Of course, you would need to assume the pipeline would have an impact on oil prices.

The Mid East oil is forcing prices to fall below the point where getting that oil is profitable.
I read this last week that since we are now exporting oil the Saudis are trying to force the prices down below our cost to extract oil.

Over the long term, a lot of these places can do it for $45 to $65. But many cos borrowed tons of money, so they were hoping for continuous high prices to cover their loans.

Some of the conventional low-yield rigs go off an on based on oil prices, so there's more of a cut there, to be honest.

This should get interesting.

Isn't that what Keystone is all about? And the copious amount of jobs it will produce?! Just more efficiently than how the Egyptians will do it!

The Russians think so too. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/opinion/thomas-friedman-a-pump-war.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

I am not so sure anymore. Whatever seems to be happening seems too large to be deliberate manipulation.

oh I so hope so.................

And the punishing effects on Russia can't be overstated either.

I so hope this happens too!

Unless someone's miraculously come up with a way to sequester a few billion tons of carbon

http://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

Like a junkie taking a hit of crack, it SEEMS positive while you're high.

Not so much when the long-term effects set in.

What do you think? If prices were to drop significantly, would it be a problem?

It's a damn shame this didn't happen months ago when I was actually in the US. I think gas was about $3.75 a gallon then. I didn't drive that much, just across the state and back maybe 750 miles.

I have noticed that the price of LPG here in Korea dropped. It was about 1100 KRW per liter and for awhile it was around 999 per liter.

available pool of workers is mostly hired, it would create upward pressure on wages which would increase demand even further.

Due to the expense of extracting tight oil (vs. a conventional well), as well as the added expense of shipping it via train instead of pipeline, prolonged oil at $60/barrel would DESTROY the profit margins of the Bakken oil well operators.

Well operators would stop new drilling operations, existing wells deplete rapidly due to the nature of frack oil drilling, and those boom towns would turn to ghost towns.

US oil production would plummet, and oil prices would likely spike again.

I for one would LOVE to see the oil bubble burst on the Plains; I hate the fucking Bakken will all my heart and soul.

also to make alternative energy production non economical.

Basically, OPEC would be dumping product to maintain control over energy. Right now US production is way up and alternative energy production is taking off. All long term disasters for OPEC.

is a tax on imported oil. Keeps the price up, and shores up the domestic industry. The money can be used to fund infrastructure improvements, or just simply to close the deficit.

It's an idea that can be approved by all sides of the political spectrum.

for alternative energy to be developed will occur.

with the extra money....
We've been through this scenario before.

It will, actually, be a great time to invest in alternative energy.


Tikki

So long as your not invested in, or dependent on big oil paying your bills, you almost cannot help but benefit from a drop in oil prices. The money people don't have to pay extra for fuel adjustment costs on items and services, heating their homes and their own transportation costs, among other expenses which would drop, can all be put to use in other areas of our budgets.

It's like a stimulus boost which each of us get to benefit from.

Hummers for Everyone!!!

Get your minds out of the gutter, I was talking about those goofy looking trucks.

As Tikki notes up thread, alternatives still are good investments at the lower gas an oil prices. What is NOT attractive are things like hydrofracking, tar sands and other more expensive methods for extracting oil.

People actually started buying smaller and more fuel efficient cars during that period of high gas prices.

But this is America and within three months of gas prices returning to normal the F150 was once again the most popular new vehicle in America.

We do not learn, certainly not about energy prices. An oil price dip like this will put the sustainable energy movement back for longer than it lasts.

It's not about learning. We'll never turn down cheap energy. Granted, it's never been cheap in an ecological point of view, but we're not built to worry about the health of the planet anyway. 7+ billion people on the planet, so a few will care just by chance, but no form of life will not use cheap and easy energy.

We like to think of ourselves as "evolved", but we wouldn't have gotten to the point that we think we've evolved to without the cheap energy along the way.

And will continue to drive smaller and more fuel efficient vehicles despite the precipitous drop in oil prices.

Meanwhile check out the 2015 Kenworth Pilgrimage.



In a general sense you are correct, organisms tend to use what energy is available and if energy is readily available they will not optimize for energy efficiency.

Possibly the single biggest problem with America is that every single thing eventually ends up being optimized for generating revenue which means all other measures are secondary if they even get noticed at all.

Take the Pink Ribbon for breast cancer Komen foundation for instance, turns out it's a revenue generating scheme for the executives before it's a charity.

Someone may have built what you pictured above, but there is no such thing as the "2015 Kenworth Pilgrimage"

That picture has been floating around for ten years at least.

Japan is an island. China and India have like 2.5 billion people combined. Europe was built up when cars didn't exist, then went through a couple wars in the 20th century, then built back up again, but still in a relatively confined space. Then there's most of the rest of the world, which has enough trouble with more basic things than F150's.

The US is 5% of the human population, but uses 25% of the world's energy. We're going to waste energy. Is it because we're greedy? Maybe a little. The US was also the last one standing after the 20th century, and we set up the international system we have today. The US military is the developed world's military, except only US taxpayers pay for it. We're ok with that because nobody can tell us no. Europe is ok with that since they can spend what would've gone to their own military if they had to get the resources themselves on their various social programs.

The more expensive energy is, the more we'll optimize for efficiency. If it's cheap, then it's going to be about revenue/profit, because why wouldn't it be? That just goes back to what were the eventual benefits from the surplus of agriculture. That surplus bought people, at least some people, time to do other things. That's all money does too.