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GAS PRICES!!!!

  • Thread starter fc3srx713b
  • Start date
  • #81
how can you "nationalize" the price of crude when so much of what we are using does not come from this country? in another 5 years we will be fighting the Chinese for the crude from Venezuala and Iran. to hell with the oil industry, let them do whatever they are going to do and start demanding alternatives and put your money where your mouth is. i have a hard time feeling sorry for those in Cali, especially south Cali, though you guys are probably going to make me money as they are trying to put in a coal power plant bout 100 miles from here in order to sell power to the Californians. produce your own darn power and you wont have brown outs. most of the power from the hydro-electric dam 45 miles from me is going to power the pacific northwest though thats going to go down as the ppl of Montana would rather have the water in the lake instead of letting the Corps sell the power out of state. and since the Corps did such a wonderful job with the levees in Louisiana they have lost alot of their bargining power with this dam.

keep the guberment away from the oil companies i dont trust the feds any more than the suits. even as remoe as i am i would rather see gas stay at $2.50-$3 a gallon than nationalize the oil companies. the government isnt fit enough to do 90% of what they are doing now, i aint keen on turning this over to them either.
 
  • #82
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]yes but if you start powering a bunch of homes with solar your going to start getting rid of the brown out problems so many face such as with southern Cali. if the cost for an average home right now is under $20,000(i think the cost for a house the size of mine is approx $16,000) if you start doing it on a mass production level the cost per unit will drop farther.

True, but there is a limit to the bottom price, set by the technology itself.  High quality solar cells mean using gallium arsenide, which costs a lot to dispose of, and lower-quality solar cells mean lower efficiency, meaning more surface area is needed for them to work effectively.

Given how much power is consumed by A/C systems, I think the best way to make solar more effective is to implement more high-tech heating and cooling systems which rely less on powered A/C and more on insulation or exploiting existing temperature differentials.  Remove that massive chunk of the power bill and solar becomes a lot better of an option.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]i fully realize there are no right now answers but saying that nuclear, solar and wind arent viable options that shouldnt be implimented in the near future is just wrong.

They should be implemented, but not regarded as panaceas; each has its own drawbacks.  It's like a socio-economic version of the first law of thermodynamics; you don't get something for nothing.

There's even the possibility of using massive solar arrays in space (where a *lot* more light can be captured). Drawback: power would have to be transmitted down to the surface via a concentrated microwave beam which, if it strays even a little, could make Hiroshima look like a ****ing kiddie park.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]BTW you will never sell me on electric car, im having enough problems with all the extra electrical systems on the 2003 Ford truck the shop has. the fairly low tech 11 year old straight six in my Cherokee doesnt have near the problems as alot of the newer vehicles. and the problems it does occationally have dont cost $500 plus to fix. cant imagine a care thats run only on electrisity and computers

Reliability is a major issue, yes, but 100 years ago, cars were unreliable in comparison to horses, not to mention dangerous and uneconomical (horses will avoid obstacles on their own, and will self-replicate if you've got two of opposite sexes).  Eventually, the reliability issues will be fixed, or at least minimized.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]let them do whatever they are going to do and start demanding alternatives and put your money where your mouth is.

That returns to the question of "how"? For instance, I rent. I cannot install solar, nor do anything about where the electricity I use comes from. I can use less, and I do, but at the end of the day, I have very little control, and cannot switch until I own my own home, which is likely not happen until I'm 40.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]most of the power from the hydro-electric dam 45 miles from me is going to power the pacific northwest though thats going to go down as the ppl of Montana would rather have the water in the lake instead of letting the Corps sell the power out of state.

Well, there's the issue of location; not every river can be used for hydroelectric, and not every place is suitable for, say, large arrays of solar power.

Mokele
 
  • #83
No, I meant price controls TIED to the market price of crude. We can't help what oil-producing states charge for their product, but we CAN regulate how much profit can be made of each barrel. Alternatively we can regulate how much profit goes into research and new plants. The shareholders of these companies aren't going to like that, however. They like making tons of money off of all of us.

Energy production is a national, not a state issue. Not every state can have self-contained power production. That's neither practical or efficient. In California, we were victims of price fixing, artificial shortages, and grossly inflated prices. Whatever resentment you have towards California, it still remains the fact. It could be your state next.

As far as regulation goes, if there were none, we'd be paying $10/gallon. Existing regulation covers collusion and price fixing so already regulation is keeping it somewhat in check. But it isn't keeping them from making more profit than any company ever.

The government can be horrible running things or good. It depends. For example, medicaid and medicare operate much more efficiently (% of administrative cost versus dollars given) than the medical insurance companies that cover us all. It's hard to believe that they'd use up $10 BILLION a quarter in extra waste, however (and that's just Exxon).

Capslock
 
  • #84
ahh but if there is a high demand for solar energy we should be able to find an alternative to the gallium arsenide.

in a year or so we plan on switchin out our hot water heater to a couple tankless units. as far as $16,000 for a solar system, heck my car cost about that. 4 or 5 years down the road when we get the new house mostly paid off we are going to seriously look at one especially if i want a greenhouse. whats another $20,000 when your already building a $100,000 house? especially if your utillity bills will be next to nil?

i agree none are THE answer but they ARE a part of the solution, if the public as a whole accepts and empraces them than thats a HUGE stepping stone twords other energy sources and getting away from oil and coal.
 
  • #85
(sorry Caps, was typing a responce to Mokele when yah posted)

California is one of the LARGEST states, you have the land mass to produce your own power. i understand why the smaller New England states are not self sufficient but for California to be buying alot of power from plants in Montana and other states seems a lil odd to me. i would take a nuclear plant here in Montana over the coal they are suggesting especially given the high sulfur content of our coal, this could impact my fishing!
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i dont see why California cant put in some more Nuclear power plants instead of having other states deal with the enviromental impact of coal power plants and such. Californias state guberment seems second only to the Feds in its idiocity.

actually i dont have alot of problems with California though you couldnt pay me to live there, i do have a huge issue with the Corp of Engineers, those idiots are costing us money cause they are letting water out of the lake to "keep barge traffic going" doesnt matter that we make more money on tourisim than the barge industry does. plus the fact they are lieing out their arse as they didnt need water from Fort Peck to keep the Missisippi up last year(the Yellowstone was running bank to bank ALL YEAR last year, something i havent seen in 12 years, there was plenty of water heading down to keep the barges afloat), what they did do is sign a contract on how much power they would produce for a customer and had to pump out the water to meet the contract.
 
  • #86
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]ahh but if there is a high demand for solar energy we should be able to find an alternative to the gallium arsenide.

High demand can increase the incentive, and increase the funding to basic research, but science can't be rushed. Even with all the money if the world, experiments still take time, and you can't put a timeline on serendipitous ideas, which are where many of our advances came from (iirc, Pauli came up with the idea for nuclear fission while waiting at the traffic light).

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]in a year or so we plan on switchin out our hot water heater to a couple tankless units. as far as $16,000 for a solar system, heck my car cost about that. 4 or 5 years down the road when we get the new house mostly paid off we are going to seriously look at one especially if i want a greenhouse. whats another $20,000 when your already building a $100,000 house? especially if your utillity bills will be next to nil?

But how many people have that much to spend? I know I don't, and won't for a very long time. $20k may be the price of your car, but for a lot of people $200 can make or break them. I know people who're working 3 jobs in order to pay for college and feed themselves, and *still* can't make ends meet when the crappy car that's all they can afford breaks down.

Once you have a home, sure, you can modify it, but how many people have that luxury, compared to all those in apartments and rental homes.

There's also the 3-d problem: as a building gets larger, the volume increases as a cubic function (and, presumably, the power drain due to people working or living inside), but the surface area availible for solar increases as a square function. Considering that solar cells cover most of the roof of a small home for one family, they get progressively more unrealistic as you talk about larger apartment complexs and office buildings.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]California is one of the LARGEST states, you have the land mass to produce your own power. i understand why the smaller New England states are not self sufficient but for California to be buying alot of power from plants in Montana and other states seems a lil odd to me. i would take a nuclear plant here in Montana over the coal they are suggesting especially given the high sulfur content of our coal, this could impact my fishing! i dont see why California cant put in some more Nuclear power plants instead of having other states deal with the enviromental impact of coal power plants and such. Californias state guberment seems second only to the Feds in its idiocity.

It's the "not in my back yard" problem. Everyone approves, until it has to be near them. Nevermind the fact that modern nuclear reactors can essentially never melt down due to some new concepts invented recently (the reactor is flexible, so as it heats, it expands, and the greater surface area lets it cool, resulting in it shrinking, resulting in more heat, resulting in expansion...it's said that it's creepily organic to watch, like the reactor is actually *breathing*).

Mokele
 
  • #87
yes solar wont work for every one but if x number of homes have it it takes y amount of strain of the current infrastructure. its a good thing even if its not universal

Mokele, how much money do you think i make? between the wife and i we have 3 jobs and dont break $75,000 a year. i see the solar system as an investment in that for the cost of not buying a new vehicle for a few more years, im not going to have hardly a power bill in a few years. its about proirities. i dont need a new vehicle every couple years. solar is a definate answer now for houses probably up to about 3 times the size as mine as long as its got a basement and not trying to heat/cool 3 stories above ground. if i was living in half way rural South Cali its what i would really be looking at given the frequency of brown outs.
 
  • #88
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]Mokele, how much money do you think i make? between the wife and i we have 3 jobs and dont break $75,000 a year.

This year, I'll make a total of $17k, with $3k of that only because I got a grant thanks to everyone on campus being to afraid of my advisor to turn one of his students down. I'll make about the same next year, then move on to PhD, where if I get good support I'll be making $18k for the next 5-7 years. Then there's post-doc for up to 6 years, where I'll be lucky to see $30k a year. Only then will I get a shot at an entry level faculty position ($50-60K), which I'll have to work for 7 years putting in roughly 70 hours a week. (Of course, then comes the payoff: tenure, a $70k job that I can't be fired from for anything short of murder. And even then, it'd probably have to be another faculty member.)

I'm not in miserable poverty or anything, but half of the US makes less than 60% of what you do, which makes such modifications to a home (if they own a home) much less feasible. While solar is certainly a wise investment, all investments require a certain level of capital to start off, and if you don't have that much liquid assets, you can't make the investment, no matter how wise.

The point is that those who can afford to invest in this emerging technology are those who have less incentive to, since they have more income and thus the rising gas prices hurt them less. Those for whom gas prices pose the biggest problem are those who cannot afford other types of energy. They still have alternatives, of course, such as public transportation or walking (that's part of how I can live comfortably on such a low income; I specifically got an apartment close enough to campus that I could walk in, even in the foulest weather), but not always.

This creates the situation in which the people who are hit hardest have the least alternatives, and that the companies are making obscene profits off this situation without regard to who they hurt. The governmental response has been only to spout lip-service about new methods (the fudning for the NSF, which funds the vast majority of basic research, has increased at a rate *below* inflation), while actively encouraging wasteful habits (tax breaks for SUV owners) and downplaying the environmental consequences.

Mokele
 
  • #89
i see what your saying, cant understand why 60% of the country makes less than we do (actually i forget what our yearly income is, i make about the same as you, the wife made about $8K more than me last year, probably going to be closer to $20K more this year do to her second job btw she also has 2 kids that we are supporting) other than they choose not to, hell we couldnt find help when we were going to pay $8 an hour in a town where minumum wage is normal and cost of living is low. thats one of the other problems with this country which is MUCH bigger than oil prices, ppl are to freaking lazy and looking for hand outs.

i didnt get a tax break for my SUV? did it have to be a new one? if i give my '95 Cherokee a new paint job and an engine overhaul does it count?
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hell it still gets 20-22 mpg on the highway
 
  • #90
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]i see what your saying, cant understand why 60% of the country makes less than we do

Actually, it's 50% make 60% less than your stated value. Median income in the US is 44K plus a bit. That means half the population earns more, and half earns less. 45/75=0.6=60%.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]other than they choose not to, hell we couldnt find help when we were going to pay $8 an hour in a town where minumum wage is normal and cost of living is low.

Well, it depends on how one defines 'choice' (and that's not a dodge). I know a lot of people who had to make do in very low personal incomes because they were working their way through college. Such an endeavor often precludes 9-5 jobs, and usually relegates them to part-time work, with tuition removing a large portion of their salary. In a sense, they 'chose' this, but in another sense, they had no choice: to get a decent job later, they need a university degree, and they may not have parents who can afford to cover it.

Others may be people who never went to college for a variety of reasons, such as the price, or possibly just couldn't get in. Others may have failed out. I suspect we'll see more of the latter two in the near future, considering how horribly the US public school system in failing our kids. You should see the lab reports I have to grade; I could write better than this in the 3rd grade.

I don't think it can be easily generalized. Yes, there are some lazy people looking to just coast on by with minimal work for maximal cash. But there are people who have just had bad breaks financially, educationally, socially, personally, or medically. Hell, I know someone who was, until recently, on welfare. She's not lazy; she entered university the same time I did, and graduated with a 3.8 in astrophysics. But she had a medical condition which developed in her senior year leaving her in crippling pain for years.

While I fully admit to being biased, I place a lot of blame on the educational system. Part of this is the fault of the individuals, but part of the blame also rests on the fact that they haven't even been taught some basic aspects of how to cope in the real world or some rudimentary logic skills. Inability to think far ahead, to think rationally about finances (or much of anything), inability to express oneself cogently, they should have all learned this at *some* point, and if our education system worked properly, I guarantee ths would be less of a problem.

Ah well, in 30 years we'll just use robots anyway.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]i didnt get a tax break for my SUV? did it have to be a new one? if i give my '95 Cherokee a new paint job and an engine overhaul does it count? hell it still gets 20-22 mpg on the highway

Yeah, it's a new-car thing. And things like that mpg are part of what I mean by wastefulness. My car (just a car, not an SUV or truck) weighs over 2 tons, but still gets 26 mpg highway. Clearly, therefore, it's possible to make large cars that get decent milage, so why isn't it happening?

Mokele
 
  • #91
those working to better themselves dont bug me, a student trying to get through college and needs a lil help via food stamps or whatever, no problem thats what the system is there for. i did not go through college and i have no issues finding a job paying $18,000 without back breaking manual labor. a good solid work ethic will get you far in this world. guess you need to see what i deal with on a daily basis. im in an area where the common saying is "a wellfare check will make a cadillac payment", i live in an area where there are jobs that pay a living wage and the buisnesses in town have to resort to hiring ppl away from one another in order to get decent help.

as far as the school system failing our kids, the guberments 'No Child Left Behind Act' is making things worse, not better. i fully believe what you say a friend of mine moved her and her kids back here from Florida after being gone 5 years. here kids were a good year behind the students here, thank god her kids are bright and they caught up. some rural schools are getting the job done with student willing to learn. i graduated with a 3.5 6 years ago taking physics and Human Phys, and Chem and Calc. had good teachers. college just wasnt what i wanted, not sorry i didnt stick it out, not complaining i only make what i make but i make enough to live off of even without the wife but i know i dont need a new vehicle to keep me happy and my 11 year old jeep is a tank thats got alot of miles left in it and when it dies ill find another for about $4000
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  • #92
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]i did not go through college and i have no issues finding a job paying $18,000 without back breaking manual labor. a good solid work ethic will get you far in this world. guess you need to see what i deal with on a daily basis.

Well, it might be different there, though. In many places i've been, a college degree is as requisite as an HS diploma used to be, in part because HS doesn't cover what's needed anymore. With small businesses, this is less of the case, where your work ethic can shine through, but with big companies who have to sort through hundreds of resumes before interviews even get started, lack of college is a quick way to send a resume to the 'circular file on the floor'.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]as far as the school system failing our kids, the guberments 'No Child Left Behind Act' is making things worse, not better.

That's just a drop in the bucket; we need to return to classical education, where the bulk of your learning experience and grades were based not on vomiting forth memorized facts but in being able to logically piece information together during debating the teacher. A firm grounding in logic, reasoning and debate is what these students need; such skills are applicable to just about everything, regardless of subject matter, be it academics or life.

[b said:
Quote[/b] ] i fully believe what you say a friend of mine moved her and her kids back here from Florida after being gone 5 years. here kids were a good year behind the students here, thank god her kids are bright and they caught up.

Yeah, the FL is system is pretty bad; I suffered through that one and Louisiana (2nd worst in the nation at the time).

[b said:
Quote[/b] ]college just wasnt what i wanted, not sorry i didnt stick it out, not complaining i only make what i make but i make enough to live off

See, I actually think *less* people should be going to college. If the public education was doing what it was supposed to, college would only be necessary if you were planning on a specific field that required extensive education beyond that, such as science, engineering, law, medicine, etc. The problem is that the school system *doesn't* do well enough, so college becomes remedial high school.

IIRC, it was Jefferson who said "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

Mokele
 
  • #93
If you want to fault the Florida school system, I would suggest you look to baby Bush. According to Newsweek magazine the high school I teach at is ranked as the 713th best in the nation out of over 5000, however according to the voodoo mathematics that Jeb and the state of Florida came up with we are ranked as a D school in the state. Perhaps the oil companies could donate some of their profits to the educational system since the federal and state governments don't seem inclined to.

"If the public education was doing what it was supposed to, college would only be necessary if you were planning on a specific field that required extensive education beyond that, such as science, engineering, law, medicine, etc."

Just my opinion, but maybe the public schools could do what they are supposed to if the federal and state governments would stop adding more and more mandates that look pretty to the public, but just take away classtime.

Also, where does one store the energy from a solar system. (I know in batteries - but are they huge, or can they be stored in the attic, etc. (no basements here in Fl)?
 
  • #94
Electricity generated by solar cells can be fed into the regional grid or used to charge batteries or even used to generate hydrogen (H2O = H2 + 1/2 O2). I read somewhere that using electricity to produce hydrogen and then using the hydrogen in a fuel cell to generate electricity can be more efficient than charging and discharging a battery. I assume that's at a scale well beyond a flashlight battery.
 
  • #95
In the UK the average is now 96p ($1.75) a litre, or £4.37 ($7.98) a gallon.

Extortionate  
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  • #96
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]In the UK the average is now 96p ($1.75) a litre, or £4.37 ($7.98) a gallon.
Is that why they drive all those funny looking little cars in Europe?  I guess 440 cu. in. max wedge 'Cudas with a 4:11 rear gear wouldn't sell very good over there.  
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  • #98
Stupid Europeans - instead of driving gas guzzlers and sending even more Euros to an assortment of nice countries and corporations, they drive small cars and use a lot of public transit.
 
  • #99
not faulting Floridas system per say, its just the main example i personally can verify. my friend was in the Jacksonville area.

Buster and Mokele, i guess we are pretty well seeing eye to eye on the educational system.

as far as jobs and the need for higher education, that mostly depends on where your looking for employment. bet yah i could find a living wage job just fine where ever im at. granted i wont be looking at getting hired for a "suit" job either.
 
  • #100
There are a lot of reasons why a college education is pushed so much.  One is that an employer would much rather deal with a 22 year old than an 18 year old.  Who wouldn't?  Another is that success at college is supposed to be a pretty good predictor of success at work.  It shows what people can do when their on their own and have to motivate themselves.  Neither of those reasons actually requires any learning be done, but some learning while at college is a good thing too.

From a more macro perspective, having a lot of people go to college and voluntarily stay out of the workforce for 4+ years helps limit unemployment.  People get pretty agitated when unemployment rises above a few percent, so having lots of people spend nearly 10% of their working years in college helps maintain a tranquil society.  Otherwise unemployment would be much higher and a lot of the extra unemployed would be the more volatile 18-22 year olds.

Having college graduates enter the workforce with some debt is also good for domestic order because it encourages young workers to be dependable little capitalists focused on making money to repay the loan.  They aren't likely to make demands of their employer or start a Marxist revolution.  And, of course, once they've been thoroughly domesticated, they're ready for a mortgage.
 
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