Jimbo

High Gold Prices: It's the Oil, Stupid

Another excellent article, Fitzman. I share your opinions about George Bush, but consider the alternatives: Al Gore and John Kerry !!! We are not well served by our political system. Allow me to suggest a somewhat conspiratorial idea: the power elite are deliberately driving the price of motor fuels up hoping that a magical solution will take place. Solar powered cars, trucks propelled by pixie dust, windmill powered bicycles etc. We should be mounting a maximum effort to develop domestic fossil fuels while mounting another maximum effort to research and develop alternative energy since I believe oil is going to become evermore scarce and evermore expensive. Natural gas is an important transitional fuel but ultimately the electric grid will depend on Uranium and Thorium reactors, with geothermal and solar/wind supplementing. Biofuels may be important in the future but their advocates don't seem to recognize the technical and logistical problems. A concentration on domestic energy will help the struggling dollar.

Investors Jostle over the Oil Sands Prize

I subscribed to National Geographic for more than 50 years. In the recent past, a new editorial staff has converted the magazine to a polemical publication. There are several sides to that Tar Sands issue that the Geographic is not presenting. I have not renewed my subscription.

A Crude 10 Year Perspective: The DJIA, Oil and Gold

The "Watermelons" (green on the outside and red on the inside) believe if we can just starve the economy (no domestic drilling) that alternative fuels will arrive by magic (pixie dust?). In the meantime actual unemployment hovers around 15% and climbing. We are bankrupting ourselves by buying oil from our enemies with dying dollars. Alternative energy may be big some day but that may be two decades down the road, if then. 1. Exploit natural gas 2. drill domestically 3. import tax on oil from anyplace BUT Canada, Mexico, and Colombia 4. use the import tax EXCLUSIVELY to develop alternative energy sources.

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

Ah yes, "party near the exits" great phrase and great advice.

Climate Change: How to Invest for the Possibility

Experienced: Doubtless you will dismiss my comments ,above, as the ravings of a coal burning fanatic. Please note that I rode a bicycle to and from work most days of the week for the last 19 years before retiring. We have composted our household garbage for more than 30 years, we installed a very efficient solar water heater several years ago. We "farm" our back yard with 15 fruit trees, a large garden, and about 100 pineapple plants.All our appliances are energy certified and we use a clothes line for most drying. I could go on but I not only talk the talk, but I walk the walk.

Climate Change: How to Invest for the Possibility

Biomedives: there are also a large number of trained scientists who are skeptics about AGW. Astronomers at a well known observatory (Lowell in Northern Arizona) told me several years ago that they believe the main driver of global temperature, and much long term wet/dry cycles, are due to solar activity. My fear is that the Utopian movement has emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, Cambodia, etc. to seek to seize control of all human activity, in the name of "science" of course. There has always been a delay effect in the seasons: Summer warmth persists into the Fall and Winter cold persists into the Spring. The recently reported melting of glaciers could be reversed by the now observed significant drop in sunspot activity. We need more data and not breathless speculation. To access the scientists who are AGW skeptics, see the Heartland Institute.

The Economic Impact of the G20 Ending Oil Subsidies

I favor getting rid of Jerry's subsidies. But let us also open up our potential oil and gas provinces. I agree the age of oil is coming to a close but I strongly disagree with the timing. We certainly should look at bio sources, such as Jatropha. But the Greenies are sabotaging their own cause: as you read this, they are trying to stop solar electric plants in the California desert, and wind energy farms all over the country. This kind of obstructionism will only place us at even greater dependence on energy from tyrannical, anti-democratic regimes. It may be true that coal state senators have been blocking the extended development of natural gas as a better fuel choice from an environmental, economic, and import view. But many of these coal states are also sources of natural gas.

How Natural Gas Can Save the U.S. Economy

I think the main problem is in Washington. The current administration came into office on "Hope and Change". But the Nobel prize secretary of Energy says he is "agnostic" about natural gas. I am agnostic or, even atheist, about him and the rest of that gang. There are drawbacks to gas as a transportation fuel. We have had horrendous explosions of propane in tunnels, gas powered vehicles require more reinforced steel tanks, and ranges are shorter, compared especially to diesel vehicles. But we should be on a crash program to convert heavy trucks and buses to Natgas.

Oil Is Still the Key to U.S. Economic Future

Davewmart: I completely support your idea for thorium reactors and have advocated this on SA postings. I have read that package reactors like this may be being considered in Canada to provide heat to extract heavy oil from tar sands without needing to mine it. Obama seems to have appointed a perverse type of officials to his administration. Secretary Chu may have received a Nobel Prize but some strange dudes have also received a Nobel: Jean P. Sartre,who never met a left-wing tyrant he didn't LOVE; Rigoberta Menchu, who wrote an "autobiography" full of complete lies and false statements. The Nobel seems to be becoming a booby prize. Apropos of Swedish use of natgas, the Dutch have been using it as auto fuel for at least 25 years.

Silver and Oil: Shiny and Rare

The professor's story reminds me of a joke told in the former Soviet Union: " I pretend to work and they pretend to pay me".

Are Gasoline Prices Really Declining?

Very informative article. You should teach economics!

My Thoughts on Oil

Long Live the Fitzman!!. A great article. The Dutch have been using natural gas for transportation fuel for decades. I have said before the weird behavior of Congress and the last few administrations indicates to me that somebody wants to drive economy off a cliff so we can use vaporized pixie dust that leaves absolutely NO CO2. Perhaps if gasoline hits 10$ a gallon, we will be drilling for gas and oil in Ralph Nader's bedroom.

Book Review: Robert Hefner's 'The Grand Energy Transition'

I am a former investor in Seven Seas Petroleum and lost my total stake. Nevertheless, I am interested in natural gas. If we simply converted heavy trucks and buses to NG, it would go a long way to relieving our dependence on oil from countries who hate our guts. It would also benefit the future of the Dollar.

The Current Stagnation of Natural Gas Vehicles in America

at least 15 years ago I rode in NG fueled taxis in the Netherlands. It seemed that all Shell gas stations had a natural gas dispensing pump.I have always wondered why we didn't at least convert Long haul trucks, buses, and heavy local trucks, such as garbage trucks to N.G.This would take the pressure off diesel, which has skyrocketed in price.One commenter raised a good point: we use motor fuel taxes to pay for highway construction and maintenance. How could the states and feds collect taxes from a home gas consumer. But I have confidence that our government honchos will figure out a way.

Gas Prices Will Go Up with a Fury

I have been investing in energy for more than thirty years. I would welcome a viable set of alternatives to petroleum but it seems to me to be somewhere between 10 and 30 years away from happening. I am appalled at the head in the sand attitude in Congress regarding the securing of domestic sources of petroleum supplies.