So, do you think oil will never run out? That the current situation is good?
I don’t see where you are getting that the production of other fuels will be subsidized. Research, yes. But research into possibly far off alternatives has usually been subsidized by the government, especially when there is scant reason for the oil companies to risk decreasing the value of their reserves. And there is certainly nothing going on here that will affect what consumers pay to any degree. The reason we pay more in California is that we have special rules about how the gas is refined - but any oil coming in will do.
What are the oil companies claiming will be the impact at the pump? Surely it is negligible when compared to the drastic price swings, up and down, we’ve seen in the past year.
Thanks for the factcheck link. I certainly agree with them that promises of alternate energy sources are overblown - investing in research is not a guarantee of anything. That’s certainly not a reason not to invest, though.
As to what we can do already - we’re already doing a lot. The just passed global warming law will be a big help. I heard on Forum this morning, in a show about the recently released study on the economic impact of global warming, that we use 40% less energy per capita than the national average. (40% is right, and I think it is per capita but I might be wrong about that.) So, happily the statement that this is the only way of reducing gas usage is wrong.
Is the property tax reduction part of the Proposition? I can understand the deductability of the tax - that is pretty standard. However, property taxes don’t fluctuate depending on the price of oil, I suspect, so this still seems like a good idea.
If every person in California were to replace a few light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, more energy would be saved than with all this foolishness. Yet when I am in Lowe’s, people are still buying incandescent for the most part. Want the government to do something about energy? Ban the incandescent bulb with exceptions for special applications.
I would like to question the section regarding “not passing the tax to the consumer”. Exactly how is this going to be enforced? Will we need a regulatory body to determine if this is happening? How could they tell? Wouldn’t this be a de-facto price control? Wouldn’t there be pressure on this agency keep prices artificially low (essentially their charge, if you think about it, because they are forbidding the increased expenses from being passed on) thereby creating shortages?
Let’s see, what happened last time gas prices didn’t reflect the market? If you pass this mess, get ready to line up around the block for gas. That is on days when the last digit of your license matches an odd/even day on the calendar. Don’t plan on driving from LA to Frisco on days that it doesn’t. And NO TOPPING OFF YOU FILTHY HOARDER!
Well, for one thing, the oil used to make the gas we burn in California, especially in the summer, isn’t strictly fungible. It has to be of a higher grade than most, so the sources are more limited. Limited to the middle east, in fact, so if terrorism is a concern, understand that the money from the increased imports will be going to that part of the world instead of our own domestic economy. The article itself says the tax will increase imports, directly contradicting the 87 supporter’s claim that it will “reduce our dependence”.
Also, as imports go up, other problems arise. California is the all time champ of NIMBYism. How are you going to transport all the additional imports when our petroleum infrastructure is already bursting at the seams? Just try and get something built. Pierce Brosnan and Daryl Hannah will come out with news cameras and make your life hell.
I find it amusing that a lot of people who are arguing that 87 couldn’t raise oil prices because the market won’t bear it, are the same people who at other times allege collusion and price fixing in the oil industry. So the market works with perfection when we are talking about 87, but is completely broken at all other times? :rolleyes:
This is a jab at the oil companies, and you can bet the money raised will be wasted on useless boondoggles, by and large. Tax incandescent bulbs so they are the same price as CF’s instead, and give the money to Meathead’s sammich fund for all I care. It would do more to save energy than the current proposal.
Perhaps you should stop licking your lips and salivating over the fine points of increasing taxes on the eeeevil oil companies and realize that regardless of how it is done, under 87 the money will be wasted on politically determined boondoggles. There will be lots of plums being passed out to the politically well connected, and lot’s of funds will be raised for politicians that ultimately control where the funds are squandered.
If your goal is to stick it to the oil companies, admit that is your goal, and at least do something worthwhile with the funds like fix the highways or, God forbid, pay off some of California’s staggering debt.
No. But either the market will regulate investment, return and encourage new capital spending when appropriate, or some government bureaucrat or law will do it without regard to market forces, according to someone or some group’s personal desires.
I think the market is the best choice to allocate investment, not a government fiat. And my point was that much of the justfication for forced price increases now is to avoid price increases in the future. Unfortunately, the future increases are not certain, while more immediate ones, if legislated, are.
And you know, I follow the alternative energy story pretty closely, and there are a lot of breakthroughs now in the lab that will soon be commercialized. There are a lot of hotshot techies up in San Jose working on all kinds of cool things that show a lot of promise. The difference is they are funded by venture capitalists, or by capital from previous entrepreneurial successes.
Let’s look at some of the technologies under discussion (at least based on the imagery in the pro 87 commercials)
Wind power- Fairly mature technology, but many places oppose it’s use on environmental/aesthetic grounds. Also, there are few places where the wind conditions are suitable for production at any scale. How can research dollars change this?
Solar- Lots of good things already coming here. Watch for solar arrays to become more efficient and much more inexpensive within the next 5-10 years. Problem solved.
Geothermal? Where are we going to build the plants? Yellowstone? There is a reason Iceland leads the field here.
Wave/Tidal- Yeah, let’s dam up that estuary with a tidal dam, or extract a lot of energy from waves before they reach the shore. That will go over great with people that like to surf and watch the shorebirds. Like me.
Biofuels- Sure! Let’s substitute a low value crop like corn for a high value crop like strawberries or avocados. In a state where we are already creating ecological havoc by using too much water for agriculture already. Ever heard of Mono Lake? Water is almost as precious as oil in the west. Leave this to Iowa and the crooked lobbyists from Archer Daniels Midland.
Especially disingenuous is the Clinton commercial where he talks about Brazil. Dude, not only is the Brazilian program heavily subsidized, Brazil has dirt cheap labor, and can grow sugar cane. The only place we can grow sugar cane is Hawaii and Florida. Again, wtf does this have to do with California? Are we going to have a bunch of folks toiling in the cane fields of Florida for twenty five cents an hour so we can drive around? I mean seriously.
Cold Fusion- You might as well invest in this, for all the results you will get from the others.
If you really wanted to change the world, I suppose you could offer a $100,000,000 X-prize for anyone that could come up with a safe battery technology that would quadruple the range of an electric vehicle. And the battery life of my laptop. That’s the ticket. Of course, such a patent would be worth 100 times that much, so you can bet that someone (perhaps a particular energetic bunny we know of) is looking for that battery already, so what’s the point?
Clinton just came on TV talking about children with athsma and how 87 was the cure for asthma. Now I just need a cure for puking. Damn carpetbagger.
Happy Wanderer, I get your point, really, I do. And I don’t want to sound like a Devil’s Advocate, but research could help each of those technologies in some way.
That doesn’t mean I support taxing people to do the research. I am only talking about what funds could do if property applied, regardless of source, and I would prefer that source to be voluntary contributions from willing investors rather than unwilling taxpayers.
In detail, consider wind power. Research into reducing the production cost would help (bigger blades, longer-lasting generators). Solar: cheaper photovoltaic cels and development of other methods of converting sunlight into usable energy. Sure, it’s coming along, but faster would be better.
In general, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal and others would all benefit from improvements in electrical energy storage and transmission. The achilles heel of electrical power generation is uncompact storage for long-term use and on-demand transmission costs are quite high compared with gas/coal pipelines and tanks over truck, rail or ship. So if a way were found to store a month’s supply of electricity for NYC in a cubic foot, it could be easily transported and distance to Yellowstone or Iceland would no longer be a drawback, for example.
The September 2006 issue of Scientific American has a lot of good info on the pros and cons of some of these schemes, and they are problematic to say the least. Some obstacles may not be surmountable. Biofuels, as they stand, consume more energy than they yield. Everyone is presuming that we will find some kind “breakthrough” that will reduce the energy needed to distill a combustible fuel from the watery product of corn fermentation. A little thing called thermodynamics might stand in the way of that. If this problem cannot be surmounted, biofuels are a dead end. I have also seen estimates that the amount of land we would need to devote to producing all this fuel would be exorbitant, and cause an ecological problem in and of itself.
Sorry folks. These problems aren’t easy. Billions are already being spent by private industry to solve them. There is no indication that the government would do a wiser job spending the money, and lots of indication that they would do much worse. Of course the politicians that will ultimately pull the strings love the kickbacks.
Is it the case or not? Does anybody really know, or are we all woefully uninformed here? Call it severence tax, call it property tax, call it income tax, call it a royalty, call it what ever you want, what I would like to know is how much do the oil companies pay to the state out of each barrel, and how does that compare to other oil producing states?
I don’t see how anyone can make an informed decision without that knowledge.
Well, Musicat, maybe you don’t understand the meaning of “mature” technology. Wind has been around for decades and the new units are about as maximized as they are going to get. I saw a string of specially made rail cars transporting blades and nacelles a couple of years ago and they were darn impressive. Think about it. They already have special rolling stock to transport the end product. I would call that a technology that has been optimized to a fare the well. So who is going to get this money? Do you think seriously that a couple hundred thousand to some guy connected to a state assemblyman is going to make a materials science breakthrough that has somehow eluded the hundreds of companies, big and small, that would profit from anything that gives us lighter/stronger/better?
Ooh, I’m impressed. You can HEAT a building in a warm climate with geothermal. Christ, you can heat it with the waste from lighting and electronics if you insulate well enough. Get back to me when they are running the A/C in August out in sunny San Berdoo. :rolleyes:
At what cost to the consumer is this power being delivered?
I would presume that the most optimal spots for generating geothermal are being used first, therefore won’t each subsequent source be less efficient, therefore more costly?
What technological breakthroughs can be made here? Aren’t we talking about hot water? Getting power from hot water=mature technology=low return on research dollars.
So in the entire state they might generate enough geothermal to run the A/C in San Bernadino. And this is something that won’t scale without limit. Once the existing sites are developed, end of story. You can never push the percent higher. This sounds more like a job for captial investment. Build out a much geo as can be done, and call it a day. 87 only provides research dollars, not capital investment, so geothermal energy doesn’t really benefit from 87, does it?
Oh, and that battery everyone is looking for might already be here. This would make the electric car not just practical but superior to the gasoline powered car. The article doesn’t really go into obstacles of mass production, but if they can be overcome, this one thing will change the world.
I am not an expert on wind technology, but a friend of mine, John Hippensteel, is. I have been present at several of his lectures locally, and according to his charts & graphs, the size of the turbines installed in Wisconsin has been rising with no plateau yet reached. The number of installations is increasing rapidly and the heights are going up so much that the FAA’s limits are becoming more of a restriction than strength of materials. And each larger turbine is producing electricity at a lower cost per KW, with no end yet in sight.
John says that the number of good sites for wind generation are many, even in a state not known for wind, and siting is a problem only near urban areas and airports.
Still, at the present level, anyone building a turbine needs to think of a 20-year return to justify his investment, as the output has to be fed into the existing power grid and compete with other kinds of generation. If each KW could be made for less, perhaps there would be only a 10-year cycle needed, and that would make investment more attractive.
I really don’t think that any of the so-called alternative energy sources are “mature” yet, as they are still minor players in the overall energy production of the world. And even the internal combustion engine, which I was told was pretty mature 20 years ago, has had significant improvements over that time.
Very little technology is stagnant when there is money to be made.
