Oil at $121

this stuff is going to put the airlines out of business, for ever dollar oil  goes  up  Northwest looses 40million dollars.

also, i'm glad i opted out of buying a truck, and got a car instead.. even though i really really want a truck:(

Good!!!

My Velaro and Xxon stock is doing great! Hahaha

not if hillary gets in office, she is going to tax those "windfall profits"   oil stock is going to drop through the floor.

"If" being the operative word. She wont be President....at least Im hoping.

Whats new? People were flipping a shit when it broke 50$ a barrel. What do you expect when we keep using it and its a finite resource? Sure OPEC is likely jacking it up for some bullshit reason but the principle still says its gotta go up, and fast.

vancouver gas prices suck, usually between $1.20 and $1.30 a liter

haha you people will hate me for this, but i am starting to think i would rather have her, over Obama...

but the lesser of all evils is McCain.  i dont like him much, but he is the next best thing...

Ok no hate bashing at all since everyone has their opinions but honestly do some more research on Hilary.....you dont want her in office.

I dont know why nobody is trying to market hydrogen cars. Everyone is worried about the second oil crisis but only procrastinate about it. Get rid of oil once and for all.

o, no i dont want her in office, ONE BIT! but in some ways she would be far more predictable than Obama.

her healthcare, and oil policy makes me want to puke though....

wasnt BMW working on one?  but if i remember correctly, they were unsuccessful when it came to making them cheap enough, for average americans.

i don't even think hydrogen is the answer-- i don't understand why we don't start tackling the energy crisis and the need for infrastructure rebuild together and start planing for an electric car system. We need to create American jobs? it isn't much easier than that.

so freakin dumb. costs me $45 to fill up my chevy cavalier. a CAVALIER!!!!! so annoying. i was gonna golf today but i had to spend all my cash on fucking gas. up to $3.79/gallon in saratoga NY and expected to rise even further. im just hoping for congress to get rid of the federal gas tax for the summer, as well as the state tax. then it would ONLY be like $3.15/gallon.


bottom line is.......FUCK GAS

Yeah mine is pushing $50+ to fill up my tank and I have a hyundai. Im sick of paying for it but honestly until over government gets off their ass and finds alternative means, we're all screwed.  What kills me are the people that have one kid in their family but feel the need to drive a Suburban.

haha you have it good, i was driving my moms mini van to and from the hill(you can fit a ton of people and gear in there)  and that sucker was pushing 90$ to fill that up...

now my malibu costs around 50$ to fill.

but the government is not the solution, to our gas prices, (unless they let us go for oil in ANWAR)

Personally I feel that nuclear energy is the answer.  Right now we have so much potential to use it, and if we go through with it correctly, no one should have to worry about "glowing in the dark" or shit like that.  We need electricity too, which comes primarily from gas/oil/coal.  YUCCA MOUNTAIN!...I think thats the one, right?

what about coal to oil conversion?   i have seen some interesting reports on what that could do for gas prices, but if i remember correctly OPEC blocked it, because they didnt want competition..

i know dude i see that shit all the time. it doesnt make any sense!!!

15.9 gallon tank in my Nissan Altima
x
Gas at $3.55 per gallon
=
about $56.00 to fill up.


That shit pisses me off.
We have the technology to create reliable alternative energy, but of course it won't be attainable for the every day person for at least another 8-10 years.

Fucking B.S.

what is this magical alternative to gas?  

and if it is battery cars, where is all this electricity going to come from?

the same people that scream "we need alternatives" are the same people that shoot down some solutions to the problem.

i just sold my jeep and bought a f250 6.8 ltr v10. sucks the gas down, but i need it for my job so for the time, i gotta deal with whats handed to me price wise.. 24 gallons x 3.75 in illinois = 90 bucks everytime i fill up, which is about every 5 days. its killing me, but a kia aint gonna haul wood or tow a bobcat.

Create cars that can be charged off the grid and power the grid off of nuclear energy.  It's funny how reactors are basically the only "green" solution yet they're hated the world over.

Speaking of alternative energy though, I've been reading quite a few articles about how the push for ethanol is actually increasing starvation in the third world.  Thoughts?

Solar power.

i agree, that electric cars"could" be a good alternative, but everyone of the democrates who bitch about gas, are the same ones who vote against Nuclear power..

as far as ethonol, i have made that subject my bitch, i pwned everyone, and i am not going to rehash that whole debate, to sum it up, IT SUCKS. and i laugh how all these bleeding heart liberals, and some republicans, hopped on the bandwagon, only to create a much bigger problem.

the oil companies have their dicks up the governments ass.

they keep reporting record profits, they want to make money off of oil while they can.

so naturally they pay off alternative energy ideas.

ahahahahahahaha


NO.

it is not anywhere near efficient, enough, right now.

i would agree though, that if people(not the government) could figure out how to harness the awesome power the sun sends us every day, it could some day work.

plus do you relize how much of a change, the whole world would have to make, to switch from Gas to sun(electricity).  Gas, is a great source of energy, and it will continue to be, until something BETTER replaces it. (and the government is not going to find that solution)

so you would take away those profits?

why dont we open up the market to competition, and force the prices down, through competition


also, what exactly did you mean by "paying off alternative energy ideas"?

Whats holding the world back from putting their full resources towards developing solar power and compatible batteries? A forced reliance on the 'great source of energy' we have know as gas.

Lets get one thing straight, gas is not great, its just what we have settled for.

Let`s even assume that once they take all of these profits away, the price of oil and gas will magically, and against all known rules of economics, begin to decrease. What happens then?

Cheaper gas means more people buying it and less incentive to find real long-term solutions, all of which means we just rely on foreign oil more than ever before. And that`s not hope and that`s not a change. That`s typical Washington politics. You solve a problem by creating an even bigger one.

Brian Carney is the editorial writer of "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board.

Brian, taking away the windfall profits and having a windfall profits tax on oil, didn`t we try this in the `80s?

BRIAN CARNEY, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": We did try this in the `80s. And what happened is exactly what you would expect, Glenn. Domestic production and exploration went down. Imports went up. And prices did not go down either.

BECK: Oh boy.

CARNEY: And we can expect more of the same if we try it again.

BECK: Brian, how much are you taking from big oil? You`re clearly in bed with them. I mean, that`s what they`ll say.

CARNEY: I take nothing. No, it`s true. But we can look back at the experience of the `80s.

We actually tried this. And exactly what you would expect would happen happened. You tax something, you get less of it. And the countries that are taxing it less will import more of it to us.

So, those who are concerned about, you know, importing foreign oil or OPEC`s influence over us, a windfall profits tax is the last thing they should be arguing for.

BECK: OK. Here is the thing. Everybody trying to make these guys as robber barons. They`re not robber barons.

I saw -- the Cato Institute said that their profits are in line with the rest of American industry. The robber barons, the ones that are destroying us and robbing us blind, are these politicians.

CARNEY: That`s right. Their return on investment is only marginally higher right now than it is for American industry as a whole.

BECK: I have the stats if you don`t -- 7.8 is the average for the all American industry. They`re at 8.3. Oh, my gosh, they`re just worthless pigs just robbing us blind.

CARNEY: They also pay a lot of taxes already. Exxon paid $9.3 billion in corporate income taxes on those profits that they made in the first quarter. And they paid even more than that when you take into account the royalties and other taxes that they paid -- $29.3 billion in total taxes paid in the first three months of this year.

And they want to say that there ought to be a higher tax? I mean...

BECK: Yes, they`re already paying 35 percent tax.

____________________________
(____________________________)

FOOT NOTES!
------
They also pay a lot of taxes already. Exxon paid $9.3 billion in corporate income taxes on those profits that they made in the first quarter. And they paid even more than that when you take into account the royalties and other taxes that they paid -- $29.3 billion in total taxes paid in the first three months of this year.

------
I saw -- the Cato Institute said that their profits are in line with the rest of American industry. The robber barons, the ones that are destroying us and robbing us blind, are these politicians.

CARNEY: That`s right. Their (Oil Companies) return on investment is only marginally higher right now than it is for American industry as a whole.

BECK: I have the stats if you don`t -- 7.8 is the average for the all American industry. They`re at 8.3. Oh, my gosh, they`re just worthless pigs just robbing us blind.
------


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0805/05/gb.01.html

Erroneous, taking the tax off would sink us even deeper into deficit. In addition to that the renewed increase increase in demand would just make OPEC jack the prices up even more and make even more money. That bullshit proposed by hillary and obama is just a way to get votes, its based on bullshit economics.

OIL
Oil profits and the price of crude futures have been held artificially low for tens of years. This was somewhat necessary because the world economy completely depends on petroleum production. Everything from shipping to plastics comes from oil. The U.S. economy would have collapsed with out cheep oil. Key word being "cheep". Now as many experts agree we are approaching a scenario called "peak oil". This is when we reach the top of the bell curve of oil production. This happened in the US in the late 80's and will happen world wide in 10-20 years. Many people know this is happening and are anticipating it. Oil prices will explode 200 dollars a barrel will be the new norm. I am a petroleum engineer and my income depends on oil production but I am not a fool and I understand that oil is not a sustainable enterprise. There has to be other energy forms.

OIL COMPANIES
Companies like Exxon BP Apache etc were able to make profits when oil was 15 dollars a barrel. Fields were shut down and basically the industry goes into sleep mode. The oil industry is very unstable and fluctuates often. As in any industry that fluctuates profits can be made when the price goes up and down. The number of firms declines then rapidly expands. Hence profits. Hillary and Mccain want to take away the oil consumer tax and make the oil companies pay it. This is completely foolish and will save the average driver about 33 dollars for the whole summer. Basically what im saying is that the price of oil needs to stay high. Americans need to cut back. Cities need to be redesigned the whole American economy needs to change. See the difference between now and the 80's oil crisis is that there is another country that needs oil. China and with this competition the oil companies will not sell to the us or even operate in the us if Windfall profit taxes are again instated. That means oil will leave and so will billions of dollars of revenue.

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
Short story, there is not one alternative energy technology that creates more energy than you put in. That is not to say that we should not pursue these technologies in fact it is extremely important. Which again bring us to the oil companies who invest more than 10X what the US government does. Some of the top ideas are solar, bio fuels, and wind power. Solar is making leaps and bounds and the efficiency is getting respectable. However there is a major downfall. A solar panel is say 25% efficient in perfect conditions, but say a shadow or a leaf or even a cloud blocks a portion of the panel it becomes .01% efficient. That being said I think that every house in southern cali or even Colorado should have solar panels. Bio fuels have been called the most blatant attack against man kind in our lifetime. Corn is by far the biggest crop in the us. Due to government tax breaks and the rising price of corn people in the the third world who were already spending 50% of their income on food are now spending 75% and can not sustain themselves. Thousands have already died maybe millions. This rising price of food is due to rising oil prices but mostly bio fuels taking land reserved for food production. On top of that is the real kicker. To put it in simple terms it takes one barrel of crude oil to make ¾ of a barrel of bio fuels. Wind power has many of the same downfalls.

WHAT SHOULD WE DO
Cry and hide. No just kidding all is not lost. If I were in charge I would start building 100 new nuclear plants across the country tomorrow. Nuclear is still the best technology and is very safe. But that’s another debate. Cities need to be redesigned. There is no reason for gas powered cars in a place like new york. But long story short you don’t need to do anything with oil at 122, 155, 180 dollars a barrel necessity will be the mother of innovation and things will change. The real question is will the US be able to keep up or will decades of declining college grads and dropping intellects create a massive void between the haves, and the have nots?

Lets build some nuclear power plants to provide clean energy to some fancy new electric cars until we can bring solar and wind energy down to reasonable prices. Its really too bad that our parents generation is so terrified of the word nuclear.

woah wait, we can put guys on the moon, make leaps and bounds in medical science -- (we're regrowing body parts now), we can build a bomb that will fly up a camel's ass, ... but getting energy from the sun is "too complicated wahh :'( " excuse me, but that is some grade A  Bullshit.

 I think it's pathetic that we haven't developed better solar technology, look at all the fucking plants, they've managed to figure it out. It really wouldn't be that difficult for scientists to do some work on it, and make it a viable technology.  But no one wants to put money into something like that actually provides an answer.

Everyone would much rather be dicking around with 'fake' solutions like ethanol and hydrogen, we want something that sounds cool to work on, all the mean while oil tycoons just sit there and jack up prices.

when you say the world would need to go through revolutionary changes in order to make a switch to solar... exactly how are these changes going to be bad, because when you ask me to think about it, all i can come up with is GOOD changes, and that solar IS something better than gas. And by your logic we've come to opposite conclusions.

gas prices in Bellingham, WA are 12 cents away from breaking $4.00/gallon.

there is a refinery no more than 50 miles away, and we have some of the highest gas prices in the country. FUCK YOU OIL COMPANIES.

haha no it definitely isn't. it is going to put the small airlines out of business...actually companies like us airways and shit aren't raising prices so smaller companies go bankrupt and they're waiting till they do to raise prices. soooo a monopoly is on the way!! yay!!

for example, watch who killed the electric car

we could have had highly developed electric cars by now by way back in the day oil companies paid the inventors to stop designing the cars so that oil would remain king and continue to sell.

for people designing alternative energy, it all depends on whether they are in it for the money or to better everyone as a whole.

i'm sure this happens more than we think. but call it a conspiracy theory.

Extreme! no, in the bad way. My Dad works for Northwest and i feel bad for the airline, cause its prob the only reason i've been to the places ive been to and skiied out west for the past 14 years. I believe those damn oil compaines shoudnt have killed the electric car, any of you ever heard of this, back in the 1980s GM introduced the electric car to somep people to try out, it was a hit. All the people did was plug it into a eclectric source. Soon however oil companies got word, saw that they might lose money off it, and payed GM to stop building the electric car, and take them all back. Now i think is the time for the electric car to return.

I don't buy it. There's something else to it. Making cars is a business, whoever was making the best electric cars right now would be making crazy bank. There were probably some issues with it beside oil companies.

And GM might actually survive as a car company if they do. Fuck the oil companies.

Maybe i've been playing too much gta 4, but sometimes i just want to take out the leaders of the oil companies.



yeah that's too extreme

"i would agree though, that if people(not the government) could figure out how to harness the awesome power the sun sends us every day, it could some day work."



you will see, i agree, that the potental is there, but is not being used, if companys want to try and perfect solar power, i would be the first person in line to put solar pannels on my home, by an electric car, ect.

but the one thing we dont need is the government trying to regulate what energy we use when it comes to perfecting what new forms of energy are being explored(look at ethonol, that was going to save the earth, and what do we have for it? nothing good)

you are right, gas is not 'great' but at this point in the world, it is the best we have.... could we do better? sure.

and until, the FREE market comes up with a better alternative(the will, dont worry) we will be driving gas powered cars.

You're all shitting kittens in America.  Here in England its about £1.20 a litre = $3.40
Expensive no?

Exactly.

I still think a nuclear powered car would be possible and no where near as dangerous as people are afraid one would be, but like you said, everyone is afraid without much knowledge on the subject.

you want to bet?    northwest, and delta, (soon to be the biggest airline in the world) lost a combined 10Billion dollars, last quarter, and that was just in one quarter.   

if oil hits a certain price, you better believe that prices will go through the roof, or airlines will shut down.

took the words out of my mouth.....


some guy at work, was trying to convice me that we could have big SUV's that got 100miles to the gallon,, but the oild company's have paid off all the inventors, and then destroyed the plans for the engine... what he doesnt realize  is that if someone invented an engine that could drive an SUV and get 100 miles to the gallon, is that GM would have paid him way way way more then any oil company....

most likely not.

and were fucked regardless, we rely on oil for everything.

how are we going to replace plastic? certain textiles? oil is used for everything.

so you are telling me, that the car company's wouldnt beat out the oil company's when it came to a bidding war, for an engine that could drive an SUV and get 100 miles to the gallon?

you have to be tripping to think they wouldnt pay big big$$ for that technology

David Suzuki said that every day the sun provides 100x more energy than the all of the worlds energy consumption, its just a matter of capturing that.

Whereas with Oil we are just using ancient sun, (about a million years of ancient sun energy every four years!)

The alternative is simple but nobody has the motivation to do anything because oil companies run show.