Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Maine oil predictions high priced per barrel, Maine survival of price hike, poor infrastructure to support public transportation, residents flee state for warmer climates
All my close relatives in Maine will just deal with the high prices there instead of dealing with the current and future high prices elsewhere. They are all worried a little too and are planning the coming cold also. Two use oil, one wood and the other pellets as their "primary" heating source. Two work, one self employed and the other retired. Even with higher price living in cold weather climates, it may still be worth it, even year round. All 4 households in my immediate family in Maine all pay less than half what I do for my principal, interest, tax and insurance. Driving out here is more expensive per mile considering insurance rates. My yearly average gas, electric, water and garbage averages another $500. per month in my small house. More now due to higher fuel costs. Food, gas, satelite tv and high speed internet are expensive everywhere. The cost of services out here are way higher than Maine. And cars are more expensive out here too. I check every year I'm back. Cell phones probably close to the same. I don't even want to know what a cord of wood will go for out here this winter. And the main way of saving on energy costs out here is to not use the air conditioning. Opposite from Maine, the pipes won't freeze. Out here they just melt.
A quality of life is something that you can't put a value on. I don't get a daily eyefull of "sight relief" or get to "smell the air" properly or see over 100 "stars in the sky" at night. I'd pay for that. To get that here, you have to get in your car and go somewhere instead of getting in your car and already being there. I try to explain to my Wed. nite dinner club friends what Maine is like. Most have never even been to New England. They ask me what it's like and I tell them it's "hills and views" on the way to town while on a milk or beer run. Always on the lookout for wildlife or neighbors going the other direction. I don't know what else to say.
$250 oil in 2009 would come only if there is another war in the Middle East IMO. An attack on Iran would instantly drive prices past $200 from their current levels, and a sustained war would push it higher. The fall of the Shah of Iran and Iraq-Iran War "tanker war" in 1979-80 doubled oil prices almost overnight. They came down again only after the U.S. Navy began escorting oil tankers through the strait.
The Iranian military has upgraded considerably since then. Iran can close the Strait of Hormuz at will with its Sunburn cruise missiles, missile-armed fast patrol boats, and mines. Heck, the strait is so narrow they could close it with tube artillery firing from the coastline. And they only have to sink one tanker. After that, Lloyd's pulls its insurance on tankers passing through the region, and all traffic stops.
That shuts off the 17 million barrels of oil, representing one-fifth of the world's consumption, that are shipped through the strait every day. That would be, at least temporarily, TEOTWAWKI. The energy crisis of 1973 was set off by a shortage of less than six percent IIRC.
Barring war or hyperinflation, I can't see $250 this year or next, and I consider myself something of a pessimist about energy prices. The fundamentals aren't in place to drive prices that high, and demand destruction would stop the rise well before $200 IMO.
That said, could Maine survive $250 oil? No, not in its current form. $130 oil already equals $4.50 fuel oil. At $250, that becomes $8-$9 fuel oil, and that equals people freezing to death in their homes on a scale equal to the heat deaths we saw in Chicago two summers ago. Businesses would close, and many landlords would have to shut their apartment buildings. (I'm hearing rumors of that already in western Maine.) The trucking industry would disappear, and along with it all the goods that Maine depends on to survive, especially the 90+ percent of our food that is imported into the state. That would also mean $8 gasoline, minimum, and in a state as dependent on car commuting as Maine, that means disaster. We would also see the end of all commercial air travel except for the government and the very rich. And none of that takes into account the downstream impact on food prices, real estate, and other things.
Former Gov. Angus King gave a speech at Bowdoin College recently in which he predicted that Maine could become an abandoned wasteland if we don't address the energy issue immediately. At $250 oil within the next 18 months, he would be proved right.
Perhaps you are such a great engineer you have the economically viable alternative to an oil burner for heating the thousands of homes in Maine and the rest of New England during the winter. Calling people wasteful when they're just using the available technology to stay warm is a harsh and unnecessary statement.
Wasteful is living beyond your means and/or owning things that aren't necessary for the average person, aka the 'status quo' for most Americans and a big reason behind the housing slump/mortgage crisis/energy woes.
I never said average people in the East using heating oil equated to waste.
People choosing to drive gas guzzlers vs. actually needing them, and living in large houses 'because they can', and then whining and moaning about fuel costs....they can all go and suck an egg.
There are plenty of less well-to-do folks who are going to struggle while others coast through this sh*tstorm. The gap between the haves and have-nots will widen, and I really think there will be social unrest and maybe chaos in some parts of the country.
I don't think this country has the ability to grasp what being 'energy independent' means in terms of what has to be sacrificed. Technology and energy aren't interchangeable, sorry. Do some research and there is no combo of current 'renewables' that comes remotely close to the energy output of oil.
Hopefully Mainers used their 'stimulus' checks to buy wood splitters if they don't have them already. And oh yeah, you have to claim that 'stimulus' as income on next year's tax return. No free lunch.
Wasteful is living beyond your means and/or owning things that aren't necessary for the average person, aka the 'status quo' for most Americans and a big reason behind the housing slump/mortgage crisis/energy woes.
I never said average people in the East using heating oil equated to waste.
People choosing to drive gas guzzlers vs. actually needing them, and living in large houses 'because they can', and then whining and moaning about fuel costs....they can all go and suck an egg.
There are plenty of less well-to-do folks who are going to struggle while others coast through this sh*tstorm. The gap between the haves and have-nots will widen, and I really think there will be social unrest and maybe chaos in some parts of the country.
I don't think this country has the ability to grasp what being 'energy independent' means in terms of what has to be sacrificed. Technology and energy aren't interchangeable, sorry. Do some research and there is no combo of current 'renewables' that comes remotely close to the energy output of oil.
Hopefully Mainers used their 'stimulus' checks to buy wood splitters if they don't have them already. And oh yeah, you have to claim that 'stimulus' as income on next year's tax return. No free lunch.
Your definition of wasteful is certainly a relative term subject to one's perspective. I agree with you in principle about the number of people living beyond their means and how this crisis will surely widen the have/have-not gap. I do see a multiple source approach coming soon which will help New Englanders.
My house has seven rooms in it and a bathroom and a half. I don't consider it to be all that big. My truck has an eight cylinder engine because that's all you can get in a full sized truck. I use the truck to haul wood for heat.
There is no replacement technologies available for oil because new technologies have been purchased and shelved by big oil for decades. There is no investment money available for new technologies because of the speculative nature of the research and no promise of a quick return which is the only thing desired by the short sighted people who invest.
Hopefully the high fuel prices will spark interest in new technologies which are already in prototype form. You need to do some research .
Nothing significant needs to be sacrificed in order to change to a new oil independent infrastructure. People just need to be willing to put up with a little less luxury for a while as new technology catches up with demand.
This will take time and cause the most anguish among the populace.
Your gloom and doom scenario is a scare tactic at best and is certainly not backed by American's previous responses to crisis.
Nothing personal meant shuffler I always enjoy your posts!
People choosing to drive gas guzzlers vs. actually needing them, and living in large houses 'because they can', and then whining and moaning about fuel costs....they can all go and suck an egg.
There was a time few people owned a vehicle except for maybe the rich. My father grew up in Boston and had only one little carosene stove for heat. It was shut off During the night 365 days a year. One pair of shoes ect...you get my point.
Deciding what is excessive and what is not...is really subjective. The reality is humans can survive with almost nothing.
As far as worrying, or whining as you put. Well,
“Envy is the desire to not only possess another’s wealth but also the desire to see another’s wealth lowered to the level of one’s own.” C. Bradley Thompson
I found this article that could have been written about our house in Dover, from a Seattle newspaper no less.
I've copied and pasted some of the interesting quotes:
____________________________
"While people in most of the country worry about their summer air-conditioning bills, many residents in the Northeast are way beyond that: They're thinking ahead to next winter's heating bills"
"The angst is particularly acute in New England, where a higher proportion of people heat with oil than any other region, ranging from more than 75 percent in Maine"
"The residential price of heating oil rose 59 percent from the first quarter of 2007.....natural gas and electricity prices rose about 3 percent"
"Judy Dorsey of Gardiner, Maine, halved her oil use last year by making improvements to her home, which was built in 1850......from a low-interest loan from the Maine State Housing Authority to have her walls and attic insulated, new windows installed, and cracks and holes filled in her foundation, attic and heat ducts. She used 350 gallons of heating oil last year, compared with 750 gallons two years ago"
___________________________
We've been trying to improve our 1850's home in Dover for years now doing several of the things listed above. Including new siding and roof. I think my sister is using about the same amount of oil as this Gardiner lady, mostly by closing the upstairs and converting the old house into a one bedroom, one bath, one floor living quarters in the winter months. So she'll be paying $4.50 per gallon times 350 gallons=$1575.....If it goes to $9.00, then she'll be paying $3150. to live there. Now that would just be rude. We're not ever going to sell the old place. Next option would be to close it up for the winter and live elsewhere but that would hurt the local grocery store and restaurants and hardware store and so on so probably won't do that. Maybe even have to take in a boarda.
Has anyone used or know of these low interest loans from the Maine State Housing Authority?
i wasent going to get in to this thred becouse well most of you no.but hear we are we just keep running around the barn.this is just a theary so dont freak out come to my house with a burning scare crow whearing a cow boy hat on a stick.
ok hear go's.what better way to curb green house gas.$250 a brl means $9 a gal
at 9 a gal there's not going to be many auto's on the road less cars = less green house gas.or my other theary the -------------- gov is just plane greedy we all no whitch gov im talking about.id spell it out but they no where i live.i was watching tv the other night and it's predicted that there is an est.40billion brls of oil under eastern montana and the govenor of that state said he doesnt want the us gov involved becouse all they do is fowl things up.he said the state of montana will drill for it them selves.
I asked a long time ago on this forum why there are very few Energy Star Homes in Maine. The response was mostly that old Mainers are used to building a certain way and don't want to change. Is it time for change now? I do worry about the cost to heat once we are moved up there. I still haven't seen listings for Energy Star Homes in the Portland area.
Any one talking about them?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I try to explain to my Wed. nite dinner club friends what Maine is like. Most have never even been to New England. They ask me what it's like and I tell them it's "hills and views" on the way to town while on a milk or beer run. Always on the lookout for wildlife or neighbors going the other direction. I don't know what else to say.
Energy Star Homes
