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kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,859

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

SpaceNut,

Yes.  President Biden preventing exploratory drilling activities on public lands, canceling other domestic drilling permits, the Saudis and Russians selling their oil below what it actually costs them to produce so domestic shale oil sources can't compete, and de-facto mandating the use of trains to carry crude oil to market by holding up the Keystone XL pipeline, because Warren Buffet is a Democrat Party donor with a major stake in BNSF (the company that owns nearly all of the tanker cars that currently carry that oil to the refinery) tends to have that effect on prices.  This is what you voted for if you voted for President Biden.  Our government is not actually stopping the production of oil and gas resources, they're merely pricing people like you and I out of the market.

People like Secretary Kerry still need to fly their private jets and drive everywhere in their private limousines to pontificate about the dangers of climate change to the rest of the unwashed, unclean masses.  This has only ever been about making the rich richer and the poor poorer.  You only had to actually listen to what Bloomberg said to know that.  He thinks he knows how to spend your money better than you do, and thinks you should be poorer so he can be richer.  Unfortunately for the rest of us, he's not the only one who thinks that way.  You ignore these people at your own peril.  If they say they're going to do something particularly outrageous, then you'd be well-advised to believe them.  They'll lie to your face to get you to vote for them, but they don't care about you, never have, and never will.  So long as you keep voting for them, they'll keep doing what they're doing, because there's no incentive for them to consider what they're doing to anyone else.  All those union oil workers in Pennsylvania who are now out of a job are now "believers".

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

https://www.thefinancialphilosopher.com … mpact.html

supply and demand when the price of oil is dropping then the cost of gas should be doing the same....

https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidblack … 7a324e332f

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/24/98089443 … t-3-months

the real issue is the suppliers of the oil are restricting production to drive prices up....

https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/05/08 … s-1071247/

Which has little to do with keystone not being finished as they have not sent any oil out the end which was being completed before the rise or stop of the pipes build....

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,859

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

SpaceNut,

There's basically no drilling going on in North America now, because we can't compete on price with oil from Saudi Arabia and Russia.  That had the effect of removing domestic competition.  If you can't sell a product at a competitive price, then you go out of business.  It's as simple as that, and always has been.  The entire reason we were building the Keystone XL pipeline was to mix heavier Canadian crude with the light sweet crude shale oil, in order to get every cut of product needed.  Well, guess what?  Shipping oil by rail is more expensive than shipping it by pipeline, the existing pipelines are already running at capacity, and the demand keeps going up.  If the supply can't increase to meet demand, then prices must go up, or you run out of product.

In the real world, if you prevent a pipeline from shipping less expensive crude oil to your refineries, then you get more expensive crude oil delivered by rail car.

In the real world, if you allow foreign price manipulators to sell their oil below what it actually cost them to produce it, then your own domestic oil production shuts down because their product is artificially more expensive, and afterwards those same foreign price manipulators are free to increase the price of their product because there's no longer any domestic competition.  The remaining suppliers of oil are adjusting their prices to make up for the fact that they can't stay in business without turning a profit, because that's how business works.

In the real world, if the government prohibits drilling for more oil, then you have no more oil.

That pipeline on the east coast was delivering 100 million gallons of product PER DAY.

Stop trying to use belief and ideology to explain away government restrictions or prohibitions and foreign price manipulation.  Certain decisions have serious long term consequences, whether you thought them through ahead of time or not.

This is the exact same problem that relying on foreign chip fabs on the other side of the world produces.  If you need the chips, then you're at the mercy of your foreign suppliers.

You realize that the exact same situation exists with metals and batteries, don't you?

What magic do you think applies to oil production that doesn't apply to other industries?

Restricting or shutting down domestic energy production is ultimately akin to shooting yourself in the foot.

If that hurts, then as a wise doctor once said, "DON'T DO THAT!"

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,797

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Some interesting articles that give a slightly different perspective on the problem of energy costs.  The thing that is going to crush energy production in the years ahead, if that prices cannot rise high enough to make oil production profitable, without triggering economic contraction.  This is the pincer movement that may ultimately lead to economic collapse.  The systems that enable us to generate wealth have baked in embodied energy, mantainance costs and energy needs in operation.  Energy prices cannot rise very far, before products and services made using this infrastructure become unaffordable.  As ECoE gradually rises as ERoEI declines, we approach the point where it becomes impossible to even maintain critical systems like road, water and power infrastructure.  When that point is reached and debt can no longer be used to kick the can down the road, there occurs a rapid reduction in complexity, population and living standards, otherwise known as collapse.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-Gene … About.html
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpres … /#comments
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpres … -ideology/
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2021 … rstanding/

Last edited by Calliban (2021-05-09 07:45:39)

---

"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,859

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

SpaceNut,

The only way it's not possible to understand what's going on is through a combination of ideology mixed with magical thinking.

The ideological left in America was all in favor of destroying our domestic energy production when COVID-19 hit, foreign price manipulators provided the external force to facilitate their goal, and now they're crying foul when there's no more domestic competition as those same foreign price manipulators raise the price of their product to cover their losses incurred while they were in the process of destroying their competition.  The Chinese did the exact same thing to the US steel industry.  Immediately after the American steel industry was destroyed, the Chinese tripled the price of steel.  Who could've predicted that?  Ditto domestic rare Earth mining.  Ditto solar panel and battery production.  This is what ALWAYS happens when short-term "feel good" thinkers are allowed to dictate policy that they don't care to understand, which has strategic consequences.  I recall all their arguments about subsidies for the oil industry- "if they can't compete, then they should go out of business" or "they're getting what they deserve because they're mismanaged" and all sorts of other related nonsense.  None of that was true, but it didn't stop such objectively false claims from being made.  Here in America, we don't implement the same protectionist policies that other countries use to discourage foreign price manipulators from dumping products below what it cost to produce them.  They thought that watching their fellow Americans lose their jobs was hilarious.  That old proverb that states "When you go looking for revenge, first dig two graves, one for your enemy and one for yourself.", still holds true.

Higher prices is always where this kind of sophomoric thinking ends.  Your own fellow Americans working in the oil industry no longer have jobs, you get to pay twice what you were paying at the pump because foreign oil is objectively more expensive to deliver than domestic oil, and there is no drilling equipment to put back into service because those assets were sold off or redistributed to other parts of the world where business and consumer needs override ideologically-held beliefs.

They're drilling for oil in Saudi Arabia and Russia like there's no tomorrow.  Those "evil" Russians sell oil and gas to anyone who has money, to include the United States, despite all the sanctions we've placed upon them, because for them it's about sustaining their own economy and keeping their people off the streets, not rubbing anyone else's nose in their ideology.

We objectively don't have the quantities of wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries capable of switching away from fossil fuels, nor do we have the raw resources or excess energy to manufacture the quantities of those devices that would be required to achieve that goal.  Spending more money on something that requires 2 or 3 complete power plants to make it work acceptably well, and then doing that several times over the average lifespan of a nuclear power plant, is a waste of both money and irreplaceable (at any cost) time.  How was anyone able to convince so many people that building a wind turbine farm and a photovoltaic farm and a battery buffer and a gas turbine power plant could ever be any cheaper than building a single nuclear power plant?  Penny-wise, pound-foolish, just a bit?  You know as well as I do that none of these wind and solar schemes have actually decreased energy consumption at all, except by pricing poor people out of the energy market, because it takes energy to make new things, and when you need 1 to 2 orders of magnitude more energy to make one power generation scheme work vs another, you're fighting a losing battle.  The natural resource deniers are correct when they say that we'll never run out of Sun or wind, but we will certainly run out of raw materials to make solar panels long before the Sun runs out of Hydrogen to fuse, unless something fundamentally more efficient and easier to recycle than Gallium Arsenide comes along.  Current thin film technology relies upon an element that's 5 times less abundant than Platinum, so that's clearly impractical to impossible at a global scale.

We presently lack the ability to recycle photovoltaics and batteries that are now layer cakes of human hair thin coatings of electro-sprayed materials, all sandwiched together, that must be chemically separated in order to turn them into new photovoltaics and batteries.  That is one of several real engineering reason why everything isn't powered by wind / solar / batteries.  It's not possible to achieve anything approaching the energy density of a fossil fuel power, never mind nuclear power, and nothing in the labs will approach that kind of energy density within our lifetimes, unless AI-magic happens.  Thus far, no AI-magic has happened.  It's almost as if the universe itself is telling us that chemical reactions between Oxygen and Hydrogen-bearing chemicals release an order of magnitude more energy output per unit weight than an equivalent weight of electro-chemical cells of any kind, so if we want "power forever", then converting water and CO2 into new hydrocarbon fuels is a part of our "future path to sustainability".  We should invest in the technology to capture CO2, either from the atmosphere or the tailpipe, so we can re-use that CO2 to produce new hydrocarbon fuels.

Carbon Dioxide Capture From Internal Combustion Engine Exhaust Using Temperature Swing Adsorption

We can at least do CO2 capture with trucks and power plants, and possibly ships as well.  As the technology matures, it could be applied to passenger vehicles as well, especially if they're equipped with small high-output engines.  If we're going to continue with wind and solar power, then we may as well use intermittent power to drive the fans that pull CO2 out of the air at dusk and dawn, when the wind blows the most.  Far less power conversion infrastructure is required to make that work, assuming the wind turbines or solar thermal power plant and CO2 capture plant are co-located.

Calliban,

The cost of producing a barrel of shale oil from domestic sources ranged between $40 to $45 per barrel prior to the price manipulation prior to COVID.  That's essentially $1 per gallon of product.  At that price point, our domestic oil industry was profitable.  It was, in point of fact, cheaper than importing foreign oil.  Not that preaching to the choir will help, but pumping oil via pipelines is also the most cost effective way of transporting the product to the refineries, for mere pennies per gallon delivered.  That's why the US has so many pipelines.  It's the safest (least environmentally damaging), cheapest (a synonym for "least energy intensive", in this case) way to move the crude from the oil fields to the refineries to the distribution centers.  The "last mile" is taken care of by tanker trucks because we have so many roadways here in America.

Anyway, most this "austerity ideology" is another failed idea.  It hasn't worked for the British or the Europeans and it won't work here in America, either.  Austerity measures never improve quality of life, and frequently diminish quality of life.  There is no shortage of energy that is not self-inflicted.

It never ceases to amaze me how little the average person can comprehend simple economic principles.  If you stop producing steel, then foreign countries that don't stop producing steel get to dictate the price of steel to you.  If you stop producing energy, then foreign countries get to dictate the price of energy to you.  If that's not what you want, then have the local government disallow all penny-wise, pound-foolish corporate decision making by incentivizing them to produce and employ locally, using the same domestic market protection measures that countries like China use to prevent foreign competitors from taking over their local production capabilities.  Globalization is what has actually failed.  It failed for a very simple reason- the economic interests of other countries don't lie with their foreign competitors.  All of us need to get that part of simple economics correct.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Ah the american companies that do not make anything in the US any longer...
We buy products since the companies left
10 iconic US companies that have left America

11 American companies that are no longer American

30 Iconic U.S. Brands That Aren't Made in America

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,797

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Kbd512, the link below contains a chart that gives the price ranges needed to maintain positive cash flow for oil production in different regions for different resources.

https://www.thedividendguyblog.com/the- … -industry/

Saudi Arabia has the huge onshore resources that aren't too deep and are cheap to produce, though somewhat sour (high sulphur).  Its production costs are beneath $10/barrel, but its economy is so dependant on oil revenue that it cannot function long term with oil prices lower than about $100/barrel.  As Saudi Arabia's own population has grown and its oil demand has increased, its oil exports have stagnated and are about the same today as they were in 1970.
http://crudeoilpeak.info/saudi-arabias- … ble-future

The US onshore up until the 1980s, had the best resources in the world - shallow, light and sweet and close to the world's largest consuming market.

As depletion progresses, new oil production must be met by resources that are increasingly difficult and expensive to extract.  On the American continent, production has shifted towards tight oil (shale) and oil sands.  In Europe, the UK North Sea is now the most expensive producing region in the world.  The large supergiant offshore fields are now a thing of the past and that expensive offshore infrastructure is now deployed accessing deposits that would never have been considered for development in the 1990s.  The Russians are eying Arctic oil, as their mainland production approaches peak.  But the costs of operating in the polar offshore are formidable.  Chinese production peaked several years ago.  Their efforts now focus on shale and offshore, although their shale deposits are more heterogeneous and even more difficult to extract than those of the US.  Remember as well, that this is the cost situation with developed world interest rates all beneath inflation.  What would shale and Arctic oil cost in a normal interest rate environment?

Your proposal to manufacture synthetic fuels from compressed CO2 is plausible, but to produce fuel at an equivalent cost of $40/barrel, which appears to be the limit of tolerability for Western economies, requires that input energy cannot exceed $0.01/kWh.  That is possible, but technically very challenging.  Zero interest rates have made wind and solar power appear artificially cheap, with prices as low as $0.02/kWh.  But this is not at all sustainable in the long term.  Series production of modular high temperature reactors are probably the only sustainable option.  Louis's suggestion of direct electrification of transportation is less of a technical stretch, because there are far fewer exergy losses in direct electrification than in converting electric or high grade thermal power into chemical fuel and then back into mechanical power again.  But capital costs are high, at a time when the world is already in debt.  Hybrid vehicles provide relatively simple options for reducing fuel consumption of cars and light trucks.  For heavy trucks, the gains are less impressive, because range between stops is a linear function of fuel energy density.

In theory, there are many options available that could reduce societal costs going forward, but they either require high capital costs (new rail, roadway electrification, hydraulic pipeline transportation) or they offer inferior performance compared to what they are replacing (gaseous hydrogen for trucks, battery-electric power), etc.  The solid oxide fuel cell would appear to me to be a very promising option for long-distance haulage, because it offers clear efficiency advantages over a diesel engine and the time and energy required to heat the fuel cell is more tolerable over long distance journeys.  But a SOFC is requires very low sulphur fuel.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-05-10 03:23:15)

---

"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Not a surprise but the cost of fuel tonight is $2.99 a gallon...and I am sure its going to go up or be out in a few days at some places....

As the IT departments get into gear and replace just about all computer systems.

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,859

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

SpaceNut,

Do you guys still have gas where you live?

If there's a shortage now, then it may be time to fill up the tank so you can get to work, unless you're close enough to bike to work.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

35 miles one way, mostly highway is not bike possible without it being an ebike but we will see prices rise some more while gas supplies continue to dry up for sure.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,444

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

For SpaceNut re eBike ... this is ** way ** off topic, but I'm picking up on your reference to eBikes ... Harley Davidson apparently has selected a third party brand ? LiveWire? for their lineup of vehicles.

I would expect a 200 mile range for a vehicle with the HD brand, but haven't looked at the specs yet.

Also ... branching further from the topic ... I saw a brief report about a little 1 person e-Trike car that is to be manufactured in the United States ... the company is planning to hire 500 people.  I wonder what success they'll have.  The three wheeled vehicle has been attempted before, but (I'm pretty sure) none have survived the shakeout in the marketplace.

This topic goes back all the way to: 2005-08-22 16:16:40

It ** really ** ** is ** about the price of gasoline.

If eVehicles have a "price per gallon" equivalent, I suppose stating their prices might allow them to fit into this topic.

Asking Google for help:

About 11,000,000 results (0.93 seconds)

The True Cost of Powering an Electric Car | Edmundshttps://www.edmunds.com › Research
The New MPG: Kilowatt-Hours Per 100 Miles. When you're shopping for a gasoline-powered car, you pay attention to how many miles per gallon it gets. For plug- ...

and further on in the results ...

Comparing Energy Costs per Mile for Electric and Gasoline ...https://avt.inl.gov › default › files › pdf › fsev › c...PDF
The energy cost per mile is also included for a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) with an energy efficiency of 45 miles per gallon, as these types of vehicles are increasingly being used. If $3.50 per gallon of gasoline is also assumed for the HEV that gets 45 mpg, the energy cost per mile would be 7.8 cents per mile.

The government report at the link below includes a chart comparing costs:
https://avt.inl.gov/sites/default/files … /costs.pdf

EV's appear to come out way ahead in all categories.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-05-11 20:29:52)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

We should not be seeing this reaction in CA as this fuel does not head west... A 5-hour line: Southeast gas prices surge after that pipeline hack, but L.A.'s not immune

Regular gasoline cost an average of 2.99 a gallon nationwide, up 7 cents in the last week, and $4.16 in Los Angeles County, up 8.25 cents, according to fuel tracker GasBuddy.com.

wow... makes you just not want to commute to work when its that high....

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,797

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Interesting blog, that highlights a problem (and potential opportunity) with US shale production.
https://www.oilystuffblog.com/forum/for … ng-lighter

Production is increasingly dominated by lighter fractions, things like butane and propane.  These are presently low in value, because very few vehicles are modified to burn LPG.  However, it is possible to modify both spark ignition and compression ignition engines to burn LPG.  Propane is a liquid at a pressure of 9bar(a) at room temperature, so the vehicle fuel tank needs to be pressure rated, which can be a complication.  However, because of the differences in boiling point and density, it is much easier to remove sulphur contaminants from LPG than it would be from diesel.  This makes it a more suitable fuel for solid oxide fuel cells.  As KBD512 has explained, these are up to twice as efficient as diesel engines.

SOFC work at very high temperatures and there are limits to heating rate in order to avoid thermal gradients that could damage ceramic electrolytes.  For these reasons, they probably aren't suitable replacements for IC engines in small vehicles.  But for long-distance heavy haulage trucks, trains, ships and electric aeroplanes, all of which require steady power input of 100 - 100,000kW for long periods, SOFC burning LPG would be an excellent fuel.  Volumetric ED is about 3/4 that of jet fuel, though mass energy density is 50% greater.  So an LPG powered aeroplane would have greater range, or greater payload fraction, or both.  If the LPG is chilled, then pressure tanks may not be needed.

LPG could be burned in ordinary jet engines and could also be burned in marine diesel engines with some modifications.  So this is definitely an option for mitigating fuel shortages if the world is facing imminent declines in availability of diesel fuel.

Other options for powering marine engines are biomass, which could be preburned in a gasification burner, scrubbed of particulates and then burned in marine diesel engines.  This is not an ideal option, as it means adapting ships to burn solid fuels with only half the energy density of diesel and fitting them with gasification burners.  But biomass can be found on any continent.  Any woody materials can be shredded into chips or compressed into pellets and used to fuel ships and maybe even trucks and trains in the future.  If the world faces imminent liquid fuel shortages and limited money is available to mitigate the problem, biomass gasification burners coupled to diesel engines, are a way of keeping things running by modifying existing systems.  The solution is somewhat cumbersome and will probably be labour intensive.  But I believe we may be heading for times in which the world increasingly resembles something out of Charlton Heston's Soylent Green.  Shortages of everything and not enough money for preferred idealistic solutions.  Let's hope I'm wrong about that.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-05-12 15:28:42)

---

"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Either they paid or got new systems built to get the oil flowing

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,444

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

SpaceNut ... the news reports I've seen indicate the company refused to pay

My guess is that people were assigned to visit all the control rooms along the line to bring equipment back online with telephone communication.  It will be interesting to find out if that might be close to the case.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Its not the only oil or gas pipeline in the US

This is silly and unsafe Gasoline in plastic bags? Panic buying after Colonial Pipeline cyberattack won't solve the problem, experts say.

not smart

Still operating Upper Midwestern oil pipeline continued operating Wednesday, despite a shutdown demand from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, ordered Line 5 closed last November because of the potential for a spill in a channel linking two of the Great Lakes. As her May 12 deadline arrived, Canadian pipeline company Enbridge said only the federal government has regulatory authority over its operations.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,444

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

For SpaceNut re #216

The last quote you provided in #216 presents an interesting question of sovereignty - In the American system, States of the United States retain all powers not exclusively granted to the federal government, so the assertion of the Canadian company sets up a potential confrontation.

The State of Michigan could seize the pipeline and wait for the courts to decide if they have the authority to do that or not.  The current federal government is unlikely to intervene on behalf of a company that is placing millions of people in the United States at risk, to make a (Canadian) buck.  The partners in the enterprise are (it is my impression) American companies that are processing the oil for sale over seas.

It (sounds) to me like a pretty typical Capitalist enterprise, which takes risks that must be borne by innocent bystanders while pocketing the profits for themselves and their friends.

I just confirmed we are in Chat... Regarding the plastic bags .... The picture shown in Post #216 shows all approved gasoline containers, except for ** one ** blue one that ** should ** be for water (at least according to the standards in the State where I live).

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-05-13 05:42:10)

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,859

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

tahanson43206,

If the State of Michigan does something illegal, then the tax payers of Michigan get to pay for their government's over-reach.  That has happened before to Michigan, and recently, because of Governor Whitmer.  Governor Whitmer doesn't get to make up the law as she sees fit.  The Canadian company happens to be correct in their assertion that federal laws dictate the terms of international commerce.  That's what Supreme Court rulings assert.

There's a risk to everyone at all times, irrespective of whether or not those evil capitalists make money for their employees and enrich the lives of their customers, many of whom happen to be Americans.  The question is whether or not the risk is excessive.  I take it that nobody died as a result of that oil spill.  Your assertion that a "Canadian dollar" is being made is misleading, as there are tens of millions of Americans in the area who benefit from the flow of natural gas and crude oil to American refineries.

The alternative is that the natural gas and crude oil are shipped to refineries using more expensive and more environmentally damaging means, such as rail cars.  Either way, the crude is going to the refineries.  If you value low prices and minimizing environmental damage, then a pipeline is the best way to do that.

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,444

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

For kbd512 re pipelines in general ...

You are welcome to take as much risk as you feel you can afford.

I think the issue here is that someone (I'm not sure exactly who is this case) is more than happy to impose risk on others without taking any risk themselves.

In socialist countries that behavior is carried out (in general) by socialists.

In capitalist countries that behavior is carried out (again, in general) by capitalists.

I am not quite sure from reading your posts where you stand on this subtle point.

If you are planning to impose risk on me, then I ** should ** be entitled to object.

It ** sounds ** as though your interpretation of "majority rule" is such that if the majority of a body politic wants to impose risk upon those who have nothing to do with the benefits of an enterprise, then "so be it".

However, I could be mistaken in supposing that is your position.

Edit#1: This is not a theoretical discussion ... right now people are losing their lives and property in a difference of opinion about who can live where.  As a rule of thumb, Might Makes Right.  It is only in a few times in human history when those with power have abstained from using it to crush weaker parties. 

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2021-05-13 10:34:55)

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,797

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Pipelines are the cheapest way of shifting any bulk fluid, at low velocity, provided you are shifting enough to meet minimum scale economies.  Very low labour costs and low energy costs as well.  It makes me wonder why we don't move other things by pipeline as well.  Solid goods could be moved in floating torpedo capsules.  All the benefits of a canal without the labour cost of canal boats.  Propulsive power can be provided by moving the water in the pipeline.  Capsules would be carried along with the flow.  Flow resistance scales with the square of velocity.  The pipeline can be powered by grid electricity, so no need for synthetic fuels.  Use the pipeline to transport goods to regional hubs and then short range stored energy vehicles to devilver them from the hub to local area and vise versa.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-05-13 10:37:31)

---

"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,859

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

tahanson43206,

Everything you do in life, including nothing at all, can be construed as a risk to other people.  There's no end to that line of thinking.  The fact of the matter is that millions of Americans benefit from Canadian crude oil imports.  That is an objective fact.  There's also nothing, at present, to replace the energy that the natural gas and crude oil provides, which is also an objective fact.  There is no reward in life without risk, either, so taking risks is part of life.  You do what you think you can to mitigate the risks and move on from there.

kbd512

Administrator

Registered: 2015-01-02

Posts: 7,859

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Calliban,

To your point, pipelines could be used to pump sea water to deserts so solar thermal power plants could produce fresh water for agriculture or to replenish badly depleted aquifers such as the Ogalala Aquifer that supplies the heartland of America, and food products or small parcels could likewise be shipped to distribution points using your proposed "torpedo capsules", negating some of the need for long haul trucking or shipping or railways, drastically reducing fuel consumption of any kind, while preempting the energy that would otherwise be consumed by shipping such products by ship, truck, or rail.  We could use plain old galvanized steel and de-ionized water to provide the transport fluid.  Overall, pipelines are the cheapest form of shipping available.  We could extend our fuel supplies by decades by implementing hybrids and pipelines for everything we can.

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,797

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Kbd, indeed.  One wonders why both such options are not given more attention.

Desalination technology appears to be increasingly dominated by osmotic membrane technologies.  However, boiling water can make use of low grade heat, especially if a slight vacuum is applied to the boiler.  In desert areas, evacuated tube panels can raise temperatures of 60°C.  At this temperature, water boils at 20KPa.  Once the vacuum is established, only a modest amount of vacuum pumping would be required to remove entrained air which gases off from fresh feed water.  The vacuum would mostly be maintained by the condenser.  I wonder in fact if a low pressure steam turbine could be placed between the boiler and the condenser.

There is the question of what to do with the salt of super saturated brine in the middle of the desert.

Last edited by Calliban (2021-05-13 16:14:18)

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"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 19,444

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

For Calliban re #223 and question of salt ....

Sea salt ** is ** a salable product, although the volume of sales would (of course) not match the supply if large scale desalination becomes a reality.

More significantly, the substances reported to be suspended in salt water include valuable elements, extraction of which might well prove economically attractive.

I've long thought the idea you've described is worth pursuing.

The natural depression of the Salton Sea in California is a candidate location, except that it happens to be right on a sensitive part of the San Andreas fault.  I've read speculation that if the Salton Sea were allowed to fill to the level of the nearby Pacific Ocean, the fault would inevitably be triggered.

This topic has strayed from Gasoline Prices ... The local stations are offering regular at $2.57 per gallon.

(th)

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,433

Re: Current Gasoline/Petrol Price$

Pipelines of any product moving accross country is not the problem its the care for them when spills occur that is the issue, The EPA is in charge to demand that regulations get followed when these ventures are created so that the company can not weasel out on making good on the repairs and cleanup since its so cheap....

Gasoline for the gallon local is $2.99 but I am sure that will change on the next deliveries...