Showing posts with label Petroleum. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Petroleum. Show all posts
Sunday, August 24, 2008
In a galaxy far away, a time long ago ...
On my drive down from Chichester, I meandered in Dutchess County, avoiding the Taconic Parkway for some miles. Wondering led me to Milan Hollow Road, and I followed that in a generally southern direction. After a while, I came into Clinton Hollow (for a moment, that seemed a politically ironic comment, before I dismissed it as inaccurate, though wishful thinking). Somewhere between and amogst CLinton Hollo, Clinton Corners and Salt Point, I happened upon a gasoline station that had clearly been closed for quite some time. A look at the numbers makes that quite very obvious.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
T. Boone & Democrats: gas & wind
Well, it answers one question I had when I first read about Boone Pickens's proposal to use natural gas as a substitute for petroleum and wind power as a substitute for gas: where'll all that gas come from?
The United States imports about 65 percent of its oil, costing the country about $700 billion a year, Mr. Pickens says. By comparison, most of its natural gas comes from North American sources.
Most is a loose word, not terribly specific, although generally assumed to mean more than half, maybe even much more than half.
Now, Boone is something of a slippery character: Mr. Pickens once gave millions to a group that undermined U.S. Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War service and offered $1 million to anyone who could prove that the Swift Boat group's charges against the presidential candidate were false. Now he's stopped donating to such groups as he preaches a clean-energy gospel that's won over Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Now he's seen the light, and won't do the Swift Boat thing?
"I can be most effective as a nonpartisan, and I think the Democrats know me to be an honorable person," Mr. Pickens said Friday, adding that he's talked to Al Gore and the two agreed on "95 percent of what we talked about."
Wonder what that 5% is; intriguing: Boone agrees with Al Gore on 95% of things? Dang. Still, though, Boone Pickens is a business man, and his latest venture is wind energy.
His ideas align perfectly with his business ventures, which appears to make Democrats enthusiastic – not cynical – about his pitch. "If Pickens can show it's very profitable, that's a very important point," said Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "That will help steer investors toward those kinds of investments."
The United States imports about 65 percent of its oil, costing the country about $700 billion a year, Mr. Pickens says. By comparison, most of its natural gas comes from North American sources.
Most is a loose word, not terribly specific, although generally assumed to mean more than half, maybe even much more than half.
Now, Boone is something of a slippery character: Mr. Pickens once gave millions to a group that undermined U.S. Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War service and offered $1 million to anyone who could prove that the Swift Boat group's charges against the presidential candidate were false. Now he's stopped donating to such groups as he preaches a clean-energy gospel that's won over Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Now he's seen the light, and won't do the Swift Boat thing?
"I can be most effective as a nonpartisan, and I think the Democrats know me to be an honorable person," Mr. Pickens said Friday, adding that he's talked to Al Gore and the two agreed on "95 percent of what we talked about."
Wonder what that 5% is; intriguing: Boone agrees with Al Gore on 95% of things? Dang. Still, though, Boone Pickens is a business man, and his latest venture is wind energy.
His ideas align perfectly with his business ventures, which appears to make Democrats enthusiastic – not cynical – about his pitch. "If Pickens can show it's very profitable, that's a very important point," said Daniel J. Weiss, director of climate strategy for the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. "That will help steer investors toward those kinds of investments."
Thursday, July 17, 2008
A carbon-free vision
Since losing the Presidency to the Republican-controlled Supreme Court, AL Gore has branched out. He has gotten involved with new business ventures, become director of at least one company, Apple Inc., and become an advocate for environmental sanity by writing a book and making a film, both called An Inconvenient Truth. For that effort he won a Nobel Prize.
Quite a good list. Who knows just how lucrative, but even if he hasn't made as much as Bubba, er, former President Clinton, he certainly is doing very well. Yet more than just money, both have done good. It was reported just today, Bill Clinton's foundation is setting up a Malaria-Drug Price Plan. That is but one of the good deeds he has done in the last eight years. Al Gore has taken on a bigger issue: global warming.
Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.
To see gas prices over $4 and to see SUVs racing down boulevards is to know the US is not near ready to understand just what we are facing; and then there are those who deny global warming is even true.
Although Mr. Gore has made global warming and energy conservation his signature issues, winning a Nobel Prize for his efforts, his speech on Thursday argued that the reasons for renouncing fossil fuels go far beyond concern for the climate. In it, he cited military-intelligence studies warning of “dangerous national security implications” tied to climate change, including the possibility of “hundreds of millions of climate refugees” causing instability around the world, and said the United States is dangerously vulnerable because of its reliance on foreign oil.
Quite a good list. Who knows just how lucrative, but even if he hasn't made as much as Bubba, er, former President Clinton, he certainly is doing very well. Yet more than just money, both have done good. It was reported just today, Bill Clinton's foundation is setting up a Malaria-Drug Price Plan. That is but one of the good deeds he has done in the last eight years. Al Gore has taken on a bigger issue: global warming.
Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts.
To see gas prices over $4 and to see SUVs racing down boulevards is to know the US is not near ready to understand just what we are facing; and then there are those who deny global warming is even true.
Although Mr. Gore has made global warming and energy conservation his signature issues, winning a Nobel Prize for his efforts, his speech on Thursday argued that the reasons for renouncing fossil fuels go far beyond concern for the climate. In it, he cited military-intelligence studies warning of “dangerous national security implications” tied to climate change, including the possibility of “hundreds of millions of climate refugees” causing instability around the world, and said the United States is dangerously vulnerable because of its reliance on foreign oil.
The US increases its reliance on imported oil more each year; the figures are staggering.
“We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet,” Mr. Gore said. “Every bit of that’s got to change.”
It is mind-boggling to consider how different things would have been if this man, who actually has a functioning intelligence he uses, would have won the presidency, rather than the dunces that we are, thankfully, about to toss out.
The Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens said in a statement that Mr. Gore’s plan would still not address “the stranglehold that foreign oil has on our country.” Mr. Pickens has called for a blend of government leadership and private enterprise to harness the full potential of wind power to help break what he calls “our deadly addiction to foreign oil.”
It does address precisely that. Boone Pickens just wants to be given credit for solving the problem and to make scads of money in the process. His plan is to use wind energy for those functions we now use natural gas for, and to use natural gas to replace petroleum. Sounds fine, only for as long as one does not consider that natural gas is produced by those sources, read nations, that produce petroleum. And, one needs also consider, Boone is a major investor in wind turbines. Next?
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Big Chill Awaits Northern U.S. With Heating Oil Prices Soaring
Look at this chart:
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Bye, Bubble? Price of Oil Peaking?
Highlights from article in Barron's about petroleum.
Of oil bulls, article states: Statistics support their view that demand growth is in its infancy in the developing world: U.S. per-capita oil consumption is 25 barrels annually, while Japan uses 14 barrels per person. China's 1.3 billion people consume just two barrels each per year, however, and India's 1.1 billion use less than a barrel a year.
25 barrels equals 1,050 gallons. Of course, that is both gasoline and home fuel.
Edward Morse, chief energy economist at Lehman Brothers, thinks oil could fall to $100 by year end.
| The price of oil may be peaking and plunge to $100 a barrel by year's end says Barron's Associate Editor Andrew Bary, (June 21) |
Skeptics say the Saudi vow to boost production is merely talk, and that the country is struggling simply to maintain production because of aging, overworked fields like the huge, 60-year-old Ghawar reservoir. The Saudi government refuses to allow in outsiders to evaluate the state of its oil industry, which has fueled talk the Saudis are hiding something.
Likewise, the size of speculative positions and commodity indexers is impossible to determine, as most trading occurs away from the major commodity exchanges in over-the-counter transactions.
It is hard to argue that oil demand supports $135 crude. Now at 86 million barrels a day, global demand could show little or no increase this year after averaging 1% gains in recent years. Sanford Bernstein analyst Neil McMahon projects that by the fourth quarter, global oil demand could be running below the fourth quarter of 2007.Conventional wisdom.
The dollar's slide and the Federal Reserve's neglect of the greenback have supported commodity prices, oil in particular. But Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues finally seem to have realized that the Fed's aggressive easing actions since last summer, which dropped the key federal-funds rate to 2% from 5.25%, may be fueling global inflation. If the Fed moves to lift rates later this year, as financial markets anticipate, it could buttress the dollar and spur an exodus of speculators from the oil market.
May be?
One little-discussed way the U.S. could try to bring down oil prices is to sell oil from the strategic petroleum reserve (SPR). The SPR, intended as a source of oil for national emergencies, now holds 705 million barrels of crude, equal to about 35 days of domestic consumption. With prices higher, Congress moved in May to stop adding to the SPR as it neared capacity. A sale of 100 million barrels of oil would shock the markets and potentially drive down prices.
Potentially.
Long term, the U.S. could benefit through lower oil prices if Congress and the states back President Bush's proposal to allow drilling off Florida, the East and West coasts, and in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve, where billions of barrels of oil may lie.
Could, and may.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Two different stories, same paper
On its website the WS Journal has two opposing stories: one says China will cut fuel prices, the other that China will raise prices.
Stocks managed to post moderate gains in afternoon trading Thursday after China's move to cut fuel prices knocked oil futures lower and investors mostly shrugged off more signs of credit turmoil.
and
BEIJING -- With its controlled energy-pricing system under the strain of oil at $130-plus a barrel, China's government said it will increase retail prices for gasoline, diesel and electricity.
Which one is it?
Stocks managed to post moderate gains in afternoon trading Thursday after China's move to cut fuel prices knocked oil futures lower and investors mostly shrugged off more signs of credit turmoil.
and
BEIJING -- With its controlled energy-pricing system under the strain of oil at $130-plus a barrel, China's government said it will increase retail prices for gasoline, diesel and electricity.
Which one is it?
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
70 years after Lazaro Cárdenas
An interesting item about Mexico.
In a commemoration marking 70 years of the Expropiation of the national petroleum reserves by then-President Lázaro Cárdenas, now-President Felipe Calderón instructed the national oil company to study the building of a new refinery in Mexico.
Arriving at the event was the son of President Lázaro Cárdenas. Interestingly, Lázaro Cárdenas was one of the founders of PRI. His son, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, was one of the founders of the PRD. (Cuau looks quite serious.)
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In a commemoration marking 70 years of the Expropiation of the national petroleum reserves by then-President Lázaro Cárdenas, now-President Felipe Calderón instructed the national oil company to study the building of a new refinery in Mexico.
Arriving at the event was the son of President Lázaro Cárdenas. Interestingly, Lázaro Cárdenas was one of the founders of PRI. His son, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, was one of the founders of the PRD. (Cuau looks quite serious.)
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