The U.S. average price for a gallon of regular gasoline topped $4 for the first time, a survey issued today by the travel group AAA showed.
AAA’s survey showed a national average price of $4.005 per gallon, up from $3.67 a month ago and $3.10 a year ago.
Average national gasoline prices had stabilized last week before Thursday and Friday’s spike of U.S. crude oil futures by $16 to a record above $139 a barrel. Friday’s one-day gain of $10.75 for crude oil was the biggest daily gain in history, and Thursday’s gain was the second biggest.
Kinda makes the weekend, doesn’t it?
#69 – JimR,
The high price of oil is bad for the environment.
Discuss.
Silly statement. If you want further discussion, give an opinion, preferably backed up with a link or two.
#81 Eddie the hun,
MS I know of two environmentalists who have made a living for at least 20 years by being environmentalists. They have no formal education in science one is a photographer the other no body knows what she does to earn a living but anytime the press need an “expert” environmentalist these two are trotted out.
#78 and#60 are the only ones here who seem to understand how fake this crisis is. I live in an oil producing area and at least half the pumps are turned off. We are not evan [sic] pumping the oil we have alreaddy [sic] drilled for. You been lied to again and people like Misanthropic Scott are doing most of their work for them. Wonder if he is on the oil companys [sic] payroll. If not; he should apply
The original statement we are discussing was made back in post #32 by Dr. Dodd. It was:
What I see is a lot of people selfishly taking advantage of this “crisis” as a way to line their pockets and acquire undeserved power and influence.
I think your one couple does not exactly wield a lot of power and influence and likely does not have a great deal of wealth from lining their pockets with environmentalism. In short, it doesn’t sound like you’re talking about people at the salary level of ExxonMobil executives.
If you want to discuss undue influence and power, look to oil.
BTW, I just watched a really great film, more informative and less political than An Inconvenient Truth. There’s a lot of good information in The Eleventh Hour. I highly recommend it. It’s only 1.5 hrs plus a bunch of special features if you thirst for more info. If you’re not willing to commit to a full length book, I recommend the film.
#91–Gawd–for the 3rd time==I never asked you to prove a negative==I asked you to confirm what exactly you say has never happened.
1. Has a formal complete in form request for a license been denied by the government -or-
2. Has an application process ground to a halt at some earlier stage such as environmental impact studies so that no final application has ever been submitted?
Pretty simple request for clarification. But as you are not up to it===skip it. There, I have never denied a discussion, others just weren’t up to it.
# 86 Dr Dodd said, on June 9th, 2008 at 3:04 am
“The damage it would do is unimaginable and probably irreparable.” The only thing true about this statement is that it’s overly dramatic for effect.
Perhaps if you think that oil spills do not seriously damage the environment, you might believe that. Or, perhaps you might believe that if you believed that oil spills do not happen all the fucking time.
Oil Spill History
Unfortunately, as the above shows, oil spills happen a lot and with increasing frequency.
Here’s some information about the damage caused by oil spills. It also has a shorter list of the worst spills. Note that Valdez doesn’t even make the list.
And, Valdez is still not cleaned up, as I mentioned in a prior reply on this thread.
Dang. Forgot the second link in the above post. Here is the info on oil spills.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill
#93, scott, you of all people should know that my statement is trueif you are honest with yourself. It’s too obvious for words.
It’s the high price of oil that allowed the Alberta tar sands and it’s the high price of oil that is threatening ANWR. You can’t have one without the other. So yippee. I doubt that the high price of oil is even going to lower CO2 emissions. Civilization revolves around oil.
#95 Bobbo:
>>1. Has a formal complete in form request….?
No
>>2. Has an application process ground to a halt….?
No
Satisfied?
>>Civilization revolves around oil.
So when the oil runs out (and even the most rabid anti-environmentalist Humper-driver admits that it WILL run out SOMEDAY), civilization will come to an end?
Or will “something better” come along magically, so we can rest easy suckling on the Sow-dee tit for the time being, no matter how much it costs us financially and environmentally?
#100–Mustard, thank you for picking up the cudgel.
Would you then confirm for gawd that the simple fact is no company wants to build a refinery in America?
I note a post above that says current refineries are running at less than 100% so refineries are in fact not a choke point/price raiser for gas prices. I can believe that, just as some other post on another thread mentioned that the BushCo relaxed the anti-speculation rules when they came into office.
Let us all eat the cake crumbs while our political elite promise to fight for us?
>>Would you then confirm for gawd that the simple
>>fact is no company wants to build a refinery in
>>America?
Bobster, you should already know that, as a person of deep and abiding faith, I do not confirm things for the Lawd. He is the seat of all wisdom.
I remain neutral on the refinery issue, as I don’t know enough about it to comment intelligently. However, in my role as your acolyte and Junior Logician in Training, I recognize that you are demanding that he prove a null hypothesis. Seems like we’ve been around this block before on the belief-in-God issue, except you took the opposing viewpoint in that discussion.
10 years ago liberals were saying it was pointless to drill in ANWR because the oil wouldn’t be available for at least ten years. That extra million barrels a day of oil is looking pretty good right now.
1.5 years of oil? Who said they are going to use 20 million barrels a day from there? At one million per day, you get 3 years for every billion barrels. So that’s 30 years if the ten billion is accurate.
#101 This is a question that is plaguing many informed people over at theoildrum.com.
It is possible to build a modern technological society based entirely on recyclable resources, renewable energy (solar, wind, etc), permaculture designed living spaces, and a steady state (zero growth) economy. Transportation could be done without fuel by electric cars, electric busses, electrified rail for long distance travel.
The problem is it would take 20 years minimum and trillions of dollars in capital investment to make it happen. Peak oil is happening NOW, meaning we don’t have 20 years. It may involve a complete collapse of civilization and a century of a new “dark age” before we get our act together.
#101 MM, “Or will “something better” come along magically, so we can rest easy suckling on the Sow-dee tit for the time being, no matter how much it costs us financially and environmentally?”
It doesn’t take magic, just selflessness. If oil goes to $10, the USA will still chug along. It’s the speed of the rise that hurts. Eventually all prices will go up to reflect the increase in oil, wages will go up to meet the cost of living (always do) and the dollar will rebound accordingly.
On the other hand, absolutely no one is willing to give up the freedom to waste as much as they want. That’s what, in reality, you all cherish so much. If that weren’t so, then there would be non-transferable public energy allotments for each individual regardless of wealth or status. Use yours unwisely, and suffer the consequences.
#104 – MikeN said,
10 years ago liberals were saying it was pointless to drill in ANWR because the oil wouldn’t be available for at least ten years. That extra million barrels a day of oil is looking pretty good right now.
Not as good as saving a million barrels a day would look. We burn 20 million a day.
In 1987, the U.S. average fleet fuel economy peaked at just 26.2 MPG. Now it is lower, though I don’t know the current figure.
CAFE Current Standards
So, perhaps if we got the same fuel efficiency as Europe, at 44 MPG, we would burn a bit more than half what we burn now. This would be the equivalent of almost 10 million barrels a day.
Even if it’s only 5 or so because of interstate trucks (again though, ours are much worse than Europe’s), that 5 million barrels a day sure looks better than the ANWR 1 million barrels a day, no?
#99 – JimR,
#93, scott, you of all people should know that my statement is trueif you are honest with yourself. It’s too obvious for words.
It’s the high price of oil that allowed the Alberta tar sands and it’s the high price of oil that is threatening ANWR. You can’t have one without the other. So yippee. I doubt that the high price of oil is even going to lower CO2 emissions. Civilization revolves around oil.
I’ll admit that people will do desperate things as the price of oil goes up. And, yes, this is part of the reason the ANWR is under assault. Or, more accurately, it is probably part of the reason some, even some on this blog, are willing to let it happen.
However, it also drives people toward wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, and wave energy.
More people are putting both photovoltaics and solar water heaters on their roofs.
People are building concentrated solar generators and huge wind turbines (though not in Ted Kennedy’s backyard).
So, I am willing to hope like hell that we hold fast and do not drill the ANWR while I also hope for either a revenue neutral carbon tax or a cap and trade system. I think I prefer the former, personally, but will take either one.
Given that we were still buying enormo-SUVs like Naggravators, Humpers, Land Bruisers, and the like right up until the moment gasoline got to be about a third of where it should be, I would have to assert that overall, higher gasoline prices are a good thing.
#105 MikeN,
1.5 years of oil? Who said they are going to use 20 million barrels a day from there? At one million per day, you get 3 years for every billion barrels. So that’s 30 years if the ten billion is accurate.
Oh come on Mike, you don’t get to play that game. If you’re counting years of oil from a source, it makes sense to hypothesize it as the only source. Anything else is completely misleading.
The truth is there is less than a 1.5 year supply of oil in ANWR. Whether we would get all of our oil from that one locale is irrelevant. The total oil there will draw out the inevitable, running out of oil, by a year and a half.
And, of course, if you want to do the real math, you’d need to calculate it as part of the global oil market, not the U.S. since oil is quite clearly a global commodity.
So, what? Will ANWR keep humanity in oil for an extra month?
Drilling is not the answer. Conservation and new energy sources are the only solution available.
#106 – ArianeB,
It may involve a complete collapse of civilization and a century of a new “dark age” before we get our act together.
You’re an optimist.
You make some truly excellent points. However, I am not as optimistic as you.
First, collapse of civilization would also result in a tremendous decline in human population, and quite possibly human extinction.
Second, if we really do burn all the oil and fail to solve the real issue of global warming, we will likely send the world into the same state as at the Permian/Triassic extinction.
Such a world would have anoxic oceans full of sulfur producing bacteria and little else. The sulfur would, as the anoxic layer hit the surface, burp into the atmosphere in toxic concentrations pushing the mass extinction to new heights on land as well as in the sea.
You might be interested to read Under a Green Sky. In it, the author, the scientist who proved that a cometary impact was the cause of the mass extinction 65.3 million years ago shows strong evidence that the biggest of all mass extinctions, the P/T extinction 250 million years ago, was caused by global warming, not human caused, of course.
For a briefer version of the information with some additional data on the result of the P/T extinction on our own bodies, here is a great article.
Suspending Life
Well yeah if you shut down all new drilling, then you run out of oil. Every oil source found is probably just months of oil or a few years at best by your counting.
No I don’t want the smaller slower cars mandated by environmentalists. I’d rather have the million barrels from ANWR.
Anyone that thinks technology like hybrids is going to solve the problem with higher mileage s dreaming. Even if there was a technology breakthrough that boosted mileage by 50%, environmentalists would then insist on even higher mileage, until they’ve forced poor and middle classes into tiny subcompacts.
MikeN,
I assume you don’t have kids. You don’t seem to give even one rat buttock, let alone an entire rat’s ass, for their lives.
Funny that I do when I have none.
Well, the Bush/Cheney/Repuke plan for America ISN’T WORKING FOR MOST AMERICANS !!! It seems to be working for Dumbya’s “Base” – the BILLIONAIRES AND MILLIONAIRES AND WAR-PROFITEERS LIKE HALLIBURTON AND BLACKWATER AND THE OIL COMPANIES OF COURSE !!! But ordinary Working Americans are GETTING THE SHAFT, and the Repukes message to Working Americans is ***DROP DEAD*** (OR CHENEY’S “Go F**K yourself) !!! And McCain promises MORE OF THE SAME !!! We should call him McBush !!! And it will be NO WONDER when he and the Repukes are BURRIED IN THE OBAMA LANDSLIDE IN NOVEMBER !!!
#109-110-111-114 MS
After reading your last several posts I find that I must ask a question. Are you on medication? If not, you should be.
>>No I don’t want the smaller slower
>>cars mandated by environmentalists.
>>I’d rather have the million barrels from ANWR.
Holy shit, Lyin’ Mike! You’ve turned out to be every bit the dickwad I thought you were! Kudos to you. Finally, a success.
I’ll bet you litter too. And flick your cigarette butts out the window of your SUV.
#116 – Dr Dodd,
#109-110-111-114 MS
After reading your last several posts I find that I must ask a question. Are you on medication? If not, you should be.
I take it that means you concede all points that I’ve made in all of those posts. Wow!! Thanks.
#118 MS
No concessions but I am concerned about you vapor-locking from all the stress you seem to be under.
Scott, we’re on the same page, have the same goals… I’m just very pessimistic compared to you. I used to be an optimist, but as time passed I realized that the human beast, with all it’s intelligence, is just as dumb as every other animal. We have evolved to get the most we can for the least effort / cost. We can’t seem to get beyond that obsessive goal. Unfortunately our intelligence makes us so successful at it, that it is to the detriment of virtually everything else.
Corporations are just the epitome of the human beast. Even charities can’t hide to their true selves when exposed on a large scale. Every so often the truth is exposed and we all have to look in the mirror… except the effect doesn’t last long or even change anything. Enron is soon forgotten as ten more of the same step up to the plate.
But corporations are just a conglomerate of the individual. GM is closing truck and SUV plants, and the $40/hr workers are protesting like hell. They want their high paying jobs, and they want GM to continue to make cars and trucks that won’t sell. They only see themselves detached from the big picture. They only care about themselves. If slaughtering every penguin in the Antarctic would miraculously save their jobs until retirement they would probably go for it. That’s human nature and it is the underlying reason for all of our problems… not oil.
All the oil in the earth will be found, and used until it is “extinct”. That’s just what we do.
In order to get destruction of our habitat under control and bring sensibility into the equation… in order to save the earth for future generations, the human beast will HAVE to give up the freedom to be selfish asshats. That means legislating out all gas engines, pesticides, (dirty) coal fired generators, smoking anywhere within 30 ft of another human beast, flushing the toilet more than three times a day, and individual rationing of available energy regardless of status or wealth. It also means not trading at all with any country that continues to pollute and disregard others in this way. It also means changing the development of land so that farms are incorporated into residential areas, and reducing meat consumption to a few ounces per day.
Darn, we’ll all have to get used to the smell of manure.
Got a hedge fund?
Dabble in the futures market?
Retirement investmensts, perhaps?
Anyone that’s ever invested in these ‘vehicles’ has to shoulder the blame for this ‘dot-com’ type bubble; they are the ones with their hands in our pockets, adding exactly zero to the value chain while stealing handfuls of cash from all of us with impunity.
Yeah, I have kids. It’s part of why I don’t like those tiny cars the envirocrazies want to mandate.
# 120 JimR said, on June 9th, 2008 at 11:12 am
All the oil in the earth will be found, and used until it is “extinct”. That’s just what we do.
Yup. We’re definitely on the same page. The big difference is I don’t think we’ll live long enough to burn all the oil. I also hope that spreading better memes may help. So, I’m both more pessimistic and more hopeful than you, if the deep dark reaches of my brain can be said to be hopeful at all. Perhaps just a smidgen less hopeless might be more accurate.
#122 – MikeN,
Actually, you’re rationalizing. If all vehicles are the same size, people are almost equally safe regardless of the given size. You’re also very very shortsighted if you think that your children will be happy to live in a world
* where one eighth of the population is homeless.
* where people fight wars for water.
* where the population is in rapid decline due to starvation.
* where the many areas of the world that have fresh water from snowmelt no longer do.
* where the ocean is nearly empty of fish.
* where the air is toxic, already 70-130,000 people a year die of air pollution in the U.S.
I think the list is a lot longer than that, even if we stick to the global issues that are fairly certain, as opposed to the local effects that are less certain.
I pity your children for having to live in the world that is to come.