Give me a good reason to keep using as much oil as we do now!

[Johnny Canuck3]

yeah, but you just made that comment about a diagram illustrating how the different bits of oil are used after refining, which is hardly contentious, so you're comment made you look pretty dumb.

and arguing against the use of graphs to illustrate a point is equally dumb IMO.

It probably wasn't the best example, but the point still stands.

I'm assuming that you know as well as I do, that pictorializing statistics into a graph, doesn't instil them with some special authority.

 

[free spirit]

It probably wasn't the best example, but the point still stands.

I'm assuming that you know as well as I do, that pictorializing statistics into a graph, doesn't instil them with some special authority.

never said it does, what it does do is help people to analise a whole load of stats much quicker than if you just gave them an excel spread sheet.

like I say, arguing against the use of graphs is just plain dumb... of course it does help if you know how to interpret graphs so you're able to tell if someone's actually posting up a relevant graph that shows what they're saying it shows, or if they've got the wrong end of the stick / just posting up graphs to try to bluff their way out of a corner.

 

[Superdupastupor]

The shock is here.

you think the economic slowdown and oil-price are terminal???

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Because right now it's about maintaining the status quo I suppose. We all know the shock is coming, as do they. I was talking to a colleague the other day and he was telling me that back in the 60s (?) some guy invented a fuel injector that would use a certain percentage of water to reduce fuel consumption... and then you never heard of the idea again. There's two possible reasons for this.

1) The invention was a crock of shite and didn't actually work.

2) The invention DID actually work but then there's less oil being sold so less money exchanging hands and less tax because of it, so the design was bought up and locked in some vault somewhere.

I'm keeping my mind open about it.

Night.

sorry dude mised this last night due to fanclubs flaming

it's prably becuase you've always been able to do this with engines indeed in racing sometimes it's not uncommon to add some water to the fuel which makes it burn at a higher compression ratio the reason you don't do it is because it will corrode the engine and create greater engine wear which is fine in terms of racing because you are likely to rebuild the engine again at some point before the corrosion get's to great but would be disaterious on a road car due to the service intervals.

 

[GarfieldLeChat]

Garf is talking a lot of shit on this thread as well mind

in what way I'll reaqsk what fanclub couldn't answers

do you dispute the graph posted on page one of the breaking of the polymer chains to refine crude to refined oil is that the problem?

are you saying technology will not be developed in line with other technological advancements which will start slow and hopefully before oil becomes to scarce result in steady more effient and more effective technologies to replace oil?

or are you saying oil companies are sitting on this technology now?

maybe you can provide answers to these which would highlight where i'm talking shit...

 

[david dissadent]

you think the economic slowdown and oil-price are terminal???

The oil price has already come down of off its highs of $145 and is now around $115. The oil price is unlikely to get too high as there is less money in the economy to buy it.

I theory the current banking and housing crisis should run its course over a couple of years. The losses the banks are taking mean they can lend alot less money which in turn means the economy as a whole slows and the cost of houses fall. This kind of feeds of off each other for a while as falling house prices increase the risks of defaults. But eventualy the economy would turn round as we should get chugging along again. It is my opinion that the banks are yet to take the worst of there losses. They have been given several hundred billion dollars worth of loans against assets that are not worth as much as they have been marked to. So thats probibly another lot of money that is yet to be lost (for those with a bit more knowledge I am talking about the re-valuation of CDOs and MBS's to a fair market value).

But like every crisis it should pass. In theory this weakness in the economy should kill the price of oil as less people use it.

But there are several other problems yet to be addressed. One of these is the huge gulf in trade deficit between China and the US\ west. This should normaly create a weakening of the dollar against the Yuan which would make Chinese goods more expensive and US goods cheaper. But there has been massive currency manipulation.

Another problem is the huge US debt, personal and governmental. This will hagn over there economy for a long time. It will also mean that in a couple of years the amount they have to pay on interest and repaying there 10 year loans. This means that US tax will have to go up and government spending fall. But this is related to the trade deficit as China have been buying alot of US government debt to help keep the US funded to spend on Chinese goods and keep the dollar strong.

Now the US will face increasing cost of borrowing as the bond markets refuse to passively accept government spending (this is what happened to Clinton and forced him away from a more socialy progressive agenda and will hapen to Obama).

This means that the longer term prognostic for the US\ EU and world economy is also not so good.

There is also the long term pensions underfunding crisis that is yet to be fully grasped that together with a demographic "time bomb" will also create long term problems.

The price of oil has helped trigger the recession, but with a slow world economy for a while yet it should not have been the biggest constraint on growth. There are other dynamics now at work that mean for western econmies it will likely be a bigger problem than it could have been on the surface. The first is that the huge trade deficits and changes in global manufacturing location mean that many nations such as China and South Korea now have huge stores of dollars they can use to subsidise oil consumption in there own countries to fund growth. This means that there will be a market distortion on oil availability. The other problem is that as oil gets more expensive oil producers get richer and use more oil. This is a slightly bigger problem than most realise (this is the so called 'export land model'). So yes, oil will probibly be a big constraint on growth for a while.

Will it be terminal. Not immediately and not for a long while. Nor need it be, but it will be terminal for the lifestyle we now have. No more foriegn flights, loads less exotic foods and air conditioning.

Incidently I strongly think that the recovery in our economies will come from a relocalisation of manufacturing. This recession wont be terminal, but its probibly not the last one we have on the horizon.


*obviously this is all my opinion only and alot of people will dispute much of this*

 

[Bang to Rights]

Does anyone really believe there's a good side to our current usage?

None at all, other than that once-a-year flight that takes me far away from my domestic worries.