Zeus,

Oh, please.  The statistics show that improving U.S. auto fuel efficiency standards by just two lousy miles per gallon (2 mpg!!) would go farther to 'supply' our country with oil via the savings that would result than anything we could ever hope to pump out of ANWR.

So, forgive my 'tude, but I'll be damned if I'm gonna open up ANWR to oil drilling just so that a bunch of fat-assed, lazy Americans can continue driving their gas-guzzling Hummers and Yukons and Chevey Subdivisions around the bend to their local 7-11 for a midnight box of Pop Tarts.  

When we take energy conservation seriously in the U.S. we can, maybe, maybe, begin considering which of our few remaining wild places we're willing to sacrifice on the altar of unbridled consumption.

But until then, I politely submit that all the Hummer drivers can go to hell.  (Or to Iraq, in a noble and patriotic effort to secure Middle Eastern petroleum to feed their habit.  Their choice, I guess: hell or Iraq.  Curiously, though, I haven't seen many Hummer drivers in my neighborhood volunteer to go to either ...)

1. I saw a consumer news segment touting the "good" mileage of some crossover/small SUVs -- about 23 combined city/highway and 15 city mpg.  
If people are thinking that this is "good" then we have big problems.  Is the media is helping to seduce people who are getting really bad mileage into thinking that this is "good".  Are peoples' standards this low?  

2. Canada tar sands.  From my limited reading the exploitation of Canada's tar sands will result in environmental consequences far worse than drilling in ANWR.  Yet, I have seen so little outrage compared with what happened with our stopping the drilling in ANWR.  So what is up here?  Are we going to burn Canada's oil without even stopping to consider and compare?  Our national hypocrisy is flashing red here.  Shouldn't we be organizing huge boycotts of the oil companies who will be importing this Canadian crude?  

Those commie traitors the bush boys, jeb and duuuhbya, outlawed oil drilling off the Florida coast.  Not Castro.  Get your traitors straight.

Anyone prefer 60 cent per gallon equivalent electric powered plugin hybrids?  To 4,5,6,7 ... dollar fossil or fuel farmed powered driving?

Nope.  It's just not manly.  If your gas guzzler does not spew GHG and take 100 dollar fillups, you're not a man.  It's just that simple.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

I think the point in the lead article was that "We can't build our way out of an energy crisis by expanding the petroleum supplies."  

By corollary, restricting supplies of petroleum goods will be the driving force, rather than limiting the demand side - especially here in the US where the current administration doesn't have the political will to limit demand.

No problem there; I'm having a "no-duh" moment!  

Many think that a free, unregulated market is the best solution.  But has this Miltonian approach done any good?  Not really.  

But I'd be wary of bringing in a discussion of price, value, and spreads to explain the supply and demand issues.  I don't think money means very much except for people on a limited budget (not to sound harsh).  In terms of constant 1970 dollars we still enjoy fairly cheap gasoline and oil prices.  

Plus, there are a bunch of factors other than just price.  Commodity and spot markets control much of this, where oil prices are traded as an advanced form of gambling.  And those markets are inherently psychological, responding to news of wars, outages, pirates, blown wells, new reservoirs, riots in Nigeria, company quarterly statements, and so forth.  Some estimate that tensions in the Middle East caused a "fear premium" of perhaps $12 per barrel.  None of that can explain supply-side prices as a matter of factual evidence - just fear and greed, mostly.

Finally, haven't you seen that the dollar is sinking in value relative to other currencies?  That makes exports very attractive but is killing the US on the import side.  

So the economics of the petroleum market is indeed complex and I'm no economist.  Let's just say the the pricing issues are "irrational," and that the physical limitations on supply side will be the driving factor, not price. /sam

Onward through the fog

If the tense is wrong, correct it.  If you want to see bizarre look at your freaking website.

"World oil production is at its peak and set to fall 32% by 2020 as discoveries wane, said Ali Samsam Bakhtiari, a former executive of Iran's state oil company..."

Those of us open to this could do 32% standing on our heads (if we haven't already).  The interesting thing to watch will be the cultural response, as actual decline is documented.

I've used metaphors like "this is a hill we can't see over" etc.

The graphic in the lead article is clearly wrong because Canada, Mexico, and other nations send more oil and petroleum products to us than the ones listed (all being Middle East OPEC or African OPEC I suppose - the list seems cherry picked).  The fact is OPEC is a minority of our US imports although yes it does affect fluidity of the marketplace.

Most Americans have this boron-bizarre (sorry!) notion that Middle East oil is bad but US, Canada, and Mexico oil is OK.  Except for tar sands from Canada, I guess.  How ludicrous and sorry.

Onward through the fog

The graphic in the lead article is clearly wrong because Canada, Mexico, and other nations send more oil and petroleum products to us than the ones listed (all being Middle East OPEC or African OPEC I suppose - the list seems cherry picked).

Thats because it's not a graph of US oil use.
It's a graph of world oil use.

BTW, heard on the news today.
$92 dollars a barrel for oil.

Another report commenting that if we attacked Iran, we could expect it to go up another $20....

_

Get used to high oil prices?
Indeed.

I know nobody likes to hear New Taxes.
If a special tax on gasoline were installed specifically to create a fund for homeowners and industries to be able to purchase solar water heaters, solar space heating systems, efficient PV, maybe even hybrid cars. If the monthly payments for the loan can be structured in such a way that they are equal or less than the energy savings, who wouldn't want to go green?The idea would be to start investing in the companies that already have products that can make us energy independent and reduce GHG.
It wouldn't even have to be too big, (we wouldn't want to add 5 cents to that midnight pop-tart).
Development of new technology would come automatically from the profits of these American companies who will also be able to compete internationally.
There are quite a few inventions out there waiting for investors. Investors won't invest unless there is a big enough market.
Nobody wants to pay more for gas, but if we don't start coming up with alternatives soon, the price will be a lot higher, in many ways.

...to get ANWR opened up, you elitist idiot! Who died and annointed you with the keys to ANWR? I think the market, read all of us, can and will solve this "problem" in due time and way better than legislation. Every auto maker who can and does improve mpgs gains a marketing advantage so no auto maker will intentionally NOT pursue greater fuel efficiency.

As for Iraq for oil, where's the US keeping all that oil that's tripled the price since March 2003?  You just can't tell other people how to behave.  Oh wait, you can with your activist judges who legislate from the bench.  You guys sure are smart!

"activist judges"

Know your free marketeer (like Brittainey was a mouseketeer)limboob catch phrases.  Hehey.

I wonder if Scalia appointing the shaved chimp president was "activist"?  Nope.  

Stopping the recount was the first step in the great bushwacking of the US.

I wonder why the hypercar is not being rushed into production by some highly competitive auto manufacturer?  Because the oil/auto industry is acting as a monopoly?  With a lot of inside legal help from traitors like Roberts, Alito, and Scalia.  Traitors to our constitution.  

Traitors to real competitive capitalism.  These corpoRATS prefer corporate feudalism.  

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog