The real cost of imported oil

[charrison]

linkage
The author will be releasing a 25 year plan on how to get out of this mess next friday. Someone remind to dig it up and post it.

War critics have made much of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's recent upward revision of the price tag for maintaining 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq to around $1 billion a week. That sounds like a lot, but if it results in a more stable region and a reduction in the continuing need to defend Persian Gulf oil, it could prove to be quite a bargain indeed.
As the 30th anniversary of the 1973 Arab oil embargo approaches, the United States finds itself even more vulnerable than it was three decades ago. In 1972, the year before the embargo, U.S. oil imports were 27.6 percent of consumption. Last month, they stood at 56.8 percent, more than twice the 1972 level.

...


For the past year, the National Defense Council Foundation has been engaged in a detailed analysis of the "hidden" cost of imported oil. The analysis looked at three elements: military expenditures specifically tied to defending Persian Gulf oil, the cost of lost employment and investment resulting from the diversion of financial resources and the cost of the periodic "oil shocks" the nation has experienced.
When these three elements are combined, they total $304.9 billion annually, nearly six times what we are spending in Iraq.

 

[TheBDB]

It is sad because there are numerous ways to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, but no administration is willing to put forward those ideas. Not to mention the difficulty in following through on a long term plan.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: TheBDB
It is sad because there are numerous ways to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, but no administration is willing to put forward those ideas. Not to mention the difficulty in following through on a long term plan.

Yup. Local oil production is thrawted. Nuclear power is kept in check by Nimbys. Even Kenedy and Kerry oppose windmills in their back yards. Tax credits could be given to familys and companys that do energy effeciency upgrades.....

 

[Drift3r]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: TheBDB
It is sad because there are numerous ways to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, but no administration is willing to put forward those ideas. Not to mention the difficulty in following through on a long term plan.

Yup. Local oil production is thrawted. Nuclear power is kept in check by Nimbys. Even Kenedy and Kerry oppose windmills in their back yards. Tax credits could be given to familys and companys that do energy effeciency upgrades.....

Like adding solar panels to your roof to help generate and supplement your electricity requirments ? I know a friend who installed solar panels on his roof about 4 years ago. The initial cost were rather larger. In fact that is the biggest problem with solar panels. It's their starting costs that hold them back. Yet the amount of money this guy has saved in energy bills is going to more then make up for it in the long run for him. If we could give tax credits to people so that they could install solar panels and get past that initial cost factor then we would be heading the right direction.

P.S. I got no beef with nuclear power just don't dump the spent rods in my backyard or anywhere near my drinking water.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Drift3r

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: TheBDB
It is sad because there are numerous ways to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, but no administration is willing to put forward those ideas. Not to mention the difficulty in following through on a long term plan.

Yup. Local oil production is thrawted. Nuclear power is kept in check by Nimbys. Even Kenedy and Kerry oppose windmills in their back yards. Tax credits could be given to familys and companys that do energy effeciency upgrades.....

Like adding solar panels to your roof to help generate and supplement your electricity requirments ? I know a friend who installed solar panels on his roof about 4 years ago. The initial cost were rather larger. In fact that is the biggest problem with solar panels. It's their starting costs that hold them back. Yet the amount of money this guy has saved in energy bills is going to more then make up for it in the long run for him. If we could give tax credits to people so that they could install solar panels and get past that initial cost factor then we would be heading the right direction.

P.S. I got no beef with nuclear power just don't dump the spent rods in my backyard or anywhere near my drinking water.

Last time i checked the payoff time for solar systems was 10-15 years.

Well if we allow the reprocessing of nuclear waste, we would have less nuke waste. But unfortunatly it creates plutonium in the process and there are folks that think that is bad.


Upgrading hvac systems would have far greater energy saving than solar panels short term.

 

[SuperTool]

How about we stop giving tax credits to SUV buyers?

 

[Moonbeam]

The best I think would be Mandatory National Service for men and women in the Army of US Energy Engineers. Two years to careers in solar wind and insulation all the way from manufacture to installation at tax payers expense. Also an energy academy like the military has.

 

[Tripleshot]

A steel manufacturing copmany in my town is fabricating windmill towers for utilities. It is a better benifit than anything. Mother natures winds and waves can produce energy at low cost to all of mankind. De salianation plants on coastlines can also produce potable drinking water as well as an energy source. An investment in this technology and purchase by utilites would provide compitition and lower energy costs for all of us (in theory).

But, when you have oil interests paying off politicians who then legislate industry protection, how in hell are you going to benifit from the new alternative technology? We need leadership that is not obligated to oil interests.

That is why we have elections, and that is why YOU need to vote!

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Tripleshot
A steel manufacturing copmany in my town is fabricating windmill towers for utilities. It is a better benifit than anything. Mother natures winds and waves can produce energy at low cost to all of mankind. De salianation plants on coastlines can also produce potable drinking water as well as an energy source. An investment in this technology and purchase by utilites would provide compitition and lower energy costs for all of us (in theory).

But, when you have oil interests paying off politicians who then legislate industry protection, how in hell are you going to benifit from the new alternative technology? We need leadership that is not obligated to oil interests.

That is why we have elections, and that is why YOU need to vote!

The only problem wiht that reasoning is that the oil companies you complain about are actually energy companies. Shell makes some some of the most effecient solar cells around. I cant wait for people to complain about big solar in the future

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: SuperTool
How about we stop giving tax credits to SUV buyers?

The 75k tax credit is for business buying equipment. That does not mean it is for an SUV. I could easily see a suburban/van/truck/suv being needed by a company as easily as a company needing a new bobcat.

I woudl also have no problem expanding the high mpg tax credit. However this does not mean people will use less gas.

 

[Tripleshot]

The only problem wiht that reasoning is that the oil companies you complain about are actually energy companies. Shell makes some some of the most effecient solar cells around. I cant wait for people to complain about big solar in the future

They also control supply and demand. That is the problem. They need outside the box compitition.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Tripleshot

The only problem wiht that reasoning is that the oil companies you complain about are actually energy companies. Shell makes some some of the most effecient solar cells around. I cant wait for people to complain about big solar in the future

They also control supply and demand. That is the problem. They need outside the box compitition.

You are right, more competition is usually better, but established markets usually only have a handful of competitors once the market becomes stable.

 

[da loser]

i have problems with that study, although i guess it's just made up numbers to get a shock value.
1)apparently they calculated that $100 per barrel number by taking all the barrels we import, not just the middle east, otherwise I got $400 for ME oil. the figure would probably be limited to $40 or less with oil being developed alternatively. I think just not supporting anything in the middle east would be all that's needed to promote alternative stuff. you gotta wonder though, if another country will gladly go in? French power! or maybe Canada becomes a superpower with their oil shales.

2)they didn't calculate the loses, the major problem. you're looking at the lose of chemical industries, although not too much of a problem since they're leaving anyway. You're also losing out on some chemicals, but alternatives presumably could be found readily as the economics change. but the big problem is the lose of automobiles, the industrial power doesn't come from oil, so that's not a problem. the lose of automobiles isn't just cars but commerce. so essentially you increase the cost of everything. i'm not a economics guy so i have no idea how to calculate that. but they said the lose created by the oil shocks *where the price shot up to $60 at most) in 1980 comes out to ~$82.5 billion a year. I'd assume it's greater without ME oil, how much is the question. the ndcf didn't have crap on their webpage so i went to oak ridge haven't read their methodology yet.

now you guys are talking about energy for electrical power, oil is about mobile power, chemicals can have alternative sources. that's why bush is pushing hydrogen... not nuclear/solar/whatever
so i think bush is doing something, not as big as possible, but still something nonetheless. of course moving to hydrogen, would mean increasing the importation of natural gas. using water as a source of hydrogen is ludicrous.

also tripleshot, how do desalination plants provide a source of power? i always thought they used up a tremendous amount of energy or maybe that's money. my hometown is looking into it for a water source, but the only people that operate it are surprise surprise ME countries.