Oil scales fresh peak in London

[bigfootedfred]

Crude oil traded in London has hit a record high of $74.16 a barrel,
the seventh consecutive day in which it has set a new price peak.
Concerns that increased demand for petrol will squeeze already stretched supplies have kept prices high,
as data showed a fall in US gasoline stocks.

US-Iran tensions and Nigerian supply concerns are also driving the market.
Brent crude later eased to $74.10 while US light, sweet crude hovered near its $72.40 high of recent days.
In Asian trading, prices edged up 3 cents to $72.20.

source

Oils been rising like this for quite some time.
Nigeria has millitants who have been attacking the oil,
and demanding the profit go to the impoverished people and the infrastructure.
and of course...Iran.

[David Deas]

I'm mad about nearly $3.00 a gallon here in NC.

[Romanos]

I'm mad about nearly $3.00 a gallon here in NC.

Here its only (but still high) 95 cent $. I give it twenty-thirty years until oil is out. :original:

[Denny Crane!]

Here its only (but still high) 95 cent $. I give it twenty-thirty years until oil is out. :original:

Not really as oil fields expire the price will skyrocket and usage will decline rapidly, oil will last a very long time yet just will be extraordinarily expensive I predict about $200 a barrel and that is just to control demand. Sometime in the future technology will need to be developed to slowly integrate renewable fuel into the oil economy.

Somehow I don't see this happening, which means economic meltdown in the next fifty years. Governments could be doing more to prevent this but they are not. They are still interested in nuclear energy despite it not being economically viable while green energy is eminently feasible as well as home grown energy being an option. The energy crisis in terms of transport are real and seemingly unstoppable but the domestic energy crisis is a joke.

Peter

[David Deas]

Damn. I need to go to Canada and get some .95 cent gas.

[vikingsiddhu]

Yes I make more money each time that oil barrel goes up. Thank god for commodities.

[David Deas]

And at $200 a barrel, I'll still be driving my American SUV.

[Denny Crane!]

If the economy survives $200 dollars a barrel. A small rise has big ramfications on the economy.

Peter

[David Deas]

Why do you think green energy is feasible? Do you have any idea how many windmills it would take to support the energy demands of the United States?

[Denny Crane!]

Why do you think green energy is feasible? Do you have any idea how many windmills it would take to support the energy demands of the United States?

For domestic energy it is eminently feasible, commercial solutions are not technologically available. According to projections by the international energy agency and industry experts 2005 was the first year nuclear powers electricity output dropped behind that of small scale plants producing low or no carbon dioxide emission plants. Not even counting large hydroelectric projects. (paraphrased from New Scientist)

Wind farms are only a partial green solution, despite the fact that it has only a partial interest being taken by the worlds governments renewable electricity accounted for 1/5 of the worlds total electricity supply in 2003.

18% to be exact, only 1% was wind solar geothermal and ocean with 16% being hydro and 1% being biomass and waste.

Its a big subject and this was a rushed reply because I'm watching no 24 of season 1 24.

Peter

[Erik]

Why do you think green energy is feasible? Do you have any idea how many windmills it would take to support the energy demands of the United States?

Americans wil have to cut down on energy consumption too.
Why does an American household consume twice as much energy as a European household anyways?

For European countries it's calucalted that it is possible to run entirely on green energy such as wind, but it's WAY too expensive (about 10 times what we pay today) and we don't want to have all those windmills blocking our view so I think it's better to have a mix of fossile, nuclear and green energy.

[Aristophanes]

Americans wil have to cut down on energy consumption too.
Why does an American household consume twice as much energy as a European household anyways?

For European countries it's calucalted that it is possible to run entirely on green energy such as wind, but it's WAY too expensive (about 10 times what we pay today) and we don't want to have all those windmills blocking our view so I think it's better to have a mix of fossile, nuclear and green energy.

Well, 'cause they're wasteful as hell, and their cites and city infrastructure seem deliberately designed to accentuate the problem.

[Tom Paine]

Well, 'cause they're wasteful as hell, and their cites and city infrastructure seem deliberately designed to accentuate the problem.

Consumerism. The whole system is built aroud consuming as much as possible, and waste is an easy way to increase what is consumed...

[gigagaia]

Instead of blaming others, why don't we all try and learn from each other.
For example, plastics are made from Petroleum, a fossil fuel. Here in Staffordshire, I've noticed that the county does not recycle plastics at all. Nor does it have any kind of public cleaning program. Parks here are a mess. There is no bottle deposit system either, and so empties are all over the place, littering the brooks and forests. A simple bottle deposit system would work wonders helping to clean that mess up. Recycling could help ease demand on Petroleum...
People also drive everywhere here, they simply drive more efficient (or sports) cars. If Europe didn't have the space constraints that the US did, I wonder if SUV's would be just as popular?
I once had someone tell me in Newcastle, that the best way to dispose of styrafoam packing is to burn it, because it leaves no trace (except, he left out, in the atmosphere). Are these good things?

All countries are bad. Instead of pointing the finger, can't we all just work on cleaning up all of our already messy backards first? This is all like world governments, who appear in front of the UN and declare that they are the only place in the world without racism or ethnic tensions.

I'm from Canada, an energy-hogging society, but one that does so cleaner than Europe, and keeps our enviornment cleaner than most European states (like France and the UK). So I'm not defending the US, but merely saying that we all should look inwards to solve these problems, not lay out blame.

[Denny Crane!]

Nuclear is proving to be financially ridiculous. Incapable of turning a profit even with subsidies.

Oh and windmills account for LESS than 1% of renewables.

PEter

[David Deas]

Where do you get that from?

[Denny Crane!]

What?

[David Deas]

The part about nuclear energy?

[Denny Crane!]

The part about nuclear energy?

Well a number of things one:

the report from financial analysts Standard & Poors issued a report saying that even the new incentives for the US nuclear industry will not be enough to persuade investors to climb aboard, from a business perspective nuclear remains the highest risk form of power generation. The subsidies don't deal with the capital, operating and decommisioning risks that most concern the capital markets. Amory Lovins CEO of the Rocky Mountain Institute, a Colorado based energy analysis firm says, "The effect of even massive subsidies will be the same as defibrillating a corpse it will jump but not revive" (New Scientist)

two:

In terms of my own country all but one of the 14 nuclear power stations here will need to close down in the next ten years. It takes ten years to build one and there is already a que forming with the six consortia in the world capable of building them. The projected time for completion of eight new plants is up to 25 years. The costs for decommisioning each plant run into billions. Plus the subsidies needed for building to encourage investment (even that may not work see source above). Therefore while individual investors may or may not get some return it is done so at the expense of the taxpayer, thats us!

Three

The subsidies for nuclear power over the past five decades have been colossal - about a hundred times the amount we have spent on developing renewable energy, for example - and further immense subsidies will be required to deal with the legacy of nuclear wastes and the decommissioning of power stations. Indeed, following the privatization of the electricity industry in the late 1980s, the UK introduced a Non Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO) to support nuclear power; it injected £8bn of subsidies into the industry after it had been sold off, while another £5bn is reportedly needed to deal with the decommissioning of the Dounreay nuclear facility. The NFFO, in contrast, injected just £750m (less than 10% of the funds) into renewable energy.
(I should be a rep for this website this is about the fifteenth link http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/14/6/2)

It is only surviving with massive subsidies without it, it would wither and die. If we invested that money in renewable energy and new technology over the next 100 years we could make the transition.


EDIT: Where do people think hydrogen comes from? We have to burn fossil fuels to get it. There is no viable technology for green transport.

Peter

[bigfootedfred]

Well a number of things one:
In terms of my own country all but one of the 14 nuclear power stations here will need to close down in the next ten years. It takes ten years to build one and there is already a que forming with the six consortia in the world capable of building them. The projected time for completion of eight new plants is up to 25 years. The costs for decommisioning each plant run into billions. Plus the subsidies needed for building to encourage investment (even that may not work see source above). Therefore while individual investors may or may not get some return it is done so at the expense of the taxpayer, thats us!

Ah yes.
They are going to be re-built by a french company apparently along with some new ones..

And This article,
argues that nuclear power is undergoing a 'revival'.

Nuclear new build is firmly back on the agenda in the West as public opinion turns in its favour, but one key question remains - who will pay? At the other end of the timeline, the vexed question of decommissioning is finally beginning to be tackled.

There has been a significant shift in public opinion on nuclear power in the past year to 18 months. A poll conducted recently for the Nuclear Industry Association in the UK showed that public support has swung in favour of nuclear. More people support the building of nuclear power stations than oppose them - 35 per cent versus 30 per cent. Even some leading figures in the green movement have publicly backed new nuclear build, as the only way to prevent global warming. As one commentator has noted, it’s important that environmentalists don’t become fundamentalists.