[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Tesselator 

Hehehe... you Americans...

It's about $8.00 a gallon where I live. But with this peak-oil scam that is being
perpetrated on the world it'll likely be $10 a gallon in the USA soon enough.

Artificial Scarcity... (I hear "they" want to do the same thing with water. )

If it were just corporate greed in the oil industry, I could handle that-all it would take is a bunch of us nutjobs public-spirited individuals to buy a single share of stock in one of the oil companies, and then show up for the shareholders' meeting as a large group. This tactic has worked time and time again. Repeat as necessary with other oil companies, and you wind up having things your way.

Unfortunately there are two other things going on here as well as oil company greed. First is shareholder greed. People want a high return on their shares, so they, as stockholders, pressure the management to produce those high profits. That works, and works well, as I mentioned above. The second thing is just due to the crazy way the market works. Speculators bet on the price of oil, and their bets lead the market. If enough speculators bet that the price will go up, it will. Remember when that one moron speculator actually lost money on a big deal so he could go down in history as the first person to buy oil futures at $100 a barrel?

Water, on the other hand, is a real issue, as analogika says. We need better ways to clean up water in municipal systems, and better, faster, cheaper ways to get water like seawater into the drinking water system. It would also be really good if people got over the "need" for a water-hungry green lawn 365/366 days a year and either used more hardy grass or xeriscape or both.

[dingster1]

Well I walk to work and ride my BIKE everywhere else except to church. DC is nice for bike commuting. I wish city planners in the US would adopt the Copenhagen mindset of road planning. My 2004 Honda Civic is only used for church, large grocery runs and trips out of town. My son just turned 18 and isn't even bothered with getting his liscense right now. He walks to school, the college he'll be attending in DC is across the street from a Metro stop, and he has a bike.
I've noticed here also that our Mass transit system is loosing the "poor mans transportation" label as the commuter lots are full to capacity every day. One thing I think o]that would help is if big corporations gave employees incentives for alternative transport. NIH pays their employees a stipend as well as the gov't. I think it should be a manadory requirement if you have 500+ employees to provide this.

[ghporter]

I was impressed at how easy the DC Metro system was to use. I flew in to National, walked down a couple flights of stairs with my luggage, figured out how to use the maps and the turnstiles, and wound up at a Metro station three blocks from my hotel, all in less than half an hour. It was amazing.

The flip side of that is that Metro doesn't serve all of the DC area, so if you live in certain parts of the area, you are out of luck. That's like most mass transit systems, but it is not as bad in DC as San Antonio's Via bus system-the people who need inexpensive and reliable transportation are the people who get the least service.

[design219]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I was impressed at how easy the DC Metro system was to use.

Agreed. I think it is wonderful for tourist, although I don't know if most tourist take advantage of it. Last time I was there, my wife and I stayed in Arlington and it was just a short walk from the hotel to the metro and a nice little ride to the Smithsonian.

[Cold Warrior]

The DC system is decent. I was hanging out in Baltimore for a while recently, and would drive down to one of the northern/northeastern lines, park there, and take it into the city.

I remember riding it to and from Chinatown and all over DC in the 1980's. Things were a little rougher back then.

If you want to see a world-class system, use the ones in Petersburg or Moscow. Clean, fast, safe, and running to every end of the line every few minutes. Also, a single token gets you anywhere.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by tie 

I think that more than twice as dangerous as driving makes bicycling pretty dangerous. And who cares what the risk is per unit time, one hour driving versus one hour bicycling? That is completely irrelevant.

If you'd read the article, you'd know that the two points you tried to make were both rebutted in it.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Are you saying that just because that's what you think the problem is or do you base this on something?

Statistics firmly back up the fact that biking risks are mutable - you can pretty easily put yourself in a much lower risk category than 'all cyclists'.

[CollinG3G4]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Why do you respond TO ME ?

-t

I don't remember, chill.

Originally Posted by dreamryche 

If a cyclist sticks to the curb, some cager like you will come along and smack him with a mirror.

Haha hardly. I stay as far away from cyclists as I can. The glint of those stylish spandex shorts in the afternoon sunlight is just so memorizing.

Originally Posted by tie 

Sidewalks are almost never designed for bikes, and are usually very dangerous, both for pedestrians and for the cyclist.

Round' these parts, any sidewalk built in the last ten years (especially in the suburban areas) is atleast six feet wide. There is plenty of room for both pedestrians and cyclists. I've never been cycled over while out running.

I'm really only bitching about cyclists on the main congested streets. Anywhere else is just fine.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by CollinG3G4 

Round' these parts, any sidewalk built in the last ten years (especially in the suburban areas) is atleast six feet wide. There is plenty of room for both pedestrians and cyclists. I've never been cycled over while out running.

The road is the place for bikes.

Originally Posted by CollinG3G4 

I'm really only bitching about cyclists on the main congested streets. Anywhere else is just fine.

Congested with bikes?

[EndlessMac]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

We'd like to eventually get a Tesla, hopefully when the WhiteStar is released it will be in our price range.

Me too. The Tesla is finally an electric car worth buying. It does 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds and cost about 2 cents per mile! I'm hoping that the more affordable WhiteStar version will have impressive numbers too. I'm sick of paying the gas companies so they can get even richer. I just read in the newspaper that Chevron made yet another record profit.

Jay Leno apparently owns a Tesla and created this video about it: Jay Leno's Garage

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally Posted by analogika 

The problem is that water isn't artificially scarce. Water is a *real* problem.

If you think oil politics are bad, just wait till the REAL fighting begins - for water. In about twenty or so years...

Umm... No. Just no.

Humans are currently using about 10% of the freely available (so called blue) water. There will not be a "global water shortage," especially if we ween people off some bad agricultural practices. There may certain segments of the world that will overdraw their rivers (I think I remember the lecturer speaking about a place in the middle east where they draw 40% of the flow of the river out), but even this can be managed. Heck, if global warming is true, there is only one (particularly poor) model that says that water scarcity will even go up, even when global growth is factored in.

Due to the fact that I'm reading this from a PDF that's in a locked server for my class, I can't really give you a link to my sources, but it's from Science Magazine (Science/AAAS | Scientific research, news and career information) in an article title "Global Hydrological Cycles and World Water Resources" if you're so inclined to buy a subscription to their back articles.

[Tesselator]

Originally Posted by analogika 

The problem is that water isn't artificially scarce. Water is a *real* problem.

If you think oil politics are bad, just wait till the REAL fighting begins - for water. In about twenty or so years...

That's total BS bro...

And "the real fighting - for water" already started. It's all BS though, no doubt about that!

[Tesselator]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

If it were just corporate greed in the oil industry, I could handle that-all it would take is a bunch of us nutjobs public-spirited individuals to buy a single share of stock in one of the oil companies, and then show up for the shareholders' meeting as a large group. This tactic has worked time and time again. Repeat as necessary with other oil companies, and you wind up having things your way.

Unfortunately there are two other things going on here as well as oil company greed. First is shareholder greed. People want a high return on their shares, so they, as stockholders, pressure the management to produce those high profits. That works, and works well, as I mentioned above. The second thing is just due to the crazy way the market works. Speculators bet on the price of oil, and their bets lead the market. If enough speculators bet that the price will go up, it will. Remember when that one moron speculator actually lost money on a big deal so he could go down in history as the first person to buy oil futures at $100 a barrel?

Water, on the other hand, is a real issue, as analogika says. We need better ways to clean up water in municipal systems, and better, faster, cheaper ways to get water like seawater into the drinking water system. It would also be really good if people got over the "need" for a water-hungry green lawn 365/366 days a year and either used more hardy grass or xeriscape or both.

I agree with everything you said except for the water parts. But I guess it depends
where you're talking about. I just read somewhere that the underground water rights
for a major portion of some state (I forget which) was sold to a globalist owned private
corporation (which is illegal in the first place!) and the price of water in that area went
up 800% in the first 3 months. What non-sense!

[CollinG3G4]

Originally Posted by peeb 

The road is the place for bikes.

Congested with bikes?

With cars. like at 5 in the afternoon. I'm not in total disagreement with you. When there is a good sidewalk next to the street, why not use it? It is not as crazy as it sounds!

[peeb]

Originally Posted by CollinG3G4 

With cars.

Sounds like that's the root of your congestion problem. I certainly get annoyed when I'm trying to bike and the road is congested with cars.

Originally Posted by CollinG3G4 

When there is a good sidewalk next to the street, why not use it?

You mean other than the law, common sense and safety? Bikes are vehicles, and are required by law to be in the road, not on the sidewalk.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

Umm... No. Just no.

Humans are currently using about 10% of the freely available (so called blue) water. There will not be a "global water shortage," especially if we ween people off some bad agricultural practices. There may certain segments of the world that will overdraw their rivers (I think I remember the lecturer speaking about a place in the middle east where they draw 40% of the flow of the river out), but even this can be managed. Heck, if global warming is true, there is only one (particularly poor) model that says that water scarcity will even go up, even when global growth is factored in.

Due to the fact that I'm reading this from a PDF that's in a locked server for my class, I can't really give you a link to my sources, but it's from Science Magazine (Science/AAAS | Scientific research, news and career information) in an article title "Global Hydrological Cycles and World Water Resources" if you're so inclined to buy a subscription to their back articles.

Okay. Where is all this fresh water?

And more importantly, where is it NOT?

Sometime around 2020, the U.S. will invade Canada and pipe their water down to California, and sell the rest in plastic bottles to Africa and Mexico...

[G4ME]

I am trying to use me car less in commuting, I am also looking for an apartment for my new job and within biking distance is playing a big role in my decision process.

[RAILhead]

Just to throw it in, you do realize that the stations set the price, no TEH OIL MONSTERS, right?

[design219]

Originally Posted by RAILhead 

Just to throw it in, you do realize that the stations set the price, no TEH OIL MONSTERS, right?

That's just silly. Unless you mean they actually change the signs.

Howstuffworks "How Gas Prices Work"

[King Bob On The Cob]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Okay. Where is all this fresh water?

And more importantly, where is it NOT?

Sometime around 2020, the U.S. will invade Canada and pipe their water down to California, and sell the rest in plastic bottles to Africa and Mexico...

If we would not farm the west coast as if it were a tropical climate and remember that it is more of a mediterranean/desert climate, this problem would not exist. We have vast tracts of land back on the east coast and the deep south that have plenty of water and the climate to grow many of the crops that are currently grown in Arizona and New Mexico(!?!?)

The point the paper was making, is that we can do "virtual water trading" and grow stuff where it's supposed to be grown, and water would not even be the slightest problem.

[MarkLT1]

Originally Posted by peeb 

Is Cycling Dangerous? -- The Risk of Bicycle Use -- Accidents, Fatalities, Injuries, and Benefits

This guy's statistics need to be taken with a grain of salt. For example, about 1/3 of the way down there is a table where is he making a claim that the odds of death being hit on a bicycle are about the same as the odds of death being in an accident in an SUV. This is a complete twisting of the statistics. His table shows the odds of death, GIVEN that there is an injury. You are much much more likely to sustain an injury being involved in a bicycle accident (in fact, depending on your definition of "injury", this statistic may be very close to 1.0) than protected in a car. So his 1/71 for a bike versus 1/75 in an SUV rules out all of the millions of small fender benders in an SUV that don't cause injury, but would cause injury to a cyclist. I'm not saying that cycling is extra dangerous or anything, but he is definitely twisting statistics to get his point across (then again, who doesn't )

This is actually something that recently struck close to home, as my wife is recovering from being hit by a car while commuting from work on her bike last week. She is very bruised, sore, and tired, but will be OK. The back side of her helmet was smashed in- basically the ER doctor said she probably would have been killed had she not been wearing a helmet. A very scary experience to say the least.

[MarkLT1]

Wow.. very sad. Reading that site about how safe cycling is, and it turns out that Ken Kifer, the author of that article, was killed by a drunk driver, while cycling in 2003.

[mindwaves]

Please stay focus on the topic. The topic is not about how safe bicycling is or how much water is being used, but if anyone is driving less in light of the increased gas prices.

To stay on topic, I cannot really drive any less. I've collected my errands together, stopped going to the gym because it is fairly far, and drove 55-60mph on the freeway to get to work. Usually, I would drive about 70mph.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

If we would not farm the west coast as if it were a tropical climate and remember that it is more of a mediterranean/desert climate, this problem would not exist. We have vast tracts of land back on the east coast and the deep south that have plenty of water and the climate to grow many of the crops that are currently grown in Arizona and New Mexico(!?!?)

The point the paper was making, is that we can do "virtual water trading" and grow stuff where it's supposed to be grown, and water would not even be the slightest problem.

Yeah, but my point about selling bottled water to Africans, while facetious, had a serious core:
People need BOTH water AND food, and transporting either across a continent may be no problem in North America, but which major army is going to try to do so in Africa? And who will pay for it?

The world doesn't end at the San Andreas Fault.

You're right that proper resource management is vitally important long-term, though.

Anyway, off-topic.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by CollinG3G4 

I don't remember, chill.Round' these parts, any sidewalk built in the last ten years (especially in the suburban areas) is atleast six feet wide. There is plenty of room for both pedestrians and cyclists. I've never been cycled over while out running.

I'm really only bitching about cyclists on the main congested streets. Anywhere else is just fine.

In just about everywhere in the U.S., bicycles are, legally, vehicles, which means riding on the sidewalk is illegal. Depending on where you are, you can and will get ticketed for it. Where I live, in NYC, they will ticket you, the tickets are expensive and, since you're officially operating a vehicle, it's points off your license.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

since you're officially operating a vehicle, it's points off your license.

How does that work? You don't need a license to ride a bike.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

Unfortunately there are two other things going on here as well as oil company greed. First is shareholder greed. People want a high return on their shares, so they, as stockholders, pressure the management to produce those high profits. That works, and works well, as I mentioned above. The second thing is just due to the crazy way the market works. Speculators bet on the price of oil, and their bets lead the market. If enough speculators bet that the price will go up, it will. Remember when that one moron speculator actually lost money on a big deal so he could go down in history as the first person to buy oil futures at $100 a barrel?

There's another, much more basic reason for rising gas prices in the U.S.: our refinery capacity is maxed out, no new refineries have been built in the past 20 years and no new refineries are coming on line any time soon. So, even if 1) OPEC could pump more oil (which they can't) and 2) China and India would buy less of it (which they won't) we can not physically make more gasoline than we do now without making less of other stuff we need, like JP-A for airliners and petroleum-based fertilizers for our corporate agriculture.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

How does that work? You don't need a license to ride a bike.

Same principle here in Germany.

If you have a drivers' license, it's assumed that you're able to responsibly participate in traffic. If you act irresponsible on whatever means of transportation, that speaks against your ability to responsibly handle a motorized vehicle.

Makes sense.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

There's another, much more basic reason for rising gas prices in the U.S.: our refinery capacity is maxed out, no new refineries have been built in the past 20 years and no new refineries are coming on line any time soon. So, even if 1) OPEC could pump more oil (which they can't) and 2) China and India would buy less of it (which they won't) we can not physically make more gasoline than we do now without making less of other stuff we need, like JP-A for airliners and petroleum-based fertilizers for our corporate agriculture.

Yep. That's why U.S. vacation season hits our (European) prices hard - because U.S. oil companies start buying already-refined petrol in Rotterdam.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Same principle here in Germany.

If you have a drivers' license, it's assumed that you're able to responsibly participate in traffic. If you act irresponsible on whatever means of transportation, that speaks against your ability to responsibly handle a motorized vehicle.

Makes sense.

I see it. Because you're on the road.

But the question remains... if you don't need a license to ride a bike, what happens if you don't have one and ride on roads? Is it illegal? Or if you get fined?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

How does that work? You don't need a license to ride a bike.

It works very simply: the law defines bicycles as vehicles and, as such, they are subject to the same laws. Licensing doesn't have anything to do with it. There are laws for bikes which do not apply to cars: helmets, reflectors, etc. A drivers license is merely a way to apply a minimum set of standards to the operation of a vehicle. Since (theoretically, at least) operating a bicycle is much simpler than operating a car, federal, state and local governments feel there is no need to enforce any such minimums.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

I see it. Because you're on the road.

But the question remains... if you don't need a license to ride a bike, what happens if you don't have one and ride on roads? Is it illegal? Or if you get fined?

No, it doesn't work that way round.

You are, of course, still required to ride responsibly.
If you do irresponsible **** on a bike, you *will* be fined.

[Dakar the Fourth]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Licensing doesn't have anything to do with it.

Then, they should leave the license out of all of it. I dunno, I see part of the logic, but it sounds like it's disadvantageous to be a licensed driver and bike.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

I see it. Because you're on the road.

But the question remains... if you don't need a license to ride a bike, what happens if you don't have one and ride on roads? Is it illegal? Or if you get fined?

At least in the U.S. the reception you get varies widely depending on where you are and the local feeling towards cycling. In some places the cops will actually force you to ride on the sidewalk, despite the fact that it's technically illegal. In other places, like NYC, you can get fined for not treating your bike like it's a car: tickets for running red lights, going the wrong way on one-way streets, etc.

In some places you'd expect the local culture to be bike friendly it's the opposite. Boulder, Colorado, home to more American professional cyclists than any other city, is notorious for having very cycling unfriendly cops.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

Then, they should leave the license out of all of it. I dunno, I see part of the logic, but it sounds like it's disadvantageous to be a licensed driver and bike.

It can be. But, since the vast majority of Americans get their license when they turn 16--me included--it almost doesn't matter. And it really isn't an issue at the moment. Guliani really cracked down on cyclists, but since Bloomberg has been in office things are back to a much more sane level of enforcement.

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

There's another, much more basic reason for rising gas prices in the U.S.: our refinery capacity is maxed out, no new refineries have been built in the past 20 years and no new refineries are coming on line any time soon. So, even if 1) OPEC could pump more oil (which they can't) and 2) China and India would buy less of it (which they won't) we can not physically make more gasoline than we do now without making less of other stuff we need, like JP-A for airliners and petroleum-based fertilizers for our corporate agriculture.

Despite the fact that there have been no new refineries in 20 (or 30 years), production capabilities continue to rise, despite currently being at about 85% capacity. Anyhow, the US is sitting on the largest gas surplus since 1999. All the while, the US consumer is using gasoline more efficiently.

I don't really buy the 'no new refineries' reason of higher gas prices for these reasons. I posted another article in the P/L Lounge thread.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Dakar the Fourth 

Then, they should leave the license out of all of it. I dunno, I see part of the logic, but it sounds like it's disadvantageous to be a licensed driver and bike.

Depends on your point of view.

It's not disadvantageous to ride a bike if you have a drivers' license.

It's disadvantageous to be irresponsible in traffic.

If you're an asshole on a bike, I sure don't want you driving, where you can *really* **** people up.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

Despite the fact that there have been no new refineries in 20 (or 30 years), production capabilities continue to rise, despite currently being at about 85% capacity. Anyhow, the US is sitting on the largest gas surplus since 1999. All the while, the US consumer is using gasoline more efficiently.

I don't really buy the 'no new refineries' reason of higher gas prices for these reasons. I posted another article in the P/L Lounge thread.

Interesting: my info was out of date. I did notice several things, though:

1) Gasoline refining is a small percentage of overall refining capacity, so merely saying we have more refining capacity doesn't answer the question. A better question is what percentage of the new capacity is for gas;
2) Part of the reason we have a surplus is that we're buying from Europe, which is more expensive than refining it here;
3) According to the article, consumption looks to be down about .2 percent, which is next to nothing.

Which is all to say I'm not sure the sources you cite show we're not behind the curve with our refining capacity. Additionally, although use of gas may be going down, overall use of oil is going up, as it's in damn near everything: fertilizers, plastics, other distillates, etc.

(Oh, and I don't read the P/W lounge. The only thing worse than pedantic geeks arguing about politics is pedantic geeks arguing about sex.)

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Since (theoretically, at least) operating a bicycle is much simpler than operating a car, federal, state and local governments feel there is no need to enforce any such minimums.

There is also much less capacity to harm others on a bike.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by peeb 

There is also much less capacity to harm others on a bike.

True. But that just means you're not going fast enough!

[Warren Pease]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Interesting: my info was out of date. I did notice several things, though:
1) Gasoline refining is a small percentage of overall refining capacity, so merely saying we have more refining capacity doesn't answer the question. A better question is what percentage of the new capacity is for gas;

Info is cited on the page - Gasoline in 2004: 1,262,800 barrels/day in 2007: 2,221,568 barrels/day - nearly a 200% increase in 3 years. The numbers at top are for all refining and still, overall, capacity is increasing.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

2) Part of the reason we have a surplus is that we're buying from Europe, which is more expensive than refining it here;
3) According to the article, consumption looks to be down about .2 percent, which is next to nothing.

It is a small percentage, but the big point is that it is declining, whether it be from conservation or efficiency. That hasn't been the case in the past 20 years.

I'm no economist, but the basics of supply and demand is that having too much supply on hand leads towards cheaper prices, not what we are experiencing now.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Warren Pease 

I'm no economist, but the basics of supply and demand is that having too much supply on hand leads towards cheaper prices, not what we are experiencing now.

True. But, as I alluded to, gasoline consumption is only a small portion of our overall oil usage. Petroleum is used in a bewildering array of things we take from granted, including just about every plastic we use (and try to imagine the modern world without it) to the fertilizers which allow our modern, corporate agriculture to work to the diesel fuel which powers the trucks and trains which transport our food and goods to oil-fired power plants and the petroleum-based lubricants which keeps all of that running. So, while reducing our gasoline consumption is the most obvious petroleum-based piece of conservation we see, the fact is that we use oil and its byproducts in just about everything.

Add to that the rapidly rising oil use by China and India and you have a situation in which the OPEC countries simply can't pump much more oil. There hasn't been a major field found for over 20 odd years despite billions and billions in exploration, and if you dig around you will see that the major oil companies have actually been cutting their exploration budgets in the last five or so years. To this add escalating global shocks. Iraq's oil production continues to run significantly behind its pre-war output, and so pervasive is oil theft that it is unclear how much of the oil being pumped actually gets out of the country. The continuing civil war in Nigeria threatens that country's oil production, as Nigerian rebels are able to cut the country's output by half with relative impunity. There have been attacks on oil pipelines in Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkey, all of which contribute to both an unpredictable supply and general jitters in the oil industry.

All of that adds up to a very unpredictable situation in one of the world's most precious commodities.

[coreythemagnificent46]

I Drive a 1993 Chrysler Imperial 3.8L V6. Does great on gas.. But i spent the last month and a half without a vehicle waiing for student loans to come in Ive driven but not as much as I thought. Im 8 blocks from the college I attend. I only use the car for going out of town and to the grocery store and hauling the occasional computer. Ive lost weight since I started biking and I feel great. My bike is an old schwinn from 1983 that I picked up at a yard sale for a dollar.. it does perfectly fine.. Im planning on limiting my driving to out of town the rest of the summer. Our public transportation sucks here 3 dollars for a ride. not happening. I can just as easy take the shoe leather express and get there faster than the dial a ride

[Shaddim]

Anybody driving less because of gas prices?

Nope. I don't see my driving habits changing either.

[@pplejaxkz]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Nope. I don't see my driving habits changing either.

I would have to agree. Although I drive a little standard Ford Focus ZX5, it's great on gas!

[ghporter]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

There's another, much more basic reason for rising gas prices in the U.S.: our refinery capacity is maxed out, no new refineries have been built in the past 20 years and no new refineries are coming on line any time soon. So, even if 1) OPEC could pump more oil (which they can't) and 2) China and India would buy less of it (which they won't) we can not physically make more gasoline than we do now without making less of other stuff we need, like JP-A for airliners and petroleum-based fertilizers for our corporate agriculture.

Excellent point-one you'd think I would have remembered, living in the city that's headquarters for some good-sized oil companies (Valero, NuStar and Tessoro for example). And it's not just capacity that's a problem. Older refineries are not as efficient at getting products out of crude as newer processes can be. Even simply taking age and wear into account, current U.S. refineries are slow at producing products, and often have to multiply process the same batch of crude to get what they want out of it, when newer hardware could work faster and extract more products. And these old refineries are showing their age in another way-they're less safe than they were when they were built.

I guess this is another product of "shareholder return" trumping actual economic value, but it's been in the mix for a very long time.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by ghporter 

I guess this is another product of "shareholder return" trumping actual economic value, but it's been in the mix for a very long time.

Are you sure ?

I thought the main problem of building new refineries was the long and uncertain approval process.
I think we can thank the greenies a bit for that.

-t

[Eug]

I'm sure the approval process is very difficult, but it's also about maximizing profits while minimizing expenditures. Sure, the refineries make profit, but they're a big pain to run, and you might get better profit putting your money elsewhere (like exploration and oil production), at least to a certain extent.

High crude oil prices bite into refiners' profit margins | Markets | Headline News | Canadian Business Online

[peeb]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I thought the main problem of building new refineries was the long and uncertain approval process.
I think we can thank the greenies a bit for that.

Yeah, those damn greenies. We could have oil refineries everywhere without them. In fact, without the EPA I would be able to fill a bucket from the river and burn it in a furnace. Damn clean water regulations.

[CreepDogg]

Something tells me that if refineries were highly profitable, companies would be more than happy to jump through whatever hoops they need to to get approvals, etc. A high barrier to entry like that just means you won't see many 'Mom & Pop' refineries around...