Oil Conspiracy

[Skeeterbaymac]

Here's one that roast me to no end!

Has anyone been keeping track of Brazil and their ethanol?  What is wrong with us.  Are the Brazilans smarter than us?  They are totally off foreign oil. They are using sugar cane and processing it into Ethanol.   Why are we not using corn or some other thing.

I will tell you why.  Big oil has everyone bought and paid for in both parties. I here the president and others saying we need to get the ball rolling on ethanol.  Heck the knowledge and means has been here for awhile. I watched some engineers the other night say we could be on ethanol within 5 years if we wanted to. Heck I can make Bio Diesel in my own shop and I am and idiot!

The only thing we need to get the ball rolling is for our elected officals to mandate it.  You think they are going to do that ugh. No they want to study it for a long while and keep drilling for oil every where and keep the pockets of their friends full!  It's not just Republicans either its both parties and just about every one down in D.C. is guilty of miss using their public office and violating our trust.

The sad part is that they will just keep on doing what they are doing until they get a wake up call. Worst of all we let them do it.  Were all guilty of looking the other way, "as long as I got a job and my apple cart is not upset then I don't care".  Heck thats what our officals count on.  If they keep us happy to a degree, then we will just keep voting them in and they can keep on taking bribes from big business.

I am voting third party on every thing from now on. If I can't find a good third party canadate then I will write in one of my neighbors, (they can't do any worse). In the past I always voted republican for my gun rights. But the waste and abuse of public office by both parties just blows my mind.  I just can't bring myself to vote for anyone in either party. To vote party lines for any reason is just adding to the mess we all ready got.  The constant fraud, waste and abuse of public office has got to stop.  These guys don't even try hard to hide it anymore.  It's getting so it's an accepted thing. We need to vote out everyone in there and start over with fresh faces and ideas.

I wonder what our founding fathers would say if they came back and looked at how corrupt things have gotten.   :cry:

[SAWgunner]

I was watching "Myth Busters" last night on Discovery Channel and this was the name of the show.  They went through and tried to prove that the Oil Companies and the Auto makers are in cahoots and used about half a dozen methods that the same people claim would get you off of the oil lollipop.  The only one that worked is Biodiesel.  The bad part about that is that it has become soo hyped up and shown on every Truck TV show in America that you have restaurants wanting you to pay them for the same thing they used to pay to dispose of.

The reason that I had read in Motor Trend that we do not use Corn for a fuel is that it takes more energy to make it than it makes itself.  I researched online and sure enough.

I can't believe I am posting a link to UC Berkeley (The center of modern liberalism) but here it is:

http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/Biofuels/uc_scientist_says_ethanol_uses_m.htm

[WylieKy]

Hey SAWgunner,

Did posting that make you fee a little dirty inside???  

WylieKy

[SAWgunner]

Hey SAWgunner,

Did posting that make you fee a little dirty inside???  

WylieKy

Not after showering with Clorox and a Scotch Brite pad.  hah hah!

[CyberSniper]

You all stop complaining about our politicians.
We have the best politicians money can buy.......<cough>

[upnorth]

A great book on this subject is  "black gold, strangle gold ", by Dr. Jerome Corsi. What an eye opener!!

[RGS]

Here's one that roast me to no end!

Has anyone been keeping track of Brazil and their ethanol?  What is wrong with us.  Are the Brazilans smarter than us?  They are totally off foreign oil. They are using sugar cane and processing it into Ethanol.   Why are we not using corn or some other thing.

No not smarter. Just less....way less cars.

We would have to import ethanol.  We could not produce enough ourselves. 

I am not convinced everything this guy says is gospel, but he does back himself up pretty good.  In my opinion it makes more sense to utilize our massive coal resources.  Hippie folk hate the idea of coal for anything, but it is time to grow out of the 60's mentality and see what we can actually do with what we have.


http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18976/article_detail.asp

[Shooter973]

Why were the Germans able to continue war after we cut off most of their oil production? They were making fuel from coal!!! 
But now the technology is lost??? The USA sits on huge reseverves of coal and we don't use it to make cheaper fuels. Why not???     Oh yeah, somebody is getting rich on oil!!!!
And the Govt. makes more on a gallon of gas than the Oil Companies!!!

[RGS]

One of the big advantages of gas is the amount of energy one can pull out of it.  Methanol (from coal, biomass, etc) is about 67% as efficient.  At current prices they are about the same as far as miles per dollar. 

But remember the price of gas at the pump includes taxes not accounted for in the prices of the alcohol fuels.  In CA the tax on gas is .67 per gal (this is from memory when I lived there 5 yrs ago).  I don’t think Oregon is that high but I don’t know for sure.  These taxes are hidden in every gallon we buy.  After a while we don’t even think of them, we just blame the oil companies for the high price. 

When these taxes are tacked on to the price of alcohol fuels, the net cost to the customer will have to be the same or less then with gasoline or the conspiracy folks will party on.

No matter how you slice it, cheap fuel looks to be a thing of the past.  It is this cost of fuel that concerns motorists, and businesses alike.

 But I do believe there will be a tipping point where it will just not pay to burn petroleum.  An emerging China, and the war in the Middle East are both things that are not going away.  $100 / barrel oil is just over the horizon.  At some point the scale will drop in favor of alcohol fuels and that will be that.  The market will demand it.  No one will be able to stop it. 

[upnorth]

I have a question about ethanol... what about those in the northern states and canada??? our ethanol mix is only 5% right now. if it's -20, will pure ethanol still work?? what about the big rigs? ethanol will not produce enough energy to move us around in the big trucks.

[RGS]

From methanol a clean burning substitute for diesel can be made.  Dimethyl ether could run diesel engines.  Seeing as jet fuel is a high-grade diesel, I wouldn’t be surprised if it would work there as well.

It just has to be cost effective.

As far as freezing temperatures go, we have summer and winter blends of diesel right now.  I don’t see why a similar process could not be developed for alcohol-based fuels.

I am far from an expert in this area.  I observed oil prices go from $25 /barrel x3 to $75+/barrel.  The price of gas went from $1.25 /gal x2 to $2.50 and now closer to $3.00.  As the price of crude continues to climb, now almost $80/ barrel, we should reach the point where it is cheaper do run alcohol. 

The other thing to look for is the higher the price of oil, the more freezable it is to extract oil from tar sand and shale.  So as the price rises the supply  grows so the price does not go up as far as expected.  I read somewhere Canada is moving into this area big time as they have a lot of tar sand and it is just now getting profitable enough to process it.

There are a lot of players in this energy area.  Who knows where it will all end and what the inevitable solution will be.  I’ll bet the farm it is technology and not environmental legislation that gets the job done.

[hillbill]

try some E85 if you can find it. it will be about as high as gas and will deliver you 1\3 less mpg. power will be about the same but your mpg will suffer hugely. if your getting 15 now you will get 10 on E85. do the math. one of the reasons it will always be high is because it cant be moved in a pipeline.

[prairiedog555]

If there is anybody who does NOT think there is an oil conspiracy I would be surprised.  All you have to do is watch the pricing.  It goes to
$2 for a while, them people start to talk about buying fuel effeicint cars and alternative fuels, then magically it goes to back to $1.50,  then it goes to $3 and we start talking again, then it goes down to $2.  And we think, well it could be worse, it could still be $3.  THEY are playing us.  And who is THEY.  It is US.  American oil companies manipulate price.  I dont think the arabs are that smart.
there was a great movie in the '70s called the Formula, with George C. Scott.  it was about the Nazi catalist to turn coal into gas.  By the end of the movie he finds out that because of the banking system and paying for oil in dollars WE control the arab oil.  Marlon Brando is the evil oil executive and when a subordinate laments about the arabs raising prices he says, "you idiot, we are the Arabs" 

[nabob]

With corn production for ethanol comes a lot of headaches, not the least of which is tremendous soil erosion. Remember the Dust Bowl?

[ShadowMover]

Here's a guy who thinks it's a conspiracy:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/stojan1.html

It makes sense to me, but I'm always looking for the downside.

[peakoftherut]

I will throw in my 2 cents worth. I see ethanol as just another welfare program for farmers. It costs more to produce than what it can be sold for un- subsidised, mixed with gas it gums up carburators, you get less mileage, and when you factor in all the pollution put into the air planting and processing it you don't win in that area either. I don't even think it is possible to produce enough to replace oil, actually without tarrifs it is cheaper to import than it is to produce in this country. By the way, notice how the price of ethanol kept going up at about the same rate as oil. Mabe big corn is responsible.

From what I have heard the price of oil was being driven up not by the useual laws of supply and demand, but by oil speculators on the future's market. Oil companies make huge profits when oil prices are high because they are selling oil from there reserves that they paid a lot less for. There was a point in the 90's when the reverse happend, the price of oil had dropped so low they were selling it for less than they paid for it and a lot of the smaller companies went out of business. The fact that we have not been able to build a new refinery in about 30 years does not help the supply or the price. Also, from what I have heard, the oil companies make about ten cents a gallon. You can bet the tax man ends up with the biggest amount of you gas dollar.

I think the future is going to be fuel cells. My brother in law is an engineer for a big company that is working on that right now. He says he won't rest until eveybody in the middle east is herding camel's, which is an attitude I second. But even when they are sucessful they say it will take about ten years to change the infrastructure to pump the hydrogen. Maybe we should make Mexico give us so many barrels per year for each one of their citizens we are taking care of up here.

[prairiedog555]

So, conspiricy aside, lets say there is no substitute for oil, we are in the space age, we can certainly find ways to get more MPG.  Like better transmissions, my corvette has a 6 speed trans and 400hp and gets around 25mpg cruising.  or efficient electric cars, they now go 200 mi before charging and go 70 mph.  or diesel cars, I would buy one.  I had a friend who had a diesel rabbit, vw, and he got 55+ mpg. 
There are lots of other ways, I am not an engineer.  But I read that if we reduce oil comsuption by 10-15 % then the price will come way down because of demand.
The oil companies DO manipulate price.  If they sit on a reserve of oil and the price goes from $40 per barrell to $50 does it cost them more to pump out or look for?  No,   Like the BS about summer driving season, does the supply dry up, NO, they just figure people will eat the story, which we do because we have no choice.   And when I see Oil co. adds that say they are reinvesting in finding alternative fuel I have to laugh.  If somebody makes a product that everybody likes and is selling well, do they raise the price, NO, they make more and sometimes lower price (computers, ect.)  it is only that we can't do without the oil.
And the Polititions are in bed with them (surprise)  George Bush has been such a disappointment to me.  (like my choice in wives)  wouldn't you think that since he has tons of money he would want to do the right thing and fix this energy problem, he is very immoral, because he, unlike us, has a way to fix it and he does not.
IS THERE NOT ONE PERSON IN POLITICS TODAY THAT IS AN HONEST PATRIOT?