phillips49

An Alternative to America’s Gasoline Crisis

The basic problem of alternatives to gasoline is infrastructure. The mobil fleet is based on liquid fuel and the entire infrastructure system supports liquid fuel.

CNG is a high pressure gas. Infrastructure does not exist to make it a practicle alternative even in the medium term. There are not stations on every block. It is also dangerous. Aside from being highly flammable, it is stored under high pressure and is subject to catastrophic failure and leakage.

The same problem exists with hydrogen. Cleaner but more flammable.

Electrical is also an infrastructure problem. Imagine what would happen to the grid when everybody got home at 5:30 and plugged in their car. A big fuse is going to blow someplace. And then there is the matter of battery disposal. They are hazardous. There would be alot of them. They don't last the life of a car. And there not convenient receptacles along the way for recharge. Not that you would want to wait 4 hours to get back home again.

Bio fuel, as we are finding out, is subject to weather. You cannot depend on its availability.

Our best shot is to use what we have, oil, natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind, solar and conserve. That and a national effort to develop an economically available 100 mpg car.

Barron's Banks on $100 Oil

Let me see if I got this right. The Saudis are increasing world oil availablity by 0.24% (200,000/83,000,000) ( if production doesn't fall of somewhere else like PEMEX or Nigeria) and the price of oil is going to fall by 24%? (32/132). I think I'll stay long on the oil and gas companies. They are going to continue the upward trend interrupted occassionally by hot news flashes that we are awash in oil and everything is OK.

Black Gold or Yellow Gold?

It is interesting to note that Saudi's are investing heavily in heavy, sour crude refining. Wonder why? Peak in light sweet crude maybe?

The G8 meeting this weekend did not offer much hope of near term relief. They didn't blame speculators or big oil for the rise in the price of crude. They seemed to accept the supply/demand argument as the primary cause of the rise in oil. Their focus was on conservation and alternative energy. Wonder why? Maybe they know that we are reaching or are at the peak in economically available petrol.

Visit americansolutions.com to promote development domestic exploration for oil. If we don't tend to our own business on energy, we'll be out of business!!

In Light of Peak Oil, Financial Diversification Is a Bad Idea

Someone really ought to speak to T.Boone Pickens about diverification. I mean really his hedge fund is very unbalanced. I mean he's only turned a $1 in $28 in last 7 years. He really should have stuck with the S&P and made 3.5% like smart money does!

In Light of Peak Oil, Financial Diversification Is a Bad Idea

pearl2k,

I doubt that military consumption of fuel in support of IRAQ will make much of a difference in global supply/demand.

On a different note. The problems in this region go back 1000's of years. In my opinion, when America leaves, (if we can ever make a gracefull exit) the entire region will once again de-stablize into fighting factions and civil war. History is on the side of my opinion in that regard. Any de-stabilization in this region will push the price of oil out of sight. Dissidents believe in reign or ruin. This is demonstarated on a smaller scale in Nigeria and it's problems with rebels. The US gets about 10% of it's imported oil from Nigeria.

In Light of Peak Oil, Financial Diversification Is a Bad Idea

WOW!!! Good article!!! It is almost like talking to myself, (not that I'm that smart) except written much better. To me investing 101 says invest in companies that:
1. Have product that is demand
2. Have high long term growth potential
3. Have high profit potential
4. Have the ability to pass along cost of business increases
5. Have great cash flow
6. Have a moat such as high cost of entry into the business segment

For the last several years, natural resources and energy have met these criteria because a growing world NEEDS these things.

Coal needs to be added to the list of investment considerations along with the miners, mining equipment, infrastructure and ag. It's all good!!!

Some say these companies are high risk because of the link to commodities. Right now though Financials, Consumer and Tech are all looking higher risk to me. I add Tech because it is consumer driven and the consumer is at risk.

Oil Manipulations Exposed

correction -it was Abe Lincoln that said "you can fool......." not Mark Twain

Oil Manipulations Exposed

Good article! I sure wish it was as easy as the author presents. We could just send in the oil Gustapo and fix it! Arrest them all, sue them all. Gas would drop back to $2.50/gallon and everyone would go back to sleep!

I rather suspect that it is a little more complex than that though. It is hard to hide a fraud of this magnitude from the entire world. Was it Mark Twain that said "you can fool some of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time"

I'm sure there is some churning and manipulation. However the fundamental truth is that if supply exceeded demand, prices could not be manipulated. A supply/demand issue is the root cause. Our dependance on foreign oil will be the ruin of us. I'm not an oil apologist, I'm a realist. We need to reduce our presence in the global energy market competition. We need to pump our own oil, use our own coal, use our own natural gas, put up wind farms, put up nuclear power plants, and transition our mobile fleet over to the most energy efficient possible.