World crude price shocker !!! (Rapid City, Wall: transporting, crime, homes)

[pikie]

Just when you thought that gas prices are down and speculators were scared away with falling demand. They're back! World crude prices just went up a whopping $25 per barrel in 1 day! ! That's the all time record for a 1 day price increase -- ever! It has since retreated back a little, but it's still $15 higher than Friday's close.

Due to the Wall St. crisis, these greedy devils are turning their attention to hard assets instead of paper. We all understand supply and demand, which dicatates commodities like oil and gold, but with demand in the U.S. "falling", they have the audacity to raise oil $25 in 1 day. Don't be fooled about the lies of India and China, the U.S. imports 25% of the world's oil, India and China --"combined"-- only import 12%; therefore, we should have the greatest (supply/demand) "influence" on world prices -- not india and China.

Keep in mind, OPEC just "cut" production intentionally, because of our reduced demand -- to keep their prices high. Pelosi and Reid would rather keep us hostage to these terrorist oil barons -- who hate us. Although, because of U.S. polls wanting us to drill, they have compromised a little.To give Islamic extrmists the power to determine our economic and national security is deplorable. Middle America can't let San Franciso, L.A., New York, and Washington determine what's best for them. These liberal millionaire "elites" from those cities, look down on middle --rural-- America, as the "guns and religion" crowd. I know, I've lived with all of them!

Furthermore, from an environmental standpoint, look at the environmental risks of transporting oil from the Middle East in relation to oil spills, and the amount of carbon emitted to transport the oil -- all the way from the Middle East to Houston? You think the economy's bad now, if these crude prices stay up, we will see the Great Depression over again. We are already living in 1979 again -- economically.

As far as the greedy oil companies, it's a Catch 22.They bring us the oil --not the politicians! If you punish them, the economy will get worse, because that's the only sector of our entire economy that's doing well. Windfall profits? No, because they might make $80 billion a year, but they spend billions "per day" in expenses.The oil companies profit margin is only 8%-10% after taxes and expenses. Many companies like Google had a profit margin of 25%, and many other "individual" companies are higher than oil as well. Pharmaceuticals and software industries are also higher. Heck, Al Gore --one man-- made $100 million in the last 8 years with virtually no investment -- should we put a 'windfall profit tax' on his global warming (books,movies,carbon offest companies) businesses? Al "Limo-Jet" Gore also made millions with Google. People need to look at %'s -- not just numbers. Just like with crime stats, a small city might have 3 murders, and a bigger city might have 200, but if you look at %'s --the smaller city is higher.

If we can solve the energy issue, our national and economic security would be preserved. All options should be looked at. Everything! We can't get off of oil entirely, when you consider every product that you use has petroleum derivatives in it: televisions, makeup, medicine, clothes, wax, asphalt, lubricants,and virtually "all plastics" in your homes and cars. Even hybrids and E85 vehicles still need petroleum.The "entire" transportation industry uses petroleum too.Wind and solar power can power our homes, but can't power 100 ton trucks -- or the jet airplanes that Al Gore loves so much. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a great alternative.

What do South Dakotans think? I'm tired of hearing what people on the coasts think -- and dictate? I hear South Dakota produces a lot of E85, and has shale oil deposits, is this true? It'll be exciting to see what transpires with energy in the next 10 years. Exciting! I just hope our economy can wait.

[Jammie]

Well, I think it's awful, but I'm just not sure what we can do about it. Possibly set up days where NO ONE buys gas? It just wouldn't work well for truckers and many others. But if worse comes to worse, that's an option. I'm definitely with you on this~it's ridiculous!

We are working on E-85, but the problem is it doesn't really look like it's going to work in the cars we already have. In fact, there are certain cars that don't even work with running Super Unleaded. Just one example~Pontiacs 1996 and older. People have tried to use the E-85 in their lawn mowers and that was a total catastrophe!

Why can't we use sugar cane? There's a country in So. America that is having a lot of success with it. In fact, I'm not so sure they buy any oil anymore. Do you know anything about that option?

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Jammie

Well, I think it's awful, but I'm just not sure what we can do about it. Possibly set up days where NO ONE buys gas? It just wouldn't work well for truckers and many others. But if worse comes to worse, that's an option. I'm definitely with you on this~it's ridiculous!

We are working on E-85, but the problem is it doesn't really look like it's going to work in the cars we already have. In fact, there are certain cars that don't even work with running Super Unleaded. Just one example~Pontiacs 1996 and older. People have tried to use the E-85 in their lawn mowers and that was a total catastrophe!

Why can't we use sugar cane? There's a country in So. America that is having a lot of success with it. In fact, I'm not so sure they buy any oil anymore. Do you know anything about that option?

Ethanol derived from switchgrass is now being looked at because the energy ratio is far better compared with corn derived ethanol. Basically, ethanol requires more energy to produce than the energy that is outputed. Fertilizer, dervied from natural gas, is one cost component that is rapidly increasing as well as diesel fuel for tractors.

[pikie]

Yes Jammie,

It's Brazil -- 100% energy independent since 2006! They want to export sugar-cane ethanol to us, but the U.S. Congress has a 51 cent-a-gallon tariff on those ethanol imports. I would rather deal with Brazil -- than the Middle East or Venezuela anyday! Brazil is doing well, they are the 10th largest economy in the world, and they have a 187 million people too. Brazil is also the third largest producer of commercial jets --Embraer.

[DeadwoodJ]

E-85 is a joke, if you look at the mileage that you get from it you actually pay more to go the same amount of distance as regular gasoline, It also makes the price of food rise as evidenced over the last year or so. You also have to realize with urban sprawl and other needs for the land, you'd have to have ALOT more land needed to completely get off oil, same with all the other E-85 options like sugar cane etc, where is the amount that you need going to come from? I believe that Hydrogen and lithium ion batteries are the future, right now they're only in infancy but instead of the war in Iraq wouldn't that money be better spent pushing these fuels.....

[DannyBanany]

A lot of our transportation costs and energy would be saved if the United States would jump on the bandwagon with Europe and develop a better mass transportation network. The problem with America is that as individuals, we are too independent. If you mention taking a Greyhound bus to someone they shudder to think of how terrible it must be to travel across a state in a bus with a bunch of strangers. What's wrong with taking a bus?!? You save money. You don't have to drive. It emits less energy. You get to meet people.

Americans are so scared of one another that we'd rather go broke being independent than rely on one another. What happened to trains? If I could take a train from Rapid City to Denver I'd be gone every weekend! There would be less traffic, pollution, and overall energy use.

No, politicians have to subsidize energy companies for more expensive research that leads nowhere instead of investing in a reliable mass transit system. While I was in France I took the TGV Train from Paris to Nice. The departure and arrival times were awkward (something like 8:57 - 12:42). I asked why the times were so weird and I was told that it's because the trains are precise. Sure enough, the train left at that time and we arrived at that time. You can set a timer by those trains. Isn't that wonderful?

The United States relies on the most unreliable sources of transportation there are: cars and planes.

[afdude2018]

I watched an episode of Top Gear and they were in Japan and rode the bullet train. That train was on time at every stop they made. We are way behind the times when it comes to mass transit.....then again we have a pretty big country.

[DannyBanany]

Originally Posted by afdude2018

We are way behind the times when it comes to mass transit.....then again we have a pretty big country.

Russia has reliable mass transit. France is twice the size of Texas and they do well. Germany is larger still and they do fine. Why can't there be trains linking cities like Chicago, Denver, Omaha, Fargo, Rapid City, etc...? I bet China even has better mass transit than the United States and they're a terrible RED country! Did you know that with all the money spent on this "war" we could have repaved and rebuilt every road and bridge in the United States? Or better yet, we could have developed a great mass transportation system that lowers the possibility of car accidents, pollution, and energy costs.

[afdude2018]

Don't forget we apparently have $700 billion just laying around to bail out all of these damn companies.....there must be a magic money tree somewhere.

[blackhillsdreams]

Originally Posted by DannyBanany

Did you know that with all the money spent on this "war" we could have repaved and rebuilt every road and bridge in the United States?

While I completely agree that the amount of money being spent on the war is tragically bankrupting us and is laughable at this point, I still have to point out that I don't believe there would have been a war at all if it weren't for 911. A lot of people blame the war and 911 on Bush, but remember that Bush wasn't in office long enough to have contributed to the cause of it at all. There were numerous attacks on all sorts of American interests while Bill was playing with Monica and those were all unanswered, and escalated until the towers went down.

With that being said, I don't pretend to know what the answer is (or even should have been in hindsight).

In any case, all I'm saying is, new roads all over the U.S. wouldn't have done us any good if we were still being attacked on our own soil. There is no way to be sure that the attacks would have continued or escalated, but I suspect that they would have. In fact, I still believe they aren't finished and will be back for another shot, probably a bigger, more calculated, more devastating attack. Nobody knows for sure, one way or another.

Had we not struck back after 911, what would we be saying tonight if New York had been nuked, or a plane was flown into Rushmore this morning?

Don't get me wrong, all of the above doesn't mean I'm happy we are still in Iraq or think we should have been there for SOOOOOOO long. I'm just pointing out that never having gone might not have been great for all of us either.

Ultimately, we need to do everything in our power to find alternative means of energy and transportation. Actually, think of this, WHEN the oil runs out, ALL of the thug/terrorist oil producing nations will starve because oil is their only resource. We will still be one of the worlds largest grain producing nations at that time.