Comments on: OPEC Strangling American Economy

By: T Double Dash

T Double Dash — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:31:00 +0000

Good article, and what I think is a good solution at the end.

By: TBinSTL (just typical)

TBinSTL (just typical) — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:38:39 +0000

I was with him until the last couple of paragraphs… food in your gas tank is not a good thing, fer chrissake!
How about we use some of our own frigging reserves? Iraq is coming on line now but we need more close to home. Mexico is in decline because they haven’t reinvested and Canada is giving it their all but their production capacity is hard to ramp up because of the type of extraction they have to do.
Get “plug-in” hybrids on the market and burn down the EPA with everyone in it and things will get better pretty quickly. The Tribes are building at least one new refinery on their land in the Dakotas or Montana because they can bypass the whole enviro-whacko issue. Every tribe with the land should follow suit. I know there are some that have access to costal Maine waters that could use the money…

By: Arthuraria

Arthuraria — Sat, 24 May 2008 02:59:46 +0000

I hear all this great talk about flex fuel vehicles with ethanol and methanol in there, which is all fine and dandy except for the fact that it’s a terrible idea. We could be producing Biobutanol from algae that wouldn’t even need to be mixed with gasoline to be used in a car…but I guess algae farmers’ lobbyists aren’t as good as corn farmers’ lobbyists to get federal subsidies. It’s such a no-brainer because we could be producing a fuel from a self-renewing, rapidly propagating fuel source that competes directly with gasoline and OPEC itself. Instead we’re using a fuel source that only propagates during certain times of the year and takes 400 pounds to make 25 gallons and can’t even be used by itself in a gasoline engine….jeez this makes me so mad!

By: sully

sully — Sat, 24 May 2008 03:02:26 +0000

It’s the Dhimmis that are letting OPEC do it.

“As economic growth in China and India increases worldwide demand…”

Globalization was a grand idea eh?

” passing a law requiring that all new cars sold in the United States be flex-fuel vehicles…”

great idea. But why not threaten to fuck em all up if they don’t quit first. Then at least the libs will freak out and OK drilling everywhere.

By: Bruce Hall

Bruce Hall — Sat, 24 May 2008 13:17:38 +0000

Let me summarize the four policy points proposed by the Democrats:

1. Increase regulation on oil trading
2. Suspend filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
3. Focus on alternative energy
4. Implement a windfall profits tax

Let me summarize a vote to allow shale oil development in the U.S. for you:

1. A proposal to increase the supply of domestic oil and allowing states to benefit from that was rejected along political party lines.
2. Democrats view increasing the supply of oil as irrelevant to the price of gasoline.

Now, let me interpret that for you:

1. The government must rigidly control the actions of the marketplace
2. The government must rigidly control supply

By: pete

pete — Sat, 24 May 2008 16:07:47 +0000

I’m tired of haring everyone bitching about “fuel vs. food” and ethanol subsidies. Please take the time to do the minimal amount of research and stop buying into the disinformation the MSM is paid to feed you. Bio fuels are responsible to about 8% of the increase in the price of food. The rise is oil prices accounts for 32.5%. Four times as much as bio fuels *sigh*.

As far as ethanol subsidies. Has anyone bothered to look into what they actually are? The subsidies everyone is bitching about is a blenders credit given to oil refiners so they mix ethanol with their refined gasoline. It is 51 cents per gallon. Without this “incentive”, ethanol would probably be entirely locked out of the petroleum market because it will have no way to be distributed. There is a reason there are only 1,400 E85 stations nation wide and some 170,000 gas stations. E85 is a competing fuel to petroleum. Station owners are under contract not to sell any competing fuels. That’s why most E85 stations are in places like mom and pop milk and grocery stops that happen to have a few gas pumps. There is only one place in Phoenix AZ that sells E85 and I have to drive 30 miles each way to get to it. It is a petroleum company - the place that fills up the big gas trucks.

Corn ethanol uses feed corn not the kind humans eat. We produced the second largest corn crop since the 1940’s last year w/ a surplus left over. 10% of the corn grown in the country is used for human consumption. The remainder of the corn after the ethanol is produced is distillers grains. These grains are used as animal feed. We had so DDG’s left over last year we had to export it to other countries.

The point of this article is that petroleum is a monopolistic fuel that yes - “we are addicted to” and needs some good old fashion competition. Capitalism 101.

Hasn’t it occurred to anyone that there are no competing transportation fuels to petroleum?

So don’t believe the spoon fed hype that we are burning food using bio fuels. That too is good old propaganda you are spewing.