There is no gas shortage.

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/apr2008/bw2008041_945564.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

Didn't we learn this during the Carter years? I remember going from station to station to drive across New York state to go to Vermont on a ski trip. We planned it so we would go to a ski resort up and back with five gallons of gas between each stop. Only to find out later that there were tankers in the NY harbor waiting to come in and unload.

Would they lie to us? YES. Those thugs who are head of oil companies are almost known for it now. Congress has hearings but accepts their answers. The only good thing is people are buying smaller, gas saving cars.

Happy Earth Day world. I hope we can get rid of these liars before we ruin our beautiful earth (and mankind).

Remember the Enron scandal? This is the same thing, but on a much larger scale. The oil companies manipulate the prices, and we pay for it. Higher mileage cars are great, but they just raise the price to compensate for the increase in miles that the cars get. Big investors are buying up oil with Euros and making a killing selling on the American markets. They use everything in the world as an excuse as to why he price is so high, when in reality it all boils down to one word "GREED"!

Hundreds of experts say global warming is real, but some prefer to believe the handful of crackpots who deny it.

Virtually every expert says evolution is real, but some prefer to believe the handful of crackpots who deny it.

The fact that demand for oil is outstripping supply is something anyone can verify for themselves by examining publicly available data, yet some would much rather believe the one or two dissenting voices who deny the evidence of reality.

From the article above:

1. There Is No Shortage

Gasoline reserves on hand are at the highest levels since the early 1990s, which is remarkable considering the nation's refineries have been cutting back on the production of gasoline because their margins have declined. In fact, average gasoline reserves on hand have risen since this past October, while oil reserves in this country have gone up virtually every week this year—and only fog in the Houston Ship Channel that kept oil tankers from unloading their crude one week kept it from being every week.

2. Demand Is DOWN, Yet Prices Are UP

Just so we can all get on the same page, here are the verifiable facts on oil supplies, production, and gasoline demand.

In January of this year, the U.S. used 4% less petroleum than we did a year ago. (Oil demand was down 3.2% in February.) Furthermore, demand has been falling slowly since July of last year. Ronald Bailey of Reason Online has pointed out that worldwide production of oil has risen 2.5% in the first quarter, while worldwide demand has grown by only 2%.

Production is expected to increase by 3.3% in the second quarter, and by as much as 4.1% by the third quarter. The net result is that the U.S. daily buffer for oil production against demand, which was a paltry 1.5 million barrels as recently as 2005, is now up to 3 million barrels in excess capacity today.

So what is going on here? Why would our Energy Secretary say there's a supply and demand problem when none exists? Why would he say that speculators have little or nothing to do with the incredibly high price of oil and gasoline, when it's clear they do? President Bush—a former oilman—gives the ever-growing demand for gasoline as the primary reason prices are so high, yet that notion can be dispelled with one minute of research

Bush and Cheney are oil and banking men. That's why there is a crisis in both. Impeach them!

also didn't the same thing in the 70's nearly cause the economic system to go into a meltdown. Our economic system is so dependant on fossil fuels that even the thought of limits to the supply will cause ripples in the economy. I suspect the oil companies would realize they are cutting their own throats by doing such a thing.

also has the article covered the cost of recovering the oil both in monetary terms and energy needed in order to get a barrel of oil. when it takes a barrel of oil to make a barrel of oil then any economic system based upon using the energy of that oil must collapse.

also oil is a finite resource. do you really think that increasing use of that resource wont eventually use up enough that the supply will no longer be able to keep up with the demand.

And with several hundred billion being offered to prop up the financial institutions last year, and now five hundred billion again offsetting those losses, the dollar is deflating.

The only reason that we are using our Treasury to prop up the failing Bear Stearns et al is so that wealth can be handed over to the ruling families.

It might actually work as a means to keep the coming Depression at bay - except that we have to pay for two thirds of our oil as imports - and Middle East oil sheiks demand Euros.

So as long as our dollar deflates - it doesn't matter whether the oil sheiks have a surplus or not.

And just how long would our oil reserves last if we started using them every single day??

he and Cheney both being part of the oil industry, we've had a shortage. Every year it gets more extreme. How many cars/trucks did they buy in India and China anyway over the past year?

In this country there are a record number of gas saving cars being sold and alcohol gas but we're still short?

Call my cynical...they lie all the time. Why allow the tax breaks when they do so little research and production? Why allow them to not pay for their pollution and refusal to pay their harm to those in Alaska. Why allow them not to pay their royalties for our oil. If we had some of that money we might be able to do what is needed.

http://www.theoildrum.com
http://energybulletin.net

see the oil drum for a discussion of oil related issues by scientists.
Exactly what are Ed Wallace's credentials?

Didn't they just discover huge oil fields in Brazil?

If Bush keeps making enemies for us no one will sell us oil. They have created the shortage to profit and to destroy the democracies and their wealth. It is robbery. It is just another Neo Con Ponzi scam.

Last week started on an optimistic note when the head of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency announced that the country’s off-shore Carioca oil prospect may hold 33 billion barrels – enough to supply every refinery in the U.S. for six years. Carioca was immediately touted as the biggest discovery in 30 years and the third biggest oil field ever discovered.

The next day a statement from Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras pointed out that there was really no new information about the size of the field other than what was released last September. While fifteen wells have been drilled into the formation that is called “pre-salt”, it will be some time before any definitive estimate concerning the size of the formation, which lies beneath 10,000 meters of ocean and seabed, can be made.

In the meantime, Brazil’s stock market regulators are investigating the man who released what he said was “informal information” from sources in Petrobras. Most observers believe there is considerable oil off the coast of Brazil, but that it will be many months if not years before the full extent of the discovery is determined. At any rate, extracting the first commercial flows of oil will be very expensive, won’t arrive for five or six years at the earliest, and will span many years.

http://www.energybulletin.net/43051.html

At current world consumption rates, even if it were 33 billion barrels, that would be 392 days supply, but the first drop couldn't be pumped for at least 6-7 years, so it's not going to make much difference.

interesting though, that oil companies think there is a 'shortage' of IT workers at low prices though

Over on The Economic Populist, New Deal Democrat is implying that much of the shortages are due to speculation in the markets.

Worth a Look - Peak Everything!

The underlying trend is that there is a shortage, period. However the oil companies are definitely taking advantage of the volatility to screw us.

<snip>
Our demand is falling — the International Energy Agency predicts U.S. oil consumption will slip by 2 percent this year — but the markets don't seem to have noticed.

It's as if our recession is meaningless.

"All the conventional wisdom about oil markets is wrong," said Jeffrey Brown, an independent geologist in Dallas who studies energy market data.

The idea that high oil prices are temporary is misleading, he added.

Don't let the pause in prices Thursday fool you. Brown sees a geometric progression of escalating prices, an upward spiral of devastating economic consequences.
<snip>

More at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/5729358.html

Call today.

http://www.congress.org/congressorg/issues/alert/?alertid=11305386&content_dir=ua_congressorg

Goodbye, National Auto Slum. Hello, Greening of America? I wish :eyes:

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_18/b4082056979063.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5

The suburban landscape has been marred by foreclosures and half-built communities abandoned in the subprime aftermath. But James Howard Kunstler, author of a dozen books, including The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, thinks there's a bigger threat to those far-flung neighborhoods: the scarcity of oil. As Kunstler sees it, oil wells are running dry and the era of cheap fuel is over. Given the supply constraints, he says the U.S. will have to rethink suburban sprawl, bringing an end to strip malls, big-box stores, and other trappings of the automotive era. Kunstler, 59, predicts a return to towns and cities centered around a retail hub—not unlike his hometown of Saratoga Springs, N.Y. But the shift to this new paradigm, he says, will be painful. (Kunstler could be off the mark; he predicted technological Armageddon after Y2K.) BusinessWeek writer Mara Der Hovanesian spoke with Kunstler about suburbia, which he calls "the greatest misallocation of resources the world has ever known." snip

First The author looks at world wide oil production, it is expected to increase by the Energy Information Agency (EIA). This is actually fun to read, it accepts at full value the OPEC increases of the mid 1980s, and the increase claimed by Canada for its tar sand made after 2000 (See Fig 38 in the cite below). Both are questionable. Without the Canadian Tar Sands, non-OPEC oil production would have DROPPED, not jumped do to what ever the EIA admits were drops in the North Sea, China and Mexico.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html.

In IEA's release for April 2008, it mentioned the further drop in North Sea and Mexico, but then claims increase for the end of 2008, but does not say where.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/contents.html#Global_Petroleum_Markets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil

http://www.eia.doe.gov/

It ignores Peak Oil and Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO) and its position that production WILL DROP this year and peaked in 2006:
http://www.peakoil.net/

The second set of Spin, is the comments on oil reserves. The author ignores the fact that in the middle of 1990 the US had 1.7 billion barrels of oil in stock. Instead the author goes with the mid-2000 stock number of 1.4 billion barrels. The difference is the result of the the "Asian Flu" of 1997. Do to the drop in prices in the late 1990s Companies dropped oil stocks. Stocks dropped further do to Clinton's release of oil from the Strategic oil reserves to reduce prices (Remember that in 1999 and 2000?). Thus no one wanted to hold onto oil in the US at that time, if price dropped the company holding the oil would take the loss. Thus companies had good reasons to reduce oil stocks, and given the surplus in the world, getting oil in a pinch was NOT a problem. Thus the need to hold reserves in the US dropped. It is from this low stock point he compares with the oil stock today, NOT the high stock of mid 1990. This is seen in the data from EIA:

EIA data on oil stocks:
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/wttstus1w.htm

My point is what should be compared is the oil stocks of 1990 NOT 2000. If you do that comparison Stocks are DOWN not up as the author in the Article states.

The author ignores the Hirsch Report published by EIA, for it did NOT support his position:
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf

v. 2000 as basis for stocks. For one thing, what's stockpiled is as much a political decision as a "material" one. Stocks may be down or up for any number of reasons, some of which might be to deliberately move prices.

Second, the immediate question is the present price spikes, in which case comparing this year to the closest previous years & asking "What's different?" is indeed the right question.

This has got to be the biggest cluster-#)ck of the consumers ever!

I do remember 1974. In '72 & '73 we had gas wars when I actually bought gas for 14.9 cents! Then came the "gas shortage". Rationed gas & limited hours when you could buy it. Price climbed up to about 40 cents! Wow! Been climbing ever since, albeit, gradually until Darth, * & their accomplices stole the election.

Then we find out a few years later that it was a scam. They got away with it then, & have been screwing us ever since. Tried to blame it on OPEC then, now they come up with the "excuse of the week". Summer blend. Changing from summer blend to winter blend, & vice-versa. Increased demand from Asia. The list goes on & on.

But what are WE doing about it? I propose we stop driving. Shut the country down! Stock up on supplies & then sit home. When things come to a halt, something will happen! If we aren't going shopping, they get nervous! :scared:

And become less reliant on the oil?

As much as I hate what it does to my budget I am also glad it has happened. Finally our selfish population is moving away from gas guzzlers. Now, maybe if we get to $10 gal of gas we will actually get mass transit and comprehensive energy policy!

But, the bus lines were struggling. I think this might actually save them. Many of us have been saying for a number of years that we should have a high-speed rail like Japan.

Sad that it take American being shoved against the wall before they'll do the smart & right thing.

We need to transport the majority of our goods by rail as well. 18-wheelers would be local trucks only.