Clean Energy & Efficiency

youngdan wrote:

I would start by sacking all of them except the Ranger Wing and intelligence branch. Bring back the LDF from times past. Sell them gas guzzeling transports and put them on bikes.

This is a good discussion, let's carry it on here.

Two truck drivers have died on picket lines in Spain and Portugal in the last two days. Farmers, fishermen and truck drivers are on strike over fuel prices across Europe.

Quote :

Spain got tough today with striking truckers who have disrupted food and fuel supplies, deploying riot police to lift blockades of a border crossing with France and a major highway outside Madrid, and making dozens of arrests.

But unions representing the strikers vowed to press on, rejecting a package of measures presented by the government to end the three-day nationwide protests over rising fuel prices.

One striker died yesterday when a van drove through a picket line, and a protester died in a similar incident in neighbouring Portugal, which has been hit by the same kind of strike since Monday.

One of the Spanish industries hit hardest by the strike – car manufacturing - warned that if the stoppage continued, the entire industry and its daily production of 13,000 vehicles would grind to a halt tomorrow because parts for assembly were not reaching factories.

The strike is being waged by self-employed drivers, who represent an estimated 20% of Spain’s 380,000-vehicle trucking industry. They say big companies can cope better with fuel price increases by lowering their hauling rates to land more jobs.

The independent drivers are demanding a minimum, guaranteed rate for their services. The Socialist government refuses, saying that would interfere with free-market competition.

Spanish truck drivers say their diesel costs have risen 36% in a year.

Spanish fishermen have been on strike since May 30, also over fuel costs, and this is compounding problems getting fish supplies to consumers.

http://www.elpais.com/

The protests are all over Spain - dozens injured. A little video of the policía breaking a few heads above from the front page of El Pais

The oil price is knocking the hell out of the FTSE and Wall Street - The British Banks are being squeezed. [
But putting interest rates up - I'm not sure how that is going to help. This isn't a situation of inflation caused by too much money supply - ultimately its the inelastic supply of oil that's the problem.

Is anyone else seriously thinking of stockpiling at this stage? I mean seriously.. I don't know how much room I've left beside my cans of spaghetti though..

What's the legal limit we are allowed to stockpile though - isn't petrol explosive? If only I had a massive tank... Keep your milk cartons boys, they could be worth a lot in a few weeks time

Auditor #9 wrote:

Is anyone else seriously thinking of stockpiling at this stage? I mean seriously.. I don't know how much room I've left beside my cans of spaghetti though..

What's the legal limit we are allowed to stockpile though - isn't petrol explosive? If only I had a massive tank... Keep your milk cartons boys, they could be worth a lot in a few weeks time

One of the villages near me has a large half full tank under the green left over from the last shortage in the 70s. I think it goes off after a couple of years though.

It's true for whoever said it over on p.ie, the people driving the SUVs are going to be tarred and feathered at petrol stations if the price keeps rising like it has been.



http://www.californiagasprices.com/

Why stockpile. Just vote out the lads that have juice taxed to the hilt.

youngdan wrote:

Why stockpile. Just vote out the lads that have juice taxed to the hilt.

Ok, fair point but if they didn't tax it then we'd use a lot more so it would be all gone a lot quicker. And we don't want to be beholden to the Arabs either so best try cut out using oil as much as we can... The tax levied stays in the economy anyway... Indeed it's taking money from the haves and I'm sure the have nots get semething. What's more important is that we should use any dosh levied on fuel to look for more or better ways of sustaining ourselves. However, I believe that 1% of the tax levied goes to a fund which collects information on what people use - Norad or something.

Not at all Auditor it is just squeezing the little man. Ireland has 3 problems and they were standing together in the indo 2 days ago. If anyone thinks they care for you or me then there is no point talking to them. The middle class are going to get a good shaft and they deserve it.

****** THIS IS MACHINE NATION'S 20,000th POST ******


The idea of the tax youngdan isn't consciously designed to do this but the effects are to put a limit to the gluttony of people so that the lifetime of a precious world resource can be drawn out as much as possible and as well as that to share it out evenly between people. In the end of it all price comes down to energy no matter what commodity you are talking about.

The tax has the unintented effect of pressing some democracy on the supply and distribution of energy. Unfortunately America hasn't been taking the oil democratically up to now - cheap supply encourages use of gas guzzlers and with however limited a supply there is, I can't see how you can justify that some people pay cheap prices for such a commodity while others don't and yet some still pay cheaply for misuse of that commodity - drivers of V8 Interceptors, SUVs etc. How can you justify it in a world of limited supply even if it's under your own ground? Wouldn't half the engine size be enough for ye?



Today
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/12/markets/oil.ap/index.htm?section=money_topstories

That is all pie in the sky. The oil is deliberately withheld from getting to market while wind etc is being stiffled to preserve an energy monopoly as long as possible. Everyone pays the same for oil and if ye want to pay the Euro per litre tax then that is a problem for the Irish voter

youngdan wrote:

That is all pie in the sky. The oil is deliberately withheld from getting to market while wind etc is being stiffled to preserve an energy monopoly as long as possible. Everyone pays the same for oil and if ye want to pay the Euro per litre tax then that is a problem for the Irish voter

Even if it was accepted that there is a supply today, the supply of oil is clearly not infinite. I heard someone say today that most alternatives become viable around the 60 dollar a barrel mark. That will come down as technology improves and with economy of scale in production of alternatives. I also heard a panicky oil person bad mouthing alternatives , a very good sign.

We should be saving oil for things like useful / emergency flying that can't be done using alternative energy.

cactus flower wrote:

We should be saving oil for things like useful / emergency flying that can't be done using alternative energy.

And for producing petroleum-based products like plastic, pharmaceuticals and fertilisers.

cactus flower wrote:

We should be saving oil for things like useful / emergency flying that can't be done using alternative energy.

I agree but look at this



aahhh ...


Could run on hydrogen according to ecogeek
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1349/

Auditor #9 wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

We should be saving oil for things like useful / emergency flying that can't be done using alternative energy.

I agree but look at this



aahhh ...


Could run on hydrogen according to ecogeek
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1349/

That looks like a Super Star Destroyer!

The discovery in the Dakotas is for real at 430 billion barrels. More oil than in all the middle east. This 4 dollar gas is a joke. I just got a passenger van with a 5.4 litre engine and need gas at a dollar a gallon. I am in a guzzling mood today.

See? With yokes like that you're driving then how do you expect it all to last? What about the Chinese or Injuns when they start to want 5 litres too? Exponential growth and all.

It's cheap flights I'm worried about, me. Prudhoe Bay was mentioned in Collapse too you know.. Is the Dakota field find all over the news? I had a look on Google earth and Dakota has a lot of square fields ??

There's a picture of that part of the world with Ireland superimposed at the same scale. You can just see Chicago near the right hand side


Here's wiki on the Bakken field
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation

See? With yokes like that you're driving then how do you expect it all to last? What about the Chinese or Injuns when they start to want 5 litres too? Exponential growth and all.

It's cheap flights I'm worried about, me. Prudhoe Bay was mentioned in Collapse too you know.. Is the Dakota field find all over the news? I had a look on Google earth and Dakota has a lot of square fields ??

There's a picture of that part of the world with Ireland superimposed at the same scale. You can just see Chicago near the right hand side


Here's wiki on the Bakken field
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakken_Formation

Quote :

It is estimated that there are significant reservoirs of oil shale beneath the Bakken's 200,000 square miles (520,000 km²). There were first discovered in 1951, but have long frustrated efforts to extract oil. An April 2008 USGS report estimated the amount of technically recoverable in the Bakken Formation at 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels, with a mean of 3.65 billion.[2] The state of North Dakota also released a report that month which estimated that there are 2.1 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil in the Bakken

It is a 15 seater van but them Chinie fellas are small so 60 of them could be cramed in so the averages would still work out pretty good. We could call it a Maomobile.

410 billion according to bloomberg http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=ayj1uo_gdNI4

Introducing 5-litres for the poor people of China might cause a lot of confucian.

Wikipedia if you can believe a word of it what the 'USGS' says there are 3.65 billion barrels under there in North Dakota - in oil shale though - what's the story with that? is it harder to get out and you put more energy in effectively? it's like your man Hitler making oil from coal...

America uses 20 million barrels a day youngdan and more and the whole world used 90 million barrels... that's a fair chunk ye're taking there I've no pity you're paying what you're paying although if you get your own oil you should pay what you like. The arabs'll only sell it here cheaper again though. The Dakota oil would keep you moving for a long while (4000,000,000 / 20,000,000 = 200 years at current usage) but would it stay at the current price or continue going up?

I'm going out now and I'm hoping to avoid paying €1.35 per litre by shopping around and maybe getting it at €1.31. That's nearly $2 a litre, is that right?

The bloomberg news is from today. Oil shale is different and you could say not worth the effert. This is great news. I think I will go into the used prius exporting business.

youngdan wrote:

The bloomberg news is from today. Oil shale is different and you could say not worth the effert. This is great news. I think I will go into the used prius exporting business.

Us Europeans (well not anymore if the 'No' rumours are true) have no oil worth a feck so we have to aspire to driving souped-up golf carts.

Why don't you post that link on p.ie in the $200 barrel of oil thread - expat girl and david might have an answer for you or they might spill their coffee over their computer with shock. Or could this news be information terrorism youngdan? it could scare the bejesus out of speculators and all to urge the barrel price downward by losing investment .. ? The price hasn't fallen recently but would you expect it to?

(You have a nice reference to the capacitors on the electric cars thread too which is very technical but I haven't taken my eye off it )

This is from the Bloomberg link

Quote :

Some oil, like the 10.4 billion barrels estimated to be recoverable in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, remains off limits -- as a nature conservation measure -- even as President George W. Bush renews his calls for drilling there. North Dakota, already crisscrossed by farm roads, is open for business.

As traditional oil fields become scarce, exploration companies must tackle trickier ones to stay in business. Their success will determine when the world reaches peak oil -- the high point in production after which new supply will no longer be there to slake new demand. It's a gloomy concept. Peak oil theorists predict the mother of all oil shocks, complete with famine and wars for energy.

These days, big new oil deposits often come with caveats. Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA says its offshore Tupi field contains as much as 8 billion barrels of oil, which the company hopes to start pumping next year. But the field is under more than four miles of water and rock, where pressure can crush drilling equipment.

Such high pressure that equiptment is crushed ... we should see some research into and production of super-strong materials so, shouldn't we? or other products designed to cope with this sort of thing as oil gets scarcer. They say in Bloomberg that the oil in Bakken isn't shale as you say but that it is 2 miles underground.. Hopefully they won't release one of those weird creatures who live in the underground caverns down there like happened in the documentary Cloverfield ...

Most of my posts over yonder deal with the iseq thread and american politics with a bit of conspiracy because there is an audience interested in these topics. With the subjects that has an audience here like energy I prefer to chat here. Here is more of a discussion and it is rare to raise feathers even when we disagree. I do not like lads trying to nail the credibility or intellect of an opposing poster. When I want to call someone a donkey I have plenty of targets yonder.
That stuff with the capacitor is very interesting. It is years sinse I studied capacitors but Evoting machine will know them well. They used to be in old tv sets. You should never tamper with an old set because unpluging it will not remove the danger. The capacitors will still have electricity in them and if they discharged to you then it was all over.