Gas Prices Rising

[just-jim]

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Good examples, David.

The other cases that come to mind are mass transportation and health care (particularly prescription drugs).
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[mister_coffee]

Utilities are in general a good example of a case where an unregulated free market will not produce optimal results. Or even mediocre results often times.

Banking , insurance, and health care are three other cases.

Note that I said "unregulated free markets".

[just-jim]

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While it is ‘innovation’ that drives things forward (it is one of the good parts of capitalism), it’s worth remembering that ALL the various forms of energy, energy transmission, etc have benefited – in one way or another – from very large public (Government) subsidies, tax preferences, no or low cost loans and grants, specific enabling legislation, technology support, research and development support via University education and research, etc etc. Electric cars, oil exploration and production, wind and solar and on and on…it all got huge governmental support. Hydro dams, nuclear plants….yes, they too.

Even the high voltage line that brought electricity to the Methow and the local REA and PUD benefitted from this support. Without that, people in the Methow would be listening to news on kerosene powered radios! Private business would never have bothered bringing electricity into this place. Yes…rampant SOCIALISM….right here in River City!

In the energy world, there isn’t hardly anything that’s wholly paid for out of businesses or shareholders pockets; it all had some support – in some form - from the public.
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[PAL]

We have fouled our own nest and will be paying for it and future generations. Sorry.
Please let's not foul the rest of the Universe.
Dithered is a great description. Or is it diddled about? The Who.

[mister_coffee]

We won't "drop" nuclear waste into the sun because of money, physics, and engineering.

First off, if we are in earth orbit we are flying around the sun at about 19 miles per second. We need to get rid of that velocity to get something to fall into the sun. So it isn't actually that simple to launch a rocket for stuff to fall into the sun.

Just the numbers here. There are not launch cost figures for launching stuff into the sun because nobody has done it. However, there are launch cost figures for hauling stuff to the moon and that comes out to about $300000 per kg. The delta-v requirement to do that is around 7 miles per second. The delta-v requirement for putting something into the sun is likely 24-25 miles per second (you need to spin up to about five miles per second to just get into a stable orbit before you can decelerate to fall into the sun, and it is very likely that you'll have to accelerate in different directions to accomplish both things so they would likely add up).

So as a rough ballpark figure, you can guesstimate that it will cost a cool $1 million per kg to "drop" stuff into the sun. That is probably a very generous lower bound as we haven't built anything for this task and it isn't clear we'd know how to.

How many kg of stuff do we have to dump? Well, the US produces about 2000 tons of nuclear waste every year. If you make a very generous and optimistic assumption that we need to dump only about five percent of it (we can probably reprocess some and safely bury the low-level waste) you are sill looking at getting rid of 10 tons of nuclear waste each year at a billion dollars a ton. That price doesn't sound so bad, but...

There is about 13000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in "temporary" storage around the world. Getting rid of all that would cost $13 trillion. Which is over half of the US GDP.

Now why this can't possibly work even if we coughed up the money...

Spacecraft are unreliable. The most reliable to-orbit spacecraft still have failure rates of on the order of one percent. We'd have to launch thousands of these rockets full of nuclear waste to get rid of all that stuff. Now rockets going to space go very fast. Most of us do not really understand how fast they are going. But one way to look at it is that the blast front from a high explosive detonation is at from 3 miles per second to 5 miles per second -- a spacecraft in orbit is going just a bit faster than that. No known material or structure can stand being slammed into something (like, I don't know, the Earth) at that speed and remain intact. It would be vaporized. And again we would be rolling the dice on that thousands of times with a known very high failure rate.

So no, we might be crazy but we aren't that crazy.

Having said all that, if we were to switch technology tracks and pursue fast-neutron reactors which produce about one percent of the radioactive waste as current thermal neutron designs. We could reprocess nearly all of the existing nuclear waste and use it as fuel for these hypothetical new reactors. There are promising pathways for designing and building them but I am doubtful, even if we fast-tracked them, if we would have designs that were economically or technically feasible at scale in less than 25 years. And we've dithered too long and probably don't have the time to do that.

[dorankj]

Why don’t we see about all these rocket makers sending spent fuel on a course to the sun? It just needs a nudge beyond earth’s gravitational pull, eventually it will get there. Or instead of demonizing and being fearful we encourage and promote nuclear and see if fusion is actually possible? Check out the ‘wolves of Chernobyl’ and similar investigations, let’s enhance our knowledge and make it work instead of scaring everyone endlessly.

[PAL]

For me it is fairness. If the wealthy and corps would pay their share perhaps there would be no "forcing". Free market seems to have become a free for all. Price gouging, etc. But it is buyer beware.
We need vast amounts of energy. Why is that? Too many people on the planet.
Nuclear, time and time again has shown there is no place for the spent fuel. Look what happened to Japan and the crap is still swirling about in the oceans and affecting fish and other species.
Electric fire engines would be great and glad to know you are pushing for that. And great you are already ahead of the game using an EV.

[dorankj]

It won’t work until there’s actual profit margin to support it, I don’t want any government capable of forcing rich people or companies to do their will. Support nuclear power (the only source capable of producing the huge amounts of energy needed) stop trying to tear down every hydro-electric dam, support free market principles and competition that lead to the innovation needed to overcome the hurdles. And I own a full electric vehicle that I commute full time with and love it for several reasons, I’m even pushing hard (much to my co-workers chagrin) for full electric fire trucks that I believe will be the norm in time.

[just-jim]

So shutting down federal lands, saying you are going to phase out fuels and production and ‘mandating’ by government force to transition to electric vehicles, equipment and home appliances has no impact on the market? Some degree you got there, you and Krugman, genius!

Shutting down federal lands….a specific, please. A source?

Phase out fuels and production…..what, where, when? Source?

Mandating by government force? There have been fleet mileage standards- which have increased steadily- for at least 30 years. What’s new? That actually would cause demand to drop and supply to rise, so price would drop. Understand?

Also, transitioning to electric vehicles should DROP gas costs as overall oil demand should drop….so all of us still driving fossil fuel vehicles would benefit. That’s how supply and demand works. I guess you don’t understand demand….

Still waiting for something other than your usual ignorant, un-sourced, baloney.
You can post your degrees, while we’re at it.
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[PAL]

This is where Elon Musk and others of his wealth, could afford to give or at a very significant reduction in price to help people to transition. People cannot do it on their own. Here is one thing we may agree on Ken, is that the government may not help people to go to EV's. Rebate and incentives are not enough. It may be up to the private sector.
But of course this transition will take a very long time. And EV's still are not the total answer. They will reduce emissions but once again there are many other polluters, corporations, airlines, etc. that need to stop emitting pollution and cap and trade is not the total answer either. I mean, they will pay the fine and keep on polluting.
And drive less if ya can.

[dorankj]

So shutting down federal lands, saying you are going to phase out fuels and production and ‘mandating’ by government force to transition to electric vehicles, equipment and home appliances has no impact on the market? Some degree you got there, you and Krugman, genius!

[just-jim]

“Would probably result”? But we have actual history and it was much better. I’m glad you own your partisanship but trying to argue it’s not Biden’s fault but it would definitely be Trumps fault (to the negative) is completely schizophrenic! Either the administration’s policies have an impact or have nothing to do with it.

OK, Bigmouth -
Go ahead and name ONE specific action or regulation that ACTUALLY impacted the WORLDWIDE price of oil to a SIGNIFICANT degree. (You are talking to someone with a degree in economics, with a keen interest in the history of energy, who’s read widely on the subject….and who’s father spent his life in oil, working all over the world. No bullsh*t, now).

I’ll wait.

Oh….as a reminder from a couple weeks ago, since you appear to have forgotten already:

A. From wikipedia: “In May 2011, the country became a net exporter of refined petroleum products.[2] By 2014, the United States was the world's third largest producer of crude oil, after Saudi Arabia and Russia,[3] and second-largest exporter of refined products, after Russia.[4] In October 2019, the United States first became a net exporter of all oil products, including both refined petroleum products and crude oil”. Sources: Energy Information Agency and the CIA.

B. By the time President Trump took office in 2017, U.S. net energy imports had fallen 75% from the 2005 level. In 2019, net energy imports turned negative, meaning the U.S. had become energy independent. So, while it is technically correct to say that the U.S. became energy independent while President Trump was in office, the reason was the shale boom that had begun in earnest in 2005. Net U.S. exports grew from 0.61 quadrillion British thermal unit (Btus) — or “quads” — in 2019 to 3.48 quads in 2020. In 2021, President Biden’s first year in office, net exports increased slightly more to 3.62 quads. In April, 2023, the EIA released data showing energy production and consumption numbers for all of 2022. In 2022, U.S. net energy exports grew to 5.94 quads, which is the highest number on record. Total U.S. energy production was also the highest on record. Overall, the U.S. produced 2.5% more energy in 2022 than we consumed. Source: Forbes 5/2/23

C. The United States is producing about 13.2 million barrels of crude oil per day. That is millions of gallons more than is coming out of Saudi Arabia or Russia. It is more oil than was being produced even at its peak during the pro-fossil-fuels administration of former president Donald Trump, when production was 13 million barrels a day in November 2019.
Source: Washington Post 12/31/23

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[PAL]

OK so Trumpet wouldn't have anything to do with it. Much better then that both Biden and Trump don't have anything to do with it.
How do federal regs impact or do they impact gas and oil prices? Anyone?

[dorankj]

“Would probably result”? But we have actual history and it was much better. I’m glad you own your partisanship but trying to argue it’s not Biden’s fault but it would definitely be Trumps fault (to the negative) is completely schizophrenic! Either the administration’s policies have an impact or have nothing to do with it.

[PAL]

An unregulated market with Trump would probably result in even higher prices. Just wait til he would impose a 100% tariff on imports. Oh it would be such a "blood bath".
And ya just can't not call me a name can ya Ken?
Damn right I'm transparent because it is the truth.
Thanks Jim for laying it out for the especially thick.

[mister_coffee]

Just saying.

High fuel prices today are an inconvenience. Though not nearly the "inconvenience" that sea level rise, collapse of agricultural production, and large-scale movements of refugees would be.

One can view climate change as a kind of moral test: how much short-term pain are we willing to endure to ensure our survival in the long term? So far we are failing. And flailing.

[just-jim]

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Once again, for the especially thick;
1) The US is producing more oil and energy than ever before, including under pee pants,
2) The US is producing more oil than any other country in the world,
3) The price of oil is determined by WORLD-wide demand, not just US demand. Prices for ‘world trade’ items, like oil - think cotton, wheat, coffee, cement, steel, etc - are determined by collective global demand, not just what happens here.
4) Trying to blame oil prices here on x action or y regulation doesn’t make sense….anymore than blaming inflation on x. Prices for a ‘world trade’ item like oil are high in South Africa…..I guess ll that is all Biden’s fault, too? It’s like blaming high inflation in Japan on Biden….when its a world wide situation.
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[dorankj]

No, shutting down access and increasing regulation (like what Dimslee did here) never increases prices! You guys are so transparent, “just wanted to make sure Biden is not blamed”. Rube.

[PAL]

Good article. Just wanted to make sure Biden is not blamed.

[Rideback]

CNN: 'It happens every year as refineries shut down for maintenance and switch over to more expensive summer fuel. Demand for gas also increases as people drive more in the warmer weather and longer days.'

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/fina ... going-down

[PAL]

Yes, my bad. Here is one that is more current.
https://gazette.com/news/wex/ahead-of-s ... 20a%20year.

[mister_coffee]

That article is dated September 2023.

[PAL]

Demand for one thing.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/investin ... il-prices/