and leveraging in the stock markets is allowed too.

more lies and distortions from “progressives”.

and that’s just in the us, then you gotta do it all over the world.

OK Don, you go dig several hundred thousand miles of tunnel, and you fill it up with liquid helium and superconducting leads. we’ll pay you $5/hr. and you’ll be done with this project when all the protons decay in the universe so it won’t matter. or better yet, YOU pay for this. it would be cheaper for all of us to live without electricity. even totally radical things would be cheaper than this. what about pollution from your solar — no you don’t wanna talk about that. that solar hardware needs to be made, chemicals need to be used, water polluted, but let’s not talk about that. just cover every square inch of southwest with your ugly mirrors and pipes, forget the wildlife, yeah that’s the way to go.

when ALL the costs are included (not you wishing away things you don’t want to see), then even having a dead planet would be CHEAPER than your half-cooked options (meaning not ready now, not ready in the next 20-50 years, maybe ready at some point but not something that will get us out of this jam NOW).

there are other, less pie in the sky ways. e.g., nuclear, though that’s not the only option.

why don’t you find the way, when you’re so gung ho on this — go ahead, you’ll be famous.

Source: US dept. of energy. Do a google search on “US oil inventory” or click on url:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/weekly_petroleum_status_report/current/txt/wpsr.txt

According to this, the refinery inputs are about 15 million barrels per day, the crude inventory in refineries is 302 million barrels (down 5 million barrels since the end of May, so it’s trending down in addition to be at a lower end of the average range for the time of year). So, the inventory is worth about 20 days. At this period last year, the oil inventories were about 352 million barrels or 14.4% HIGHER, so this year is 14.4% LOWER than last year. The gasoline inventory is slightly higher than a year ago 209 million barrels vs. 204 million barrels (2% higher). The jet fuel inventories are about 2% lower than last year. The table also shows a 2% drop in gasoline production compared to a year ago, and a 1% drop in cumulative production from January 1 of this year compared to the same period last year – so, there’s a demand drop.

Conclusion: the data shows totally the opposite situation as was described in the comment (the refineries hoarding the crude). Figures: lies, distortions, that’s par for the course when dealing with “progressives”.

The other thing is, what does inventory stocks have to do with anything? The inventory capacity is finite, and we’re looking at a steady state situation, so there could be short term fluctuations in output rate related to inventory, but in the end input equals output, and if inventory fills up, they buy less in the next period, thus exerting DOWNWARD pressure on the price.

It took me 5 minutes to find this information, instead of spewing hot air about things you don’t know anything about.

How about the common sence factor…gas prices started to rocket up just about the time this (whitehouse induced) loophole was developed.
Why is it that we pushed to allow American oil to be traded in England ….because they don’t have to report it thus no facts or figures just as the President wanted it. No way to track how corrupt this process is while his pals make a fortune.

Do you need to be hit in the head by a 2×4 to know it hurts…no I am sure I can’t find any facts to back up my 2×4 theory but I am not a stupid person and don’t need chart to make it obvious.

The weather and ocean conditions in the next couple of weeks will determine how much of the sea ice will melt, and early signs are not good, said Mark Serreze. He’s a senior researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center and the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colo.

How many fires in California and that 500 year flood in the Midwest try 12,000 year flood. Still time but not much.

The only sensible thing in the article is that the dollar weakness is a contributor — and it’s probably a major contributor to the price increase. Compared to what dollar was vs. euro when oil was $20/barrel, I’d say that $60 (approximately — look at dollar-euro conversion rate, I don’t have any courage to look anymore) comes from the weak dollar.

when will you guys realize that hot air blowing does not substitute for the facts. quoting some airhead does not substitue for facts. give me the FACTS and NUMBERS behind your ASSERTIONS.

Show me the numbers. Show me the facts.

there is a difference btw what is POSSIBLE and what is technologically and economically FEASIBLE, AT THIS POINT IN TIME.

When the Wright brothers did their flight, they showed it was POSSIBLE for a machine heavier than air to fly. At that point it was NOT technologically and economically feasible, to organize mail delivery and passenger service around that concept. Only later, when several other problems were solved. And it wasn’t even technically POSSIBLE at that point, to build a jumbo jet and fly across the Atlantic. So, these are all gradations.

What you’re suggesting is technologically POSSIBLE, but is NOT FEASIBLE (technologically or economically) AT THIS POINT IN TIME. It’s just way, way, way, too expensive, and I don’t know even if all technological problems are solved, probably not. Maybe later, it will become feasible (maybe some new invention, some quantum leap will make it possible) but not now.

And I don’t know why you want to use dc-current (which would be useful for solar panels — they naturally produce dc current, not solar thermal). If you’re transporting power over long distances, to minimize losses, and because you need high voltages (to minimize currents and thus heating loads), and you need to convert between low and high voltages on both ends, then ac current is preferable for that, as it’s easy to convert voltages for it. And all of our appliances are geared toward ac power now. (For some, like lights and conventional cooking, it doesn’t matter, but for motors, etc. it does)

and how many barrels are in the inventories. it’s a drop in the bucket.

show me the number and facts, instead of bs links and bs assertions.

Why would the refineries and the oil companies need the speculators to do this, buy up the oil contracts to drive up the price — when they could do it themselves, they’re 96% of the market? The same for the producers — simply set aside capacity like they’re doing.

As for the inventories — they are tiny compared to our consumption rates — how many days of gas/oil are in the inventories? Even in the strategic petroleum reserve, there’s but 37 days of total US consumption. They have only so many tanks and they have to keep producing the gas, etc. to make room for new inventories arriving daily.

Can you show me the calculation that 60% of the price comes from the speculators? How many million barrels are in invnetories now vs. what is normal, what is the increase in inventories, and how many days of consumption (worldwide and US) does it translate to?

I forgot to add the producers who are setting aside the spare capacity and thus reducing the supply. Now, look at producers ACTIONS rather than WORDS. They claim this is all speculation driven. If so, why aren’t they taking advantage of the situation, while it lasts, and pumping like crazy, while oil is $140/barrel, as opposed to $20/barrel (and below) of a few years ago. As opposed to half the current price only a year ago. Shouldn’t they be wanting to maximize the profit, given the finite resources they have? I mean, all bubbles eventually burst. Given that people have cut back in response to the high prices, people and businesses have cut back; and further cutbacks risk plunging the world economy into a recession or worse, with even less oil consumed. So, there’s definitely unmet demand, and if what they say is true, it would be
in their self-interest to jack up the production rates, to bring in the spare capacity into play. I think their ACTIONS are those of someone who knows that these prices aren’t coming down and who knows that there will be further tightening of the supplies vis a vis the current demand levels.

What about the gas lines, why aren’t we having the gas lines? Because, the gradual imbalances are being worked away by the price mechanism, which leads to demand adjustments – we’ve all heard and read what these prices are doing to individual people’s driving habits, lifestyles, where they choose to live, on costs of everything, on biz operations. The prices gradually rise as the supply gets gradually tightened wrt demand (for whatever reason – could be just their setting aside the spare reserve capacity), the demand slowly adjusts to the rising prices and a new equilibrium is reached – in oil and gas as in everything else. When supply and demand are allowed to freely operate there are no “shortages”, at least until some extreme point is reached. As for the
70s, yes it happened then, but then the supply was cut off suddenly, and there were no price signals ahead of time. Then it was a shock, an imbalance between supply and demand, and shortages and lines ensued.

- U. S. Congressional Record, 1875.
There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will.
- Albert Einstein, 1932.
There is not in sight any source of energy that would be a fair start toward that which would be necessary to get us beyond the gravitative control of the earth.
- Forest Ray Moulton (1872-1952),
Computers in the future may…perhaps only weigh 1.5 tons.
- Popular Mechanics, 1949.
It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.
- Robert Goddard (1882-1945)
“If God had intended that man should fly, he would have given him wings”.
George melville

Here is a quote from this site explaining futures found here
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8878

Perhaps 60% of oil prices today pure speculation

“By purchasing large numbers of futures contracts, and thereby pushing up futures prices to even higher levels than current prices, speculators have provided a financial incentive for oil companies to buy even more oil and place it in storage. A refiner will purchase extra oil today, even if it costs $115 per barrel, if the futures price is even higher.

As a result, over the past two years crude oil inventories have been steadily growing, resulting in US crude oil inventories that are now higher than at any time in the previous eight years. The large influx of speculative investment into oil futures has led to a situation where we have both high supplies of crude oil and high crude oil prices.”

So… Mr Wilkinson is correct in that refineries are sitting on oil but the only incentive they have to do that is because the speculators are driving the prices of “FUTURE” oil produced down the road to outrageous prices to make a ton of money at the expense of the average person….worldwide and not just in the USA.

So to sum up, we are paying huge prices for gas because a handfull of rich people are driving the prices of future oil contracts not yet out of the ground, thus giving the large oil companies the incentive to sit on very large supplies of oil to get that “future” higher price by driving up the current prices….win for the rich bankers and win for the oil companies and everyone else suffers.

Another odd fact is you cant trade other commodities this way and the giant loophole that allows this to happen is only in place for oil. Keep dreaming if anyone thinks that our leaders in the whitehouse are looking out for us……as a wise man said long ago, don’t pee on my head and tell me its raining.

If it’s so easy to bury thousands of miles of high-voltage transmission lines, why hasn’t it been done for the existing high voltage transmission lines — they would be impervious to weather, no aviation hazard, no bird hazard, no huge towers to build. Because it’s PROHIBITIVELY EXPENSIVE (just that part, the burying of high voltage lines, don’t even think about the superconducting part, which is the only way you’ll get a low-loss line or dc over long distances).

Well, that part you got right — you need to transport the electricity for long distances because you guys are proposing to cover the deserts of the southwest with your solar hardware and move the power to everywhere else.

“and so far seems to be top secret or we can burn coal that is rather brontosaurian in nature don’t you think?”

that’s right, there’s a vast conspiracy against solar, that’s why it hasn’t delivered for decades and centuries, that’s what i’ve been hearing since time immemorial.

the reason it hasn’t delivered it’s EXPENSIVE, see my post above.

What have you been smoking, Don? Yes, the technology exists for us to get to the moon, does that mean there’s a shuttle every minute to take you to your moon job? What is feasible, technologically and economically, that’s the question.

Yes, we can, in principle, use superconducting lines to create a low-loss grid — a few YARDS of such lines have been built to demonstrate the principle that it’s POSSIBLE and that you have zero losses. But guess what — you have to cool these lines to liquid helium temps (near absolute zero). Even with the hi-tech “high temp” superconductors (which won’t conduct such huge amounts of current, etc.), you need liquid nitrogen temps. And you’re gonna do this in the deserts, among others. And you’re gonna cool them for THOUSANDS of miles? Can you even fathom the enormity of this task, the hardware needed? We’re not talking air-conditioning a small office, we’re talking about cooling thousands of miles of ducting to hundreds of degrees below zero.

Digging underground lines (and putting all of that cooling equipment and supply lines down there, too) for thousands of miles and cris-crossing every which way to every home, that, too, would be extremely expensive.

So, let me take a crack at it. The worldwide supply of oil in 2007 was about 74 million barrels PER DAY. (That’s about equal to the demand, because you can’t store big quantities of oil, except for the little bit hoarded in various strategic petroleum reserves). Of that amount, Saudi Arabia, the largest producer, supplies 8.5 million barrels per day (about 12% of the total), and if they really went full throttle, could supply about 12-13 million barrels per day (so they say), or 15% of the total. So, even Saudi Arabia is supplying only a small fraction of the total (relatively speaking), so I don’t see how they have (or any other oil minister) a crystal ball as to what’s happening on the supply side.

You say that the speculators “take out” (more on that later) about 1 billion barrels PER YEAR. (In one place you state 848 million barrels, in another 1.1 billion barrels, see what I mean that language is not very precise an instrument?) So, that’s about 3 million barrels PER DAY that the speculators “take out” (which they really DON’T take out, see below), or about 4% of the total worldwide supply of 74 million barrels per day. So, those are the orders of magnitude we’re talking about – the speculators are about 4% of the demand (/supply) – IF they actually took possession of that oil and stored it somewhere (or burnt it), which they don’t, won’t and CAN’T do. (In reality, then, the speculators may be 4% of the oil transactions, but approximately ZERO% of the supply, i.e., demand). But let’s say, that the oil they trade for is real – well, it’s only 4%. Would 4% (if it were real, which it is not) translate into such a big runup in prices? I don’t know, it depends on the elasticity of demand (how sensitive demand is to price signals — if it is not sensitive, then you need a huge price increase to reduce it enough to match the reduced supply). (No, I am not an economist, I just didn’t sleep through my ECON-101 class, like you guys did sleep through everything not related to football, girls and cliques, and now you think you know everything). I suspect that the oil demand is pretty inelastic, which means that even a small shortfall in supply (or an artificial shortfall related to “spare” capacity, or PERCEIVED future problems with supply, etc.) will lead to huge price increases. So, yes, maybe the 4% would be enough (if it were related to REAL chunk out of the oil supply, which it is not). But, in your world, even this imaginary 4% (which you think is real) would be more than covered by the excess “spare” capacity (which you count in the + column), if the world worked that way.

In comparison, the US strategic petroleum reserve contains about 700 million barrels, or roughly the same amount as the annual “demand” you attribute to speculators.

But the problem is that this 4% is NOT real. NO REAL OIL is taken off the market. You never bothered to explain how the futures (and options) markets work. OK, so you’re in the oil futures market – either as a speculator, as an oil company, a refinery, oil producer. You’re either in the straight futures market or in the options market. You place either an option or order on an oil contract of – I don’t know what the minimum chunk is, say 5,000 barrels of oil – or several thousand of such chunks, what have you. And you do it for some future delivery date. You put your money up front. In the end, you “win”, if your offered price (either through the straight futures contract or the options leveraging process) is in the range of what the market arrived at for that contract, through many transactions such as yours. When you “win”, you either physically take possession of that oil (all 5,000 barrels of it, or 5 million barrels, what have you), or you “sell” it (in the virtual commodity market) on the spot, to someone who could use it (like a refinery). A refinery is definitely not going to take more oil than it can process, or more oil than it thinks the demand is (that it can sell) or at a price that’s not supported by the market in the quantities that it’s buying.

So, what do you do if you’re the “speculator”? You certainly don’t take possession of that oil – what would you do with it – such huge quantities, where would you store it, you’re not going to set up a distribution network, huge tank farms, are you? Of course you’ll get rid of it pronto – get it to somebody who can use it. To the same guys – refineries, etc. – who bid on it earlier, and “lost”. But those are “serious” buyers, who know the oil market inside and out and what is sustainable (and who own, i.e., “won” the other 96% of the oil contracts), and they are 96% of this oil futures market – so, the price is 96% closer to what they think it should be than what the speculators think it should be.

So, yes, the speculators do increase the price a bit, but not by much. It would be more accurate to say that the ones holding the 96% of the market and the oil contracts (the oil companies, the refineries) are the ones setting the price.

Technology
exists for direct-current high-voltage buried transmission lines

Technology
exists for direct-current high-voltage buried transmission lines

And why do we need a low-loss grid? It’s called solar thermal and so far seems to be top secret or we can burn coal that is rather brontosaurian in nature don’t you think?

What the Fed did yesterday I guess is part of that delicate balance. I don’t think balance is the right word imbalance is a better word. There is another imbalance that many of you are aware of and with that one time is very important. Still time but cutting it close if we start now. Growth using reason or