Clean Energy & Efficiency

Did anyone read the business pages of the Times today? Terry Leahy agrees with me in saying that the currently high prices of oil are "a speculative bubble".

Hows about we set up a website entitled The Petroleum Pin, eh?

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Did anyone read the business pages of the Times today? Terry Leahy agrees with me in saying that the currently high prices of oil are "a speculative bubble".

Hows about we set up a website entitled The Petroleum Pin, eh?

Class. It might deserve its own forum. Do you think there is such a website? Most of them are very sombre and bearish... but I hope you are totally right and its speculative.

Can you really see the price of petrol and diesel dropping though? I seriously can't - not unless a really decent alternative comes along. Air Car in August should tell a lot. Time for a quick spin over to www.autobloggreen.com...

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Did anyone read the business pages of the Times today? Terry Leahy agrees with me in saying that the currently high prices of oil are "a speculative bubble".

Hows about we set up a website entitled The Petroleum Pin, eh?

Class. It might deserve its own forum. Do you think there is such a website? Most of them are very sombre and bearish... but I hope you are totally right and its speculative.

I dunno, but with the volume of pessimistic anthologies on the Property Pin on just exactly how bad it's all going to get, we should have at least a sub-forum here dedicated to the Petroleum Pin.

Quote :

Can you really see the price of petrol and diesel dropping though? I seriously can't - not unless a really decent alternative comes along. Air Car in August should tell a lot. Time for a quick spin over to www.autobloggreen.com...

I know we are facing into constrained supplies, I know we are on the cusp of Peak Oil and I know that, in the long term, the price of oil must go up. That's why I said that oil should, after it over-corrects from this bubble, rise in a 30 degree incline. Anything less would be restrictive, anything more would be excessive.

I feel that oil prices could reach $200 over a crazy Summer before crashing to somewhere around $80 before resuming their upward direction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/03/commodities

Soros suspects the oil bubble may trigger stock market crash.

Quote :

George Soros, the billionaire hedge fund manager, will warn later today that the oil price has become a bubble that could trigger a stock market crash.

The Financial Times reported today that Soros will tell the US Senate commerce committee that oil was pushed to its recent all-time peak of $135 a barrel by a new wave of speculators.

He believes that the doubling in the price over the last year is partly due to investment institutions, such as pension funds, who are pumping money into indexes that track the cost of crude.

There's no way that this is a normal commodity subject to normal market conditions given the ubiquity of its use and employment and our dependency on it in terms of the infrastructure we've created around it.

Is it possible that speculation will be limited or controlled by governments and banks in the near future.

Soros sounds alarm on oil ‘bubble’

RTE today said that Ryanair had announced it expects no profit in the next financial year - down from €450 million last year. This is because while most airlines bought in their petrol at about 80 euro, Ryanair chanced that it would come down and didn't buy ahead.

Book now if you want a cheap flight in the next 12 months.

cactus flower wrote:

RTE today said that Ryanair had announced it expects no profit in the next financial year - down from €450 million last year. This is because while most airlines bought in their petrol at about 80 euro, Ryanair chanced that it would come down and didn't buy ahead.

Book now if you want a cheap flight in the next 12 months.

Ah but Ryanair has about €2 billion in free cash, they'd be able to live off that for quite some time if times are tough.

Also, they're carrying 22% more passengers, so there's plenty of life in Ryanair's business model yet!

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

RTE today said that Ryanair had announced it expects no profit in the next financial year - down from €450 million last year. This is because while most airlines bought in their petrol at about 80 euro, Ryanair chanced that it would come down and didn't buy ahead.

Book now if you want a cheap flight in the next 12 months.

Ah but Ryanair has about €2 billion in free cash, they'd be able to live off that for quite some time if times are tough.

They have just grounded 20 planes at Dublin and London they say because of airport charges. They had a very profitable year last year and it is still possible the oil prices may come down. But very hard to do business when prices are so volatile.

Also, they're carrying 22% more passengers, so there's plenty of life in Ryanair's business model yet!

Ryanair has just announced that they are grounding 20 planes in Dublin and London because of airport charges. But they did have a very good year last year.

cactus flower wrote:

Ryanair has just announced that they are grounding 20 planes in Dublin and London because of airport charges. But they did have a very good year last year.

I understand that they have difficulties, but Ryanair is substantial and strong enough to ride out any of the difficulties they're facing. Ryanair will be enhanced by this since they'll have less competition to worry about as more airlines follow Silverjet's lead into liquidation.

The Economist has an article about the trouble airlines are heading into.

Two articles in the Financial Times today indicate that America is beginning to look publicly at the dollar and its relationship with inflationary oil and food.

Bernanke in nod to dollar-oil-inflation nexus

Quote :

Public discussion of the dollar is certainly new. Bill Gross, chief investment officer at Pimco, told Reuters: "By emphasising the dollar...he [Mr Bernanke] seems to have injected a new policy constraint that may increase in importance as a determinant of future interest rate changes."

Bernanke's comments trigger dollar turnround

Look at oil fall! It's now about 11 dollars from its 135 peak! I feel that this could indeed be the medium-term crash in prices which I've been talking about.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a good old bull trap before the month's out. I could imagine that the price could surge by about 10 dollars in a week in the next month or so before continuing the descent to around 80 dollars.

Then the long-term trend will resume(driven by scarce resources) so that we see prices rise slowly up in a 30 degree incline.

Don't get exited about a normal market pullback. However we are seeing a big fall in demand at these prices. I see where one of the airlines are stoppiny 747 flights as they are gas gusslers

youngdan wrote:

Don't get exited about a normal market pullback. However we are seeing a big fall in demand at these prices. I see where one of the airlines are stoppiny 747 flights as they are gas gusslers

Which will lead to the medium-term fall in prices I'm talking about. The rate of price rises in the first half of the year were crazy. It's a whole layer of froth which needs skimming off.

Back yonder at about 90 dollars I was saying that the fact oil was still high in the face of a looming recession indicated that supplies were tight. I would imagine that supply is falling from about 85 million barrels a day I believe. The thing is demand might be falling at a faster pace.

youngdan wrote:

Back yonder at about 90 dollars I was saying that the fact oil was still high in the face of a looming recession indicated that supplies were tight. I would imagine that supply is falling from about 85 million barrels a day I believe. The thing is demand might be falling at a faster pace.

Well, I'd imagine demand is falling through the floor as people desert gas-guzzling SUVs in their droves, airlines swiftly economise and the march to recycle and get energy from renewable sources continues apace.

That's why I think there's about 40 dollars of pure speculation in that price and it'll only become justified by the end of the decade.

GM closing four truck and SUV plants in North America IHT link

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WILMINGTON, Del.: General Motors Corp. officially blew up its old business model Tuesday, closing four pickup truck and sport utility vehicle factories, announcing a new small car that could get 45 miles per gallon and shedding 8,350 jobs in the process.

Now the world's largest automaker by sales needs to figure out how it can sell enough cars to make money in a shrinking U.S. market and stay ahead of the bill collectors.

The automaker said it would idle pickup and SUV factories in Janesville, Wis.; Oshawa, Ontario; Moraine, Ohio; and Toluca, Mexico, as it tries to deal with a shift to smaller vehicles brought on by $4 per gallon gasoline. GM also took aim at the Hummer, one off the largest vehicles on U.S. highways, saying it would either be sold or get a remake.

The move cuts about 2,900 jobs in Oshawa, about 2,800 in Janesville, about 2,400 in Moraine and about 250 in Toluca, said GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson.

GM said the truck plant cuts, which will reduce capacity to produce pickups and large SUVs by about 35 percent, will save the company $1 billion per year, and when combined with earlier measures, by 2011 will save $15 billion over 2005 costs.

Have a look https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i82CXQX4yq4

Listen to this guy - he says algae produces lipids or vegetable oil by using the carbon dioxide in the air. If production algae biodiesel kicks off then it will be carbon neutral. He gives the comparative yields for various plants

1 acre corn: 18 gallons (~70 litres) per year
1 acre palm: 600 gallons (~2000 litres) per year
1 acre algae : upto 20,000 gallons (~70,000 litres) per year



This looks like it could be some sort of magic bullet now. What the hell might the drawbacks or the limitations be? By depriving algae of sulphur they've also found it can also produce hydrogen in great quantities... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algaculture.

Production might take a year or more for the first batches but looks like on worth investing in if you could get some more information and visit their plants pardon the pun. Shouldn't stop America making smaller cars though, should it?

Oil is down again today, it's over 10% from its peak. This means that oil has officially corrected from its peak. It will have crashed if it falls 20% from the peak.

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Oil is down again today, it's over 10% from its peak. This means that oil has officially corrected from its peak. It will have crashed if it falls 20% from the peak.

Translation: way too many people but way too much money on a losing horse. Won't affect no one who doesn't gamble on the gee gees?

Auditor #9 wrote:

Ard-Taoiseach wrote:

Oil is down again today, it's over 10% from its peak. This means that oil has officially corrected from its peak. It will have crashed if it falls 20% from the peak.

Translation: way too many people but way too much money on a losing horse. Won't affect no one who doesn't gamble on the gee gees?

Well, yes. Oil is falling, and based on the headlines I'm reading, it's going to keep going. I think we've hit the developed world's pain barrier re oil and with house prices falling from the US to Ireland to Spain and the UK, there's not as much of a financial cushion for people to ignore spiralling petrol/diesel prices.

Medium-term, I sticvk by my view we will see oil at about 80 dollars per barrel before the year is out.

However, I still wouldn't rule out a bull trap. It's likely we'll see an unreal spike in prices this or the next month. If you have any oil contracts that are being squeezed at these prices, sell them then and sell them all. The prices will then crash and you can bottom fish your way to Croesusdom!

Auditor. All these exciting new possibilities that have come to light, wind,solar,aircar etc have one major problem. They would cut the government out of the revenue loop. It takes an eejit to keep voting for a crowd that taxes petrol but it would be pushing sanity to expect anyone to pay tax on their own windmill. Maybe this is the reason for the talk we are seeing now for taxing road usage.

Ard Taoiseach: am I correct in saying that what you mean by a crash is that it won't affect non-investors if the price drops? 'Crash' sounds catastrophic but in this case it might be welcome ... the high oil price is giving impetus to research into alternatives. However, I've just had it into my head that a price crash would slow that research by keeping the oil universe afloat but we should be trying to boot ourselves into the next phase of human-machine society.

youngdan: Now you are getting into the good stuff .. tax and machinery. We haven't had a proper tax discussion here yet, have we? These sombitches tax our televisions here - have you heard the ads? "TV licence inspectors visit over eighteen thousand homes and businesses per month..." I estimated this morning that if the above figures for algae production are realised (~20,000 gallons per year out of one acre) then 50 cars of my own size, 1.3, could be utilised per year driving like I do, 15,000 miles annually. One acre.

It's only from youtube but the technology doesn't look like rocket science or nuclear power - a few plastic bags, vats, pipes and make sure it's all in a closed system.. How would they justify taxing that and at what rate? No doubt they'd come up with a biohazard issue or insurance...

Technology like that, if the reality were in any way proximate to those reports, could generate genuine honest to goodness anarchic co-ops the likes of which we were talking about on the Anarchy thread... a couple of lab technicians from UCG, a greenhouse and a field (along with the plastic stuff above) and you have a potential oil well in the outback of Clare ... tax and the like would surely have to take on new meanings with the advent of such technology...

youngdan wrote:

Auditor. All these exciting new possibilities that have come to light, wind,solar,aircar etc have one major problem. They would cut the government out of the revenue loop. It takes an eejit to keep voting for a crowd that taxes petrol but it would be pushing sanity to expect anyone to pay tax on their own windmill. Maybe this is the reason for the talk we are seeing now for taxing road usage.

Solar/wind/aircars don't cut the government out of the revenue loop! They can charge VAT and VRT on them when you're buying them and then there's the VAT charged on the services used to maintain them and ensure that they look good.

Plus, a lot of people will want to modify their cars and they'll buy new stereos, surround sounds, hubcaps, windows and other accoutrements. Again, there is VAT on all these things so the government profits.