The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

SpaceNut · 2022-02-26 19:36:04

Today's gas pump fuel regular was up and is selling at 3.49 locally but it seems that others are already gouging....

The Prius has been saving me quite a bit so its got to go up a lot to match what I was paying each week...

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-06-24 10:14:34

'This is a time of war. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump!': Biden demands refiners lower gas prices
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl … rices.html

Biden summons Big Oil to meet on gasoline prices
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/unit … ine-prices

Calliban · 2022-06-24 11:05:28

Mars_B4_Moon wrote:

'This is a time of war. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump!': Biden demands refiners lower gas prices
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl … rices.html
Biden summons Big Oil to meet on gasoline prices
https://www.straitstimes.com/world/unit … ine-prices

Foolish old man. He joins a long line of socialists that think they can dictate prices by fiat. This demonstrates a failure to learn from history and a lack of understanding of how supply - demand interact to generate equilibrium prices. What does he expect to be able to do at this point?

SpaceNut · 2022-06-24 13:46:04

Sure a warning to stop price gouging Americans when the cost of materials have not gone up from the past few days to weeks and of course when you go to the year its doubled. What we are seeing is the seasonal change of products being made with demand for others. That said I have never looked for Oil Companies to Lower High Retail Gasoline Prices and that is why I got the Prius when I had a chance.

Of course with the prices approaching $5 and $6 or more for gasoline and desiel we are looking at an economy to see a possible recession and in some places of the US we are already there.

The cost of a barrel of oil is nearing $120, nearly double from last August, as increased oil demand outpaces the tight global supply.

So are we driving and using that many more vehicles since the change in cost 4 years ago or is there something else driving the change.

kbd512 · 2022-06-24 17:28:53

SpaceNut,

1. Leftists run all the banking institutions now, and they either refuse to loan any money to the oil companies or jack up the interest rates far in excess of what they charge other companies. The oil companies can't simply absorb the cost of the radical left's "fossil fuels are bad" ideology and stay in business, so the consumer gets charged more because the oil companies get charged more. As a result, the oil companies can't afford to hire more people or purchase new equipment or engage in more drilling operations without operating almost purely on a cash-in-hand basis. When I worked for an oil company, we operated almost entirely on cash-in-hand. 2/3rds of the capital investment into oil and gas has been removed because the ideology said we should, despite the fact that photovoltaics / wind turbines / batteries are at least another century or so from supplanting oil and gas. The remaining investments are almost exclusively private capital, who also refuse to lend without turning a profit.

2. The clown show that is now our government under President Biden has not renewed a single offshore oil lease, they refuse any drilling operations where there's oil because it will somehow "destroy the environment", whereas clear-cutting and bulldozing every square inch of land to make way for photovoltaics and wind turbines is a-okay. Some days it's almost as if their ideology prevents them from even buying a clue. All they really seem to be doing is lying to everybody on TV, meaning more of their performative art that never changes ugly objective reality.

3. To pay off people like Warren Buffett, who has been a major donor to the Democrat Party, they shut down or refused to build new oil and gas pipelines in favor of transporting the crude or gas in BNSF tanker cars. Transporting oil and gas in tanker cars is a lot more expensive than transporting it via pipelines and pollutes the environment to a much greater degree than pipelines to boot.

The reckoning is coming. Don't act surprised when the Republicans retake the House and Senate. It's not that they're much better than the Democrats, but at least they don't mess with what's working before anything that works at all is ready to take its place. Apart from lying and blaming other people on TV, your political party has absolutely no plan at all to address any of these very real kitchen table issues.

SpaceNut · 2022-06-24 17:51:40

What loans as they get FEDERAL OIL AND GAS SUBSIDIES: FACT VS. FICTION

Debunking Myths About Federal Oil & Gas Subsidies

Once-unthinkable: Subsidies for American oil drillers

What subsidies do oil companies receive?

The dummy was thinking that solar and wind would be affordable, but the tariff war took care of that happening.

The rich care less about the people as the only people they care about is themselves.

Top 20 Republicans Owned by Big Oil, Big Pharma, tobacco and gun companies

Gas station owners, oil companies are not to blame for high gas prices

kbd512 · 2022-06-24 20:07:17

SpaceNut,

So... Let's see what we're spending vs what we're getting back:

365 days per year * 369,000,000 gallons of gasoline per day = 134,685,000,000 gallons per year

Federal gasoline tax is $0.185, so $24,916,725,000 in tax revenue

365 days per year * 122,000,000 gallons of diesel per day = 44,530,000,000 gallons per year

Federal diesel tax is $0.24, so $10,687,200,000 in tax revenue

365 days per year * 25,704,000 gallons of kerosene per day = 9,381,960,000 gallons per year

Federal kerosene tax is $0.244, so 2,289,198,240

188,596,960,000 billion gallons of gasoline / diesel / kerosene per year (3 of the most manufactured petroleum products on the planet)

($10,000,000,000 USD per year / 188,596,960,000 billion gallons per year) * 100 = 5.3% of the cost, or less

In return for their $10,000,000,000 investment, the US federal government generates $37,893,123,240 in tax revenues, a 3:1 rate of return on investment

At $3/gallon, that represents $0.169 of the total purchase price of a gallon of fuel, totally ignoring the myriad other products made with oil and gas, like rubber tires, pharmaceuticals, plastics, composites, and about a bazillion other products. When last I checked, even Teslas still use rubber tires. The federal gas tax is $0.184 per gallon, so whatever Uncle Sam pays out in subsidies to the oil companies, he gets a 3:1 rate-of-return on investment.

Your Democrats love spending public money, so the paltry subsidy compared to the tax revenues generated, to the tune of $27.89B after accounting for all federal subsidies, is available for every sophomoric idea that your favorite political party comes up with. Take away oil company subsidies if you think that'll do something besides what it's already doing, namely tanking the economy, but they'll only charge you more money. The cost is getting passed onto you, the consumer, one way or another. It's unfortunate that Democrats really can't seem to figure out how this works.

clark · 2022-06-25 01:43:59

KBD, so should we spend less and cut back on the military expenditures that we use the funds to subsidize?

kbd512 · 2022-06-25 03:36:09

clark,

usaspending.gov - Agency Profiles

US DoD is 17.24% of all federal spending. $10B is about 0.52% of their overall budget. So yeah, I think we could cut there.

As long as we're horse trading here, you go find another federal agency besides US DoD that you'd like to cut $10B from.

Since I can be reasonable, show me that you can be reasonable as well.

kbd512 · 2022-06-25 19:23:55

I think US DoD spending could be 10% of the total federal budget and our military could still walk right over any other military on the planet, but that would mean spending money on things that are useful for fighting modern wars and shying away from pointless spending projects that get people promoted or facilitate this "revolving door" situation between our military officers and our military industrial complex. I don't take issue with them working for defense contractors after military service, but the US military should never be incentivized to spend money on ill-defined capabilities that serve no practical military purpose.

To wit, specific systems seem as if they're not long for this world:

Army:
Despite the fearsome direct-assault firepower that tanks bright to the fight, a real shooting war between well-equipped combatants has shown how vulnerable tanks and armored personnel carriers are to being annihilated by hand-held missile systems. If a 75t armored vehicle can be stopped in its tracks by some a single person can carry, then perhaps it's time to reconsider how many men and machines we devote to a losing war strategy, should we have to fight a similarly-equipped force. Modern militaries have considerable stockpiles of these weapons and no lengthy specialized training or support equipment is required to use them effectively.

Modern artillery systems appear to retain their title as "King of Battle". We are continually seeing how devastatingly effective modern artillery systems are. They can lay waste to an entire sprawling city in days to weeks, for pennies on the dollar compared to alternatives. We need a mix of cannon and missile artillery, as the cannons cannot match the range of the missiles and the missiles cannot match the cost-effectiveness of the cannons.

Much smaller and lightly armored vehicles that only protect against small arms fire and artillery shell splinters, perhaps occupied by a single solider, but equipped with a modern 30mm automatic cannon and missile systems appear to be the best compromise between mobility / firepower / logistics. These vehicles represent a lethal threat to every other type of vehicle on the battlefield, from infantry to artillery to tactical fighter aircraft.

Air Force:
Modern SAM systems have now thoroughly proven how effective they are at bringing down Gen 4 and earlier tactical fighter jets. I see little reason to continue purchasing and fielding more Gen 4 jets that the latest active wars are highlighting the limitations of. Their speed and ability to attack from any direction are still as useful as they ever were, but when the enemy has modern IADS, you're going to lose far too many of your pilots during the first few weeks of a war. Since competent pilots are so expensive to train and it takes so long to season them, I see little reason to put large numbers of them at risk by continuing to operate jets that we know or should know will be little more than targets for our Russian and Chinese adversaries. Accepting attrition as the cost of war, is not an option.

The prior metrics that determined what made a good fighter jet no longer apply the way they once did. A faster top speed is relatively useless when 99% of all real air combat takes place at high subsonic speeds. For interception, if a fighter with a Mach 2 top speed was good, then a missile with a Mach 5 top speed is much better, so modern tactical fighters will be judged on other metrics, especially prompt organization of immediately pertinent information to the pilot, the computing power to process and organize sensor input, related electronics capabilities that prevent loss due to unawareness, and stealth to reduce lock-on distances for enemy weapons to within visual range. Maneuverability of the crewed platforms is also at or nearing its limits. In the future, a sizeable fleet of combat drones will be required to fly in places where IADS or the sheer number of SAM shooters on the battlefield below limits the expected lifespan of any type of aircraft.

Stealth has continued to prove its worth in interrupting the kill chain of IADS and enemy fighter jets, yet the crushing cost of large and highly complex stealth fighter jets has made them, as well as all their 4th Gen counterparts with equivalent sensor and electronics capabilities, increasingly unaffordable to own and operate. We need a microfighter platform, smaller than the F-5, that's good for everything else except countering the most capable enemy air combat optimized tactical fighter jets, which represents a vanishingly small contingent of every nation's total military capabilities. Most modern jets are optimized for surface attack, since that's where the majority of worthy targets are located.

Navy:
There was a time when it made good sense to have specialized naval jets / missiles / cannons. That time has long since passed. Much like our Air Force, we currently operate a bewildering array of highly specialized vessels and weapon systems that shares little in common with Air Force and Army hardware. It's time to standardize our weapon systems to increase the available supply, devote more development funding to individual weapons or sensors to greatly increase their capabilities, and to stop spending inordinate sums of money developing specialist ships or weapon systems that do little to contribute to our overall naval power projection capabilities. This will force the services to closely evaluate their capabilities and choose the best systems.

For example:
Army operates Stinger / Sidewinder / THAAD / Patriot PAC-3
Air Force operates Sidewinder / AMRAAM / GBI
Navy operates Rolling Airframe Sidewinders / ESSM (naval version of the old Sparrow missile) / array of Standard missile variants

Could all services operate Sidewinder for short range defense?
Could all services operate AMRAAM or ESSM for BVR attacks?
Could all services operate THAAD or SM-6 or PAC-3 for long range air defense and ballistic missile / nuclear warhead interception?
Do we really need several minor variations on the same role theme, or is "best of breed" and lots of them good enough?
Can we sell off most of the old missiles to our allies who need lower-cost weapons?

For example, we do not need to operate numerous different classes of frigates, destroyers, and cruisers, all armed with the same weapons and all primarily used to defend aircraft carriers from air or submarine attack. We need lots of ships about the size of a large frigate that carry an all-missile armament (apart from very close-range defensive weapons), with serious magazine depth, mostly to defend against anti-ship missile or torpedo attacks. In practice, the most credible threats all come from airborne weapons of one variety or another. Even submarines now fire anti-ship cruise missiles and would not willingly get close enough to launch a torpedo when a stand-off weapon would not subject it to immediate counter-attack. Mines and torpedoes are still quite lethal, but slamming a pair of anti-ship cruise missile into the broadside of a ship is the modern equivalent of the battleship guns or bombs and torpedoes used during WWII.

The destroyers and cruisers each cost $3B or more these days. Can we replace these astonishingly expensive escort ships with highly automated frigates carrying the same magazine capacity, in terms of SAMs, but far fewer sailors? Rather than specialist escort ship designs that are horridly expensive and temperamental to operate, why not move everything to a reduced number of diesel-powered large deck platforms based upon our amphibious ships?

Can we retire our fleet of ultra-expensive Nimitz class super carriers and Cold War era escort vessels, replacing them with much lower cost large deck amphibious ships such as the LPD-17 class, possibly retaining just 2 classes of large deck amphibious-designed ships that serve as much smaller conventionally-powered aircraft carriers?

LPD-17 is around $2B per copy, despite being a very large amphibious combat ship that could be transformed into a very large cruiser with a huge magazine depth (the arsenal ship concept that the Navy is so enamored with) or a small aircraft carrier. It's powered by diesel engines, rather than gas turbines or nuclear reactors, which lowers its top speed marginally (5kts) but significantly improves fuel economy and drastically reduces purchase and operating costs. Is a 25-knot Navy vs a 30-knot Navy an acceptable concession to economy? All of the torpedoes and missiles arrayed against our ships are inordinately faster, so shaving off a little speed for all the other benefits seems reasonable, at least to me. The power required to attain those extra 5 knots is about 25% greater than the power to attain 25 knots, and 99% of the time we tool around at 12kts to 15kts to conserve fuel to avoid out-stripping our underway replenishment capabilities. This would take even more operational tempo pressure off of our "fast oilers" that use gas turbine engines.

We're only going to purchase 1 squadron of stealthy F-35Cs per aircraft carrier, but we need stealth for all aviation assets to effectively fight against a peer-level adversary, to include the stealthy tanker drones that the Navy is now operating. In light of this fact, why not operate 1 squadron of F-35Cs for fleet air defense or top cover for microfighter attack jets? Alternatively, we could scrap F-35Cs for all microfighter air wings and then the new Ford class air wings would be armed exclusively with F-35Cs, simplifying logistics (one type of replacement engine to deliver and one spare parts train).

So... Right off the top of my head, I can think of reasonable and cost-effective ways of both increasing or at least maintaining our total combat power while drastically reducing military spending to more sustainable levels. However, the money saved is not going to other government agencies for more government spending projects. It's being trimmed away completely from the federal budget, so that the federal government takes in tax revenues above their spending levels.

This will no doubt be very unpopular with all military services because it means trimming their budgets, but my objectives are keeping or increasing combat power while reducing the tax burden associated with doing so. This is not being done to win friends, but to restore sanity to the amount of money spent on our military.

Other government agencies need to follow suit, so that we can pay off our national debt and keep our economy moving in the right direction. We need similar reductions to all other forms of government spending.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-02 15:22:56

Berlin prepares 'huge thermos' to help heat homes in winter. The head of Swedish utility company Vattenfall’s heat unit in Germany said that the facility can help smooth out the fluctuating energy provided by renewables while providing reliable heat to hundreds of thousands of households. The 52 million dollar tower will be Europe’s biggest heat storage facility when it is completed at the end of this year, and even bigger one is already being planned in the Netherlands.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi … -86001074#:

SpaceNut · 2022-07-02 15:32:28

Interesting

With a height of 45 meters (almost 150 feet) and holding up to 56 million liters (14.8 million gallons) of hot water, thermal capacity of 200 Megawatts — enough to meet much of Berlin's hot water needs during the summer and about 10% of what it requires in the winter. The vast, insulated tank can keep water hot for up to 13 hours,

So far, no data on temperature of the water but this is how we do heat during the winter.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-29 02:57:00

Russian gas cut to Europe hits economic hopes, Ukraine reports attacks on coastal regions
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ru … 022-07-25/

Putin's army is guzzling gas and Russians are stuck vacationing at home — boosting the country's oil production to a 5-month high
https://uk.yahoo.com/finance/news/putin … 00380.html

Republicans rush to label economic slowdown as ‘Joe Biden’s recession’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 … ocrats?amp

Biden Shrugs Off Recession Talk, Talks Up Fighting Inflation
https://www.republicworld.com/world-new … eshow.html

Mars_B4_Moon · 2022-07-29 17:28:29

Hawaii Gets Its Last Shipment of Coal, Ever

The state's last coal-fired power plant will close down in September.

https://gizmodo.com/hawaii-phasing-out- … 1849348490

“Renewable energy projects to replace coal are coming online with more on the way,”
governor

kbd512 · 2022-07-29 17:56:04

After Hawaii gets its last shipment of gasoline and kerosene and diesel, ever, then let's see how long it takes before there are no more people left who aren't running around in grass skirts, eating pigs and coconuts. Hawaii was importing Russian oil before the Ukraine War. All those jets taking vacationers there don't run on sunshine.

Mars_B4_Moon · 2024-06-12 08:17:28

The Gulf is flexing petrodollar power and learning its limits
https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/ … ts-limits/

A shift away from the US dollar is happening in real time, and investors must be ready
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/shift-aw … 45179.html

SpaceNut · 2024-08-18 12:21:05

After the switch on the democratic ticket the price at the pump has been dropping from the high of $3.54 and currently rests at $3.38.

New Mars Forums

Announcement

#76 2022-02-26 19:36:04

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#77 2022-06-24 10:14:34

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#78 2022-06-24 11:05:28

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#79 2022-06-24 13:46:04

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#80 2022-06-24 17:28:53

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#81 2022-06-24 17:51:40

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#82 2022-06-24 20:07:17

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#83 2022-06-25 01:43:59

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#84 2022-06-25 03:36:09

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#85 2022-06-25 19:23:55

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#86 2022-07-02 15:22:56

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#87 2022-07-02 15:32:28

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#88 2022-07-29 02:57:00

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#89 2022-07-29 17:28:29

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#90 2022-07-29 17:56:04

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#91 2024-06-12 08:17:28

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

#92 2024-08-18 12:21:05

Re: The Oil Price War 2015, nations, money flow, spacefaring.

Board footer