You should read, "State of Fear" by Michael Creighton, it would make you
change your thinking about those "environmental concerns"...hogwash.
Rascal
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-dakota-truck@bent.twistedbits.net
[mailto:owner-dakota-truck@bent.twistedbits.net] On Behalf Of Pindell, Tim
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 2:04 PM
To: dakota-truck@dakota-truck.net
Subject: RE: DML: RE: DML Gas Prices
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-dakota-truck@bent.twistedbits.net [mailto:owner-dakota-
>truck@bent.twistedbits.net] On Behalf Of Joseph A. Orsini
>Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 11:42 AM
>To: dakota-truck@dakota-truck.net
>Subject: RE: DML: RE: DML Gas Prices
>
>
>
>Just want to weigh in again on this topic. Some good points have been
>made,
>but it is not just supply and demand driving the prices up. Part of it
as
>said is the problem with refineries, due to ecological concerns no new
>refineries have been built in America for a loong time. The same goes
for
>nuclear power plants for electricity. If these ecological concerns
were
>put
>aside, new more efficient refineries could be built and there could be
a
>bigger better supply of gasoline if there was an increased supply of
crude
>(say opening the reserves, allow limited drilling in Alaska, or even
allow
>offshore drilling off the coast of Kalifornia).
Many of us are not yet ready to toss aside long-term environmental
concerns for cheaper fuel in the short term, so if new refineries in
themselves are a serious environmental threat, I'd have to vote against
new construction. As a secondary concern, the increased refinery
capacity might decrease the incentive to be more fuel efficient, thereby
derailing our efforts in their infancy to wean ourselves away from
middle-eastern oil. I'm with you on the nucular power. Nucular power
plants are used safely in many, many parts of the world. Even the more
progressive Europe supplies a great percentage of its power this way.
We could learn from this.
> Government taxes on gas
>are
>not going to go away, how do you think the roads you drive on are
funded?
>Plowing, repair, maintenance, new construction all takes money and on
the
>state level there are usually provisions on gas tax that ear mark them
for
>road expenses.
I agree. I consider that tax to be more of a road "usage fee". If there
was a way to make sure that the funding derived from the fuel tax would
go directly to a separate fund for transportation infrastructure repairs
and improvements, I think that would make a lot of people happier with
the tax. The money has to come from somewhere, so it might as well come
from those who use the roads.
> Where the government needs to get it's "stuff" together is
>eliminating the
>12 or so different blends used around the country (this excludes
Kalifornia
>because that one state alone regulates something like 26 different
blends
>of
>gas based on county or air quality or some other BS) like here in
Wisconsin
>we have some counties that mandate the 10% ethanol blend and some
don't, we
>also have to have a "winter" blend that is supposed to be more
resistant to
>freezing. All these different blends make it hard for refineries to
>efficiently produce gas from crude. If there were say 2 or 3 different
>blends it would allow the gas to go to the part of the country where
demand
>was highest, as it is now if a refinery has extra gas for say Florida
but
>it
>is a special blend they need to sit on it until it can be sold in
Florida,
>whereas if there were just a few universal blends they could ship it to
say
>Georgia.
I agree that too many varieties can, and probably do, create
inefficiencies. A federal law demanding consistency might get some
states-rights panties in a bunch. Getting these states to agree to
fewer blends might be somewhat unlikely. I do, however, appreciate
cleaner-burning, low-sulphur fuel and the resultant decrease in acid
rain and smog. That should be a plus to most people. I don't mind
paying for cleaner fuels, nor do I disagree with strict federal mandates
regarding other pollution controls.
> Also the oil companies and gas companies are guilty of being
>crookeder than
>sin. Just earlier this summer there was that storm in the Gulf of
Mexico,
>everyone was worried about it causing havoc with the oil supply. Gas
>prices
>went up something like 15 or 20 cents a gallon over night. When the
storm
>passed and did not make landfall as much as feared did prices drop 15
to 20
>cents overnight? Hell no, they use the pending catastrophes to jack
prices
>up but they are as transparent as can be when the "catastrophe" doesn't
>happen.
Fuel prices are on a one-way street - up.
>
>Rant over,
>
>-Joe
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Oct 01 2005 - 12:50:23 EDT