anybody else feeling the crunch?

the best was Al Gore, Mr Green himself.

In Nashville where his 15K sq ft home was sucking up resources so rapidly with all his computers and electronics, watered lawn etc. that some guys started pimping the hell out of him to change his lifestyle, so he and his wife bought energy credits instead of changing their lifestyles..

yep, makes sense to me.
 
Charlie is getting at it. Use less and figure out how to make the part you use go farther. Only price can create that desire to get the wheels going. We are way to into the fast easy fix now.. If it aint gona happen if two years we don't have the patience for it in this country.
 
now there's a joke......say you are interested in a reduction in energy useage, continue to use energy without regard after "buying" the right to do so, while patting yourself on the back because you "believe", whahahahhahahahahahaha, sorry, this just keeps getting funnier and funnier every time I think of it, that the person you paid to save "energy" for you is actually going to do it.....

Now THAT's a HOOT....and a half.....only American Politicians would be so arrogant as to say "we are destroying the Earth with our energy consumption" and then refuse to be proactive about practising what they preach beyond paying someone else to do what they advocate.....

As the Asian lady told me last week when I suggested to her that she start using paper instead of plastic in the take out.....


"I'M STILL RAFFING".....
 
Let me clarify - my "grow your own" comments were meant to mean bio diesel or the use of straight veg oil as fuel when possible. I agree that ethanol is a lot of hype with what apperas to be little long term benefit either environmentally or economically.

I must have missed Steve's counter argument against bio diesel as an alternative fuel. What were the main points?
I'd really like to get an older used diesel pickup to start try bio diesel and see how it works and would be interested to hear any arguments against it.

And as noted reducing use has got to be part of the equation. My $700 used 4 banger Chevy Cavalier now has a trailer hitch and is used to pull my 2 man scull boat for hunting instead of the 13 mpg Suburban. The Suburban mostly sits in the driveway now unless I really need 6 passenger or heavy towing capability. I have already paid for the smaller car in fuel savings alone over the Suburban. I bought it as a "starter" car fom my daughter, but it is now my primary vehicle.

I
 
I followed a pickup that was using "waste"oil from burger joints...man, did it make me hungry! Had a guy in a diesel pickup at the yard a month or 3 ago that works in a tool and die business in town, he was burning used cutting oil and chicken grease. He told me his shop used to pay someone 500 dollars a month to haul the oil away now there was a line up to take it for free.My mechanic uses used motor oil to heat his shop with one of those dripper burners.
 
Sure ,
we all do, some more than others. What some people don't realize is that we're all in this mess together (unless your a congressman or a senator) and even if you do have some stocks , in the end your going to pay to fix it. It's just not an oil problem , it's a broken government that's taken us back and not forward.
I don't usually get political on waterfowl sites , i think that should be discussed on the political sites. I believe it divides us as sportsman and that's something we can do without, there's enough anti hunter groups around.
It makes me laugh when i hear working class people backing the big oil companys. Do you really think they need the support when they already do what they feel like doing and snub their nose to hard working americans, I don't think so!!
Well, i got that off my chest.Just remember, if ya don't vote you don't have a gripe.
 
One thought:

One, looking only at BTU output ignores the systemic costs of energy creation to energy output. From what I read, the ratio of energy that goes into creating biofuels is less energy intensive overall as compared to creating petrofuels. You have to consider all the costs, not just the comparison of output energy.
Click to expand...

On the costs of production argument from what I've read teh opinion is mixed, there are some who have calculated that it takes as much or more fossil fuel to produce ethanol than it does to get an equal amount of fossil fuel to market. Were it not for the huge subsidies on corn (paid by us) you woudl come out with less energy in ethanol per fossil fuel invested.

It takes a huge amount of fertilizer to grow corn, fertilizer is produced on the industrial scale using fossil fuels. Production of corn takes a lot of pesticides, pesticides are made using fossil fuels. Working the land uses fossil fuels. Producing the equiptment and supply chain uses fossil fuels. We only use a small amount of the biomass of corn to produce ethanol. THe supply chain for oil is more efficient. Granted oil rigs adn supertankers are huge, but there are lots and lots of tractors, trucks, barges moving corn around.

There are also analyses that come out the other way, the fact that it is unclear or a draw suggests that it is not a panacea.

This has nothing to do with habitat used either.
 
Tod,

If you get a chance read that paper. Switchgrass is different since it is a perennial. The paper considers all the "costs" you are referring to, including fertilizer and diesel fuel for cultivation.

Charlie
 
Charlie,

I understand the relative merits of switchgrass, which converts the cellulose of the plant (huge percentage of biomass) to sugars that can be fermented (vs. corn that only ferments the sugars in the kernals). Also switchgrass needs less fertilizer and water. It seems like there is potential with the grasses, but I bet the solution, if there is one, will be something like algae or bacteria.
 
It makes me laugh when i hear working class people backing the big oil companys. Do you really think they need the support when they already do what they feel like doing and snub their nose to hard working americans, I don't think so!!
Well, i got that off my chest.Just remember, if ya don't vote you don't have a gripe.
Click to expand...

OK so 'big oil' can't drill in any new places in the USA and haven't been able to build a new refinery in decades and they are doing whatever they want?
Do you happen to know what the profit margin is for Exxon? It is 7.6%. The average large company in the country makes about 5.8% on their money. Boy that sure sounds like Exxon is gouging the consumer doesn't it. There are companies making 10, 15, 20 and even 25% on the money they invest. And good for them or else capitalism would work too well.

Huge profits are a result of them spending so much on the raw product and there being a refinery shortage in this country. The more they spend the more they charge to have the same profit margin.
Profit margin, profit margin, profit margin....that is what matters to investors and that is what tells you how well a company is doing. Right now Exxon is a company doing well but not spectacular. If they would lower their profit margin they would hurt a lot more then just some mythical 'big oil' and it would only save a few cents at the pump. With simple math you can figure that only about $.20 of the price of gas is profit yet in most places the taxes are at least twice that. Yep 'big oil' is the problem. If you want to see what happens with even more government control, and in turn more taxes, does look at the price of gas in Europe.

note: I know Exxon refines oil for a multitude of other products so the profit on gas may not be only $.20 but for sake of argument it works. In the long run the consumer pays for the raw products in everything so if fertilizer or plastics make less for them and gas more it doesn't matter because the 7.6% is what the company earns in the end.

Tim "I like the Mormon" J
 
Tim, is 7.6% before or after the 14% increase in profit?

I am all for companies making money, however, something is wrong when their profits go up 14% and my income doesn't.

Yes, yes, I know they cann't build a refinery here or there, but that's only a portion of the problem.

And lets not forget the size of Exxon here, one cent on a gallon is a ton of money. And who would get hurt if they made say, only a 5% profit?

"Huge profits are a result of them spending so much on the raw product and there being a refinery shortage in this country. The more they spend the more they charge to have the same profit margin. " But it's not the same profit, it's more profit. Our economy works and grows when everyone makes a reasonable profit, when the consumer gets gouged, there is an after effect, they don't have money to spend on other things, like Steve said bottled water.

Good grief, I am starting to sound like a liberal.
 
A 14% increase in profit can still equate to a 7.6% margin. If the raw material price goes up 14%, and if you have to sell your product at 14% more, your total profit dollars increase 14% (not exactly but used to make a point) but the amount of margin could remain the same. Make sense?

I believe the current figure is that you get 1.3 X more energy out of corn than what it costs you to make the ethanol. But then again, it depends upon where you get your facts. I sure wouldn't get them from the politicians.

Being from a State where we have had 10% ethanol in our gas for a long time I can tell you it is a problem in many areas. Older motors do not run well on 10% ethanol. My 1987 sportscar hurts when it is filled up with the crap gas. Older boat motors, lawn mowers, 2 cycle motors, dirt bikes, snowmobiles etc, all run worse on ethanol enhanced fuel. The stuff goes bad quicker as well (only my observation, not based on any facts.

We even keep a list of non oxygenated fuel service stations. And thank goodness our current governor wants to get MN to be the greenest State by requiring the fuel to now be 20% ethanol. God help us.

Mark W
 
I'm not sure what their profit margin was in the past couple quarters but I did find that in the past few years they had a margin up to 9.8% and maybe more. All profit margins for every company change a little from quarter to quarter.
So it has gone down from a few years ago and they are showing more profit. That is what I'm trying to say. To make 14% more they don't have to raise anything. Oh and from 2006 to 2007 the yearly total profit only went up about 3%, doesn't make for as good of a headline.

If they spend $100B they make $7.6B, a couple years ago they made $9.8B. The reason they are making more is because as oil prices go up they spent more. The total amount they bring in before expenses has been from about $350B to $450B the past few years and they have made something like $30-$40B each of those years. The numbers are huge because of the large amounts they deal with. If some financial institutions and most pharmaceutical companies, even Wal-Mart at times, dealt with the amounts of money the oil companies deal with their profits would dwarf Exxon's. A profit margin for a company of that size in the 6-10% range seems perfectly reasonable to me. Microsoft is in the mid 20's for gosh sake. I'm not willing to say what they can make because what industry do you stop at? Food? Clothes? Vehicles? Bottled water?

btw Looking back I'm not sure the 7.6 is the current margin because I also came up with 8.6. The premiss is still the same because oil prices were the highest they have ever been in the past year so no doubt the oil companies had to spend more.
I won't even argue that Exxon Mobile isn't too big. I think in the long run having more large companies is better then just a few huge ones.
What I am mostly trying to get across is that profit margin is what's important because total profit means nothing if you don't know what it took to make it. A small shop making $50,000 a year may be doing much better then a super store chain making $1B a year.

Sorry so long, I'm just not a fan of penalizing any company for making a fairly normal profit. We are capitalists after all.

Tim
 
If you think Exxon's profit is excessive, buy their stock. That's what companies are supposed to do: make profits. That's why investors give them their money. Everyone misses the answer to this problem: nuclear energy. If it weren't for dope smoking hippies Nuclear power would be everywhere, we'd be burning hydrogen in our great big SUV'S, and we wouldn't be worried about global warming. This is one thing the French got right. If I'm not mistaken something like 80% of their power comes from nuclear energy. We'll eventually head down the same road, and the sooner we do the better.

Ed.
 
I still think we should grow our own fuel. These gasoline comparisons are fuel for the fire but I say make the engines more efficient that run on the ethanol. I know it can be done, it's just a matter of will it be done. The evolution of autmobiles mpg backs my theory. If it comes to it make one that uses Marijuana and we'll all be happy and wont care.
 
Sorry Ed, there are not enough known uranium reserves to power the planet. There could be places where uranium exists that we don't know about (undersea for example) but with what is kown today, nuclear is not the long term answer either. Then there is the whole storage of the waste issue that has not been dealt with either.

We had a guest speaker here at work a couple of years back on global energy demands going forward. He looked at the global demand and the best global energy usage forecast for the next 50 and 100 years. According to him, solar is the only answer that will work. If I can find a link to this guy, I'll post it. I've heard all sorts of discussions/seminars and whatnot on this subject and this is the one talk that was totally indepenednt of someone who had something to gain.

Mark W
 
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