Screw you OPEC!

[BTM]

So, in the midst of oil prices FINALLY starting to drop to a somewhat reasonable level, the members of OPEC decide to get together to have a special meeting to see just how they can PREVENT the price of oil from falling too much. 

Gee, thanks a lot, guys.

Nothing personal to anyone, but this is one of the many reasons why I really don't give a s**t about what other countries think of us here in the U.S.

I know it's a cliche, but we REALLY need to figure out a way to get rid of our dependence on foreign oil.  None of those backward ass tin plated dictators would be able to stand if we could stop funding their bankrolls...

[ghouck]

Here's THEIR outlook on it: They KNOW they will be out of oil in 50 years, and oil is where pretty much ALL their money comes from. Just like we would (if we were smart), we would look out for out distant future. They aren't planning on being broke 5 years after the oil runs out.

That being said, we are looking forward to the largest transfer of wealth ever pretty much every decade for the next half century or so.

I agree with your outlook, ,, but it's not going to happen until we accept a change in lifestyles, and even then it's impossible. We have too many short-sighted idiots that are in the way of true progress. Just look at all the environmental hoops one has to jump through to setup any alternative energy source: NUCLEAR? Nope, lots of arguments against those. Hydroelectric? Oh no, , they get in the way of the fish and could cause a flood should they fail. WIND? Nope, those windmills ugly up the scenery. SOLAR? Nope, take up too much area and clutter up an otherwise picturesque desert.

We're already WAY too late to be getting in on alternative energy, we should have been well on our way back in the 60-70s when prices started going up. People SWORE that once gas got over $1.00 the floodgates of alternative energy would open and things would change, , it didn't. I see by the year 2030  $25.00 a gallon for gas, and nothing else changing. Why? Because nothing changed when it hit $4.00, $3.00. $2.00, or $1.00, we just accepted it as it is, just like we accept everything else like higher medical costs and less and less medical coverage, , wages that increase less than inflation for years on end. In a word, We're 'Pwned', between China having our jobs and Opec raking in all our money, we're screwed and we largely did it to ourselves. 

[Patient7]

I think this is the main reason why we need Obama in the White House.  At least he'll TRY to do something with alternative energy.  McCain really just wants to end our dependence by drilling in Alaska, it's not a long term solution and in a matter of years we'll be back at Iraq's door asking for some oil.  I'm not really educated on the whole election, but from what I've seen if we want to end, and I mean REALLY end our dependence on foreign oil, we'll need to vote Obama in.  But I'm under 18 so I'm sure that everyone knows I know jack about politics and world issues.   

[trekgeezer]

Well said ghouck!    All we have to look forward to is feel good happy talk and no action from a government which has been having it's pockets lined by the  oil companies and car makers for the past 50 years.

[ulthar]

but it's not going to happen until we accept a change in lifestyles

Bingo.

We COULD go back to a 19th Century lifestyle and have NO dependence on oil at all.  Zilch.

We could ride horses, cook over fire, wear natural fibers that are grown/raised and a whole lot of other things.  But we won't.

The problem is that our culture wants its collective cake and to eat it too. 

We want to complain about the price and consumption of petroleum, but we want the convenience of flying across the country in 5 hours in a jet aircraft.  We complain about the finite-ness of petroleum resources, then dump TONS of plastic crap into our garbage cans each year.  How many of you have taken stock of the plastic packaging and other pure waste that you throw away?

I have, and I am trying hard to reduce it.  But man it's tough, when pretty much everything I buy in my cushy American consumerist lifestyle is packaged in plastic whose sole purpose is to be thrown away.  That stuff is made from crude oil precursors.

We could all simplify our lives.  Electricity, at least mass produced, delivered-to-your-door electricity is NOT a necessity for life.  Turn off the AC is summer and open a window (yes, my AC is running right this minute).  Drive less (walk, carpool, ride a bike or hell, simply live closer to where you work).

Talk is cheap.  When Americans start actually making the changes from their luxurious lives that want of virtually ANY hardship, then I'll believe the rants have some power behind them.  It's not, after all, about money.

[BTM]

I agree with your outlook, ,, but it's not going to happen until we accept a change in lifestyles, and even then it's impossible. We have too many short-sighted idiots that are in the way of true progress. Just look at all the environmental hoops one has to jump through to setup any alternative energy source: NUCLEAR? Nope, lots of arguments against those. Hydroelectric? Oh no, , they get in the way of the fish and could cause a flood should they fail. WIND? Nope, those windmills ugly up the scenery. SOLAR? Nope, take up too much area and clutter up an otherwise picturesque desert.

We're already WAY too late to be getting in on alternative energy, we should have been well on our way back in the 60-70s when prices started going up. People SWORE that once gas got over $1.00 the floodgates of alternative energy would open and things would change, , it didn't. I see by the year 2030  $25.00 a gallon for gas, and nothing else changing. Why? Because nothing changed when it hit $4.00, $3.00. $2.00, or $1.00, we just accepted it as it is, just like we accept everything else like higher medical costs and less and less medical coverage, , wages that increase less than inflation for years on end. In a word, We're 'Pwned', between China having out jobs and Opec raking in all our money, we're screwed and we largely did it to ourselves. 

Well, dunno, we've already spent BILLIONS of dollars of alternative stuff without much success so far.  I know, I know, conspiracy theorists will say that there is a clean efficient source of energy out there already but the Evil Oil Companies bought the patents and are sitting on them.  Or the old urban legend about a car that can go 100 miles a gallon on tank of gas that got escaped the factory by mistake that they had to track it down and rebuy it before anyone found out about it (never mind there's only so much energy you can get from a gallon of gas, and that's with a 100 percent engine.)

Solar panels also aren't really that feasible, according to this article, they take about a 100 years to payback the installation cost.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/solar-panels-take-100-years-to-pay-back-installation-costs-917202.html

I say nuclear would be the way to go, but too many people are so ill informed about the subject they can't get past their negative perceptions to learn the facts.

As for changes in lifestyle, hey, I'd love to have a fuel efficient car (long as it had enough leg room, not of those damn small "Bug" like things for me), but, I, like a lot of people, can't really afford $30,000 or so price tag on hybrids.

So, I dunno really what to do.

"When they find out how to burn the water
and the gasoline car is gone,
when an airplane flies without any fuel
and the sunlight heats are home.

One of these days when the air clears up
and the sun comes shining through,
we'll all be drinking that free Bubble Love,
and eating that rainbow stew."

  -Merle Haggard, "Rainbow Stew"

Course, maybe there's hope in the idea of burning seawater...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/09/10/tech/main3246430.shtml

[ghouck]

True, NUCLEAR is a 100% viable answer that gets opposed from every angle. If we were to a point where we had enough nuke powerplants that we could turn them off totally for maintenance we'd be alot better off than we are now. One problem we have is that here isn't enough plants to be able to upgrade and rebuild them, we rely on ALL of them ALL the time. Kinda sucks.

Also, solar PANELS, yes, relatively a small return on investment, often you can't make ANY headway with finite product lifetime expectancies and maintenance costs, , but panels are not the way to go. Reflective steam turbine powerplants are much more forgiving and scale upwards MUCH better than panels. Panels, IIRC, actually LOSE efficiency as they get bigger, IOW, twice the panel area gets you less than twice the output, and more than twice the cost. 

Best of all, geothermal gets dismissed because it isn't feasible EVERYWHERE. Well, duuh, it's not going to work at all in Alaska's permafrost, , but there's PLENTY of places where it WILL. I always wondered why they didn't use the heat from the lava floes in Hawaii to generate power, but I imagine the tourist attraction part of it gets in the way. Geothermal is one we just need to start DOING and we'll learn more in the field than we will in any lab, I feel. The problem is two-fold: You're going to have a hard time convincing watchdog groups that putting a 24" pipe full of Glycol a few hundred yards down in the ground is an environmentally SAFE thing to do,. , and if you want to use raw, untreated water, you'll need a large water source around, , which unless you are near an active or semi-active volcano, , you won't find large bodies of water around geothermal hot spots. IOW, if the ground heat is close enough to the surface to use, there's probably no lakes around. Gotta wonder about drawing heat directly from the earth and putting it into the atmosphere also.

[CheezeFlixz]

How about we make Soylant Gas ... SOYLANT GAS is people!!

Certainly would solve the over population problem.