[phlanx]

Salvo Tom

When a biomass power station was installed down the road from me, being a friend of the person who builds them I saw the plans, and there is not a drop of emission that can come out of it

However at the local planning office, we heard objections because it was going to cause cancer, smog every morning and night, congestion because of all the tractors (its a rural village already) and so on

Talk about paranoia based on stupidty!

I am not in favour of nuclear as it still has a small percentage of failure - its is small but still there

However, I will be more than happy to except it once all avenues have been exhausted, and or used

Eitherway, everyone in the world needs power, and building gas and coal stations is just bonkers!

[tomder55]

Remember that china gets these minerals from poor African nations

That is not the facts. The Chinese are mining these rare minerals mostly from Mongolia.

The GFC was caused by the west borrowing money from China and investing it in worthless real estate in the USA.

What caused the GFC is of course the making of another op . I would argue that gvt interventions caused bubbles.

I have no inherent opposition to Chinese investments in the US . I think it is good for the country . I am critical of the US Treasury's and Federal Reserve for the last decade's decision to not promote a strong US currency. But if the Chinese invested in US real estate during the bubble and the bubble collapsed then Booo hooo . The Japanese when they were the "economic dynamo "to be emulated once invested $2 billion in Rockefeller Center .Ask them how that worked out !

[tomder55]

Eitherway, everyone in the world needs power, and building gas and coal stations is just bonkers!

Agreed ;turning an energy source into another energy source is frankly a waste of energy. It would be more efficient to just use the natural gas in fueling autos and mass transit. It is a much cleaner alternative to petroleum.

[phlanx]

That could be because he doesn't eat that meat anyway. Elliot is a self confessed economist, of course he doesn't know how the real world works, he relies on models and scenarios to tell him what is happening.

I especially like the government plot to eradiate food to preserve it. What are we preserving it for? so we can have bigger land fills that produce methane gas for green power. I suggest we short circuit the process and send all food to the waste dump as soon as it is produced, we solve both the energy problem and the consumption problem at the same time, a win-win and we do away with those nasty green house gas producing humans, a bonus

I think some people have got so used to receiving good service due to regulations and rules that they have forgotten what businesses do at times to make a profit

I sell cars - and my trade is full of people who con customers

When I needed cash years ago, I would sell some really dodgy cars, I never lied if asked directly, but I never offered info if I wasn't - I needed to sell cars to make the money - nowadays I am all above board, however there are plenty of people who need to make money and will do whatever it takes to achieve this

That is why the regs and rules are in place, because even with them it continues, but without them I would be the first one to profit from the situation

To address the methane, unfortunately the oceans will produce more methane than man can, cows produce more methane than the oceans and man combined, so unless we are already to give up steak I suggest we find another way :D

[tomder55]

When I needed cash years ago, I would sell some really dodgy cars, I never lied if asked directly, but I never offered info if I wasn't - I needed to sell cars to make the money

And if I was the owner of the car lot next to yours I would've made it a point to tell customers that the lot next to mine sold lemons and not autos.

[phlanx]

Intersting you thought I was selling from a lot (pitch) - very interesting!

[ETWolverine]

You are surely not relying on a cap and trade scheme to produce results?

Oh hell no. What would be free-market about a cap & trade program? That's pure government interventionalism.

I'm talking about private individuals or businesses coming up with alternative fuels and tools that work just as well as or better than what we currently have, and that save money and energy. I'm talking about those businesses then selling these products to the public. And I'm talking about keeping the government out of it.

The alternative being put forth is for the government to mandate that we buy these products NOW before they have been perfected, and can't do the job as well as what we currently have. I'm talking about the government forcing us, in the name of social responsibility, to buy products that we really don't want because they aren't any good. Cap & Trade is a good example of that, but is not the only method by which the government forces people to buy stuff they don't really want.

Those are the two alternatives put forth. Phlanx SEEMS to prefer the second method... the government intervention approach. I prefer the first... the free-market approach.

Elliot

[phlanx]

Oh hell no. What would be free-market about a cap & trade program? That's pure government interventionalism.

I'm talking about private individuals or businesses coming up with alternative fuels and tools that work just as well as or better than what we currently have, and that save money and energy. I'm talking about those businesses then selling these products to the public. And I'm talking about keeping the government out of it.

The alternative being put forth is for the government to mandate that we buy these products NOW before they have been perfected, and can't do the job as well as what we currently have. I'm talking about the government forcing us, in the name of social responsibility, to buy products that we really don't want because they aren't any good. Cap & Trade is a good example of that, but is not the only method by which the government forces people to buy stuff they don't really want.

Those are the two alternatives put forth. Phlanx SEEMS to prefer the second method... the government intervention approach. I prefer the first... the free-market approach.

Elliot

Elliot, businesses tell the market which product to choose - don't you get that, the choices you make are based on what businesses provide you

If left up to industry to change over to low energy products they would be reluctant to do so due to high cost R&D and difficulty introducing new products to the market

Why would anyone want to wait a generation (!) for something that can be done very quickly

If the product at the moment is not good enough then guess what, the companies selling the products now have the cashflow to redevolop and improve

This is how the markets work, this is how markets have always worked, and you think being pushed in one direction is against your rights - laughable considering it effects all humans and not just one nation

You do realise elliot, the rest of the world look at the US and ask how come 5 percent of the world's population, consume 25 per-cent of the worlds oil production, mostly in the form of vehicle fuel

You have to start to take responsiblilty for a system that has an end! You have to start to create ways of getting this dependency down, because if you don't the US your son will know will not be the one you know

[paraclete]

You do realise elliot, the rest of the world look at the US and ask how come 5 percent of the world's population, consume 25 per-cent of the worlds oil production, mostly in the form of vehicle fuel

It is an interesting statistic, an even more interesting one is how 5% of the world's population produce 90% of the world's problems. Now if they just turned their mind to producing 90% of the world's solutions...

STEVE suggested that in the interest of reducing methane production we might consider a non beef diet. Might I ask what percentage of the world's beef is consumed in the USA? They are also responsible for 30% of the methane produced by those livestock. How could 5% of the world's population consume 30% of the world's beef? Incredible

[tomder55]

Actually I prefer a rack of New Zealand lamb ribs over a beef steak . But from what I hear that has an even larger methane footprint.

[paraclete]

actually I prefer a rack of New Zealand lamb ribs over a beef steak . But from what I hear that has an even larger methane footprint.

No the kiwi tax animal emissions so you get your lamb methane emission free, but you should try Australian salt bush raised lamb a much better product and as the grass isn't as rich there are less emissions. Better still switch to kangaroo and be emission free

[tomder55]

I will try kangaroo one of these days.

[paraclete]

I will try kangaroo one of these days.

Yes and eat the crocodiles before they eat you

[ETWolverine]

You do realise elliot, the rest of the world look at the US and ask how come 5 percent of the world's population, consume 25 per-cent of the worlds oil production, mostly in the form of vehicle fuel

Do you realize that we refine the largest amount of the world's oil? Russia, which has the second largest oil refinery capacity in the world produced less than 1/3 the amount of refined oil that we do.

Oil can't be used until it is refined into various forsm... heating oil, fuel oil, lubricants, etc. And the only country in the world with the capacity to make refined oil in large enough quantities to service worldwide demand is... you guessed it... the good ol' USA.

We are the world's largest consumers of energy by far. We are also the largest PRODUCER of oil in a usable form for the world market.

So I'd say that the world is getting a fair trade.

If you'd like to know the exact figures:

According to the Energy Information Administration's June 25, 2009 Refinery Capacity Report, total USA refinery capaccity is 18,681,308 barrels per day.

By comparison, Australia's (the continent, not the country) total capacity is 973,000 barrels per day.

Asia's (excluding Russian owned refineries) total capacity is 17,807,210 barrels per day.

Africa's total capacity is 3,506,950 barrels per day.

The Middle East's total capacity is 7,475,300 barrels per day.

Latin America's capacity is 6,626,270 barrels per day.

The Carribean's capacity is 1,622,500 barrels per day.

Canada and Mexico together produce 3,813,600 barrels per day.

Europe, with the exception of Russia, has a capacity of 17,953,200 barrels per day.

Russia, which has refineries in both Asia and Europe, has a total capacity of 4,572,800.

Taken as a whole, the world produces 83,032,138 barrels of refined oil per day. The USA produces 1/5th of that.


One more point: as a per-capita figure, the USA is actually the 10th largest user of energy in the world. Ahead of the USA is:

Qatar - 21,395.8 kg of Oil Equivalents/annum/person
Iceland - 11,718.1
UAE - 10,538.7
Bahrain - 10,250.5
Luxembourg - 9,408.8
Netherlands Antilles - 9,198.5
Kuwait - 9,076.0
Trinidad & Tobago - 8,555.1
Canada - 8,300.7

And then comes the USA with 7,794.8 KGOE/annum/person.

(Source: http://pdf.wri.org/wrr05_full_hires.pdf page 216.)

How come nobody complains about Qatar's use of energy being out of whack? Qatar uses 3 times the amount of energy per person that the USA does? Why is the USA the bad guy?

So this argument about us being the largest consumer of energy is somewhat silly when you consider all the facts about how much we produce and how much we consume on a per-capita basis.

[paraclete]

By comparison, Australia's (the continent, not the country) total capacity is 973,000 barrels per day.

How come nobody complains about Qatar's use of energy being out of whack? Qatar uses 3 times the amount of energy per person that the USA does? Why is the USA the bad guy?

So this argument about us being the largest consumer of energy is somewhat silly when you consider all the facts about how much we produce and how much we consume on a per-capita basis.

This is the first time I have heard someone try to separate the Australian people from the land on which they stand. I wasn't aware of another nation occupying the Australian continent, unless you are referring to aboriginal Australia which is a figment of the imagination. Just demonstrates US ignorance of anything outside their borders

As far as Qatar is concerned two pennith of nothing is still nothing. How much of that is contributed by the US presence there. The same old lame a**ed excuse, we are not as bad as that guy over there. The truth, yes, you are and worse. Compare yourself with China, the nation that produces a lot of your consumer goods, you are wasteful, just as wasteful as we are in fact on that scale, but then we are digging the minerals out of the ground and sending then to China so they can sell them to you, so your numbers don't stack up. You are among the worse emitters on Earth and the source of the problem. Much of your emissions are contained in other nations figures

[phlanx]

Do you realize that we refine the largest amount of the world's oil? Russia, which has the second largest oil refinery capacity in the world produced less than 1/3 the amount of refined oil that we do.

Oil can't be used until it is refined into various forsm... heating oil, fuel oil, lubricants, etc. And the only country in the world with the capacity to make refined oil in large enough quantities to service worldwide demand is... you guessed it... the good ol' USA.

We are the world's largest consumers of energy by far. We are also the largest PRODUCER of oil in a usable form for the world market.

So I'd say that the world is getting a fair trade.

If you'd like to know the exact figures:

According to the Energy Information Administration's June 25, 2009 Refinery Capacity Report, total USA refinery capaccity is 18,681,308 barrels per day.

By comparison, Australia's (the continent, not the country) total capacity is 973,000 barrels per day.

Asia's (excluding Russian owned refineries) total capacity is 17,807,210 barrels per day.

Africa's total capacity is 3,506,950 barrels per day.

The Middle East's total capacity is 7,475,300 barrels per day.

Latin America's capacity is 6,626,270 barrels per day.

The Carribean's capacity is 1,622,500 barrels per day.

Canada and Mexico together produce 3,813,600 barrels per day.

Europe, with the exception of Russia, has a capacity of 17,953,200 barrels per day.

Russia, which has refineries in both Asia and Europe, has a total capacity of 4,572,800.

Taken as a whole, the world produces 83,032,138 barrels of refined oil per day. The USA produces 1/5th of that.


One more point: as a per-capita figure, the USA is actually the 10th largest user of energy in the world. Ahead of the USA is:

Qatar - 21,395.8 kg of Oil Equivalents/annum/person
Iceland - 11,718.1
UAE - 10,538.7
Bahrain - 10,250.5
Luxembourg - 9,408.8
Netherlands Antilles - 9,198.5
Kuwait - 9,076.0
Trinidad & Tobago - 8,555.1
Canada - 8,300.7

And then comes the USA with 7,794.8 KGOE/annum/person.

(Source: http://pdf.wri.org/wrr05_full_hires.pdf page 216.)

How come nobody complains about Qatar's use of energy being out of whack? Qatar uses 3 times the amount of energy per person that the USA does? Why is the USA the bad guy?

So this argument about us being the largest consumer of energy is somewhat silly when you consider all the facts about how much we produce and how much we consume on a per-capita basis.

I have no idea where these figures have come from but as far as I can tell they are a statistical lie - they must be if you are trying to tell me that Trindad and Tobago CONSUME more oil than america does!

Luxembourg has a population of 500,000 - america 300m - so you can see straightaway with your stats, luxembourg uses less oil than you do!

My stat still stands, 5% population vs 25% oil CONSUMPTION

The reason why you guys refine more oil than anybody else is because you guys use more oil than anybody else - seems like a straiught forward equation for me

[tomder55]

If anything we need to refine more ;not less. We have not increased capacity since the 1970s .

These observations about Copenhagen ;the US Senate upcoming debate about passing economy killing cap and trade legislation ,and the Al Gore scam... possible the biggest potential swindle since Bernie Madoff and the biggest scam since Y2K... is in the Newark Star Ledger today by libertarian commentator Paul Mulshine .

President Obama's headed to Copenhagen next month to talk climate change. Al Gore's headed toward profits that could make him the world's first "carbon billionaire." But where's global temperature headed?

Nowhere, it seems. The most reliable readings of the Earth's temperature show that it peaked back in 1998. This was not widely reported in America, where the state of science reporting is dismal. But over in England, where they take that sort of thing more seriously, the British Broadcasting Corp. created quite a stir with an article headlined "What Happened to Global Warming?" In it, BBC climate correspondent Paul Hudson gave a summary of the problems facing the alarmists: "For the last 11 years, we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise."

Hudson went on to cite numerous scientists skeptical of the theory of anthropogenic global warming. But perhaps the most damning observation came from a scientist who supports the theory. Mojib Latif is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the group that set the panic off with its 1996 report on global warming. According to Hudson, Latif concedes "that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years."

Hmmm. Ten to 20 years is what I would call "the near future." Didn't a certain former vice president of the United States win a Nobel Prize by pushing a movie that told us that the melting of the polar ice would cause sea levels to rise by up to 20 feet "in the near future?"

Perhaps Al Gore was talking about a different future, one in which he gets rich off the panic he helped create. If the Senate passes that cap-and-trade bill that's now before it, Gore stands to make a fortune through his stake in the investment firm he set up with former Goldman-Sachs exec David Blood to deal in carbon credits. So there's a lot at stake in that Senate decision for the firm known to Wall Street wags as "Blood and Gore." There's even more at stake for consumers whose bills would go up by billions.

As for those senators, they'll look pretty foolish if they pass a bill to curb global warming just as we enter a cooling trend. AndDonald Easterbrookwarns that is a distinct possibility. Easterbrook is a professor at Western Washington University who was quoted in that BBC article. When I called him at his home outside Seattle, Easterbrook informed me that we have just experienced the third coldest October in the past 115 years. There's probably more cold to come, he said, and the amount of carbon dioxide in the climate will have little effect on it one way or the other. The reason? Contrary to popular belief, there just isn't that much of it in the atmosphere.

"For every 100,000 molecules of air, only 38 are carbon dioxide," Easterbrook said. The global-warming crowd likes to say that CO2 levels have risen 35 percent in the industrial era. "But 35 percent of nothing is still nothing," says Easterbrook, and the increase in CO2 has virtually no effect.

The alarmists harp on that infinitesimal increase, he says, while they ignore the most prevalent greenhouse gas of them all — water vapor. Clouds reflect sunlight back into the sky. And that is at the center of a developing dispute among scientists. Easterbrook is on the side of a Danish scientist namedHenrik Svensmark. In the 1990s, Svensmark developed a theory that links cloud formation to sunspots. When the number of sunspots is low, more cosmic rays get through to the atmosphere. And these rays, Svensmark theorizes, are the primary cause of cloud formation. The clouds reflect more sunlight back into space. Earth gets colder.

This fits in nicely with Easterbrook's specialty, which is how ocean currents affect climate. "It turns out there is a correlation between ocean cycles and sunspots," he told me. And the historical record shows many climate shifts that correspond to sunspot activity.

"There were 6,000 feet of ice here that all melted very suddenly 15,000 years ago," Easterbrook said of his neck of the woods in the Pacific Northwest. "There have been big ups and downs throughout history. How do you explain them?"

Well, if you want to control people's lives and/or make a lot of money, you explain them the way a lot of politicians do. As for the scientists, they're divided. Most agree that, all things being equal, it would be better for man not to alter the atmosphere at all. But that's an entirely separate question from just what effect that alteration will have on the climate.

And the answer to that question is: Nobody's quite certain.

Except, of course, Al Gore.

Clouds hang over the global-warming alarmists | Paul Mulshine - NJ.com

[speechlesstx]

The reason why you guys refine more oil than anybody else is because you guys use more oil than anybody else - seems like a straiught forward equation for me

Steve, that's a per capita figure.

[ETWolverine]

This is the first time I have heard someone try to separate the Australian people from the land on which they stand. I wasn't aware of another nation occupying the Australian continent, unless you are referring to aboriginal Australia which is a figment of the imagination. Just demonstrates US ignorance of anything outside their borders

Oh... I see... you consider New Zealand and Paupa New Guinnea (both of which are part of the Australian Continent, but not part of Australia) to be the same country as you...

And you think that I have a problem with geography and people in the USA are ignorant.

I was very careful in my nomenclature because there's always some idiot that makes a comment. You win the prize...

As far as Qatar is concerned two pennith of nothing is still nothing. How much of that is contributed by the US presence there.

Oh... I see... the roughly 3,300 Americans who happen to be in Qatar are the reason that Qatar is using 3 times the energy per person that we are at home. It has nothing to do with the roughly 1.5 million Qataris.

The same old lame a**ed excuse, we are not as bad as that guy over there. The truth, yes, you are and worse. Compare yourself with China, the nation that produces a lot of your consumer goods, you are wasteful, just as wasteful as we are in fact on that scale, but then we are digging the minerals out of the ground and sending then to China so they can sell them to you, so your numbers don't stack up. You are among the worse emitters on Earth and the source of the problem. Much of your emissions are contained in other nations figures

Uh huh... China, the largest producer of toxins in the entire world, and the one country that has consistently violated every eco-agreement it has ever signed... we're worse than they are.

Got it.

The really sick part is that you believe this sh!t as if it were true.

Elliot

[ETWolverine]

I have no idea where these figures have come from but as far as I can tell they are a statistical lie - they must be if you are trying to tell me that Trindad and Tobago CONSUME more oil than america does!

I cited the sources in my post. You can check them for yourself.

And these are PER CAPITA figures, not totals for the country as a whole. Of course a large country with 307 million people is going to use more energy than a small country with a population of 1.2 million. However, on a PER CAPITA BASIS (usage PER PERSON) the USA uses approximately 10% LESS energy than T&T does

Luxembourg has a population of 500,000 - america 300m - so you can see straightaway with your stats, luxembourg uses less oil than you do!

My stat still stands, 5% population vs 25% oil CONSUMPTION

Again, you are not looking at the PER PERSON usage. On a per-capita basis, the USA does pretty well compared to Luxembourg, T&T or Qatar.

I was very careful in my post to state that these figures are PER CAPITA, not total usage.

The reason why you guys refine more oil than anybody else is because you guys use more oil than anybody else - seems like a straiught forward equation for me

Not everything we refine is used by us. Much of it is put back into the world market. The argument being used is that the USA consumes more than it contributes and is therefore an evil country. My argument is that we contribute as much as we consume or more... but that contribution is in the REFINING of oil to a usable form as well as the drilling process. And in refining, we contribute more to the world energy market than any other country and even more than any other CONTINENT. If we combine our DRILLING activities and our REFINING activities, we are actually the world's largest contributors to the energy markets. In other words, we contribute as much as or more than we consume and are not the evil, greedy country that we are portrayed as.

Naturally this argument is one that those who are proponents of the "evil American Empire" idea will find hard to counter. And for that reason, they will resort to insulting the guy who puts the argument forward. I understand that: it's hard to have your worldview turned end-over-end. But insults can't change the facts. We aren't the ogres you would like to make us out to be.

Elliot