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Higher Oil Prices Are Starting To Bring Jobs Home
penguin_dance notes a report up at ABC News that high oil and gas prices in the US may be moving jobs back home in a trend that some economists are calling "reverse globalization." It's becoming more and more expensive to ship finished product from other countries, so some companies are moving the manufacturing back to the US. The article hints that this trend may spill over soon to raw materials such as steel. One economist is quoted: "It's not just about labor costs anymore. Distance costs money, and when you have to shift iron ore from Brazil to China and then ship it back to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is looking pretty good at 40 bucks an hour."
It would be nice if there was a favorable reaction to high fuel prices such as some manufacturing coming back home.
We can only hope that the trend continues.
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
Actually, pittsburgh sucks. But this is a good thing, regardless.
Show this to your friends and family that don't know what a real hacker is
from my home to my office....when will my company start teleworking as an option!
But US jobs and stable prices despite the raising fuel costs is great news!
Now if companies would pull their heads out and either/or/both go to a 4 day work week and re-implement telecommuting...
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... by The Invisible Hand.
Adam Smith strikes.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
It's almost like there was some kind of invisible hand at work.
The headline mentions "Jobs" (capitalized) so I'm assuming you mean "Steve Jobs"
Apple computer with Steve at the helm has always been using oil in the form of plastics for their computers, lubrication for moving parts, and the water-repellant factor in all sorts of products. Jobs has *ALWAYS* been at the forefront of oil consumption so it is not surprising that Steve has decided to come home to supervise his company during this high cost crisis brought on by Alberta Sheiks driving their hummers across their cattle ranches.
But with smaller things (refrigerator or smaller) distance transport from foreign lands is pretty low. The cost of shipping a refrigerator across the sea is way smaller than the cost of trucking it across a state. Sure, that shipping cost has gone up, but so has the cost of trucking etc. Sure, those shipping costs have gone up, but by a very small amount relative to the whole product cost.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
and people thought I was crazy when I said that higher energy costs would be a good thing in the long term.
I don't care what you say, all I need is my Wumpabet soup.
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Recently I saw a show that visited Asbury Park in NJ, and it was stated that the slow decline of the park started with cheap airfares. It immediately struck me that this trend should now start to reverse itself, as travel costs are rising while consumer confidence is dropping.
High gas prices are going to have some bad side effects, but also quite a few good ones. Hopefully, reduced travel will be effected on almost every scale: suburbs will wilt and cities will grow stronger, local foods will become more popular, inefficient business travel will be replaced by online meetings, etcetera. I think most people who have wanderlust aren't going to let higher airline prices stop them, but perhaps they'll take fewer and longer trips in order to reduce expenses - e.g., instead of going to France and Spain on one trip, and the U.K. on another, they'll wait and take a longer trip to visit all three.
Also, a nuclear ship can sustain high speeds much longer than conventionally-powered ships. Makes you harder to capture.
I think it might be an interesting development to bring back the "Q-ship"... troll for pirates, then blow their asses out of the water by surprise.
The meek may inherit the earth, but the strong shall take the stars.
It less oil to use rail over ships to move iron ore and other big stuff.
It's more that the price of dollars is low than that the price of oil is high. Turning every one dollar bill into a one million dollar bill won't cure world poverty either.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Bringing jobs back to USA is great, but this means the product becomes more expensive, which means the salary you get producing those may not be enough... So in other words, we get back jobs and lower salaries to levels before we shipped the jobs overseas..
360 degrees...something doesn't feel quite right...let's visualize that for a second... don't you mean 180 degrees?
The equation is tipping back towards domestic manufacture.
Shipping costs are only one of the variables and it is inaccurate to attribute the whole shift to that.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
I didn't know he'd gone anywhere.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Cheap energy has driven our world from locally produced goods to an international market place. When country B has the ability to make a good more cheaply it allows country A to become more efficient. It's been a couple of months since I have taken macroeconomics but I believe this is called a comparative advantage. Higher fuel and energy prices won't help us as a people. They will only bring us back to an economic situation that was seen in the early 20th century. What we need as a race are alternatives and a mass conservation effort. Heck the biggest reason for the increase in oil has been because of decline of the dollar abroad. If the fed jacked up interest rates it would remedy much of the problems we are seeing right now. But you know god forbid Bernanke and Company make G.W Bushy look bad in the economic front. I mean he screwed up a lot of stuff already let's just take on more. ----On a side note ----- Personally I think the Federal Reserve's biggest concern should be inflation. This period of stagflation is killing us. Inflation should always be the fed's number one priority. I mean seriously what good is an unemployment check when nearly all of it is going towards trying to pay for a freaking box of cereal. Also people should also not be so self righteous about working a minimal wage job while on unemployment. I know it's embarrassing to be flipping hamburgers or stocking selves, but it's money. Money that can be used to supplement a transition between jobs.
You won't get any more local steel production unless there are local manufacturers that want it or if it can be produced at internationally competative prices. Steelmaking is one of those things that is not labour intensive so nobody can honestly blame unions or cheap labour countries on the price of the stuff - it comes down to effective or ineffective management.
BROKEN WINDOW FALLACY
http://freedomkeys.com/window.htm
I've never seen such a beautiful example of the broken window fallacy. Good job /. for not realizing it.
It beats being unemployed? I know it's not much of a consolation, but it's clearly still the lesser of two evils, and is probably still worth celebration.
How do you telecommute in a factory, are a cop, a teacher, an orchestra conductor, a prostitute, flip burgers, etc. Only those jobs that involve sitting in front of a computer all day are viable for such an option.
Pull your head out and realize 96% of all jobs involve real hands on work.
Fuel is crazy cheap in the US, so what are you whining about ? Do you think it's your God Given Right (tm) to drive 8mpg gas guzzlers filled up with 40c/litre fuel forever????? Who are you kidding?
Most other countries (exclude major producers like Suadi, Venezuala) have heavy taxes on fuel and drive more fuel efficient cars. Stop whining America, you've shoved cheap oil into your veins like it was going out of fashion for the last 50 years, those days are now over. A billion and a half Indians and Chinese now want their time in the sun and they're starting to guzzle too.
If the USA wasn't run by Big Oil you'd be a lot better off. So instead of whining about how *shock horror* you can't just pee oil up against the wall anymore maybe you could DO something about it.
Start by asking why you can't start to wean yourselves off it, so you don't NEED to foul your own backyards to extract every last drop of the black stuff. And vote to INCREASE taxes on fuel (I know, pipe dream but hey...gotta try..) so reduce demand.
NEWSFLASH ---- You've had it too good for too long, now comes the pain, and this is only the beginning.
The upside is that it gives something to the domestic worker. For once in about 30 years, something favorable comes to the domestic audience.
Now just give fully domestic products a huge tax cut (if not an outright exemption from any tax). The only thing left to do is to repeal Taft-Hartley, RTW, and call it a day.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Actually, the point here is that the price of the product will be more expensive, period, but by bringing the jobs back to the US, more people will be able to afford said product as gross domestic will be grown along with the product price increase.
So, you're looking at an increase of $20 per 100 tonnes due to fuel cost, or $20 per 100 tonnes for salary increase *and* you expand your customer base simultaneously. Seems like a win-win to me.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
we are not moving any coffee plantations "back" are we?
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
Thank you, Mr Checkov. Mr Sulu, lay in a course for the 1970's.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
I thought US Steel had more expensive steel because it only sells very high quality/specialty steel. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Not the kind that's been used in the last 30 years.
The type that has existed (mainly) past 1980 has antagonized the domestic worker. The other type permitted domestic work along with international dominance.
This is our nation, and we should not be allowing other countries to influence ours by proxy. If they want a vote, they can go through the process in becoming a citizen.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Are you kidding? You think that the product size actually matters? There is very little difference in shipping a container of refrigerators vs. a container of pens. It's a tiny fraction of fuel economy (a few percent) due to weight differences. The cost & distribution challenges come in breaking up the product at distribution centers, but that happens regardless of where the product is manufactured.
What will matter is raw ores (iron ore) and other relatively dense materials (steel, lumber), which greatly increase transportation costs and are easily replaceable commodities. This will be the first place the effects are seen, but it will spread to other products.
"The cost of shipping a refrigerator across the sea is way smaller than the cost of trucking it across a state."
Perhaps if you ship them one at a time. But that's not how trucks or ships work.
The statement in the article notes an increased container shipping cost of $3,000 to $8,000 shipping from China to NY. That $5,000 difference is about 1,000 gallons of diesel, which is enough to drive more than 4,000 miles carrying the 29+- tons of a fully loaded standard shipping container.
my brilliant idea for shipping goods on ships powered by the wind.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
That can be changed as well.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Make them a line item expense on the dry cleaning bill and if the person brings back their old hanger they don't have to pay it.
No, it's a lose-lose broken window fallacy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
Paying for breathing air might increase the GDP, but it would only be making the world net poorer. By definition of the consumer price index (CPI) being fraudulent data, so too is the GDP fraudulent data. Double the supply of money, ceteris paribus, the GDP doubles. Twice as much money trades for the exact same things. But in the real world inflation works it way through the economy discretely and unevenly, not universally evenly. People who get the new money and new credit first, spend more on specific things first. In the late 90s it was internet stocks, from 2000-2007 it was houses, and now it's commodities like oil. The poorest (last to receive the new credit and dollars) will suffer the worst for the longest time.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
I will RTFA, and I find this to be a very interesting side effect of the higher gas prices. It may be the only good thing coming out of the situation. If a hydrogen-based car that runs on water comes out, that would be another good thing. But you have to wonder, why are oil prices so high to begin with? It has to do with several things, which I'll touch on, but I'd like to concentrate on this thing called oil futures and another thing called deregulation. Turns out that just prior to Cliton leaving office (there is only one "n" in Cliton), a bill was passed in which was buried this deregulation of oil futures. As a result, the price is higher than $4.50 a gallon due to speculators on Wall Street gambling on the price going up. Gas should really cost about $3.00 a gallon at this point, and it's that high due to heavily increased demand from China and India. But the additional $1.50 per gallon is a direct result of the craziness on Wall Street. Unless people begin to research this for themselves and do something about it, the prices WILL continue to increase and you'll soon see gas at $5.50 a gallon, $6.50 a gallon, and even $99.50 per gallon. What can you do about it? One example is to start a barrage of letters to your representatives. Another is for some enterprising smart people to get together and solve the problem of releasing hydrogen from water in an efficient way. If the situation gets desperate, it may even call for a massive nationwide gas strike in which not only will millions of people refuse to buy gas for a week, but they'll also stay home from work and school during that time. No matter what, something must happen, and sooner is better than later. Because everything depends on gasoline, so the continuously increasing price is causing everything else to become more expensive.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
Add minigun.
Nobody has ever really addressed the fact that the yuan is undervalued by upwards to 50% against the dollar and how this has made China more attractive as a labor market than it actually should be should its currency be allowed to float. Finally some academic economists are addressing the issue, but we refuse to move on the issue in a trade forum because if they dump their holdings of U.S. treasuries, our currency will sink against partners with assets that we actually function without (like oil.) Anyhow, if we trade with countries that won't fully take part in the free economy (which mandates a free currency exchange) then we are bound to get screwed. Even Mexico has been screwed by the undervalued yuan.
You imply that the jobs that are "coming back" to the US are going to go to people who are presently unemployed.
Nope. They're going to go to people who are presently working in higher paying jobs that used to similarly benefit from cheap shipping costs to other countries. Those nice jobs are going to go away, with the price of international transporation skyrocketing, and be replaced by the less-nice, lower-paying jobs that are "coming back." The net result will be little change in employment -- just a replacement of certain jobs with other, lower-paying jobs.
Does that change your calculus?
they don't make steel in Pittsburgh any more. US Steel may be based here but most of the steel plants are no longer in the region. They make steel in Pittsburgh the same way they make cars in Detroit. Pittsburgh is mostly medical science and hospitals now. When industry comes back to the U.S. it will be in places that are less union friendly. (for the record, I do live in Pittsburgh)
The fact is, for all the environmentalists out there screaming to put regulations on carbon emissions, etc., the price of energy is the only thing that's going to have a substantial impact on the amount of fuel we use. People are actually considering more fuel efficient vehicles, and at my place of work people are taking advantage of opportunities to work from home once in a while. Especially when their commute is over one hour. If we keep it up, people might move closer to work.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
In the 50's it was Japan,
In the 60's it was Hong Kong
In the 70's it was Taiwan
In the 80's and early 90's it was South East Asia
In the late 90's to now it has been China
To be worthwhile producing elsewhere you have to be able to produce for less than 30% of your home costs.
There is nowhere left to go
We have to manufacture our own again
So maybe we will get decent working conditions at last!
The memories of a man in his old age are the deeds of a man in his prime - Floyd, Pink
My dad has worked in steel for the past 38 years and he says they are busy as hell because the fuel cost and weak dollar has been making US steel cheaper for a while now.
US Steel makes all kinds. Specialty steel and the coke is their biggest business in the Pittsburgh region. However, they do own a large portion of the steel mills in Eastern Europe. Something like the same amount of production in Europe they used to have in the U.S.
Clothing donation places such as the Lowell Wish Project receive hundreds of the things each week. Metal hangers are better than the plastic ones, for simple reason they take up less space.
A billion and a half Indians and Chinese now want their time in the sun and they're starting to guzzle too.
Can you spell subsidy? I bet you could.
Another point is that it doesn't matter how many people are there, they are not US citizens. No right to vote, no right to proxy via business influence.
If the USA wasn't run by Big Oil you'd be a lot better off.
Get rid of the lifestyle environmentalists first. Last time I checked, the nation's capital was Washington, DC - not some exclusive ski resort town in the Rockies.
Get your own house in order by cutting all those fuel-related taxes. Then be surprised that you can afford that fuel-efficient land yacht.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
I think this would only make sense if the value to weight ratio is heavily biased toward weight. I mean, steel (rolled, bar, whatever) has little value on the open market when compared to something like diamonds which can be shipped relatively easily and there is a huge payout for small quantities.
So bravo to the guys at the mills getting their jobs back. But for those of us on slashdot: how much does it cost to ship code? hmmm.
The game.
When reading the title I thought that even Apple's CEO can't afford petrol... But after all, his annual salary is like 1 dollar..
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Sails can be helpful, I've seen models for tall vertical turbines that are independent of wind direction (not independent of wind, however). And my old friend the Stirling cycle engine could still be useful here - exploit the temperature differential by dipping the cold-side heat exchanger of the engine in the stream of running water. Would work on warm days, no acreage of solar panels required. You don't need a huge temperature differential for them to work, although it would need some form of low-drag integration into the hull. Maybe just a few square meters of copper integrated into the bottom of the hull, a black surface for the hot end topside. I like Stirling engines...no fuel, just a temperature differential, sometimes a bit slow to start up. Cool technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine/
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Employing workers abroad often involves flying management and workers back and forth, even for non-manufacturing jobs like the ones near and dear to most Slashdot readers: software.
I wonder if the higher prices of oil will result in better teleconferencing or if there is a cross-over point at which such coordinated management at a distance will be deemed to impractical.
If it were at some point deemed impractical, I wonder whether that would tend to result in jobs staying here or just locating entirely abroad, since shipping end user software is really cost-free and so the "manufacturing" could be anywhere.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
The problem with telecommuting is that your job is basically dependent on the quality of the IT staff to a much higher degree. My employer tries to do telecommuting, but somewhere between cost cutting in IT, draconian security restrictions, and a dodgy network connection, it fails to be useful for getting real work done.
We've been looking to move out of our high cost of living area for quite some time, but the rising cost of gas has put that on hold. I would like to buy a house - and can afford one on the edge of the suburbs, but alas, any saving in mortgage payments would be consumed by the cost of fuel. Even though I'm just a fifteen minute commute from work, I spend nearly fifty dollars a week getting there and back.
So yeah, it might bring some manufacturing jobs back home. But those of us who have become used to working in the city and commuting out from the cheaper communities are finding themselves in quite a bind. I can't afford a house in my current area, and I can't afford the gas to drive from the places where I can afford a house.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I'm going to have to wait another 5 to 10 years for the next housing market crash before I'll be able to move into a house. When my Dad was my age, the loan on his (our) house was up - and he was a factory worker. Today, I make almost four times what he did, and can't even afford a three bedroom house. So much for the American Dream.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Do we or dont we want cheap energy?
B5 71 ED FB 55 D6 4E 68 07 25 E2 FA CA 93 F0 2F, is mine! All mine!
That is, remove Taft-Hartley as well as RTW. After that, everywhere in the US will be on equal footing.
Interesting that you're also in the proverbial back-yard of one of the most citizen and union-hostile law firms around.
From this source
A. The law requires an employer to post the LCA for ten days in two âoeconspicuousâ locations at the worksite where the H-1B worker will be employed. Acceptable locations for posting are where other notices, i.e., OSHA Notice, Wage and Hour Notice, etc., are displayed. After the ten day posting period, the LCA should be taken down, and a memorandum detailing the dates and locations of posting should be prepared and placed in the public access file. Another: A. The public access file must be open for public examination upon request. The employer, however, is not required to make employees aware of the existence of the public access file nor make it generally known that this information is available for public review. In an H-1B visa program compliance investigation, DOL will ask to view the file, but it does not regularly check public access files otherwise.One example of their dirty work:
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As one of hundreds of thousands of former Pittsburghers living in "Exile" due to the lack of jobs in our once fair city, this is welcome news indeed! Too bad I don't think it will ever come to fruition - the former steel mills are either vacant, contaminated lots or cheesecake factories and movie theatres. The infrastructure just isn't there to bring back a steel industry in any meaningful way without spending billions and billions (then again, thats the cost of just a couple days in Iraq....)
Huh? The reason they would move jobs back to the US is because the products would actually become CHEAPER to make here, versus make there and ship. Thats a win-win. Welcome to the USA, the new third world country.
I'd rather have a 6 day work week with 6 hours of work per day for 36 hours a week. Two shifts would be nice too, 7am - 1pm and 1pm - 7pm. I'm not a morning person so I'd take the 2nd shift.
You could also do a 7 day work week with 5 hour per day for 35 hours per week.
"simply a symptom of America's slip from "world superpowe""
"BANG!" "POW!" "SPLAT"
YOU are Batman, umm, I meant, Bruce Wayne, aye?
Or, are you trying to say the whirled is banging and ganging up on the USA, hehhehe?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
And the cheap foreign labor within the US is being deported. This will probably not last for long, and who cares if it did.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
Less energy afforded and produced makes the world net poorer exactly the same way less food afforded and produced makes the world net poorer. Decreasing the supply of drinking water by half may make the price of that water double, but that means the world is twice as worse off by definition of having half as much water.
Increasing the costs of trade is just increasing the costs of the division of labor. Would you be better off if you to make everything you have completely by yourself? Grow and harvest your own food, make your own clothes, build your own house, manufacture and build your own computer? You wouldn't have enough time and skill to do it all by yourself and thus you would be much poorer operating as an isolated autocratic individual.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
Higher oil prices will be result in higher shipping costs. That is until shipping companies start building bigger ships to offset the cost of that shipping especially in regards to bulk cargos.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Interest Rates went to 1-2%. That is why houses got so expensive at first, then the financing industry went crazy.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
In my opinion it's because of technology. China gets a lot of cheap, fast, and high quality machinery from Taiwan, whereas a lot of machine shops in North America are using old stuff that can maybe turn out steel at 4,000rpm. In my opinion, technology - and yes, management - are why countries like China have cheap products. Not because of labour costs (these are minimal when it comes to part making).
if the total oil usage as a planet is up and up year on year... how is that reducing so called global warming?
One of the things that's going on is that the value of the dollar continues to fall. For years, overseas producers were hesitant to lower the price in the US, even though they were getting less for their goods. This was because the US is such a huge market and they didn't want to lose it. Because of this, prices tend to be "sticky", so things will stay at 10 cents per item until suddenly all the manufacturers decide they have to bump up the price to the next "even" amount.
Gas and oil are such global commodities that they were the first to jump up in price. Now we're seeing other goods do the same. I think the US is getting to the point where it's no longer the rich superpower it used to be, and that places like China and the EU can dictate economic terms to a larger degree than in the past.
Are you implieing that we are running around in circles with no decernable goal? If yes then I agree. What America needs now is a goal, America is a country that is at it's best when we have something to do. Was there a better time in our history then when the president vowed to put a man on the moon? How many jobs were created by this effort? How many great technogies resulted from it? How many children were given a dream of some alturistic job they could aspire to in the future? Let's put a fist down on the podium and say "We are going to colonize mars" or "We will have a university for astronomers on the moon!"
I Need someone to rebuild a Digitech Digital Delay pedal for me....for me...for me...for me.
Aye aye Captain. Setting course for Rigel 7... errr... I mean the 1970's.
I thought there was so much automation nowadays that the cost of labor wasn't much of a factor anymore. Why ship to China for cheap labor if labor is only a small factor of production? Of course, if China had the modern infrastructure and we didn't, then we would have to make the capital investments to modernize our infrastructure.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
From the summary: Distance costs money, and when you have to shift iron ore from Brazil to China and then ship it back to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is looking pretty good at 40 bucks an hour.
No it isn't if the alternative is (probably less than) 40 bucks per month.
True, handling and treatment of raw materials may be one of the first things to become cheaper when
handled in what I'll call "the west" as opposed to "the east", because huge quantities are handled
by relatively few people.
But what are we going to do with all those raw materials at home? They still need to be transformed
into consumable goods, which involves much more labour - cheapest done "somwhere else".
True, sea transport costs more than twice es much today than just a few years ago, but if you look at the
absolute numbers, it still is more or less for free compared to the worth of the shipped goods. There needs
to be at least another tenfold increase in shipping costs before businesses really start to feel it in
their manufacturing costs.
I know for a fact that it is (in quite a lot of cases much) cheaper to import presorted recovered paper
(for paper production) from China and India to Europe than to collect it and have it sorted in Europe directly.
Transport costs simply don't matter in that case.
This situation is changing at the moment - not because of higher bulk shipping rates, but because of developing
paper industries in China and India, consuming more of the recovered paper on the spot, thereby increasing prices for
the exported good "recovered paper". Interesting side effect: The shipping costs' percentage in the total price/weight is
therefore even decreasing.
Bad analogy. Take your analogy of water - less water wasted doesn't make the world poorer. It makes it richer, since that means less wasted chemicals treating waste water, and less pollution and energy consumed.
Or ae you going to argue that lo-flow shower heads, that help people save water AND energy, somehow make everyone poorer? Come on.
As for "half the food produced" - the average American can afford to eat a lot less. Let me change that - they'd be a lot better off eating a lot less.
This is not about increasing the cost of trade - it is ending the artificial market distortions of trade that artificially low energy costs created. Stop equating excess consumption with wealth. The world is not "poorer" because you can no longer afford to drive a piece of shit gas guzzler like a Hummer or an Escalade. The world is better off. If you feel poorer because you can't afford to "make a statement" by driving a Canyonero, spend the money you save on gas and glitz on a few sessions with a shrink to find out why your ego is so dependent on prolifigate, ostentatious consumption.
This isn't a broken window at all. The broken window assumes that both parties are in the same local region - quoting that exact story, the tailor and the glazier are both local men. Here, one part of the story is a local business (the steel mill for example) and it is competing with a totally unrelated foreign business. The distinguishing difference is that your money can either stay in your local area - meaning that you actually do gain something AND retain the money in a local enterprise - or it can leave for another distant business where you gain the goods in return for the money - but your local area does not benefit from the sale past that.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
You need a new job, dude. You are trying all the options of buying elsewhere cheap, telecomuting, etc. Why not pick where you want to live, and start shopping for a job close to it ? Then, when you have an offer in hand, show it to your current boss and make clear that you need a raise to cover commuting, or you are gone.
Exports will also go down.
Ask anybody in the mail order business if the ballooning shipping charges have hurt or improved sales. Same goes for food prices, or anything which needs to be moved from point A to point B.
Greed destroys itself. --And let's not make any mistakes here; the higher fuel prices are being artificially inflated. It's a short-term money grab which will of course threaten the continued health of the oil industry and many of our daily economic realities.
I'd certainly enjoy seeing that happen, (especially if it involves the hanging of Bush and his oil cronies), although the collapse will be painful. We're probably going to see lots of unnecessary deaths from cold this winter, lots of frost-bitten children in emergency wards, and that will be difficult to live through. It will take a while before new systems are found to replace the rotten old ones, but New is good when it comes to the cycle of life and decay.
Where I do find this positive is in the alternative power markets; electric vehicles actually have a shot at market viability. That could be a really cool thing to see. --If new schemes are implemented smartly, that is.
But seriously. Let's hang Bush.
-FL
NT
Was he on vacation?
Environmentalists have been hoping for high fuel prices, to encourage use of less fuel.
They weren't expecting the return of blast furnaces to Pittsburgh, however. So we burn a little less gasoline, and dump tons of coal and limestone in the steel furnaces.
Although high oil prices will force us to live more frugally and locally (probably a good thing in terms of the environment), the US has the small problem that its transportation infrastructure is designed based around the roads. Cars specifically.
A coherent bus network simply doesn't exist, Amtrak is a pathetic mess, and Americans (white people, specifically*) hate the concept of public transport.
*I hate to bring race into this, but for whatever reason, it's more or less a heavily recurring trend that, outside of big cities, white Americans don't use public transportation. I'm white, in my 20s, and take the bus to work every day. It's an extremely rare situation to spot somebody from my own demographic on the bus that isn't also homeless.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
They'll listen to Reason.
and rising antiscience faithy culture
You are talking about the secular religion of "Global Warming" and their indulgences "carbon credits", correct?
So does this mean that switching to alternative fuel sources is a bad thing now?
So manufacturing jobs may come back to the US, everyone else gets to buy less stuff. But that is just talking the economy, quality of life can still improve. IE it may be possible that fewer work hours + fewer toys + less entertainment$ = more sex+ more family time. (MLK isn't the only one allowed to have a dream, right?)
There will always be someplace cheaper. Sooner or later there will be a country with Slave Labor and we'll go there, human rights violations be dammed. When was the USA economically the strongest? When we had slavery, and then later chain gangs.
After Vietnam it will be North Korea.
And just wait until those African countries get industrialized. If you think China was cheap, wait until we're sending everything to Botswana.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
It seems all the nuclear advocates I run across here are stuck in 1985 with this problem - will a nuclear advocate with a clue please stand up?
armed merchant vessels are the pirates, usually.
The government loaning businesses money to go oil free. Buying hybrid cars and installing solar panels and lowering electricity usage by installing more efficient machinery and air conditioning systems and light bulbs are all often cheaper in the long run. Then why don't we do it? The time and money it costs now.
If the government would to step in and help push these eco-dead-brainer upgrades for the benefit of their own good, I think America would look a whole lot cleaner in 5 to 10 years. The businesses would also be happier. This is called "real help".
Just a thought.
The nasty side of the equation is that if we come up with good solutions for the fuel problems (hydrogen, algae-based fuels, etc.) we could immediately reverse the trend.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
You're right in there is little difference in the cost between shipping a container of pens versus a container of refrigerators. The difference is that a container load of pens is worth more than a container load of refrigerators and the container of fridges would probably weigh less than the one filled with pens. A 40' ISO container has a maximum loaded weight of about 35 short tons. Let's take a pessimistic estimate for RR fuel consumption of 350 ton-miles per gallon (the Florida East Coast averages in excess of 1,000 ton-miles per gallon due to the flat terrain). This gives us about 10 miles per gallon for the container, so 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel will get you 10,000 miles. BTW, at speeds above about 25 mph, trains are more efficient than ships.
I vote for massive cargo-carrying, solar powered airships! You could also fly 'em to where they're needed, as opposed to have to stop and transship from a costal port.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
http://www.popsci.com/aeros/article/2006-02/flying-luxury-hotel
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I'm not saying you don't make some valid points, but clear-cutting a Mediterranean island and drilling for oil in the sub-Arctic and two wholly different things that effect their respective ecosystems in much different ways.
I am sick of hearing how bad it is that oil is expensive. Bring the motherfuckers of doom on! I want to see planetary war! I want to see the fucking oil become more than just the bane of existence, I want it to become your fucking god! Fuck your god!
Dj fuQ [url="http://djfuq.org"]djfuq urges you to listen to the beats[/url] [url="http://djfuq.org"]http://djfuq.org[
from 3 Days of the Condor (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Three_Days_of_the_Condor)
Higgins: No. It's simple economics. Today it's oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. And maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Turner: Ask them.
Higgins: Not now -- then! Ask 'em when they're running out. Ask 'em when there's no heat in their homes and they're cold. Ask 'em when their engines stop. Ask 'em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won't want us to ask 'em. They'll just want us to get it for 'em!
While insightful (not trolling here), one should consider the arming of the average vessel from a law enforcement, or rather maritime enforcement point of view. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for this; but it would have to be with the implementation of proper communication channels, among other things.
In order to protect Maritime Enforcement crews, Rules of Engagement would have to be revisited so they would be able to defend themselves if they come across a 'pirate' vessel. In addition, a 'crime watch' system should be put in place where vessels report suspicious actions, by way of identifiable transmitter. As a disincentive to filing fraudulent reports (ie. against a competing vessel), a checks and balances system of sorts would be enacted so that such vessels would be fined.
While pure conjecture at this point, it would be a good place to start; IMHO of course.
When my Dad was my age, the loan on his (our) house was up - and he was a factory worker. Today, I make almost four times what he did, and can't even afford a three bedroom house. So much for the American Dream.
The society that your dad lived in, was built by the Greatest Generation... the one that endured the Great Depression and won WWII.
The society that you live in, was built by worst generation (IMO), children of the 60's (Clintons, GWBush etc.)
I live in Detroit, the complete opposite of the normal American city. Houses in the city are dirt cheap and the houses in the suburbs are expensive as hell.
Suffice it to say I live in the city and have a cheap commute.
Perhaps you missed the part where the libs, enviro-whackos, and "intellectuals" lobbied successfully against building any new reactors.
Why the hell should anyone research nuclear power generation technology when there was no way to build them and recoup the research costs?
You guys fucked it up big time in the 80s by shutting down nukes. Now you are all shitting bricks over "climate change" (not Global Warming anymore, is it?...at least not for another 10 years)
So the one thing that could have averted the latest end-of-the-world scenario is dead in the water because of a previous end-of-the-world scenario.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
You're assuming that OPEC and other sellers won't decrease output to keep production (and therefore, prices) exactly where they are.
All drilling in Alaska is guaranteed to do is to screw up Alaska.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
On December 12, 1952 a combination of mechanical failure and human error led to a now-famous power excursion and fuel failure in the NRX reactor at AECL Chalk River Laboratories. At the time NRX was one of the most significant research reactors in the world (rated at that time for 30 MW operation), in its sixth year of operation.
During preparations for a reactor-physics experiment at low power, a defect in the NRX shut-off rod mechanism combined with a number of operator errors to cause a temporary loss of control over reactor power. Power surged ultimately to somewhere between 60 and 90 MW over a period of about a minute (the total energy surge is estimated to be approximately 4000 MW-seconds). This energy load would normally not have been a problem, but several experimental fuel rods that were at that moment receiving inadequate cooling for high power operation ruptured and melted. About 10,000 Curies of fission products were carried by about a million gallons of cooling water into the basement of the reactor building. This water was subsequently pumped to Chalk River Laboratories' waste management facility, where the long-term ground water outflow was monitored thereafter to ensure adherence to the drinking water standard. The core of the reactor was left severely damaged.
This accident is historically important, not only because it was the first of its type and magnitude, but also because of its legacy to Canadian and international practice in reactor safety and design. Nobody was killed or hurt in the incident, but a massive clean-up operation was required that involved hundreds of AECL staff, as well as Canadian and American military personnel, and employees of an external construction company working at the site. In addition the reactor core itself was rendered unusable for an extended period. Environmental effects outside the plant were negligible, as was radiation exposure to members of the public. The health record of AECL and Canadian military personnel involved in the clean-up was scientifically reviewed in the 1980s (no significant health effects were observed).
Several of today's fundamental safety principles of reactor design and operation stem from the lessons learned at this formative stage of Canada's nuclear program, making Canada an early leader in this field. Among these were:
The accident also demonstrated that, due to a combination of redundant safety features, emergency procedures, and a level of inherent "forgiveness" (or robustness) in the technology, a major fuel-melt accident in a nuclear reactor can occur without significant environmental effects and radiation exposure to the surrounding population.
The NRX core was completely rebuilt, improved, and restarted within 14 months following the accident (the first time something like this was attempted), and the reactor continued to perform for another four decades before being retired.
As with the analysis of the accident itself, the clean-up and re
The average American will whine endlessly about the dangers of nuclear power and cower under the nearest rock at first mention of "radioactive". Never mind the far worse environmental contamination caused by coal and oil power plants; nuclear is the boogeyman and white-bread Americans won't go near it.
That is, unless it saves them money.
Coal and oil prices skyrocketed during the 1970s, which brought lots of attention to nuclear energy and caused the average American to decide that maybe he/she had simply got off on the wrong foot with that whole nuclear scare, and that these reactor thingies that were popping up left and right just might be the miracle technology that would save us from the evil oil barons. The love affair didn't last long, however; fossil fuel prices dropped again in the early 1980s and nuclear development came to a crashing halt. There was no longer a big economic incentive, and anything 'nuclear' became the boogeyman again overnight.
The reason nothing has improved (in the US) since your books were written in 1985 is because no new plants have been built since then; even those plants under construction in the 1980s ended up being scrapped. The US is still using primitive 30 or 40 year old reactors while countries not in a cheap-fossil-fuel-induced stupor have been developing newer, safer, lower waste designs.
But once again, fossil fuels are expensive. And once again, Americans are seeing nuclear as the miracle solution. Until it stops saving them money.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Your Dad obviously didn't try to buy a house in the middle of one of the most crowded cities in the country...
You don't HAVE TO work where you currently do. You WANT to, and you pay the price in vastly higher cost of living. You could move, find a job that is a big pay cut, and yet end up being able to afford a house... For a really extreme example, you could quit your job, move your family to an impoverished sub-Saharan African country, and live like a king for the rest of your lives for a fraction the cost of a house here.
And as a somewhat incidental tip... Look very closely at the available mass transit. Looking for a home in Los Angeles, I've charted ALL the Metro (link/rail) stops, and judge any home on how close it is to a stop. I've never been an especially big fan of public transit, but in many cases, it is extremely convenient... If you're a frequent business traveler, you're set... all roads lead to LAX (so to speak).
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
The problem with bringing guns into a fistfight is the other part is going to step it up.
That means instead of somewhat bloodless captures the pirates will be shooting first and looting later.
Just don't have any children.
Slashdot: Part of the solution!
So that people wouldn't think Crete was a special case, it should be mentioned that Iceland and Sahara are further examples of deforestation by humans.
Sahara is steadily engulfing the continent of Africa.
My point is that the Minoans didn't understand the intricacies of the ecosystem (although in fairness, they probably wouldn't have cared even if they had). The consequences of certain actions really can't be understood except in hindsight. The mechanics don't directly map to Alaskan oil drilling, but I think in general all ecosystems function as part of complex systems that we can't fully understand until we watch how they collapse after our interference. If anybody thinks that drilling in Alaska will reduce the price of gas, they are being hopelessly wishful. But what we might end up losing could extend far beyond what appears to be just a barren plain. One thing is certain, the other is not. I think we should stick with what we understand, not a bunch of unknowns.
Nuclear's big problem is high initial costs. Sure, natural gas fuel is expensive, but if you consider that a sort of long-term financing, you'll probably make it up in interest on the money you've saved. It's the same problem as any other "infrastructure" issues. Government needs to be the tie-breaker.
Things like pebble-bed reactors seem not-too-far in the future, which will distance us from the "bloody difficult way to boil water" methods currently in-use.
Additionally, it's sad that nuclear is all exclusively about "reactors". RTGs have shown themselves to be incredibly robust in the space program, and SRGs (Radioactive heat source, running a Sterling Engine) look to increase efficiency/production by an order of magnitude. I'd kill to have an RTG/SRG in the trunk of my electric car, sized to about 1/3rd max load, giving infinite range, and powering your home or the grid when it's parked, idle, at home. With 80-year life-spans, you could buy one for life, and transfer it from vehicle to vehicle over the years. You could have large SRGs at the end of every city block, practically un-manned, in an almost Edison-esque vision of distributed power generation.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Ok I'll bite.
Nuclear power, even when considering the one nuclear meltdown that we have had and all the deaths caused by it, has resulted in less deaths than any other form of power generation per MWh generated. Including wind and solar.
Secondly, Nuclear power in the only baseload power source which does not release significant amounts of CO2. If you believe that we need to reduce CO2 emissions significantly in the next few years to avoid catastrophic anothropogenic global warming, then Nuclear Power is your best currently available option.
Thirdly, Uranium is one of the most abundant materials in the earths crust - though it does cost quite a bit to extract. We have known reserves that will last us quite some time (though the same is true for coal).
Lastly, we are currently in the third generation of nuclear power plants, which now in the event of an emergency automatically shut down. i.e. it requires individuals to be pushing buttons to keep the reactor running and in a "dangerous" mode. If human intervention stops, the reactor ceases being dangerous (well excluding the radioactivity danger present in the fuel itself).
The problem with nuclear power is threefold - public perceptions (generally from irrational fear), high water usage and high long run marginal costs. Canada and France have shown us that nuclear power can provide a significant amount of baseload power relatively safely.
I'm getting an image of SUVs being overtaken by rickshaws, reducing emissions and providing massive employment.
The American Dream is overrated because the "advertised" American dream is not necessary. If the standard to "achieving" the American dream is to own a house with an ample lot size, a nice car or three, and enough cash to throw parties every weekend or whatever other activity you find fun, well I say that's just the TV and popular culture brainwashing you.
You can be perfectly happy and successful living in a town house without a yard and an econobox car. Almost every form of entertainment or activity is still accessible without the McMansion or the SUV. The only lacking thing is the increased expenses and the ability to flex your debt-inflated-penis with your shiny SUV and spinners.
I'm probably in the same boat as you. I make more than my parents yet I can't afford a house near work. I can afford a 2 bedroom condo though. And after thinking, I would be plenty happy with condo as long as I was single. I'd still be happy with it if I was married. The only time it would start to feel cramped is if I wanted to have a family. But by then, I would probably be married and I figure a 3 bedroom town house would suffice. The only thing I really get with a bigger house is bragging rights and a whole lot more maintenance. For example if there was a yard I'd have to pay for a gardener or do it myself. If there were extra rooms I'd have to clean yet another room. I don't need that. A 2 bedroom condo with a decent kitchen, living room, and a few complex facilities (pool/patio) is plenty to keep me happy.
Houses (with full yards, extra rooms, and large garages) only make sense in rural areas. In places like suburbs they're just a luxury and bragging rights.
And then please bring back the navy patrols, the destroyers and the thirty-dozen-vessel-convoys. Because with the world today, you'd have so much more to worry about than some Nazis in slow U-Boats trolling the Atlantic. And no matter how fast that ship would be, radio transmissions within the enemy navy are faster.
One captured nuclear vessel could power a substantial part of most rogue state's economies all the while producing dirty bomb material or worse. And a small bomb hidden on the reactor could bring so much Allahu Ackbar to our ports it's not funny anymore.
So you'd better have a carrier battle group defending the thing OR an undocumented remote self-destruct mechanism, so you can wipe out the entire environment of whoever captures such a vessel. But then again, our own people might be a bit uneasy about these perceived future Chernobyls, whether that is reasonable or not.
With the world what it is today, these things would be efficient transport vessels AND readymade sea-going, self-propelled dirty bombs with free access to hundreds of large cities anywhere.
Thank you, but with some peaceful religions around, a ship like that is certainly not halal.
IMHO nuclear should be the LAST resort,and with new methods like molten salt and super black materials for solar,ever more efficient designs for wind,geothermal,tidal,etc it is simply not the right course at this point and time. There are simply too many problems we haven't fixed as far as treatment and disposal of waste to make nuclear a good idea at this time. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
HTH
Deleted
I guess the weak dollar will bring more jobs back at "home" only the kind you do not really want.
http://ebgp.net/ccc/
> we haven't figured out what to do with the tons of nuclear
> waster we have NOW,much less if we did like McCain wants and
> added 45 new plants.
Of course ``we'' have:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Fast_neutron_reactors_(FBR)
Prohibited by the Carter Administration in the USA, but used
throughout the World. Breeder reactors use the output of
conventional fission plants as fuel and the resultant waste,
once reprocessed, has a half-life of a few centuries instead
of hundreds of millenia.
Actually, ships can be a bit more efficient . Depends on ship size, of course, and the availability of waterways vs. rails.
Encrypt the engine and use DRM so it can't be used with any other device.
Let me put it this way: If some government official said that "for the good of your country" they were going to put a nuclear waste dump right next to your home,exposing your family to a higher risk of cancer while destroying any value you had in your home,would YOU say yes? I know that I would not want my boys living next to it,sorry but no sale. But as always that is my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Now just give fully domestic products a huge tax cut (if not an outright exemption from any tax).
Yeah, that's fine, if you're absolutely sure that the resultant trade wars (collapse of WTO etc., which was largely set up on US terms anyhow) would actually benefit the US.
Shipping one container from China to US is cheap, costs about one thousand dollars. And that divided by ten thousand is nothing.
The real reason is the weak dollar.
My vehicle will run on vegan soylent oil.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
...who read the headline and thought "His kids must be delighted" ?
NIMBY much?
I agree with the technology issue. The American steel industry management never seems to want to upgrade anything. Then we attempt to compete with foreign competitors using brand new equipment. They are able to pump out higher quality steel faster than we can just because they have better equipment. That was the case in the 70s and 80s that destroyed the American steel industry. It seems like the industry has kinda caught on. Bad habits are hard to break though. (I work in the steel industry)
They are NOT dropping, only in the UK where they were ridiculously overinflated.
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
And after the cronyism of the past decade frankly I wouldn't trust the civilian "no bid" contractor who undoubtedly would end up with the job not to do a half assed mess to maximize profits. After all,THEY don't have to live near it. Personally I think it should be a requirement that the CEO and board of these chemical companies and those that deal with hazardous waste should have to live within 10 miles of their plants. I bet it would be a LOT cleaner by these places if the big shots knew they were giving themselves and their own kids cancer. But as always my 02c,YMMV
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Globalization has a lot less to do with hourly wages than it has to do with compliance.
The main motivator for moving jobs overseas is productivity. There are so many barriers to productivity in the US that even if shipping were to be 10x as expensive than it is now, it would still be worth the cost.
1) In China, there is no OSHA
2) In China, there are no medical or health benefits
3) In China, there is no mandated 40-hour work week (limit)
4) In China, labor unions have no real power
5) In China, tort litigation is not out of control
the list goes on.
Let's say that, in China, I can get 10 million widgets made per month for a wall-to-wall cost of x, and I can sell them for 2x in the states. My gross profit is 10 million (2x - x) = 10Mx. Let's say I can make them in the US for 0.5x, and still sell them for 2x, for a 50% higher gross profit margin, but I can only make 500,000 of them. My gross profit is now just 750,000x instead of 10,000,000x.
There is no scenario here where I can make as much money manufacturing in the US as I can make manufacturing in China. Furthermore, moving manufacturing back to the US is only going to push energy prices higher locally because we already do not produce enough domestic energy to cover our demand, which means that we'll have to import even more. This will depress the dollar even further.
Just some food for thought, our total refining capacity for motor gasoline is about 3.5 Million Barrels per day (March 2008), but our daily use is almost 9.3 million barrels per day. Yes, we import that much refined product.
We are in much deeper trouble than most people realize or can even comprehend. We need to cut our gasoline consumption by 65% to be able to stop importing gasoline - and that's just gasoline. We also import twice as much crude oil (10+ Million barrels/day) as we produce (about 5 million barrels/day), so we also need to cut our crude oil consumption by 65%.
You're overgeneralizing: the idea that from a bad thing can come some suprisingly positive benefits is hardly a fallacy, and isn't the broken window fallacy at all.
Broken window fallacy: "wanton destruction creates jobs / is good for the economy"
Correct statement: "wanton destruction causes a wealth transfer"
In this case, the rising cost of shipping goods from place to place incentivizes industry to do less of that. That has some side benefits for some US workers (although it has some downsides for some other US industries). People who make steel benefit, but people who make cars from that steel suffer from rising ingredient prices.
Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
I don't see any reason why Saudis would want to sell two barrels of oil for the price of one (that they ask - and get - today.) If the demand goes down they'd rather lower the production.
The Saudis (and others) are concerned about higher oil prices for several reasons, among them (1) the developed world is likely to develop alternative energy sources, putting them out of business sooner rather than later and (2) the world economy going into a recession (or worse) puts many of their investments at risk and reduces their wealth. Remember, most of these sheiks have long since invested years of oil profits very heavily in America, Europe, and Asia. Seeing their stocks decline to a fraction of their former value makes them a whole lot poorer than this months $130/barrel oil makes them richer.
Long term, high oil prices hurts the oil producers even more than it hurts us. Once we're weaned off oil, we won't go back, even if half their oil reserves remain in the ground. If prices go high enough, China, India, and other emerging markets will fall into this category as well, leaving OPEC no one to sell to when their oil drops back to sane levels.
This could be an irreversible trend if the US, Europe, and Japan develop other affordable energy sources ... depending on the technology, China and India might choose to adopt it sooner rather than later, instead of suffering through another spike on oil costs. This may or may not happen, but one thing is certain: Saudi Arabia is damn afraid it *might* happen.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
stick with what we understand, we'd still be living in caves wearing bearskins;-)
The average American will whine endlessly about the dangers of nuclear power and cower under the nearest rock at first mention of "radioactive". Never mind the far worse environmental contamination caused by coal and oil power plants; nuclear is the boogeyman and white-bread Americans won't go near it.
Thank you, Mister Burns.You are so right! Because the US of A stopped building reactors (thanks to those "libs, enviro-whackos, and "intellectuals"), all research and possible profitability stopped at that point.
I sure hope you were trying to be funny or annoying. I'd hate to think you really believe what you say. Either way it sure sounds funny.
Check out this article which details exactly what this lease and usage entails.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121391719487790187.html?mod=rss_opinion_main
In other words, the politicians are using word play to infer that the oil companies are drilling on the lands relying on public ignorance that a lease of oil producing lands does not equate to a guarantee of oil.
So basically, the process is.
1. Secure the lease
2. Get the permits to do test drilling
3. Do test drilling
4. Determine if its economically feasible to recover the oil
5. Get permits to actually to set up a site to manage it
6. Get permits to drill on the site
7. Go to court to keep your permits after being sued by every other environmentalist group
8. Drill for oil
9. Profit?
Remember the first rule : If a Congressman's lips are moving he is 99% of the time telling you a lie or a falsehood by omission.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
> Even though I'm just a fifteen minute commute from work, I spend nearly fifty dollars a week getting there and back.
I used to have a 15 (ish) minute motorbike journey to/from work. About two years ago I went back to doing the same journey by bicycle which takes me between 30 and 35 minutes (depends on the wind). I'm now fitter, healthier and I'd guess it costs me about 50p a week (replacement tyres, inner tubes, brake blocks etc.)
If you're only travelling 15 minutes I'd say it's not worth using a powered vechile unless you're infirm, very old, disabled, need to carry lots of tools/equipment etc. etc. (or the journey involves meeting hazardous animals such as elaphants/crocodiles/bears :)
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
> troll for pirates,
Surely you mean copyright infringers ?
Oh wait... wrong post...
Sky subscribers are morons. They pay to be advertised at !
Guess what's different from 1999...
- the US dollar is worth ~40% less than it was in 1999
- there are over 2 billion people whose economy, and therefore demand for energy, is surging.
- there is an oil supply graph that, rather than increasing every year, has been roughly flat for the past three years (not coincidentally, the time when the price has skyrocketed)
Oil, in our lifetimes, is a finite commodity. It has an energy return on investment higher than anything else out there right now. There is still a lot in the ground, which is to say, we're not going to run out any time soon. But we have skyrocketing demand and a constrained supply. In the past, high prices have led to exploration and increased production. Well guess what. The large deposits of easy to retrieve oil have been found. We've reached a point of diminishing returns. Oh, there's still a lot of oil. The Saudis continue to pump almost 10 million barrels of it a day, more or less the same amount they've been pumping for the past 5 years. But in that time, they've been bringing new drilling projects online, in order to make up for declining production out of their old fields. And their oil exports have dropped by over 10% in just the past 2 years, due to increased domestic demand from a booming economy.
You can tell yourself it's all speculation, if it makes you happy. But the supply of oil to global markets is no longer increasing, while demand remains high, globally. And there are a whole lot of people in Asia who will gladly buy any oil that we don't.
I think people forget that this is not the first time people have been looking for a new fuel for industrial purposes.
Up until the 1850's, lighting lamps were fueled by whale oil, and with the rapid decline in the whale population even by then there was considerable concern about what to substitute for whale oil. The discovery of using kerosene derived from crude oil about this period changed all that, and that was the foundation of the oil industry as we know it today.
Today, rapid changes in technology could make gasoilne obselete as a motor fuel within the next 20 years. The most important announcement was MIT's announcement of research into high-energy supercapacitors using carbon nanotubes back in 2006; that may just open the way for a drastic reduction in the size of the battery pack needed for a battery-electric vehicle (BEV), making it possible for a practical electric car that could carry four passengers in comfort yet go up to 400 km (248 miles) or more on a single charge, and the charge time for the battery pack would be a tiny fraction of even Li-On battery packs.
That same technology could make it possible to have electrical storage units from home size to city size that could provide power after being charged up by a solar cell array or wind turbine array. I can imagine a single house with a sun-facing solar cell array (now much cheaper thanks to nanotechnology) that provides power during daytime and charges a supercapacitor electrical storage unit for use at night.
In short, I see within 20-25 years most homes and apartment complexes with cheap solar arrays on their roofs and supercapacitor electrical storage units somewhere in the building.
A couple years ago, I thought that the USD is worth about 4x more than it should be. It has since halved in value and once it is down to about 3 USD for a Euro, the US economy should pick up nicely.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I can't believe that Carter is still screwing up America almost 30 years after he was president. The guy is messed up... still is today. (Why do we still listen to him/put him in the news?)
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/print/4891
(My point is not that it can not work, it is that it is not ready yet...)
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
There are only two types of house price location in the UK:
1. The places where people want to live but can't afford (houses within 100-metre catchment areas of good schools, rural villages with traditional architecture), and
2. The places where people can afford and don't want to live (inner city suburbs with street gang crime)
Anywhere in (1) had bloated house prices due to cheap credit.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
What if we just gave the poor just enough money to live on and capped personal wealth @ a a few million dollars? I think THAT might cure poverty.
Kyoto's real motives:
1) Tax - and therefore control - global energy usage and by extension technology.
2) Kill the U.S. economy, thereby effectively de-fanging her.
Number 2 is especially disturbing, given the U.N.'s piss-poor track record of spineless inaction when it comes to enforcing their own mandates. Number 1 is disturbing considering the U.N.'s piss-poor record of corruption and internal oversight (yes, I'm talking about your son Mr. Annan, and dozens of other similar instances of fraud). The U.N. is the world's foremost example of decadence, largess, ignorance, intolerance, slothfulness, indifference, arrogance, wastefulness, and corruption. They metaphorically piss on the reason for their very founding. Never again my ass...
The oil price didn't move much in other currencies. The USD has devalued. Effectively all Americans have lost about 30% of their worth and are now being paid two thirds of what they used to be paid. That is what is making it possible to bring jobs back to the USA, not just transport costs. Once the USD has devalued by another 20% or so, the balance will be restored.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Ultima ratio regum, aye
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
I'm not opposed to making use of the VAST resources this country has. Whether its drilling for new sources of oil and natural gas, mining coal or other ores, or looking for lumber, but lets not look at this as a purely one sided supply problem. The problem with Gas prices is not just tied to the supply of crude. We can pump all the crude we want, but there are a finite number of refineries, many of which have been running without proper maintenance for years. Does that mean we should call off the resource dogs? No, what we need is a balanced approach, spending money to add a few refineries here in the US, allowing the Oil Companies to begin to look for new sources of natural gas and petroleum, and while they are doing that, funneling as much money into alternative fuels. I'm not talking corn based ethanol here either. There is no reason we can't have a balanced approach that will get us through the near term problem of crude prices, as well as opening up new sources of power. That's what the US should be doing. My generation and the one coming up now are increasingly interested in trying to help the environment any way we can, but we are not stupid either. We can't invest billions into new battery technology, or nuclear plants, we can't develop new bio-fuel technology either. It is going to take a surge of funding into academia and industry to get this car jump started. If the US companies and such can find a solid reliable means to replace these internal combustion engines, then my generation and those that follow will be happy to adopt them, (once the market for them makes them more cost effective then the current batch of cars). We will not get out of this mess by taxing profits, we won't get out of this mess by raising standards. The Internal Combustion engine is just over a Century or so old as far as it stands in our current iteration of automobiles. Its time for a new energy revolution, and it has to start somewhere.
Unless of course the US reprocesses the spent fuel and burns it again like Europe or Japan. The end result is a fuel which is far less dangerous and has a much shorter storage requirement. This isn't about bogey men or bogey women and while there is certainly a valid concern regarding the spent nuclear fuel, it certainly doesn't have to be as bad as it currently is.
Home? Home? I wouldn't have thought slashdot would be so ethnocentric.
Jedis are stupid. If they were so powerful, why couldn't they handle counseling for a kid who missed his mom?
As a Pittsburgher, I can say that hearing the Steel City return to its namesake is a welcome result of these absurd gas prices. Anything that brings back jobs and economic flow to Pittsburgh is welcome in my eyes.
The real danger with nuclear is political, not technical. Yes, we can set up breeders and reprocessing and they are efficient and don't produce CO2.
But then what happens when a country like Iran (or say, Cuba) decides that they should be able to do the same thing? Why not, they don't want to miss out on all the nuclear goodness, who's to say the US has the right to do it and they don't? After all, there is only one country that has actually used nuclear weapons in wartime.
Unfortunately, all that breeder goodness is also great for producing weapons material, and the US doesn't like the idea of less-than-friendly-to-the-US countries having the means to produce weapons material.
What's the practical solution to that problem?
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The ascetic virtues are all well and good. I'm glad for you, but... you're poorer than your parents, even though you think you "earn more" - you cannot afford their lifestyle. Therefore, you actually earn less than they did.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
"$5/gallon gas would be .."
haha. Can't remember when gas (petrol) was that cheap here in the UK. Currently its 1.19 pounds a litre, that's approx 8.86 dollars per US gallon. Going up as well...
and were suddenly silenced
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
and do yourself a favor by reading up on Thomas Robert Malthus and the impending Malthusian Catastrophe
You guys fucked it up big time in the 80s by shutting down nukes. Now you are all shitting bricks over "climate change" (not Global Warming anymore, is it?...at least not for another 10 years)
I was 2 years old in 1980, how can you blame me for "shutting down nukes", you insensitive clod! Hell, my dad (a civil engineer) designed cooling towers for a living! And I did nothing to stop him!
about Detroit toying with the idea of nuclear cars. One accident and you would have a really bad day.
I feel ahead of everyone else, cuz this was the cover story on BusinessWeek's most recent issue. :P
But, it's interesting how the economy kind of... fixes itself, in a way.
This is a signature. Bow to me.
If we'd built some breeder plants, we could recycle the waste. 90% of nuclear "waste" from current plants is usable fissile material. But Jimmy fucking Carter, in his infinite wisdom, banned research and development of breeder reactors in the 1970s.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
We could always install a wind turbine to generate some energy from the wind currents left in the wake of the joke as it whizzes by overhead... ;)
Well, go ahead and put it down here in southern LA...why not? We've already got all the refineries here...hell, for all I know...we may keep nuke waste down here too.
Geez...some of the other states should share the load man...and no, you don't have to drop it next door to a neighborhood....it isn't like all the land in the US is occupied...stick it out in the rural country away from the cities...and there ya go.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
The greatest generation was born in the late 15th-early 16th century. Every other generation has been a bunch of lame-ass pansies by comparison.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We lost an bike-riding employee to a rhino attack just this week. I can still picture him, desperately peddling away in those Birkenstocks, trying to outrun that rhino while we sat back watching helplessly from the office window. We found out later that the rhino was attracted to the color in his tye-dyed t-shirt. All that was left of him after the rhino got done was part of his torso and his laminated PETA membership card.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
oil prices will drop in the following months. Watch. I'm saving this post to bring back later.
I'm not trying to flame anyone - it's a feeling I have.
Also - high oil prices will force people to conserve, and foster innovation to create better/cleaner fuel supplies.
America is too fat and happy with oil.
Shameless plug alert: Game server control panel
I am strongly opposed to these high oil prices, because they are siphoning off our wealth and giving it to rich oil foreign oil companies.
Dude, you missed about half of the equation.
What about the wealth we create from the oil we buy? Like plastics, cheap electricity, a mobile workforce, etc. Surely those things help create some of the wealth we all enjoy, right?
Only focusing on the COSTS is only looking at half of the equation. And I'm nor arguing that we use oil efficiently - we don't. But you can't dismiss the wealth created from the oil we bought from the Saudis. We didn't just transfer X trillion dollars to them for nothing. We are getting at least as much out of the deal as they are.
That's called "commerce" and "the market". You should read about it sometime and I think you'd better understand what is going on. Carbon credits create artificial limits on that market. Maybe we need them, maybe we don't. But the justification you give for them is.....simple at best. High prices are the result of what is happening "in the market". They are not the starting point.
A more realistic view is "They've leeched X-Billion out of a market, killing it... now they have a X-Billion head start in whatever market they chose to milk tomorrow."
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
Actually, the damned thing is that we know exactly what to do with the spent fuel rods. The IFR reactor design utilizes the fuel far more efficiently than most current reactor designs, meaning that the waste mass is smaller (most waste mass contains lots of still good fuel mixed with the spent fuel. Extracting the good fuel alone leaves us with significantly less waste mass). Further the IFR's waste's radioactivity level reaches that of the ore in only 200 years. The best part of the whole damn thing is that this reactor can be run primarily on the spent fuel of other reactors, rather than new fuel.
But the damn project was canceled due to proliferation concerns, despite the simple fact that this reactor has FAR LESS of a proliferation risk than most operating reactors. The reprocessing is done on site, and the processed fuel is highly radioactive making it almost impossible to sneak off with it.
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
A nuclear wessel, captain! It appears to be deploying a nuclear wessel!
The Americans are stealing our jobs! That's outrageous!
Nuclear's other big problem is the waste. Nobody wants to store it. Nobody wants it transported through their area.
I'm in the Cleveland area and contemplating a similar move myself (from suburb just past city limits, to inner city). The problem is that, just as in Detroit, the inner city is not particularly safe. The people I know there, and I know quite a few, don't necessarily live in fear, but they do accept that they have a greater chance of being burglarized, robbed, beat up, raped, etc., and all those things have happened to people I know. I can't afford to stay out in the 'burbs but I don't know if I want to expose my family to unnecessary danger either.
Nonaggression works!
Don't forget to mention that even with scrubbers, coal plants emit more radioactive materials directly into the air and otherwise than nuclear plants.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
They want their money, they won't sell off if you announce drilling. They know that the quantity of oil out there is minimal. They know that more refining capacity is needed to drop the price of gasoline.
No, I think you are overly optimistic.
Blar.
Then, perhaps, you can go hide under that bridge and leave us alone?
Blar.
They don't really carry all that much threat.
Maybe we can develop a breeder-breeder-reactor that can process the fuel all the way down to lead.
Blar.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I figure its about an hour bike commute, one way. Shaving nearly a full day of extra hours is worth the $50. But I'm not happy about it.
That, and the wife wants me to be able to come home on a 15 minute notice.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
What do you think becomes of the fuel tax money taken in by government? It funds the idiotic wars the people wanted to keep them 'safe'. The USA is BORROWING our war-funds from China!
Seems like this 'misery' was brought upon themselves when they frothed for war. Seems to show more personal responsibility than OUR country...slapping the failed occupation on the national credit card, so to speak.
Blar.
Your point is still valid though, because you certainly aren't making any less than your father did.
Your numbers are off. Besides, $60 a week at $1.50 a gallon was 40 gallons. A 25MPG car would go 1000 miles. If you're driving 1000 miles in a week just to go to work and get food, it's your own stupid fault!
How many of these people bought "employee pricing" SUVs and other guzzlers over the last few years?
Fuck 'em. I've been driving 4-cylinder efficient vehicles since day 1. They should have conserved.
Blar.
The falling dollar is part of the problem for sure, especially for Americans, but not all of it. We've entered the perfect economic shitstorm, and the shit will be flying for a while.
Until very recently, demand was the highest ever, and production probably has peaked at least in the short term. Refinery capacity is maxed out, political problems in Nigeria and Venezuela threaten a lot of production, Iraq is producing much less than pre-war levels, and the imperial power constantly threatens war with Iran which would not only decimate production throughout the Middle East, but also close off the Straits of Hormuz, threaten two nuclear powers (Pakistan and Israel), and create the first serious risk of a third world war since the end of the Cold War. Many of these factors are temporary or at least reversible, which is why no one smart (Big Oil, the Saudis, OPEC in general) will bet on real prices remaining this high forever. But they will be with us for a while.
My recommended solutions: Understand how and why we got here, and learn from it. Privatize, don't subsidize. Allow new refinery construction (though following sane environmental standards). Extract ourselves from the Middle East where our presence is unwanted and counterproductive. Build modern (and therefore safer and more environmentally friendly) nuke plants. Gasify otherwise unusable high-sulfur coal. Avoid subsidizing suburban sprawl (I don't advocate legislation attempting to prohibit it, but let's face it, it would not have happened to the extent it did without government involvement, and I do advocate bringing that involvement to an end). DO NOT subsidize corn-to-ethanol . . . this is wasteful and counterproductive . . . but end punitive tariffs on imported sugar. Decriminalize hemp at least for industrial use (and for all uses if possible . . . a joint never hurt anyone except possibly the person smoking it). Seek out and eliminate legislation that attempts to distort energy and housing markets in any direction. For that matter, seek out and eliminate all legislation period that is not necessary for the protection of life, liberty, or property. Most of it is there to protect one special interest or another, at the expense of all of the rest of us, and it creates huge, cascading economic problems which, even if not directly related to energy, certainly work together to make it much more difficult to deal with it.
Nonaggression works!
If you're only travelling 15 minutes I'd say it's not worth using a powered vechile unless you're infirm, very old, disabled, need to carry lots of tools/equipment etc. etc. (or the journey involves meeting hazardous animals such as elaphants/crocodiles/bears :)
Or the weather: Where I'm at, it's routinely in the mid-90s F (35 C) right now with 60-70% humidity. IOW not fit for man on bike or hazardous animal. (And here the hazardous animals would be the SUVs! ;-)
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Actually, no. While the dollar's weakness is part of it, the dollar has remained mostly stable over the last couple months while oil's price has kept on rising.
I can't believe that the energy policy in this country is written by people who don't have the slightest FN clue how it all works. And it's a popular stance to take because of ignorant masses that similarly know next to nothing outside of TV movies and hearsay.
Nuclear bomb
1. Take a tiny amount of highly reactive fissile material.
2. Define it's shape for maximum compression to within hundredths of a mm
3. Find a way to precisely add just enough more material to go critical WHILE compressing the entire mass equally in a hundredth of a second.
4. Boooom.
Nuclear Reactor
1. Take a large amount of low to mid fissile material
2. Extend place it in a configuration to maximize surface area while preventing uncontrolled reactions. IE fail safe, reaction cannot occur without neutron moderators.
3. Find a way to extract heat from the reaction in a closed loop system and use it to turn a turbine
4. Almost limitless energy.
To suggest that a reactor could some how trigger an atomic explosion is like saying that pouring jet fuel on a box of parts could some how spontaneously create a jet engine. The tolerances, timing, and materials that go into a bomb are so critical that if any one of them is off it will not detonate. It is realistically impossible for any given amount of material to cause a nuclear explosion.
The biggest danger would be an un controllable reaction which would lead to a fire and the far more dangerous condition of releasing fuel into the atmosphere.
You want to know why energy prices are soaring, pollution is up, and CO2 is fuggin with the climate? Because a few scares in Nuclear Power's infancy stopped the development and deployment of any new plants for the last 20 years. A few pounds of Uranium pellets puts out the equivalent of TONS of coal and hundreds of gallons of fuel's worth of energy. And we have abundant sources of fuel.
You want to save the world? Tear up the nuclear weapons, build new reactors, ditch coal burning power plants, and build electric cars to use the abundant free energy in the power grid. Problem solved.
Actually, ships don't go on land and trains don't ride on water so the point is almost moot. And since they tend to be close enough to being same efficiency, it depends on the distance covered.
With the dollar being as weak as it is, it's probably (marginally) less attractive to have the work done elsewhere as well, because it's not quite as cheap as it would be with a strong dollar.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
Dirty bombs are scare tactics. They don't actually work.
A "small bomb" on the reactor would have a "small effect". Nuclear reactors are not bombs. They will not blow up like nukes when damaged. The most likely result of a "small bomb" would be a lot of damage to the ship, but very little to the reactor's containment vessel. (Easily 90% or more of a reactor's weight is heavy shielding.) The absolute worst case scenario is that the reactor goes prompt critical, and the nuclear materials sink to the bottom of the harbor. (Where they will actually be fairly well shielded against by the water.) Perhaps you might even have a boiler explosion to go with the situation.
Any way you cut it, a reactor is not a weapon. The materials inside the reactor can be used to devise a weapon with some reprocessing, which is why they must be protected. But the ships themselves would pose no danger. So please tone down the FUD machine.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
"If you're only travelling 15 minutes I'd say it's not worth using a powered vechile unless you're infirm, very old, disabled, need to carry lots of tools/equipment etc. etc."
There are also environmental considerations. Cycling in 90+ degree F (32+ C) with 90% plus humidity is just not going to fly. You'd need to pack a change of clothes and have a nice cold shower waiting for you at your destination. And just forget it entirely during a bad heat wave or the hottest part of the summer.(Can you say heat stroke?) Heck, in those conditions, the 3 minute walk from parking garage to building entrance is going to leave you drenched - no matter what brand of anti-perspirant you use.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
Furthermore, we'll assume you work 5 days a week so that's 150 miles per week.
And finally, let's guess that the gas prices in your area are $4.50 -- the highest price listed for average US gas prices on this page. (I presume that you're in the US.) For $50, you can therefore get a little over 11 gallons.
That would mean you're getting just over 13 miles per gallon. I would suggest that, if your vehicle's gas consumption is keeping you from buying a house, you may want to trade it in for something a little more efficient.
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
As we've seen with our telecommunications infrastructure here in America, other nations can easily leapfrog over our entrenched systems, reaping the benefits of not being "first" with something.
Just because China openly says they have a goal of raising their nation's standards to the same as what's enjoyed in the U.S. doesn't mean they have to follow our same path to get there. They'd be foolish to use oil and gasoline the way we do here.
It will take us decades to transition away from petroleum-based energy here, because so much is invested already in machinery and power plants that use it.
We've seen these regulations weakened and ignored over the last 7 years.
I've been told constantly by defenders of the oil companies...the issue is not crude, it is refining capacity. How will more crude help fuel prices?
No real environmentalist likes Ethanol from corn, only the corn farmers and associated industry and lobbyists like Ethanol.
Blar.
I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that I'm going to have to wait another 5 to 10 years for the next housing market crash before I'll be able to move into a house. When my Dad was my age, the loan on his (our) house was up - and he was a factory worker. Today, I make almost four times what he did, and can't even afford a three bedroom house. So much for the American Dream.
And we buy a lot bigger first houses than our parents did. If you look at a lot of these 1940's 50's houses they 2 or 3 tiny bedrooms and 1 bath. Maybe a 1 car garage. And they raised their families in these houses. Now everyone expects a huge, open kitchen with all the appliances and at least 2-2 1/2 baths with a large master bathroom and large, walk-in closets. So you can't just put it on inflation factors. Buyers are also demanding more and that increases the price also.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
true, they do not need to follow our example for getting where we are. however a quick look around shows that their oil consumption per capita has increased drastically in recent years, they were 125th or so in the world in 2001 or so, today they are 25th or higher(the latest date i saw was for them at 25th in 2004, who knows, they could have dropped in standing, i could be wrong)
A few things...
First off, the dry-cleaners I've been to always returned my clothing on steel hangers wrapped in paper with their info printed on them. Therefore, the hanger served as advertising material, as well as a supposed convenience for the customer.
Second, if you're the one throwing away metal hangers all the time, it seems like YOU are the one being environmentally irresponsible ... not the dry-cleaning business! I'm fine with them offering a discount for taking clothing back without the hanger. Just makes sense to give people more options when you can. But really, I see people throwing away the wire hangers while buying MORE of the plastic colored ones. (2 of my ex-g/f's did that constantly.) What's with that?? The plastic ones just break after a while, and it's getting difficult to find good, wire ones unless you're saving them up from places like the cleaners.
Next time you lock your keys in your car, you might be thankful someone gave you a wire hanger, too.
I said 60/month not per week originally, and now - at $4+ a gallon, it's 60+ per week.
Fuck 'em. I've been driving 4-cylinder efficient vehicles since day 1. They should have conserved.
Most of the SUV buyers are in the more affluent portion of the population . Them I don't feel bad for - but those are not the people under discussion.My bad.
Blar.
Plenty of non-affluent people drive large gas-sucking machines and not all of them actually need them for work.
Perhaps it is the people who chose to live far from their jobs for a nicer lifestyle...and never thought that gas would get expensive again.
Wait, who are we talking about then?
Blar.
Piracy is hardly bloodless. The pirates already do turn up with automatic weapons and kill the crew.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Hopefully this will last.
I've noticed that gas prices tend to go up sharply, then come down lower to rest above what they used to be. I guess the potential conspiracy theory is that is the way to make people happier with the higher price.
Anyway, I hope it lasts, that oil prices or whatever replaces oil stays more expensive then labor to make this trend last.
Off shoring of jobs is always just "a sign of the times" while it is the other guy's job and not yours. I can remember reading articles years ago with that attitude coming from American IT workers as older blue collar workers found their jobs vanishing. Kind of ironic know that the blue collar sector may be getting some of their jobs back while more American IT and white collar jobs are being off shored.
Let's see. . . "Right next to your home". But only for very large values of "right next to", not to mention several miles of solid rock. Ever see where Yucca Mountain IS ? The middle of the RED FLAG training range, and close to the infamous Area 51. I'd say that nobody lives close enough to make a difference. Oh, BTW, they also used to test nuclear weapons in that general area, I've read. So radioactive remains of nukes that have been popped off is fine, but deeply-buried ceramic-embedded low-yield waste is not ? Methinks you need to recalibrate your personal threat-meter: it's apparentely running on the "fictional" setting . . .
>>The only thing I really get with a bigger house is bragging rights and a whole lot more maintenance.
Not quite true. In a condo or apartment, the money you pay goes to the landlord. After 30 years, you are that much poorer. When you buy a house, you are building equity and at the end of 30 years (or sooner), you own a house that is worth roughly what you put into it. The more you invest in the down payment, the more this is true.
I lived in an apartment for the last 7-8 years and that money is gone forever. I just bought a house, and while it is a pain in the ass initially (gutting and remodelling it), I will make back more than the money I invested in it.
You also get a place to call your own- a place you can decorate the way you want, where you make the rules, where you have the freedom to do almost whatever you want. THAT I think is the true american dream, or at the very least it's the best part of being an adult: Freedom is earned, one way or another, and buying a house is one way that we do that. There is no freedom living in a rental. You may not have any responsibilies, either, but you live at the whim of your landlord and your asshole neighbors.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Even a SOTA reactor creates deadly waste. The US is is big place, and even if (a big IF) storage in Yucca Mountain is a good idea (personally, I think its a terrible idea... but I admit, NO ONE REALLY KNOWS), transporting 75,000 tons (currently... and consider every single temp containment facility is FULL right now) of deadly (for 30K years) nuclear waste TO Yucca Mountain is insanely dangerous (when you consider there are ~3000 train wrecks a year).
Nuclear is a piss poor solution. We need renewable energy solutions... solar & wind, geothermal, hydrolic... etc.
Everyone hates ethenol right now because its corn based... but in a few short years the fermentation crtitters will be developed enough to create cheap fuel from your yard clippings (and anything that grows that isn't food). Oil is going to have a slow thrashing death when ethanol becomes as cheap as fresh water.
The Admin and the Engineer
Radioactive dust is pretty dangerous and pretty scary. There is no substance other than military nerve gas that can affect as much people within a similar distance of an incident.
Radioactive dust from a burning or shattered reactor core is highly toxic (chemically, 2mg Pu per person is enough), highly carcinogenic, hard to remove, hard to detect and hard to contain. And will be for a pretty long time, even when the dust finally settles somewhere.
The primary damage in and around Chernobyl was done by radioactive dust and particles. They were carried downwind for thousands of kilometers and caused significantly higher cancer rates all along their path.
A small bomb on the right component can release a larger quantity of radioactive particles that are then spread by the wind. Assuming you could blow up a reactor vessel within San Francisco harbor, you would have a radioactive cloud that would not kill everyone, but make all land and buildings within a 20km radius uninhabitable, for several decades.
One dirty bomb is not the end of the world and will not be worse than Chernobyl. But even an incident with a magnitude of less than TEN percent of Chernobyl would be devastating when happening in a Western metropolitan area, seriously.
A suicide bomber without care for his own life would be able to get inside the reactor, take out the radioactive fuel and then do something destructive with it. So basically, grim determination and a large angle grinder would be enough to get to the nuclear core.
The point is: if it wasn't dangerous to run a reactor without shielding, closed circuits, precise monitoring and strong security - why do we do all that in commercial nuclear plant operation? You think we do all that just to please the public and 'irrational tree huggers'? Why don't we have nuclear barbecue grills then, they sure would save some wood from the rainforest, would it? ;)
After all this time, Steve is coming home! No longer will low gas prices keep him from his family.
How will your boss get you to work and 80 hour week in 4 days?
This economics doesn't apply to transferring electrons though. IT jobs will still continue to be outsourced.
I don't know about anyone else here but I'd love for dry cleaners to stop using those damn metal hangars altogether, they're worthless because they BEND.
I've never had a plastic one break, while I throw metal ones out all the time because the weight of a jacket or slacks has made it warp to the point that clothes don't stay on it.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
I don't have the energy to go through this all over again, so I'll punt to the experts:
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-6700447/Scrubbing-dirty-bombs-explosive-hype.html
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/gentips/02/07dirtybomb.html
http://www.notposta.com/?p=19
http://www.onthemedia.org/yore/transcripts/transcripts_072503_fear.html
Long story short: Dirty bombs don't work. It's not nearly as easy to distribute radioactive materials as the media would have you believe.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
> (especially if it involves the hanging of Bush and his oil cronies)
Never happen. Even if/when it all falls apart they have enough money to float through, high and dry. The ones to suffer will be the ones who always suffer, plus their neighbors just up the curve.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
While it's entirely true that fuel prices might be artificially inflated, too, MOST of the rising fuel costs we all face are due to the effects of Peak Oil. We are entering the early stages of an entirely predictable (and thoroughly predicted) energy crisis.
"It is absolutely beautiful and pristine up there, but drilling would arguably have much less impact on human settlement than strip mining the Rockies or the Appalachians."
As far as ANWR being this pristine, Edenic paradise, has anyone actually seen the area where they want to do the actual drilling? It's a lousy marsh. When it isn't frozen, it resembles a muddy football field. People that argue against drilling on the basis of despoiling ANWR's "beauty" either have lousy tastes or are being disingenuous. The area where they want to drill is mainly occupied by mud, grasses, and flies.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
No. You said, "The current prices are caused by speculation". Nope. Speculation might temporarily somewhat alter prices, but not nearly as much as we've seen.
Oil is expensive now because we've passed peak oil. It's that simple. The evidence for this is overwhelming. We just don't want to believe it, so we blame the scapegoat-du-jour, 'speculators'.
We're now facing the beginning of the final energy crisis of our civilization. We have two basic strategies:
#1 Struggle to get every last drop of oil.
#2 Abandon oil-based systems and infrastructure, with great pain and suffering.
Here's the trick: behind option #1 is option #2, but with much war and violence between them. That's why I recommend going straight to option #2, thus skipping the horrible and utterly pointless (because they won't actually secure enough additional oil to pay for themselves!) resource wars that result from strategy #1.
Deal with Reality, or Reality will deal with you.
So much for my long silence on /. ("first post!"). This post was marked as +5 Informative?!? The linked "article" was an opinion piece by, get this, the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute. I think you need to quit buying the bull puckey talking points yourself.
My guess (only reasonably educated - not based on fact), is that the oil industry wants a land grab so that once it is profitable enough, they will have all of drillable land, and all of the cards with the American people -- "let us drill here with limited regulation and oversight or else you will not have oil to run the country".
The oil industry needs to get over it. They knew the rules going into it - it was pure speculation.
Your are quite correct, unless you live in a house with a home owners' association or have a mobile home where you own the house but not the land.
HOA = asshole neighbors with the power to foreclose and sell your house.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
It takes me three minutes to get to the interstate, it's about fifteen minutes on the interstate and about two minutes into the parking garage. That's twenty minutes, but even if it were five minutes closer, there's no way I'd be out there on a bicycle. I'd get run over. (Before someone suggests an alternate route, an intervening river I have to cross limits my alternate routes to being either five miles out of my way and moderately less dangerous, or twelve miles out of my way or forty miles out of my way and just as dangerous. Not really acceptable changes.)
From the headline I was expecting this article to be about Steve Jobs having to cut back on jet use...
" I think the money and time are better spent trying to figure out how to get us off fossil fuels than just postponing the inevitable decline of oil."
First, I have to challenge you on the "inevitable decline" statement. It IS inevitable, but new oil fields (some of them massive, like the one off the coast of Brazil) are being found, and oil isn't the only fossil fuel source. Include shale, tar sands, natural gas, and coal, and you have more energy than all the nations of the world would use in hundreds of years. So it's inevitable the same way that the Sun will one day burn out. It's just disingenuous to pretend that will happen tomorrow, though.
Second, why can't we do both? Why can't we drill/explore for new fossil fuel sources while we improve nuke technology and develop new renewable sources? What's with this false dichotomy of "one or the other"? It's not like if we abandoned oil that all the petroleum engineers and geologists could suddenly turn their attention to making new solar tech. They don't know a damned thing about it. This whole "we need to all pull in one direction" argument is not only impractical, it's impossible.
I wish you guys making this argument would fess up, be honest, and simply admit that you simply don't want man to go after more hydrocarbon energy sources no matter what, whether it's for enviromental reasons, efficiency, reasons, polution reasons, whatever. Just be honest. It's like this stupid refrain on drilling off the coasts; "but the oil companies already have millions of acres of leases".
Come on. Like you really want them to get MORE oil from those lands anyway, right? The truth is, you want mankind to abandon hydrocarbon fuels altogether, as soon as possible, even if it makes things harder for the present time. You don't want any drilling at all. I'd respect you guys a hell of a lot more if you'd just admit that you want us all to go on a forced energy fast instead of dancing around the subject.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
I would be interested to hear about the deaths from solar.
I don't doubt your statistic, just never heard about death from solar power.
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Really?
The last few piracy events involving Danish ships have ended bloodless, perhaps you are referring to piracy used for smuggling? Most piracy around Africa at least is about ransom, if you bring guns into that you are in trouble.
Why is it cheaper to have work done overseas, even adding in the "shipping costs"? Because people in other countries can work cheaper than us. Why could they work cheaper than us? Because they could be paid less, and their countries cost less to live in to begin with.
During the outsourcing craze, I worked out that the highest paid programmer in India wouldn't qualify for a lease in a studio apartment anywhere in New York City, even if they walked to work, ate nothing but Ramen, purchased nothing *but* that Ramen, and never saw a doctor of any sort. So why, I asked myself, could they do it in India?
Rent was cheaper, because there were no building codes making houses safe, or guarantees of consistent electricity, drinkable water, or sewage or trash removal. Taxes (which also contribute to all costs) were lower because they didn't have luxuries like our FDA making food safe, reliable fire or police departments, mail delivery, etc. And of course, no pricey labour laws, worker safety standards, health care, wage standards, unions, etc.
But then companies started outsourcing to Canada, because they saved a bundle not having to provide health insurance. Then companies shifted from China and India to Viet Nam, because the value of the dollar had dropped in relation to their currencies too much.
And now, the cost of oil is bringing back those good ol' American jobs.
Say what you will about the current Administration - but you gotta give them credit for making great strides at turning America into the type of 3rd world nation where people go for cheap labour. If we elect McCain (or the OPEC stops pricing oil in greenbacks), it won't be long before "Made in USA" will replace the "Made in China" on all the cheap, lead-tainted, salmonella laden, useless crap other the rest of the world can afford to buy at predatory super-stores. Yay! Plus, our new standard of living will really take a bite out of the pesky "urban sprawl" problem.
But hey, we'll always have Paris... Hilton. We can't risk developing a Spoiled Brat Gap.
I agree with most of your points (except the speculation mostly).
I would say that #2 is tricky because there is no magic bullet.
The correct answer is
solar, wind, nuclear (but be very careful), biofuels, better construction, wave, yada yada.
We are past the point where any one solution will be effective. If we tried to use solar exclusively, the prices would go through the roof. I think we need 10 10% solutions instead of looking for the one "100%" solution.
Likewise on automobiles, if we went 100% hydrogen- there would be some unknown backlash ( for example- that's a heck of a lot of water you are going to be pumping into the atmosphere which would alter the micro-climates).
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
And of course, a lot of the overland cost can be reduced with intermodal shipping. Trains are about 4 times more efficient than trucks but trucks can deliver to more places. Intermodal combines the best of both.
Why is it any better than 4 or 6?
It's an arbitrary number, and if commuting is creating major social problems then it is realistic to re-evaluate it.
Oil prices aside, I think most people would probably be happy to trade some money for (comparatively) a lot more free time.
Read Pynchon.
How? I would say only in a world without gravity. It's worth pointing out that the discredited "coal is nuclear waste too" paper from the 1970s that you can read on the ornl website is the only paper on the subject - and it modelled pollution controls as a simple black box that allowed a certain percentage of everything out. Do you really think heavy metals are lighter than the sulphur dioxide gas scrubbers are designed to extracted and lighter than the silica the precipitators are designed to remove?
Then 9/11 happened.
Never again.
You need to respond to force - "The Shores of Tripoli" still resonates today.
Most of them result from people falling from rooftops, but some are from dangerous chemical exposure in manufacturing and still more are caused in the mineral extraction process itself.
Still, solar is vastly more safe than coal generation.
"we haven't figured out what to do with the tons of nuclear waster we have NOW"
This is largely a political problem. If you were allowed to recycle your fuel rods you'd have no-where near the amount of nuclear waste you have now.
"highly sought after by terrorists waste product that has to be stored securely for in excess of 5000 years"
This is also political, that "waste" would be considered fuel for more advanced designs (eg: ALMR), and the resulting waste left over from that process matches the radioactivity level of the original ore within @200 years. Humans have experience with storing things for 200 years, so this is no where near as big a problem, even if we put aside that we would be dealing with a much smaller amount of waste.
"There are simply too many problems we haven't fixed"
There exists technical solutions, just not political ones.
Who cares about the environment, it can recover in 20-40 years.
Where do you get this crap? Take a look at the island of Crete. This island used to be almost completely covered in forest. Then the Minoans began clear-cutting it for lumber to build ships. This continued for several generations. When the forest was clear cut, there was no longer any mechanism for the top soil to be held in place. It washed into the sea. The isle of Crete is now a wasteland in terms of the ability to grow forest -- solid forest has not grown there in thousands years.
You are naive, ignorant, short sighted, and have an offensive disregard for the natural world.
The Easter Islanders home used to be covered in thick forest. Until they started cutting down trees to assist in building and moving bigger and bigger stone idols.Eventually there were hardly any trees left, causing soil erosion, starvation from not being able to cultivate crops and warfare.
The Easter Islanders died out completely.
No. The price of oil is high. Here in Australia where our dollar is buying in excess of 95 US cents — compared with 50 cents at the turn of the century — the price of oil is around $1.65/L (around $US6/gallon) and going up substantially every time you fill up — the opposition is trying to get a 5 or 10 c reduction in excise, which would reduce the cost of petrol by a week or two. Australia is traditionally a cheap oil nation, with very few apartments in most cities and very extensive suburbs.
Look out!
Jesus H. MF Christ will you guys get over it? One single fucking incident.
100 times more has lost their lives as a direct consequence of the stupidity of armed men and women going on rampage over 9/11, and I'm looking at you mr. Husker.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=780347
Hey, look at that... a quick google answers your questions. With proper references and everything. Coal is not nuclear waste, coal contains nuclear elements which are subsequently released into the air. There's a lot that is removed, but it's not clean. Nuclear plants don't emit any radioactive particles into the air.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
"Of course I can't predict."
I agree, so why did you guarantee that drillinq in Alaska will screw it up?
"'Pray for sunshine, plan for rain.' Ever hear of that one?"
Sure, what does planning for the worst case have to do with you GUARANTEEING that drilling in Alaska will screw it up?
"All drilling in Alaska is guaranteed to do is to screw up Alaska."
YOU said that, then claimed you weren't making a prediction. Do you know what a prediction is, or are you just dishonest?
"You're obviously not an engineer."
And you're obviously not honest.
You are naive, ignorant, short sighted, and have an offensive disregard for the natural world.
...but we like you anyway! :-)
Huh?
Sorry I don't have any mod points...
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
While the midwest USA has some radioactive coal elsewhere you can get a lot more radon gas released by drilling for anything through rocks such as granite. We'll probably get some clown screaming "geothermal makes nuclear waste too".
Some time ago I spent a while examining coal ash by scanning electron microscope including looking for various elements (using backscatter). There were never any peaks from the radioactive elements visable above the noise. Now while that was only ash from two power plants and I was looking for different elements I was still very suprised when the "ALL coal ash is nuclear waste" cry started up and even more suprised when so many people took it as fact.
Personally I think coal should be blamed for the real deaths and pollution problems seen paticularly in China instead of a the fallout of an old PR campaign along the lines of "coal is nuclear too".
I agree the American dream has become a nightmare. I finally gave up during the housing bubble and moved to Asia. After losing job after job to India and the Philipines, I'd never be able to afford a house in the US. Add to that draconian security, everything overpriced, everything's illegal, the gov't has overthrown the people, etc. Now I bike to work, live cheaply, and have a relatively decent job with security. I also don't have to sit in a cubicle :) and can go fishing without a license, if I break the law I pay a $5 fine, and I get to spend most of the money I earn how I choose.
When your dad was your age, he probably didn't have a cell phone, an mp3 player, credit cards, a dishwasher, a car loan, Internet service, satellite/cable, or half as much house as is now standard.
Well, I don't know about HIM personally, but the American Dream is so much bigger now than it used to be when "happiness" meant "having the means and strength by which you could do your duty to family and society". People have more stuff and more monthly payments than ever before. They produce less, save less, repair less, and buy more.
Ask him about his standard of living at that time, try to match it, and then find out if you can afford a house the size of the one he had.
Thank you!
Houses with full yards and large garages DO make sense in rural areas, as do pickup trucks and other things that suburbanites tend to claim are ALWAYS a luxury and bragging rights.
I use my full yard for free-range chickens and a vegetable garden. Just the ability to get eggs and fresh veggies at an extremely low cost (A $.25 pack of seeds OR a $1.25 set of six plants can net you over 800 cherry tomatoes) helps offset the extra cost for the larger property.
A European friend of mine was amazed to hear we actually had a BATHTUB, but he was shocked to find that we filled the bathtub with water when a bad storm was coming in case we LOST POWER.
Currently, there is a worldwide surplus of plutonium due to the various agreements between the United States and the former Soviet Union to dismantle many of their warheads. However, the security of these supplies is a cause for concern. One way to address this security issue is by converting the warhead into fuel and burning the plutonium in a CANDU reactor.
Storage facilities like Yucca are a red herring...just keep burning!