The price of crude has dropped from $150 to $118 in the last month due to an absence of bad news and reduced demand. Oil falls as low as $118 on demand concerns. By Madlen Read. Washington Post.
Still the campaign to increase the supply of domestic crude on public lands continues in order to reduce the price a penny a gallon 5 to 10 years from now.
Presidential campaigns very often seem to procede off in some alternative universe.
Regarding demand, does anyone recall how Dick Cheney sneered at the notion of conservation of fuel (energy efficiency) back in 2002 after his secret energy task force met?
Time to remember that supply always equals demand except in the very short run or when certain kinds of subsidies are paid, price ceiling or floors are set, or rationing imposed.
Comments
the full potential development of oil in ANWR wouldn’t have as much an impact as properly inflating tires
supply meeting demand is based in the premise that what is in demand is in existence. “the other side:” will always argue thatthey need to drill more, no matter what the cost, so people can have what they need…
The thing is, people need fuel sources, not necessarily oil. We need to SUPPLY fuel….and make it more readily available….not just oil.
The problem isn’t so much demand as the fact we are running out of oil. Most of the shallow fields are basically dry, and now we are drilling at extreme depths. Many of the giant fields producing today are in decline. For example, the largest Mexican field dropped 16% last year alone.
We are running out of time. Global oil supply is quickly diminishing. There exists a drastic need for the sincere development of alternative fuels. And the pressure we put on our elected leaders better be commensurate with the true nature of this energy emergency we are in.
Which is to say this alternative fuels have to be our highest priority. We need electrical cars now, we need our electricity to come from wind and solar, and we need to drastically increase energy efficiency across the board. One narrow path won’t work, we need to use many solutions.
Or driving at the posted speed limit, and walking, too. A few words about wind power: Pennsylvania, with its ridge-and-fvalley topography, offers many favorable spots for wind farms. But Pennsylvania — and many other states, as well — is a longstanding hawk migration corridor. Politicians are already falling over each other in their rush to endorse specific projects, while coal-burning power plants dontinue to release carbon dioxide emissions.
More studies need to be done about how birds are effected, and if they adapt, to wind turbines. But most certainly they would be a benefit SOME PLACE….
You also have to consider how it would work if they put smaller wind turbines into a backyards….or required(through zoning) new apartment or housing projects to have a certain percentage of power per home be solar panels on roof tops, and/or wind turbines in backyards.
It could be done, and yes, it will cost a lot of money, but with tax incentives to builders, and savings on utilities, and the jobs created to produce the solar panels, etc….it would be a benefit.
But to say all of this here is preaching to the choir. We need to vote, and preach to those who will listen and are not as persuaded thus far.
p.s. I have heard the term “GREEN” six times in the last forty five minutes on the a.m. news. That is encouraging.
Wind energy is real nice. I’d like to see the coal-fired power plant 50 miles to my west closed real soon, its output having been replaced by wind farms. But it’s not hapening anytime soon. Here in the East, wind farms are more likely to be placed on high ground. That means ridgetops in Pa. And hat means fragmenting forests to bring equipment in during construction.
Many disagree wuth me, but I think we are going to have to make some hard choices, and pick the lesser of two evils. We won’t go all solar, and we need wind energy too. So what do you do? In some cases a particular population of animals may fall victim to human energy demads. I think it needs to be very carefully decided what losses can be managed without totally anialating a species. But I know constant drilling for something that is not getting any more readily available is NOT an answer. And, the polution and drilling is just as bad, if not worse, than wind -as a general rule. But I wouldn’t go plopping turbines into sage grouse territory,,etc.
An unusual thing happened last week, I was watching TV. What I watched was very impressive concerning new development in wind power generation technology.
There’s this guy in Chicago who has designed and is developing many new designs for building-top wind turbines that are low profile and very effective. These are horizontal turbines that are specifically useable in cities where the wind is erratic and multi-directional. These turbines seem to be able to capture the erratic wind without damage to the structures which are tubular rather than standup propellars. here are more factors but the point is that there is no one design that fits all. The original idea for developing new designs was the concept of onsite wind power generation.
Perhaps onsite generation is the best way to go. It would relieve the pressure of the “oilfield” mentality of wind farms. The grid was a nice experiment but look what happened… What with the major outages that happen and all the resources spread all over to connect everything by wiring…
The program was very informative. This guy, sorry I forget the name, now has contracts from France and other Euro countries as well as a few US cities.
There are many options, we just have to get out of the “box” and look around with open minds.
I bet I kill more birds every time I wash the windows of my house versus what a whole farm of those windmills could do. Those blades move ssooo ssllooww. if a bird can’t get out of their way, it should have been eaten by now anyway.
Aside from the speed concerns and the bird mortality situation with conventional props…
I went to a public education meeting in Idaho about six or seven years ago and some government wind power researcher spoke about how the technology has been upgraded with concerns for birds having unfortunate experiences with them and that the problem was basically resolved. He also said that Germany was a big user of wind poer and they had developed some very innovative devices for wind power generation. I was impressed and was looking into the concept for property I was hoping to purchase at the time.
Things have advanced but you don’t hear about it because…
well, just look at how the media is controlled and who owns it.
I think the concern is not just birds flying into propellers, but that the changes created in wind patterns, and the noise created by both building and operating the farms, cause them to divert their migration and may therefore have a negative effect on food sources and reproduction.
Chicago is also innovative in other areas. The city initiated a “green roof” agenda. They reinforce certain roof tops, and place soil and dirt atop. Then they plant gardens. The dirt and plants insulate the building, reduce heat omissions and help regenerate oxygen. It is cheaper than running massive amounts of heating/AC, and is a beautiful eco-friendly palce for the employees to have lunch. I heard a lot of employees garden at lunch to relieve stress too. (The only pitfall was cost of making the roof weight baring enough to hold the garden and getting a watering system up there…but they are now using more zero-scape plants to cut back on watering too.)
john, those blades move very very quickly, consider they have a rotational speed of about once per one or two seconds and they are hundreds of feet in diameter. I don’t know the exact details but the velocity at the tip of that blade has got to be in excess of 120 miles an hour.