I have felt that the value of our Beaver dropped as fuel became more expensive.  I assumed it was largely due, to the belief that oil is scarce.   A friend sent me a link to a Wall Street Journal article that suggests otherwise.  I think all of us, that rely on fuel for some of our fun in life, should read this.  It says there is lots of, and it is within the borders of the USA!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576602524023932438.html

Bill

Thanks for the link.  It is amazing that we have all of this oil, that we can use, but can not get to.  I agree that we need to look at alternative fuels, but we can not get there over night, or even 5 years.

Read the USGS reports over the last 5 years or so.  There is NO oil shortage and shouldnt be here in the USA for at least 200 years.  Oil pollutes less than new dilithium batteries every 2 - 4 years.  We need to find something better no doubt but this starts with no longer being lied to at any level.
Demand honesty and fair pricing at the pump.

It isn't just oil that is the victim of speculation today. Wall Street is making a lot of money with no intent of ever taking possession of anything that it manipulates the price of. Even food is on the Wall St agenda. There is no doubt that we should extract all the U.S. oil that we can but it is not a supply problem that is driving oil prices up.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/09/30/8061452-when-food-prices-rise-some-blame-investors

The other issue is that at $80 a barrel diesel pump prices for diesel should be about $2.50 a gallon after taxes, profits, refining, etc.  Check the table in this website.

http://www.tbabz.com/wp/fuel/crude-oil-versus-diesel-prices

I have seen diesel almost .50 cents a gallon over regular gas lately. What justifies that reversal? It does not help that we are exporting diesel fuel to Europe. I think that is the lever that they use to keep the supply side trimmed to inflate the price. Greed has taken away all sensibility......wish there was an answer to all this.

Later Ed

As you know the diesel of today is not the diesel we burned a few years ago. The federal government mandated that all diesel fuel burned in on highway engines had to be low sulfur diesel by 2010 I think. Anyway to meet this requirement refineries had to install special equipment to get the sulphur out of the product. End result is more cost to process this fuel. Not sure that the price today is justified by this greater expense to make it but I am sure it is part of the reason for the higher cost at the pump.

The cost was about 5 cents a gallon for the refinery upgrade expense which has long since been recovered. Part of the expense was keeping dual supply chains during the transition time. (pipes, tanks, etc.) Even if you continue to use that number for todays diesel things do not add up. The yield of diesel per barrel of crude is the same, just the cost of extracting the sulpher. They are probably selling the sulpher in some market by now so who knows the cost for sure but it has to be under 5 cents a gallon by now.

I think people should be much more angry about how commodities are being manipulated today including oil.

http://www.tdiclub.com/articles/LSDF/

Later Ed

While living in AK, I learned a great deal about the energy market. This article doesn't include the oil in Beaufort seas, off the Alutian chain, or hidden in other areas of AK yet to be discovered. Oil is still the most economical energy source avaiable.  I always laugh at the electric car idea... when I ask how they recharge the car, I hear "well I just plug it in"... Where does the electricity come from?... Coal, Gas or Nuclear plants.... Not one person I have talked to realizes the current grid is close to overload already.

It is reall curious to me that the large supply of diesel is shipped to Europe and here at home the majority of people think diesel is a dirty fuel... Fact is diesel has become a very clean fuel, surpassing gasoline is some respects. Yet the EPA refuses to allow import of high MPG diesel vehicles from europe.

Between N Gas, Coal, Oil and frozen Hydrates (http://www.ornl.gov/info/reporter/no16/methane.htm  and http://www.science20.com/variety_tap/gas_hydrates_leading_fuel_revolution_ice_burns ) the energy is not the problem. enviorment is..

Developing a serious national energy plan needs to be the first plank in the upcoming elections. We need to bring refinery capacity back on line, logical use of green alternatives, restructuing of the grid, and development of thorium reactors   (   http://www.popsci.com/technolo.....ve-years  )

Seems, once again, our government is trying to bamboozle us.  They sure think that the general population is stupid, as is said,
"Stupid is as Stupid does!

When considering the political implications in this (what ever your affiliation).  Think back to the 1970's fuel "shortages".  Honesty in government is a possibility but it wont be easy.

I think the large supply of diesel going to Europe is part of a plan. There are 10 models of diesel cars available here in 2011. They are all German from Mercedes, BMW, and Volkswagon. They are clean great designs with turbo direct injection technology that are very efficient and have passed all the EPA requirements. They typically get 15 to 20% better mileage. I would much prefer that American car producers work on a similar diesel design but there is no incentive.

As long as diesel fuel price here is much higher than gas there is no economic reason to buy one. I believe that is part of the plan. Keep us on gasoline as a fuel, send diesel to Europe. Diesel fuel yield per barrel of crude is higher and requires less refining. The only justification for pricing diesel higher is to keep the U.S. market on a gasoline fuel standard and all of this is very lucrative for the oil companies with the current pricing. It would be nice to see diesel priced as compared to gasoline like it has been priced for the last 60 years until more recent times....it would help to keep transportation costs down.

Later Ed

I recently read about a community in the Southwest that refused to issue permits for the charging stations that need to be installed in the garage for electric cars.  Apparently you need the equivalent of a 30 amp hookup to get a full charge overnight.   It seems that if the Volt became as popular at the Prius, the power company was afraid they could not support the load on the grid!

Quoted from Keith Moffett

When considering the political implications in this (what ever your affiliation).  Think back to the 1970's fuel "shortages".  Honesty in government is a possibility but it wont be easy.

While my wife was waiting in long lines to gas our Ford Falcon, the Navy was scheduling me for extra flights to burn 50,000 pounds of fuel each flight to reduce the surplus in the Navy supply system.  

A couple of thoughts. I owned a service station during the second 'gas crisis' and never had so much fuel. I was limited by state regulations to only 90% of the amount of fuel I had sold in the same month the previous year, but could apply for 'extra allotment' each month, taking me to 105%, the amount I was allowed to sell each month. The jobber I bought from would call and check the level of my tanks about 4-5 days before the end of the month, then come and fill my tanks full, invoicing me after the first. Their storage tanks were full and they had nowhere to put all the fuel! There was no shortage of product in my area, the government was regulating how much could be sold.

While not the best situation, my investments in energy companies do seem to be doing fairly well. Some of the other companies not so much.

Ken

According to some the hyped Electric vehicles create a larger carbon foot print  because of the battery manufacturing process and life expectancy. They may actually use more total energy than a normal gas economy car. Also if a large percentage of the US went to electric vehicles it would overload the electric power grid.

http://energy.aol.com/2011/10/.....linkedin   More oil on the East coast... 5.5 Billion bbls