Stop the increase in gass prices.

**monochrome** · 05-24-2008, 07:25 PM

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Originally posted by Peter Zack

Electrical engines powered by Nuclear/wind/solar is one possible answer. Another would be to finally get hydrogen working. But the oil lobby won't allow that to happen until there are serious changes at the top elected levels.

When whatever solution there is is more profitable than the current situation, every company in the oil and every related industry will jump on it in a New York second. Think about it.

The issue is capital. How much capital is thrown down the toilet if we obsolete the entire oil shipping, refining and distribution industries? There is 2.2 TRILLiON dollars invested in pipelines, tankers, wells and drilling, refineries, gas stations, engineering of internal combustion engines that has not been amortized, etc. etc. etc. There is no conspiracy to hold down efficient engines or replacements to oil - the cost of capital makes change prohibitively expensive at LOWER OIL PRICES.

At THESE prices lots of changes are suddenly VERY profitable - and they will happen (Canadian Tar Sands, for instance).

Businesses count capital assets as costs in every dollar of sales. Changing quickly to something different has two major impediments:

Throwing away the capital you have already invested
Finding the new capital to invest in whatever you want to change to.

If you think GAS prices are high, wait till you see interest rates if we throw away 2.2 trillion dollars of invested capital!!

Change will come - it is already coming, we just don't see final products yet (wait about 2 years for an electric Chevrolet that will knock your socks off and make GM the world's green technology leader) - but it won't come immediately.

When new technology does come (fairly soon actually) it will rival the social change created by the personal computer.

Don't worry - be patient. Drive less - take more pictures!!

**monochrome** · 05-24-2008, 07:32 PM

The price of anything is the clearing level at which supply and demand find equilibrium. Both supply and demand contribute equally to price. We have all the supply we need, as long as Brazil, Russia, China and India stop creating a middle class and let the current western world continue to consume what we always have - but then that's not really fair, is it?

China alone adds 6,000,000 new cars to its fleet every year. The rest of the (non-BRIC) world addds only 1,500,000 new vehicles to its existing fleet.

So if we stop buying anything made in Brazil, Russia, China or India then there won't be a new middle class and we can drive on in happy ignorance (but then, where would we get all our stuff? - I think it is really interesting to read all these complaints made by people who have thousands of dollars worth of camera gear made by capitalist companies).

KrisK10D · 05-24-2008, 09:32 PM

Sorry, I've not expressed myself very well. I don't mean OPEC are the only supplier of oil. I'm saying that the middle east in general and Saudi in particular are the world biggest resource for available oil. If they say we only get a couple millions barrels a day and we need twice that then the price of oil will rise, no matter how much Canada and Russia are supplying. When they (Russia and Canada) can compete with those 13 coutries (and fill a million barrels each and every day) I'm sure the price/barrel will drop. Until then we will all be at the mercy of OPEC.

MrApollinax · 05-24-2008, 10:05 PM

I'm not sure about Australia but the US gets more oil from Canada than it does from any other member country of OPEC. In Feb. 08 the US imported 55,678 thousand barrels from Canada and 46,812 thousand barrels from Saudi Arabia. The crude oil that comes from the middle east however is easier (and therefore cheaper) to refine.

Also the comments about Hydrogen Fuel cells is correct. All if not most of the hydrogen being used is created through the electrolisis of Natural Gas. To lessen the carbon footprint (ie not using electricity from coal/oil power plants) Honda has engineered a fueling station that runs off of solar energy. It looks like the Honda Clarity is going to be the first widely available fuel cell car that doesn't look like a go-kart. I would think that the Tesla drive train coupled with the Honda FCX drive train will be the next gen hybrid drive train system. It will be a few years yet but that seems to be the direction the car makers are going toward.

**monochrome** · 05-24-2008, 10:46 PM

Originally posted by KrisK10D

Sorry, I've not expressed myself very well. I don't mean OPEC are the only supplier of oil. I'm saying that the middle east in general and Saudi in particular are the world biggest resource for available oil. If they say we only get a couple millions barrels a day and we need twice that then the price of oil will rise, no matter how much Canada and Russia are supplying. When they (Russia and Canada) can compete with those 13 coutries (and fill a million barrels each and every day) I'm sure the price/barrel will drop. Until then we will all be at the mercy of OPEC.

The oil market is a marginal economy, meaning that it doesn't matter who buys from whom - the last barrel purchased (the margin) determines the price. If we stopped buying Middle East oil altogether and bought, say, North Sea oil instead, whoever buys the North Sea oil would have to buy the Middle Easy oil and the change would have no effect. Another way to understand this is to realize that oil is fungible - it all substitutes for each other (subject to refinability).

OPEC controls 40% of global oil reserves - but another 23% is controlled by other sovereign ownership, i.e. the oil is owned by nationalized oil companies such as in Mexico, Venezuela, Russia and Nigeria. We think these countries would hold oil off the market for political leverage against the US. But at these prices they are pumping all they can get out of the ground - they need the money.

Exxon owns only 3% of the oil on the globe - yet we make the Chairman of Exxon testify before Congress about oil prices. Why didn't we call the Prime Minister of Canada and ask why Canada is making os much profit on thier oil? Because Congressmen cannot score political points doing that (and they couldn't make the PM come, anyway).

None of the changes discussed on this thread ALONE will materially affect the price of oil. Taken together, though, each of them replacing 1 or 2% of final supply, perhaps 20% of final demand will be met with new technology - but it won't happen until 2015 r so. The next 6 to 8 years are going to be pretty grim.

Oil will go up 35% AGAIN in the near term, but $200 a barrel will destroy demand significantly (there will be a serious global economic recession). When the world emerges from that recession energy use patterns will have changed significantly, and substitute sources of therms will have emerged.

If you really want to worry about something (and you are an American), realize that all the dollars we send overseas to buy oil (and Chinese and Indian consumer items) eventually have to come back here. They will come back in the form of foreign interests buying America - that is, buying our land and taking over our companies and everything else we have - even old Pentax lenses! because the dollar has declined versus other currencies - oil has risen more in dollar terms than in other currency terms.

Examples of prices we would think are nuts, but in the buyer's currency are somewhat reasonable.

Buyer Canadian - Seller US
Pentax SMCP-67 400mm f/4 ED Lens - eBay (item 190223178532 end time May-24-08 21:45:38 PDT)

Buyer Belgian - Seller US
Pentax-M SMC 400mm 5.6 MF K Mount Lens 400 Tele- 42233 - eBay (item 350060712869 end time May-22-08 19:27:06 PDT)

Even when both buyer and seller are overseas, we get outbid in dollar terms because of the exchange rate, but in the local currencies the lens is not overpriced.

Clicker · 05-27-2008, 01:10 PM

If i sold my cars, i could buy a lot of lenses but then i'd have to walk to all my shoot locations

**rparmar** · 05-27-2008, 01:34 PM

Originally posted by Clicker

If i sold my cars, i could buy a lot of lenses but then i'd have to walk to all my shoot locations

Ha! Sounds like a good trade-off! I will soon be looking into some sort of bike mod for my camera gear. Anyone have pointers on that topic?

MJB DIGITAL · 05-27-2008, 04:43 PM

im just going to mold my company into a 'green company'

im going to have fundraisers for 'green awareness'

and im going to market the 'green-ness' of my company and let my clients know that i am trying to help.
and that when they buy my wedding photography, they are helping too....

ecology, conservation, alternative energy research....

i want my company to contribute to improving all of that stuff.

8)

ABCWinter · 06-05-2008, 04:53 PM

We are Extreamly cosuming so much now that before.

At first we only used what we need and we were happy with that. We lived within our means.

Now a days we use beyond what we need, it is all about WHAT I WANT. We seriously over consume on evrything... Maybe 10% of what you consume is all you really need, the rest of it you can do without. But it is our WANT that causes us to gulp eveything in its path...

Example.. I feel nascar racing is dumb . Watching a car spin in circles to see which is the fastest. what a waste of resourses.

Cosmetics hair dies jels all junk and a total waste of natural resources.

Dishwashers, plug in vibration chair, toys that do everything even destroy a childs imagination.

At first everything was made and created for need. Now a days, bulk of everything is created out of Want and greed.

Do not own a car, we rent 1/2 a house, have 4 kids and walk and use city transit to get to those far away places. Husband has a 3 passenger truck. That will do us fine. Never took a vacation, never traveled on plane or went back home. Do not smoke, drink, Hate jewelery, cosmetics is stupid never use the $hit, I buy a lot of second hand clothing, books, blankets, odd toy, funiture, glass containers, etc at the thrift store. But we buy aas much natural and organic foods. Spentds crazy on food everything else go cheap on.

Wierd we spend crazy $$$ on our wants, very little goes to what we need..

"WoW a Hummer I gotta have that ."

spends $$$$$$$ on that. Plus more for Gas $$$$$$$$$$$$$...

walks in store to buy food.

"Organic Grapes 8.00 bag that is CRAZY"

reaches for the cheaper Brand Genetic modified

" GM Grapes 1.00 not that is much better."

What is wrong with this shopper.... can you guess..???

The key to wealth is youre health. Think about that..

ABCWinter ( Laurie : )

cupic · 06-06-2008, 03:29 AM

Originally posted by Clicker

If i sold my cars, i could buy a lot of lenses but then i'd have to walk to all my shoot locations

Thats Gold

cheers

Matthew Roberts · 06-06-2008, 06:09 AM

I was all for nuclear power until I considered this article : Salon.com - Nuclear Power, talking about how nuclear costs "too much to matter", and gets billions of dollars of subsidies, subsidies that we should instead be funneling into our solar and wind energy industries. If you trust their sources (take everything with a grain of salt), nuclear energy costs have increased 187 percent between 2000 and 2007!

If nothing else, it's a quite interesting article.

05-24-2008, 07:25 PM	#46
monochrome Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Working From Home Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,276	Change is coming - be patient!! Staff note: This post may contain affiliate links, which means Pentax Forums may earn a small commission if a visitor clicks through and makes a purchase. If you would like to support the forum directly, you may also make a donation here. Originally posted by Peter Zack Electrical engines powered by Nuclear/wind/solar is one possible answer. Another would be to finally get hydrogen working. But the oil lobby won't allow that to happen until there are serious changes at the top elected levels. When whatever solution there is is more profitable than the current situation, every company in the oil and every related industry will jump on it in a New York second. Think about it. The issue is capital. How much capital is thrown down the toilet if we obsolete the entire oil shipping, refining and distribution industries? There is 2.2 TRILLiON dollars invested in pipelines, tankers, wells and drilling, refineries, gas stations, engineering of internal combustion engines that has not been amortized, etc. etc. etc. There is no conspiracy to hold down efficient engines or replacements to oil - the cost of capital makes change prohibitively expensive at LOWER OIL PRICES. At THESE prices lots of changes are suddenly VERY profitable - and they will happen (Canadian Tar Sands, for instance). Businesses count capital assets as costs in every dollar of sales. Changing quickly to something different has two major impediments: Throwing away the capital you have already invested Finding the new capital to invest in whatever you want to change to. If you think GAS prices are high, wait till you see interest rates if we throw away 2.2 trillion dollars of invested capital!! Change will come - it is already coming, we just don't see final products yet (wait about 2 years for an electric Chevrolet that will knock your socks off and make GM the world's green technology leader) - but it won't come immediately. When new technology does come (fairly soon actually) it will rival the social change created by the personal computer. Don't worry - be patient. Drive less - take more pictures!!

06-05-2008, 04:53 PM	#54
ABCWinter Inactive Account Join Date: Nov 2007 Photos: Gallery Posts: 46	My 2 cents We are Extreamly cosuming so much now that before. At first we only used what we need and we were happy with that. We lived within our means. Now a days we use beyond what we need, it is all about WHAT I WANT. We seriously over consume on evrything... Maybe 10% of what you consume is all you really need, the rest of it you can do without. But it is our WANT that causes us to gulp eveything in its path... Example.. I feel nascar racing is dumb . Watching a car spin in circles to see which is the fastest. what a waste of resourses. Cosmetics hair dies jels all junk and a total waste of natural resources. Dishwashers, plug in vibration chair, toys that do everything even destroy a childs imagination. At first everything was made and created for need. Now a days, bulk of everything is created out of Want and greed. Do not own a car, we rent 1/2 a house, have 4 kids and walk and use city transit to get to those far away places. Husband has a 3 passenger truck. That will do us fine. Never took a vacation, never traveled on plane or went back home. Do not smoke, drink, Hate jewelery, cosmetics is stupid never use the $hit, I buy a lot of second hand clothing, books, blankets, odd toy, funiture, glass containers, etc at the thrift store. But we buy aas much natural and organic foods. Spentds crazy on food everything else go cheap on. Wierd we spend crazy $$$ on our wants, very little goes to what we need.. "WoW a Hummer I gotta have that ." spends $$$$$$$ on that. Plus more for Gas $$$$$$$$$$$$$... walks in store to buy food. "Organic Grapes 8.00 bag that is CRAZY" reaches for the cheaper Brand Genetic modified " GM Grapes 1.00 not that is much better." What is wrong with this shopper.... can you guess..??? The key to wealth is youre health. Think about that.. ABCWinter ( Laurie : )

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05-24-2008, 07:32 PM	#47
monochrome Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Working From Home Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,276	The price of anything is the clearing level at which supply and demand find equilibrium. Both supply and demand contribute equally to price. We have all the supply we need, as long as Brazil, Russia, China and India stop creating a middle class and let the current western world continue to consume what we always have - but then that's not really fair, is it? China alone adds 6,000,000 new cars to its fleet every year. The rest of the (non-BRIC) world addds only 1,500,000 new vehicles to its existing fleet. So if we stop buying anything made in Brazil, Russia, China or India then there won't be a new middle class and we can drive on in happy ignorance (but then, where would we get all our stuff? - I think it is really interesting to read all these complaints made by people who have thousands of dollars worth of camera gear made by capitalist companies).

05-24-2008, 09:32 PM	#48
KrisK10D Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Sydney, Australia Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,274	Sorry, I've not expressed myself very well. I don't mean OPEC are the only supplier of oil. I'm saying that the middle east in general and Saudi in particular are the world biggest resource for available oil. If they say we only get a couple millions barrels a day and we need twice that then the price of oil will rise, no matter how much Canada and Russia are supplying. When they (Russia and Canada) can compete with those 13 coutries (and fill a million barrels each and every day) I'm sure the price/barrel will drop. Until then we will all be at the mercy of OPEC.

05-24-2008, 10:05 PM	#49
MrApollinax Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Minnesota Photos: Gallery Posts: 1,529	I'm not sure about Australia but the US gets more oil from Canada than it does from any other member country of OPEC. In Feb. 08 the US imported 55,678 thousand barrels from Canada and 46,812 thousand barrels from Saudi Arabia. The crude oil that comes from the middle east however is easier (and therefore cheaper) to refine. Also the comments about Hydrogen Fuel cells is correct. All if not most of the hydrogen being used is created through the electrolisis of Natural Gas. To lessen the carbon footprint (ie not using electricity from coal/oil power plants) Honda has engineered a fueling station that runs off of solar energy. It looks like the Honda Clarity is going to be the first widely available fuel cell car that doesn't look like a go-kart. I would think that the Tesla drive train coupled with the Honda FCX drive train will be the next gen hybrid drive train system. It will be a few years yet but that seems to be the direction the car makers are going toward.

05-24-2008, 10:46 PM	#50
monochrome Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Working From Home Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 26,276	Originally posted by KrisK10D Sorry, I've not expressed myself very well. I don't mean OPEC are the only supplier of oil. I'm saying that the middle east in general and Saudi in particular are the world biggest resource for available oil. If they say we only get a couple millions barrels a day and we need twice that then the price of oil will rise, no matter how much Canada and Russia are supplying. When they (Russia and Canada) can compete with those 13 coutries (and fill a million barrels each and every day) I'm sure the price/barrel will drop. Until then we will all be at the mercy of OPEC. The oil market is a marginal economy, meaning that it doesn't matter who buys from whom - the last barrel purchased (the margin) determines the price. If we stopped buying Middle East oil altogether and bought, say, North Sea oil instead, whoever buys the North Sea oil would have to buy the Middle Easy oil and the change would have no effect. Another way to understand this is to realize that oil is fungible - it all substitutes for each other (subject to refinability). OPEC controls 40% of global oil reserves - but another 23% is controlled by other sovereign ownership, i.e. the oil is owned by nationalized oil companies such as in Mexico, Venezuela, Russia and Nigeria. We think these countries would hold oil off the market for political leverage against the US. But at these prices they are pumping all they can get out of the ground - they need the money. Exxon owns only 3% of the oil on the globe - yet we make the Chairman of Exxon testify before Congress about oil prices. Why didn't we call the Prime Minister of Canada and ask why Canada is making os much profit on thier oil? Because Congressmen cannot score political points doing that (and they couldn't make the PM come, anyway). None of the changes discussed on this thread ALONE will materially affect the price of oil. Taken together, though, each of them replacing 1 or 2% of final supply, perhaps 20% of final demand will be met with new technology - but it won't happen until 2015 r so. The next 6 to 8 years are going to be pretty grim. Oil will go up 35% AGAIN in the near term, but $200 a barrel will destroy demand significantly (there will be a serious global economic recession). When the world emerges from that recession energy use patterns will have changed significantly, and substitute sources of therms will have emerged. If you really want to worry about something (and you are an American), realize that all the dollars we send overseas to buy oil (and Chinese and Indian consumer items) eventually have to come back here. They will come back in the form of foreign interests buying America - that is, buying our land and taking over our companies and everything else we have - even old Pentax lenses! because the dollar has declined versus other currencies - oil has risen more in dollar terms than in other currency terms. Examples of prices we would think are nuts, but in the buyer's currency are somewhat reasonable. Buyer Canadian - Seller US Pentax SMCP-67 400mm f/4 ED Lens - eBay (item 190223178532 end time May-24-08 21:45:38 PDT) Buyer Belgian - Seller US Pentax-M SMC 400mm 5.6 MF K Mount Lens 400 Tele- 42233 - eBay (item 350060712869 end time May-22-08 19:27:06 PDT) Even when both buyer and seller are overseas, we get outbid in dollar terms because of the exchange rate, but in the local currencies the lens is not overpriced.

05-27-2008, 01:10 PM	#51
Clicker Veteran Member Join Date: May 2008 Photos: Gallery Posts: 3,241	If i sold my cars, i could buy a lot of lenses but then i'd have to walk to all my shoot locations

05-27-2008, 01:34 PM	#52
rparmar Site Supporter Join Date: Jan 2008 Photos: Gallery Posts: 8,819	Originally posted by Clicker If i sold my cars, i could buy a lot of lenses but then i'd have to walk to all my shoot locations Ha! Sounds like a good trade-off! I will soon be looking into some sort of bike mod for my camera gear. Anyone have pointers on that topic?

05-27-2008, 04:43 PM	#53
MJB DIGITAL Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: st. louis Posts: 1,170	im just going to mold my company into a 'green company' im going to have fundraisers for 'green awareness' and im going to market the 'green-ness' of my company and let my clients know that i am trying to help. and that when they buy my wedding photography, they are helping too.... ecology, conservation, alternative energy research.... i want my company to contribute to improving all of that stuff. 8)

06-06-2008, 03:29 AM	#55
cupic Veteran Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Australia-NSW Photos: Gallery Posts: 4,824	Originally posted by Clicker If i sold my cars, i could buy a lot of lenses but then i'd have to walk to all my shoot locations Thats Gold cheers

06-06-2008, 06:09 AM	#56
Matthew Roberts Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Bertram Texas Photos: Gallery Posts: 584	I was all for nuclear power until I considered this article : Salon.com - Nuclear Power, talking about how nuclear costs "too much to matter", and gets billions of dollars of subsidies, subsidies that we should instead be funneling into our solar and wind energy industries. If you trust their sources (take everything with a grain of salt), nuclear energy costs have increased 187 percent between 2000 and 2007! If nothing else, it's a quite interesting article.