for 25 years. Less of us will be able to afford it, (because we'll be unemployeed,) but we can't spend all of our money on oil so the price will only rise so far...
8
Do you know why they can't find it?
Our brilliant lawmakers have denied companies access to buy up or even look for new reserves on American soil.
Last post from me - the market itself will come up with energy solutions long before oil runs out unless they are prevented by the gov't.
Our brilliant lawmakers have denied companies access to buy up or even look for new reserves on American soil.
Last post from me - the market itself will come up with energy solutions long before oil runs out unless they are prevented by the gov't.
9
Our brilliant lawmakers have denied companies access to less than 0.3% of the oil that is on the planet. If they repealled every law preventing anyone from drilling anywhere they wanted, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference at the pump.
You are right, the market will come up with a solution. It might involve 20% unemployement and a lot less of us driving, but it will be a solution. The real question is, will you be happy with the solution that the market comes up with?
You are right, the market will come up with a solution. It might involve 20% unemployement and a lot less of us driving, but it will be a solution. The real question is, will you be happy with the solution that the market comes up with?
10
Addend - OK that .3% number is clearly made up - since that is the known-unknown compared to the unknown-unknown.
Second - the pump price is more of a reflection of refinery output - the other HUGE production capability that is usually ignored.
Building refinery facilities anywhere in the U.S. is harder than trying to get natural gas lines in Oregon, due to environmentally ignorant hippies.
Second - the pump price is more of a reflection of refinery output - the other HUGE production capability that is usually ignored.
Building refinery facilities anywhere in the U.S. is harder than trying to get natural gas lines in Oregon, due to environmentally ignorant hippies.
11
Missed again.
There are very good estimates of how much oil in on the planet vs how much is protected. True, they don't know down to the last drop, but I didn't say 0.23678492303522354%, I said less than 0.3%.
In the last 5 years several refineries have shut in the US because they couldn't make a profit. The real reason no new (large) refineries have been built is because it costs about $100B to build a large one and they just aren't that profitable in the first place. In any case, we can, (and sometimes do, after Katrina, for instance) import gasoline from other countries, so blaming that problem on the US is pretty silly. If someone wanted to build a refinery to sell Americans gas, they could do in Mexico and ship the stuff across the border, instead of Mexican oil coming to the US, being refined and then shipped back as gasoline to Mexico, like we do right now.
Quit getting your talking points from Rush. I was on Oxycodine earlier this week myself, and you can't think straight while taking it, it is no wonder that he is loopy.
But besides all that, you are a known lier: You promised to stop posting two posts ago, and then you didn't. You have the credibility of Mr Breedlove right now.
There are very good estimates of how much oil in on the planet vs how much is protected. True, they don't know down to the last drop, but I didn't say 0.23678492303522354%, I said less than 0.3%.
In the last 5 years several refineries have shut in the US because they couldn't make a profit. The real reason no new (large) refineries have been built is because it costs about $100B to build a large one and they just aren't that profitable in the first place. In any case, we can, (and sometimes do, after Katrina, for instance) import gasoline from other countries, so blaming that problem on the US is pretty silly. If someone wanted to build a refinery to sell Americans gas, they could do in Mexico and ship the stuff across the border, instead of Mexican oil coming to the US, being refined and then shipped back as gasoline to Mexico, like we do right now.
Quit getting your talking points from Rush. I was on Oxycodine earlier this week myself, and you can't think straight while taking it, it is no wonder that he is loopy.
But besides all that, you are a known lier: You promised to stop posting two posts ago, and then you didn't. You have the credibility of Mr Breedlove right now.
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