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Of course, we can use it as food and get Natural Gas at the end to burn. All we need to do is ferment the sewage in big tanks and extract the Methane. That may give us enough energy toremove pollutants making the entire sewage system require Zero Energy from the grid. If the slurry is then used to fertilise fields we'd get a net gain.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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The fuel crisis is largely a myth. Theres more than enough oil around if we were only allowed to drill for it. Brazil just fund the 8th largest reserve just off shore. Theres also far to many blends of fuel mandated by various states, artificially limiting supply. Taxes are also sky high.
False. This is issue is generally poorly understood, even within the scientific community.
Global oil discovery peaked in the 1960s and global crude oil production peaked in 2005. Most of the increases in recent years have come from condensates and natural gas liquids, which are generally located in deep water or are associated with natural gas production. They are more expensive to produce than conventional crude. Total liquids peak may occur as soon as 2010.
Undeveloped reserves are available in the Arctic, off the coast of Brazil, west Siberia, West Africa and Antarctic. But these reserves are far more expensive and difficult to exploit than 'conventional' crude, and are often located in politically difficult areas. New developmnets must meet not only expanding demand, but must replace depleted production from existing oil fields. With each passing year it becomes more and more difficult to achieve that. Eventually, probably very soon, we will witness a peak in total liquids production. This represents the point at which the effects of depletion within existing wells overwhelms our ability to bring new production on stream. At this point, plenty of oil will be left in the ground and the world will still be producing a great deal. But production will decline continuously with each passing year.
The only real technology that really need development is fusion for grid power. The future of mobile fuel is hydrogen, and we already know how to use it. The limiting factor is the lack of infrastructure investment on production and distribution, and the fact that consumers can't afford the technology while paying $3 for gas.
Hydrogen is the least promissing of all alternative fuels. It suffers from a critical efficiency problem that makes it unsuitable as an energy carrier.
The technology that is most promissing for road vehicles in terms of overall energy efficiency and technical practicality is electric, probabaly a combination of battery and flywheel electric power and conductive transfer, via an electrified conduit embedded within the roadway. In the near term, electricity production is likely to come from coal (increasingly in highly efficient combined cycle gassification plants) declining amounts of natural gas and oil (burned in combined cycle plants), stable contributions from hydropower, small increases in other renewables such as wind, wave and solar and stable or slowly increasing contributions from nuclear.
I am very confident that hydrogen powered vehicles will never be a mainstream technology.
Biofuels will never take off as a mainstream fuel because its food or fuel, not both. Its already driving up the cost of food because of backwards government mandates. Until all produce is grown exclusively in local greenhouses and all farmland is dedicated to grains and fuels, it will never be more than a bureaucratic abomination. Once that is overcome, it shows promise in limited off-road apps where its more practical to have an easily portable liquid fuel.
US ethanol production will die a quick death because of its very poor EROI (energy return on investment) which is about 1.3 at best. Fast growing algae are a more likely energy crop, given that they can be grown in saline water on otherwise useless land and have a much higher conversion efficiency for sunlight into carbohydrate than any landbased plant. These makes them very fast growing. there may be small contributions from crop wastes, but these will be limited in the future by the need to use composted wastes as soil stabilisers.
All biofuels are much more efficiently used in highly efficient electricity plants, rather than as liquid fuels for car engines.
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Of course, we can use it as food and get Natural Gas at the end to burn. All we need to do is ferment the sewage in big tanks and extract the Methane. That may give us enough energy toremove pollutants making the entire sewage system require Zero Energy from the grid. If the slurry is then used to fertilise fields we'd get a net gain.
This is already done extensively in many countries. But the quantities of gas available is marginal. In the UK where most sewage gas is retrieved, it constitutes 5% of all energy harvested from renewables, which in turn contribute 1% of total primary energy. So thats 0.05% of total primary energy. Anaerobic digestion of all wastes and crop wastes would yield considerably more gas, but the numbers still fall far short of present gas requirements, unless very large proportions of nation's arable land are turned over to producing feedstock. I suspect that the same is true in most other countries.
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False. This is issue is generally poorly understood, even within the scientific community.
Global oil discovery peaked in the 1960s and global crude oil production peaked in 2005. Most of the increases in recent years have come from condensates and natural gas liquids, which are generally located in deep water or are associated with natural gas production. They are more expensive to produce than conventional crude. Total liquids peak may occur as soon as 2010.
Undeveloped reserves are available in the Arctic, off the coast of Brazil, west Siberia, West Africa and Antarctic. But these reserves are far more expensive and difficult to exploit than 'conventional' crude, and are often located in politically difficult areas. New developmnets must meet not only expanding demand, but must replace depleted production from existing oil fields. With each passing year it becomes more and more difficult to achieve that. Eventually, probably very soon, we will witness a peak in total liquids production. This represents the point at which the effects of depletion within existing wells overwhelms our ability to bring new production on stream. At this point, plenty of oil will be left in the ground and the world will still be producing a great deal. But production will decline continuously with each passing year.
We've been finding sources of oil for decades that are "not economically viable" because it would not be profitable to exploit it at the current oil prices. But thanks to genius of Nancy Pelosi in collaborating with the Syrians/Iranians to give them Iraq by sparking a war between Turkey and Iraq, oil is now nearly $100 a barrel, and all those previously unprofitable sources are now a gold mine.
If you combine those even a trickle of new finds, we can get by.
Hydrogen is the least promissing of all alternative fuels. It suffers from a critical efficiency problem that makes it unsuitable as an energy carrier.
The technology that is most promissing for road vehicles in terms of overall energy efficiency and technical practicality is electric, probabaly a combination of battery and flywheel electric power and conductive transfer, via an electrified conduit embedded within the roadway. In the near term, electricity production is likely to come from coal (increasingly in highly efficient combined cycle gassification plants) declining amounts of natural gas and oil (burned in combined cycle plants), stable contributions from hydropower, small increases in other renewables such as wind, wave and solar and stable or slowly increasing contributions from nuclear.
I am very confident that hydrogen powered vehicles will never be a mainstream technology.
Slot cars?
If we all start building our roads like the Autobahn, it might work. But I don't see that happening, we have a hard enough time keeping up with potholes. And you can't base a national Energy/Transportation policy on a patchwork of state and local governments who can't handle potholes. Barring a major shift in US politics thats not likely. Battery-dominate hybrids that charge overnight and get the first 30-40 miles gas free are possible.
Hydrogen is the ONLY power source that can meet both the mobile energy need and the environmental requirement. It is the only clean fuel out there, all others are either not viable for mobile uses or release less, but still release CO2. It does require more energy to produce than it returns, but the production is stationary and open to a host of powerful sources like nuclear and tidal.
US ethanol production will die a quick death because of its very poor EROI (energy return on investment) which is about 1.3 at best. Fast growing algae are a more likely energy crop, given that they can be grown in saline water on otherwise useless land and have a much higher conversion efficiency for sunlight into carbohydrate than any landbased plant. These makes them very fast growing. there may be small contributions from crop wastes, but these will be limited in the future by the need to use composted wastes as soil stabilisers.
All biofuels are much more efficiently used in highly efficient electricity plants, rather than as liquid fuels for car engines.
Algae is oil, it just skips the millions of years in the ground. Whatever reduction in initial CO2 release will eventually be recover as the 3rd world industrializes.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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Actually slot cars would be quite convenient in many cases. The thing you must realize is that not every highway needs to be electrified, just the main ones, interstates mostly. The interstate authority would maintain the electrified highways, and the cars would run on batteries inbetween. I typical traffic pattern is the small roads to highway to small roads. With electrified highways, one can easily travel across the country without stopping to refuel, and an electrified highway can easily be combined with a smart highway, they could propell hybrids also since they also have electric motors for propulsion.
If hybrids become the main sort of vehicle, that would provide economic justification to build electrified highways. People would sit back and let the highways steer their cars and alert them when their exit comes up so they can resume control of their vehicles. Combine GPS, Automatic Driving with a road wire where induced current can propel the electric motor in the car. Leave the highway and either the battery or internal combustion engine takes over. With less gas consumed, there is less demand and the remaing gas on the market sells for a lower price. Alot of attention is on alternate liquid fuels, I wonder how much consideration is made toward electrified smart highways?
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We've been finding sources of oil for decades that are "not economically viable" because it would not be profitable to exploit it at the current oil prices. But thanks to genius of Nancy Pelosi in collaborating with the Syrians/Iranians to give them Iraq by sparking a war between Turkey and Iraq, oil is now nearly $100 a barrel, and all those previously unprofitable sources are now a gold mine.
If you combine those even a trickle of new finds, we can get by.
Yes, we may get by. But the global resource estimates are not calculated on the basis of price. The estimates do in fact include previously uneconomic oil. The fact remains that no matter how advanced our discovery and mining technologies, there is less and less oil to be had with each passing year. Eventually, production will start to decline. New discoveries of oil may delay or cushion that decline, but nothing can change the fact that the total amount of oil is finite and the more that is produced, the less that is left to be produced in the future.
Our problem is this: Oil exists in different grades. The best oil was the light sweet crude from super-giant, land based reserves, mostly in the US. This was the cheapest to extract in terms of money, energy and manpower and also the easiest and cheapest to refine. The cheapest oil was exploited first, simply because it was easier to get at and cheaper to produce. As the demand for oil increased progressively, producing nations were forced to develop more difficult reserves, including smaller land-based wells, then deep water production, then natural gas liquids, polar oil and finally tarsands. The incremental cost of each new barrel of oil increases progressively, not just in money terms but also in terms in the infrastructure, man-power and energy required.
As conventional supergiant fields are increasingly depleted, new production must make up not only incraesing demand but also the declining output from the cheaper supergiants. The marginal cost of each new barrel of oil increases progressively, until eventually, it becomes impossible for new production to make up for depletion in mature regions. At this point, total production begins to decline. This is commonly known as peak oil and it is not a theoretical occurance. It happened in the US in 1971, the UK in 1999, Norway in 2000. Of the sixty or so lareg produceing nations, approximately two-thirds are either at peak or beyond it. Global production is simply the sum of all production from all regions. So a global peak within the next 10 years is virtually inevitable
This will happen on a global level within the next ten years, possibly before 2010.
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I wish there was just one reason for the price of Oil to be rising but there just is not. Like all economic factors there are things that are playing off with each other to end up with the rise in prices.
Some examples. Oil production is rising but very very slowly as improved production methods are pushed out further afield but the rise is no where near as much as the rise in demand. China and India are examples of where this new demand is going. But there is also us in the west with the removing of old nuclear power plants having replaced them for what where cheaper then hydrocarbon burning plants.
Oil prices are rising in dollars simply down to the fact the US economy is weak at the moment and the actual purchasing power of a dollar is not so good.
Speculators have bought a lot of Oil futures and people wanting to get Oil have to pay the increased fees that these speculators want.
And of course there is all the political trouble in the middle east as well as in Nigeria and with some recent nasty accidents and the need of the big Oil companies to switch off refineries just so they can be refitted (After Katrina the oil refineries of the world have been going at 97 to 99% peak capacity and have not had a break. Now wear and tear is showing and shear necessity is having major refineries to switch off and get refitted).
A lot of these issues are long term issues and we will have to just accept that Oil will become increasingly more expensive and since we use it for everything from Plastics to medicine to fertiliser to insect spray we are just going to have to keep paying. Time to find something else to burn in the tank the Oil is just to important for the rest of what we need it for.
Chan eil mi aig a bheil ùidh ann an gleidheadh an status quo; Tha mi airson cur às e.
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High oil prices is good news in the long run, the market will find alternatives if the government stays out of the way and doesn't try to find a solution and impose it on people.
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High oil prices is good news in the long run, the market will find alternatives if the government stays out of the way and doesn't try to find a solution and impose it on people.
Not if it prevents the average consumer from making the expensive transition to said alternatives.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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Of course if congress continues to pull idiotic legislation out of its pie hole, the only reason carbon emissions will drop is cause people won't have cars.
Congress close to raising fuel economy standards
Aside from the simple fact that fuel economy is largely a function of weight and aerodynamics, there isn't a whole lot more that can be done without further compromising safety and durability.
And this insane fascination with ethanol will be the end of us, plain and simple. It's food or fuel, not both.
"Yes, I was going to give this astronaut selection my best shot, I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses."
---Shuttle Astronaut Mike Mullane
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There are already hybrids on the road, my brother has one. I think that is a trend. Combine hybrids with Ethenol 85 and electric highways that power the cars that drive on them and we can eliminate our dependence on imported oil entirely. And that 15% gasoline we add to our Ethenol, we can get that from coal, shale, or tar sands. Ethenol can be obtained from grass, we just need to come up with an efficient way to break it down. I think hybrids are the wave of the future.
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Tom, here's an idea. Build a working model of an electric highway, patent it, and start making money from it.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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They already have, but its been put on a shelf. I saw it on TV a few years back, maybe even 10. We got all the technology to make it work, GPS Navigation systems, autonomous driving systems, electric rail roads, smarth highway systems, its just a matter of building it, and highway departments are reluctant because its different and also because they lacked the electric cars, and there was a question of how such cars would drive off the highway? And how do we electrify every single road at once or use certain cars for electric highways and other cars for off the highway, but with the commerical sale of many electric-hybrid vehicles, we have that part of the puzzle already solved, now all we have to do is get the highway departments to agree to build these highways, basically by modifying existing highways. I don't see how this would be so terribly expensive, we've already tested autonomous vehicles out in the open, how much easier would it be to have autonomous vehicles on a smart highway, and power hybrids is just one additional step.
The main reason I don't build such a system is that I'm not rich, can't afford the cement trucks, the cement, putting in rails, sensors, buying a hydrid car and modifying it to take current from the roadway, and also my backyard isn't big enough.
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http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/02/markets/oil/
Oil prices kicked off the first trading day of 2008 by hitting a new high of $100 a barrel Wednesday on violence in oil-rich Nigeria, the prospect of more interest rate cuts, a halt in Mexican imports and the expectation of yet another drop in U.S. crude supplies.
U.S. crude for February delivery jumped $4.02 to $100 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The previous trading record was $99.29 set Nov. 20. Oil prices ended 2007 by gaining nearly 60 percent for the year, the largest jump this decade.
"This market is really gonna fly," Ira Eckstein, president of Area International Trading Corp, said from the NYMEX floor.
In Nigeria, bands of armed men invaded Port Harcourt, the center the oil industry Tuesday, attacking two police stations and raiding the lobby of a major hotel, The Associated Press reported. Four policemen, three civilians and six attackers were killed. The Niger Delta Vigilante Movement claimed responsibility for the attack.
A surprise fall in manufacturing activity sparked fears of yet another interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve. Interest rate cuts generally cause the dollar to fall - and oil prices rise - as investors bail out of U.S. equities and into commodities.
One trader said all oil exports from Mexico will be halted Friday, but the reason was unclear.
Analysts are expecting the latest government inventory report - set for release Thursday, to show a 1.8 million barrel decline in crude supplies, according to a Dow Jones poll. It would mark the seventh straight week U.S. crude stocks have dropped.
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1. Skip the hybird and get a motorcyle. They're fairly cheap used and you can get a hybrid or a normal car (normal car + motorcyle probably price competitive with the hybrid alone) for when you need to carry something or when there's bad whether. Motorcyle plus whatever for most people will average out to higher mpg than a hybrid alone if you use the motorcycle when possible.
2. Require all lawnmowers, weedeaters, atvs, and the like sold after say 5 years from now be electric with the ability to recharge from your standard 120V outlet. They're light enough that you'd get substantial battery life without recharge out of one. This would probably be more than a person would use them at one time anyways. I don't know if it'd save much money, but I've always thought it wierd folks focus on getting electric cars when we could make all these normally gas powered things elctric while maintaining a significant operating time on one full charge.
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Some guy's built a motorbike dragster that runs on electric and can go for a reasonable length of time on one charge.
Holly leaves contain natural petroleum. Now if there's a way to extract it...
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Gold futures soar to record on weak dollar, inflation fears
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jND4 … gD8V3G0500
Gold prices trekked higher Thursday, touching a record $970 an ounce as an inflationary combination of high oil prices and a falling dollar pointed investors to the relative safety of precious metals.Other commodities traded mixed, with silver extending its highest gains since 1980 and wheat futures retreating further from record territory.
Soaring oil prices, a weak dollar and growing worries that the U.S. economy is sliding into a recession have fed investor appetite for gold, which traditionally is seen as a safe haven from inflation and economic uncertainty because it's known for holding its value. Gold rose nearly 32 percent in 2007 and has gained more than 13 percent so far this year.
Also weighing on investors were comments Thursday by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who told Congress in a second day of testimony that rising inflation was complicating the central bank's job. Bernanke hued to his message that the Fed stands ready to lower its benchmark interest rate to boost the economy, putting further pressure on the dollar and boosting the allure of precious metals.
"You have an almost perfect storm for a bull market in precious metals," said Michael Gross, analyst with OptionSellers.com. "Bernanke's on television and he's pretty much saying the Fed is going to continue to cut rates, and that's really pressuring the dollar and fueling the bullish fire for gold and silver."
Lower interest rates can boost the economy but tend to depress the dollar, encouraging investors to shift funds into hard assets like precious metals and other commodities.
Gold for April delivery added $5.70 to fetch $966.70 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after earlier touching an all-time high of $970 an ounce.
Other precious metals also rose. Silver for March delivery added 49 cents to $19.70 an ounce after rising to a 28-year high of $19.845. Nymex copper surged to a record $3.8965 a pound before easing back to $3.87 a pound, still up 3.2 cents.
The dollar's steep decline against the 15-nation euro has been a major driver behind gold's advance from less than $650 an ounce in January 2007. The dollar traded lower Thursday versus the euro, which fetched $1.5197.
The falling dollar has also given a boost to crude prices, which rebounded Thursday as the prospect of lower interest rates brought an influx of fresh investment capital to the oil market.
Light, sweet crude for April delivery rose $2.56 to $102.20 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange after rising to a new record of $102.35.
Other energy futures also rose Thursday. March gasoline futures added 0.27 cent to $2.4804 a gallon, while March heating oil futures rose 4.71 cents to $2.8182.
In agriculture markets, wheat futures plummeted in an erratic session, falling further from record-highs reached in recent days.
Wheat for May delivery dropped 73.5 cents to $11.765 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade, after earlier rising as high as $12.45 a bushel. Wheat hit an all-time high of $13.495 a bushel on Wednesday.
Other agriculture futures rose Thursday, with soybeans breaching the $15 a bushel mark for the first time. Soybeans for May delivery jumped 25.25 cents to fetch $15.005 a bushel on the CBOT, after earlier hitting a record $15.06 a bushel.
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i17 … yUoB_iXr1w
The dollar plunged Wednesday to another record euro low thanks to a stream of negative US data, while the tumbling greenback helped crude il and gold prices hit historic highs, analysts said.The US currency also slid ahead of US Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke's testimony before Congress later Wednesday, when he is expected to signal further rate cuts to try to prevent a recession in the world's largest economy.
In early European deals, the euro touched a record 1.5088 dollars, after smashing through the 1.50 barrier for the first ever time on Tuesday. It later stood at 1.5048 dollars, from 1.4979 dollars in New York late on Tuesday.
Against the Japanese currency, the dollar fell to 106.41 yen from 107.24.
In commodity markets, renewed US currency weakness sent gold prices surging to a record peak of 964.99 dollars per ounce, while New York crude oil hit an all-time pinnacle of 102.08 dollars a barrel.
The weak US currency boosts prices of dollar-denominated raw materials because it makes them cheaper for buyers using stronger currencies, which tends to encourage demand, traders said.
"The euro is trading above 1.50 against the dollar for the first time since the eurozone came into existence in January 1999," said Global Insight economist Howard Archer.
"This is primarily a consequence of the dollar being undermined by further weak US data heightening concerns over the US economy and reinforcing expectations of additional interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve."
Analysts said the euro was boosted by the prospect of favourable interest rate differentials between the eurozone and the United States.
Speculators generally prefer to invest or hold currencies in countries where interest rates are rising or expected to rise in the hope they can increase their potential returns.
Soaring oil prices have diverted petro-dollar revenues into the strengthening European single currency, according to ABN Amro analyst Melinda Smith.
"In addition to the fresh widening in interest rate differentials, one of the key drivers of this move appears to be the surge of oil prices as petro-dollars are channelled into the euro," Smith said.
On Tuesday, the euro had blasted past its previous record peak of 1.4967 dollars that was set on November 23, 2007, to reach as high as 1.5047 dollars.
The single currency got a boost from a better-than-expected German business indicator, which stood out amid a series of lacklustre US reports.
The Conference Board private research group of the United States said its consumer confidence index dived to 75.0 in February from 87.3 in January, when it had also fallen.
US wholesale inflation meanwhile hit a stronger-than-expected 1.0 percent in January due to rising food and energy prices. Stock markets fear that growing price pressures will limit the scope for further aggressive US interest rate cuts.
This year, the dollar has lost considerable ground against the euro amid a US housing slump and a credit crunch sweeping financial markets.
In Europe on Wednesday, the euro changed hands at 1.5048 dollars against 1.4976 late on Tuesday, at 160.12 yen (160.60), 0.7572 pounds (0.7538) and 1.6086 Swiss francs (1.6104).
The dollar stood at 106.41 yen (107.24) and 1.0688 Swiss francs (1.0752).
The pound was at 1.9895 dollars (1.9867).
Later Wednesday on the London Bullion Market, the price of gold stood at 959.73 dollars an ounce from 937.75 dollars late on Tuesday.
'first steps are not for cheap, think about it...
did China build a great Wall in a day ?' ( Y L R newmars forum member )
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I'd quote the bible about economic boom and collapse but I can't be botheed to get it and find the verse.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Just for kicks I'll rez this. OP suggests oil at $90 is bad.
Oil at $126 today. Analysts suggest $200 plus possible. National average of $4/gallon by summer is expected.
Those figures might seem quaint within a year so this thread might have some historical comedy value.
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I remember the fuss made by Americans when Oil reached $60 dollars. There was also a huge panic when it reached about £77 during the failed Israeli invasion of Lebanon. This is really funny for someone like me but it's not for people in poor countries and developed countries like USA who are suffering.
I just hope they don't blame OPEC. OPEC said a long time ago that they think the perfect price is $60 dollars. It's OPEC who have stopped the US dollar from collapsing. If anybody is to be blamed. Blame it on the idiots in the City of London and New York who are speculating.
"...all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by."
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As with any commodity, the price of oil is set by the demand and supply. There has been increasing demand from China and India in the last few years and generally throughout the world. As the price of oil is traded in dollars, the falling value of the dollar has also increased the trading price. Increasing price will stimulate more production and less use, and the price will fall again.
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As with any commodity, the price of oil is set by the demand and supply. There has been increasing demand from China and India in the last few years and generally throughout the world. As the price of oil is traded in dollars, the falling value of the dollar has also increased the trading price. Increasing price will stimulate more production and less use, and the price will fall again.
Thats not everything to the oil prices. Have you ever noticed when something happens near an oil producing nation prices always jump? When Israel invaded Lebanon prices jumped. Despite the fact that neither countries produced any oil. When an Iranian ship had an exchange with an American ship the prices jumped. When Nigerian militants attacked pipelines prices. Prices jumped. It's those nervous speculators who see doom and gloom in everything that happens.
"...all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by."
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