http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060629/ap_on_bi_ge/bp_propane_manipulation_1

Federal investigators said Wednesday that BP energy traders cornered the U.S. propane market in the winter of 2004 and illegally manipulated prices, driving up heating and cooking costs for rural consumers.

"It's pretty clear as to what they were doing," CFTC attorney Paul Hayeck said in an interview.

Also on Wednesday, the        Department of Justice announced that one former BP trader implicated in the scheme, 34-year-old Dennis N. Abbott of Houston, has pleaded guilty "to conspiring to manipulate and corner the propane market." The agency said Abbott, who has agreed to cooperate with law enforcement in "an ongoing investigation," faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

I was struck by the fact that the Saudis felt it necessary to state that they were meeting their contractual obligations to provide oil to customers.  

This kind of reminds me of situations where you meet someone and they start assuring you about how honest they are.  Every time that happens, I always check to make sure that I still have my wallet.

http://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story_s.asp?StoryId=1093118329

Saudi Arabia Continues to fulfill its commitment to provide oil: Turki Al-Faisal

 Saudi Press Agency - 28/06/2006

The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to US, Prince Turki Al-Faisal affirmed that Saudi Arabia continues to fulfill its commitment to providing oil since it is the largest dependable oil producer in the world.

While participating in a seminar entitled " Exploring the Future of Arab-American Energy Relations", Prince Turki Al-Faisal said that the rising prices of oil are due to instability in the Middle East and shortage of production of refineries especially in the US and not because of shortage of oil production.

Prince Turki Al-Faisal reiterated the Kingdom's commitment to invest in the field of increasing its production facilities to meet the world's future needs of energy, pointing out that Saudi Arabia is now the leading oil producer.

Directors of the largest American oil companies participated in the seminar, who stressed the importance of Arab-American relations and cooperation in the field of energy. They also affirmed that the bolstering of these relations is crucial to achieve economic and social growth and stability in the whole world.

I posted this question and a friedn gave his analysis below.
=======
Alan has posed an interesting analytical challenge (that I'll take up, with a little help from "La Guapa" - still need a new battery for "La Vieja").

But first: the conclusions below - whatever they work out to be - cannot be limited arbitrarily to "urban rail." The "genre," so to speak, is called "passenger rail."

If the "Pushkarev, Zupan and Cumella" thresholds are valid - and the burden is on the skeptics to demonstrate otherwise - then they are valid for any "average travel distance" for which one provides mechanized transport.

In fact, Ed T. has pointed out that, when infrastructure is shared between passenger and freight rail services, the "threshold" of 5,000 "tennysons" (pass-km per km of route) per weekday is somewhat lower - perhaps as low as 3,000 "tennysons" (pass-km per km of route) per weekday.

Thus, if demand on all rail routes radiating out of Salt Lake City works out to 3,000 "tennysons" (pass-km per km of route) per weekday, then you operate rail passenger service because doing so is economnically justified (accordiong to my recollection of Ed's comments).

(I do not believe that such demand exists beyond the Salt Lake / Utah valley commute zone, but that's beside the point.)

If demand on a transcontinental route such as Los Angeles - Miami works out to 3,000 "tennysons" (pass-km per km of route) per weekday, then you operate the service. You
don't run each and every train "through;" you serve the individual markets that exist along the route. (In this particular case, I am well aware that short-distance markets
are few, but that again is beside the point.)

In brief, as we used to say at Crenshaw High, using the following the following analysis to justify a massive investment in "urban" rail - while calling for massive
curtailment of "intercity" passenger rail on grounds of some other indicators and criteria - is "tryin' to have it both ways." Or, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, you can't love urban rail and hate intercity passenger rail if both carry more than the "minimum" number of passengers over each mile of route.

----------

1.) Production of "synthetic" crude oil from "Athabasca" tar sands requires an upfront capital investment of US$60,000 per daily barrel (bbl) of output.

In other words, if you want to build a plant that produces 1,000 bbl per day, you'll have to spend:

US$ 60,000 * 1,000 = US$ 60 million.

According to Alan D., such a plant has a "useful life" of about 30 years. [My Guess, local depletion & technological obsolescence may limit life].

Deciding what interest rate to use is tricky. At this time, 5 percent seems a good choice for newly-issued investment-grade corporate bonds. I suspect, however, that the impact of rising oil prices on the economy will include higher interest rates. I will therefore "run" 6 percent and 7 percent.

Amount at compound interest (5 percent, 30 years): 4.3219

Amount at compound interest (6 percent, 30 years): 5.7435

Amount at compound interest (7 percent, 30 years): 7.6123

[For a risky investment, 12% seems a better discount factor]

2.) I "think" the logical "next step" is to calculate "annualized capital cost per daily bbl of output" - then divide this by 365 to get a figure that can be related to daily consumption.

One-day share of "annualized capital cost per daily bbl of output"

(5 percent, 30 years) 365 = $24 (rounded to nearest $).

(6 percent, 30 years) /365 = $31.

(7 percent, 30 years) /365 = $42.

3.) Alan D. states that "marginal production cost" of each barrel of crude from tar sands is CDN $50 per barrel - assuming "cheap natural gas" (providing the energy input
required by the refining process).

The Canadian dollar is currently worth about USD $0.90 - a singificant increase from USD $0.85 at early April. I suspect that the impact of rising oil prices on the U.S.
economy will include a weakening of the U.S. dollar relative to "other" currencies - although the current "forecast" appears to be that the CDN will weaken somewhat against the USD by November.

I'll use USD $0.90, $1.00 and $1.10. Thus:

CDN $50 /bbl = US$ 45 /bbl (CDN $1 = USD $0.90).
CDN $50 /bbl = US$ 50 /bbl (CDN $1 = USD $1.00).
CDN $50 /bbl = US$ 55 /bbl (CDN $1 = USD $1.10).

The "optimistic" scenario (relatively low interest rate and strong dollar) is $69 / bbl of synthetic crude from tar  sands. Which, according to a "quick and dirty" Internet
search, is about the level that world crude oil prices have reached (roughly $70 / bbl, as of June 28).

The "semi-pessimistic" scenario (somewhat higher interest rate and weaker dollar) is $81 /bbl of tar-sand crude.

The "pessimistic" scenario: $97 /bbl.

Thus (and rounding to a single significant digit): $70 /bbl, $80 /bbl or $100 /bbl for tar-sand crude.

4.) To calculate the potential "cost saving" from investing in electrified (urban) rail rather than tar-sand refineries, we have to decide on a "saving factor" - how many gallons of
gasoline "saved" per transit passenger-mile.

a.) One way to do this is to assume:

--20 mpg in "commute" travel
--Average vehicle occupancy = 1.1

The parameters above imply 0.045 gallons of gasoline saved per transit pass-mi.

b.) Using results demonstrated by Newman and Kenworthy (arising from reduced trip-making and trip consolidation by "transit-oriented families") gives a higher number: 0.25
gallons of gasoline saved per transit pass-mi (see Ed T.'s post no. 51074, Mon Jun 5, 2006).

5.) The next step requires information that I do not have.

Not all of a 42-gallon barrel of crude can be refined into gasoline. According to the American Petroleum Institute, each barrel of "crude" yields 19.5 gallons of gasoline. In
other words, that's a 46-percent "yield" with reference to gasoline.

It is possible to increase the gasoline "yield," but this becomes more difficult ( energy-intensive) with heavy crude. They don't call that stuff up in Canada "tar sands"
for nothing.  Thus, I will round down to a 40-percent "gasoline yield" from the crude produced from tar sands. This, however, is a guess.

6.) Saving per transit pass-mi expressed in terms of bbl of tar sands crude:

a.) (0.045 / 42) / 40 percent = 0.003 bbl per transit pass-mi.

b.) (0.25 / 42) / 40 percent = 0.015 bbl per transit pass-mi.

7.) Monetary saving per transit pass-mi implied by 6.) above.

a.) 0.003 bbl per transit pass-mi * ($70, $80, $100 per bbl, in turn)

implies $0.21, $0.24 and $0.30 per transit pass-mi.

(Keeping in mind that "method a." accounts"only" for crude motor vehicle fuel economy, and does not take into account differences in behavior of "transit-oriented" families.)

b.) 0.015 bbl per transit pass-mi * ($70, $80, $100 per bbl, in turn)

implies $1.05, $1.20 and $1.50 per transit pass-mi.

(Again, keeping in mind that "method b." accounts for "actual" differences in gasoline consumption per capita between "transit-rich" and "transit-poor" metropolitan
regions.)

8.) With reference to electric urban rail transport, the "next step" is to estimate the share of total pass-mi that are diverted from autos.

I'll start by establishing a "lower bound" of 10 percent - a transit-planning rule of thumb is that transit can "capture" a 5-percent share of work trips to a given destination with buses in mixed traffic.

LRT can and does carry as much as a 50 percent share of peak-period, peak-direction traffic in (and near) major freeway corridors. Because roughly 50 percent of weekday
transit traffic occurs during peak hours, this implies "roughly" a 25 percent "diverted from autos" share.

During the early years of operation, the L.A. Blue Line carried 40 percent more boardings, and about 60 percent more pass-mi, than parallel bus lines did prior to opening.
However, the large majority of rail passengers identified themselves as "former bus passengers" in an onboard survey not long after opening. Thus, it seems safe to conclude that a good deal of this line's traffic was "additional travel" by previous transit passengers. A 50-percent "diverted from autos" share during the 'post-peak oil era" might occur,
but seems unlikely today. Thus, I'll use 30 percent as the "upper bound."

9.) To keep things simple, I'll use "average" values from "method a" and "method b" above.  In other words, each daily pass-mi diverted from autos to transit is worth either $0.25 or $1.30 in "savings," with reference to the cost of synthetic crude refined from Athabasca tar sands.

Now to determine "which is cheaper," I "think" we'll have to refer to "life-cycle" costing - that is, "over the life of the rail project or the syncrude refinery."

With reference to the "PZ&C thresholds:"

5,000 "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per weekday

*

($0.25 and $1.30, in turn)

• 300 weekday equivalents per year

• 30 years

Well, you can't build "low-cost" LRT for 11.3 million / mile - but $58.5 million mile is "do-able."

"Low-cost LRT" is probably better described today as "modern streetcar." That is: no separations, track built without utility relocation (as in Portland), M.U. operation "possible" but not used at first, and so forth. I believe such lines can be built for roughly $40 million per mile.

This may be interpreted as follows: If the behavior by "transit-oriented families" in metropolitan areas "well served by transit" is taken into account, the cost per
mile of building a "modern streetcar" line is less than that of building and operating a tar-sands syncrude plant, over the life of each project, with reference to gasoline saved
per passenger-mile diverted to transit.

Notice how I didn't include transit O&M costs. That's because not "all" transit passengers will be "diverted" from autos.

Ahem . . . given the existence of an electrified rail freight corridor, I would say that this exercise demonstrates the following: If passenger facilities can be added for roughly $10 million / mile (at minimum), then regional / intercity service is justified - assuming similar
relationships between regional / intercity corridors "well served" and "poorly served" by rail.

10,000 "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per weekday

*

($0.25 and $1.30, in turn)

• 300 weekday equivalents per year

• 30 years

10,000 "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per weekday is the virtual "PZ&C Threshold" for LRT with "some separation." Again, using "method b.," rail construction pencils out as
cheaper than syncrude from tar sands - "even" in L.A., LRT with "some separation" does not cost $117 million / mile (2006$s).

15,000 "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per weekday

*

($0.25 and $1.30, in turn)

• 300 weekday equivalents per year

• 30 years

15,000 "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per weekday is the virtual "PZ&C Threshold" for LRT with "extensive separation." Once again, using "method b.," rail is
cheaper than syncrude from tar sands.

20,000 "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per weekday

*

($0.25 and $1.30, in turn)

• 300 weekday equivalents per year

• 30 years

20,000 "tennysons" (pass-mi per mi of route) per weekday is the virtual "PZ&C Threshold" for "full separation," also known as "heavy rail." Once again, using "method b.," rail is cheaper than tar-sands syncrude.

Keep in mind that the above analysis is worth all you didn't pay for it until others go over the same problem and reach similar conclusions.

Leroy W. Demery, Jr.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/06/29/russia.rice/index.html

Why do we want to push Iran right now, when Isreal and the Palestinians are going at it?  

"The President's Adisory Committee on a National Highway Program had an even broader goal:  span the nation with concrete.  And on June 29, 1956, the year of Eisenhower's reelection, the hero president signed the greatest peacetime public works prpject in the history of the world.  Gas tax receipts, invisible in yearly budgets - not tolls - would funnel $50 billion annually into the Highway Trust Fund to build forty-one thousand miles of roads.  No river or ravine, no gorge or gully, no urban or suburban land would stand in the way of the onrushing auto age.  With Boston's Route 128 under way as the nation's first loop road, other cities followed to plunge five thousand miles of freeways through downtowns and countryside.  Before this act, less than five hundred miles of urban freeways had been built.  After it, no city would be untouched.  Urban America would empty out on the new arteries."

Without question, the coming of the interstates was a monumental development for the United States with such long lasting consequences, good and bad (depending on who you ask, of course).  To me, they were a product of good economic times and the dawn of a cheap oil age.  They put hundreds of thousands to work.  They were sold to us as a military defense necessity.  But no one in the 1950s could have envisioned their eventual primary role in the abandonment of cities and railroad systems, ubiquitious highway sprawl, and so many other deleterious social and environmental consequences.

What will the role of the interstate highway system be in the years ahead as the age of cheap oil comes to an end?  

Please let me know of any sasquatch sightings, so I know that he made it to his destination after he left here. :)

RR

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- Money-supply growth in the dozen nations sharing the euro accelerated in May, expanding at the fastest pace since early 2003 after three interest-rate increases by the European Central Bank.

M3, the ECB's preferred measure of money supply, rose 8.9 percent from a year earlier, the fastest pace since April 2003, after gaining a revised 8.7 percent in April, the Frankfurt-based bank said today. The Frankfurt-based bank says M3 growth of more than 4.5 percent risks stoking inflation.

So this is roughly running double what the bank wants.  I think this would be a good indicator of the ballpark the US is operating in at the moment.  Last check M3 was around 8% YoY, and we see Europe is now @ 9%.  I propose we are closer to 10-11%, but no one can be for sure.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4xWKFsD4Spk&refer=worldwide_news

Internally France has already achieved a lot:- it already produces about 80% of its electricity using nuclear stations - and 10% using hydro.
 The  Regional councils are also on the campaign. Here on the Riviera,
new electric railways and tramlines are going up.
Bus fares are now flat at about 1 dollar 70 cents US for any length of journey except for local journeys of less that one hour which  cost 1 euro, about 1 $ 26 cents US. The Regional objective is to eliminate car commuting.
Company owned vehicles with a few exceptions have to be diesel. Among the exceptions are buses that can be hydrogen powered, using off-peak nuclear electricity to create hydrogen. There are all sorts of tax incentives for hybrid cars, solar, wind and heat pumps.
And in France, I have never, ever  met a doomer. My wife and I chose to come here some 20 years ago partly to have a low energy lifestyle. It's been great, highly enjoyable. We have several businesses, the most successful being rentals of holiday accommodations. And we are confident about the future. Where did people holiday before air travel became common and how did they travel? For Europeans the answers were the French Riviera and they came by the famous blue train. Now about one third of our guests come by TGV (high speed train) using 3% of the energy per seat-mile of a 737.  When oil hits 200$ a barrel we expect the majority to come by train.

We really feel sorry for you people in the US who know that things have to change but your oligachy prefers to leave things alone and fool suckers into believing that one day they each individually will become part of the elite. In France we know how our ruling elites are selected and trained. But we also know ourselves and know that the big decisions are made where we are - in the streets. Our elites know this too and that, if necessary, we will support them with lamp-posts. Keeps them

Ford a Bigger Default Risk Than GM, Derivatives Show (Update1)
June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Ford Motor Co., which had its credit rating cut further into junk territory by Standard & Poor's today, is now a bigger risk of default than General Motors Corp., credit derivatives show.

Investors are paying $980,000 a year to insure $10 million of Ford debt against default for five years with credit default swaps. Similar protection for GM costs about $970,000, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. prices.

Prices for Ford default swaps are rising on speculation the company has farther to go in its turnaround than GM. S&P slashed Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford's rating to B+, or four levels below investment grade, from BB-. It has a B rating for GM.

``2006 will be a more difficult year for Ford than previously anticipated,'' S&P's analyst Robert Schulz said in a research note today.

The cost to protect Ford debt from nonpayment is up from a low of about $777,000 on Feb. 2, while for GM it's down from a high of $1.3 million in December.

Ford credit default swap prices rose above GM for the first time yesterday, according to data compiled by GFI Group Inc., a derivatives broker in New York. They were even on June 23 and GM traded at a higher price than Ford on June 26, GFI data shows.

Rising investor confidence in GM showed up in the credit derivatives market this month when dealers stopped demanding upfront payments to take the risk of a default.

Two Biggest

GM and Ford are the two biggest junk-rated companies. GM and its units had $277 billion of notes and loans payable of as of the end of March, while Ford had $151.1 billion, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Junk bonds are rated below BBB- by S&P and Baa3 by Moody's Investors Service.

Ford's total U.S. vehicle sales fell 3.5 percent through May this year. Its market share dropped 0.6 percentage point to 18.5 percent, as Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. gained. The company plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close 14 North American manufacturing facilities by 2012.

Even with Ford's restructuring plan, ``we expect the company's financial profile to weaken further during 2006 -- a period when the U.S. economy and U.S. light-vehicle sales are robust,'' S&P said today.

GM's offer of buyout and retirement incentives was accepted by 35,000 workers, allowing it to trim annual spending by $1 billion more than planned and shed the workers two years ahead of schedule. The company is also close to completing the sale of a 51 percent stake in its finance unit, netting $7.4 billion.

Shares of Ford are down 17 percent this year, compared with a rise of 35 percent for GM.

When these companies default (which would be very ironic) the downward spiral begins.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=adKor0yfoGvw&refer=us

So, for example:

Optimized for gasoline
1 barrel => A liters of gas, B liters of diesel + others products

Optimized for diesel
1 barrel => C liters of gas, D liters of diesel + others products

Obviously D > B and A > C, but the precise numbers in "typical" cases I have not been able to find.

I am curious about the overall efficiency of optimizing and using particular fuel products (in this case diesel vs gasoline) given the same petroleum input.  Diesel is more "efficient" in MPG terms in part because diesel has more energy per unit volume to begin with (11-25% more depending on the various sources.

Of course, that additional energy cannot come for free, since the same barrel of oil has the same total energy content. So what is the relative efficiency in MPG of diesel vs gasoline, where G is measured in terms of the original crude oil? (Of course, I realize that this depends on the vehicles in question, but I am using the energy contents as a rough measurement of "miles").

China is planning to have 50,000 miles of expressways by the end of 2008 and the USA only has 46,500 miles of expressways. Surely we cannot let them surpass us in this vital  area. Our national honor and national security are at stake! It is past time that the President and Congress face up to this dangerous situation and immediately start construction on another 20,000 miles of expressways in the USA. And if "they" build 4 lane highways, we will build 6 lane highways. If they build 18 wheeler trucks then we must build 24 wheeler trucks. If they put 100,000 pound loads per truck, then we must put at least 150,000 pounds per truck. If their speed limits are raised to 75 mile per hour, then we will have to raise ours to 100 mile per hour.
More, Bigger and Faster are vital to our National Security and our National Image abroad. How can you even think about the environment during a national emergency like this?

Oh! And by the way, Happy 50th Birthday to the USA Interstate Highway System on Thursday June 29th.  You can all start breathing again now <BG>
But China really is planning to have 50,000 miles of expressways built by the end of 2008! And they aren't for bicycles! They are going to be driving cars and trucks using "our" fuels that we used to burn.
And what do you suppose they will do with all that construction equipment when they finish building the expressways - Build suburban subdivisions?

What is the U.S. strategy?  Where do we read about the U.S. (or U.S. based corporations) approaching Chavez or Putin hat-in-hand to line up contracts?   What happens when the spot price lurches toward $200 / bbl?  What do importing nations do as the spot market evaporates and oil becomes pretty much unavailable at any price?

As the world's one and only great Imperial power, the U.S. is evidently too proud to negotiate contracts with "inferiors."

What conclusion are we left with?  That the U.S. strategy is ultimately to seize foreign oil fields by military force?  We've taken the obvious first step in Iraq.   Jimmy Carter has left us a convenient "doctrine" that our rulers can and will use to justify the invasions of choice.

Well, thank you TOD for letting me vent..

Can Venezuela really afford to blockade the U.S. oil market. I have argued in the past that a Venezuela boycott would be meaningless because if they sold to someone else, at a much higher shipping cost, it would simply free up more oil not imported by those countries, to be imported to the US. Of course this would increase the shipping cost for everyone involved and would thus add a few bucks per barrel to the overall cost.

But Venezuela could just stop shipping to anyone, pulling their oil off the market until the U.S., in their eyes, straightened up and flew right. But what permanent damage would this do to Venezuela's enormous assets in the U.S.? The privately owned CITGO stations in the U.S. would have to find another source of oil and gasoline. And would pissed off Americans boycott CITGO? Highly likely in my opinion. And would such action by Venezuela spur Congress to force Venezuela to sell their refinery interest and sell to someone more cooperative? It probably would. I know some would say that would be illegal but the government has already shown that in case of an emergency they can do just about any damn thing they like. At any rate most U.S. interest has already been kicked out of Venezuela, so this would just be tit for tat.

Bottom line, I don't think there is any damn way Venezuela can afford such a stunt. But then their president is a madman so there is no way of telling what he really might do.

For a rough summation of Venezuela's interest in the U.S. refineries and retail market, see excerpt from the GAO's just released Energy Security: Issues Related to Potential Reductions in Venezuela's Oil Production. Of course most everything in this article applies whether any reduction in Venezuela's production is caused by Chavez deliberately closing the taps, or by natural depletion. The speculation about boycotts is my own and probably would not happen if any reduction was due to natural depletion and not a deliberate act by Chavez.

In 2005, Venezuela was the world's eighth largest exporter of crude oil. Most of Venezuela's crude oil that is not consumed domestically in Venezuela is exported to the United States because of its close proximity, additionally, Venezuela owns significant refining assets in the United States and the U.S. Virgin Islands that can refine its heavy sour oil. In the 1980s and 1990s, PDVSA bought CITGO, Inc. and acquired interest in several other U>S> refineries that had the ability or could be reconfigured to refine such crude oil. Today, the refining capacity of PDVSA's share of the nine U.S. refineries in which it has an interest is about 1.3 million barrels per day. For example, CITGO's five wholly-owned refineries have a refining capacity of about 750,000 barrels per day and market their refined petroleum products in the United States through about 14,000 independently owned service stations using the CITGO name. In addition, PDVSA partners directly, or through CITGO, with ExxonMobil, Lyondell, ConocoPhillips, and Amerada Hess in the U.S. Virgin Islands. These nine refineries buy most of the crude oil and refined petroleum products exported by Venezuela.
------------------

Most of Venezuela's crude oil that is not consumed domestically in Venezuela is exported to the United States. The United States is a natural market for Venezuelan oil because it is so close--about 5 days by tanker to the U.S. Gulf Coast compared to about 30 to 40 days for supplies coming from the Middle East.

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06668.pdf

Empty bunk and unsupported libel.  There is plenty of uranium and we've only begun to understand the geology and variety of ore bodies.

Prices are going up as a price signal to mining companies to start new mines to meet growing demand.  That's how the market system works. Yellowcake prices peaked well above today's prices during the 70's with the last rapid expansion of demand and with the existance of an international cartel, since exposed.

If even uranium gets too expensive, there's always thorium which is 4 times as common.

The economy sprang out of a year-end rut and zipped ahead in the opening quarter of this year at a 5.6 percent pace, the fastest in 2 1/2 years and even stronger than previously thought.

The new snapshot of gross domestic product for the January-to-March period exceeded the 5.3 percent growth rate estimated a month ago, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

http://www.wftv.com/news/9439357/detail.html

WINTER PARK, Fla. -- Lightning from Tuesday night's storms sparked a fire at a 10,000-square foot manor home in Winter Park. Firefighters spent Wednesday morning walking around the mansion along Preserve Point Drive looking for hotspots.

This is suppose to be "Art", no wonder I don't get it.

"While the world has enough proven and unproven reserves of oil to meet demand for the next 100 years, much of it lies under countries with economies that do not provide market incentives to encourage production, according to a new report by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA). The report also points out that the lack of incentives increases the importance of tapping resources in countries with free economies, such as Canada and the United States.

"'We have the oil to fuel our future energy needs,' noted NCPA Senior Fellow H. Sterling Burnett, who authored the report. 'Unfortunately, a lot of it is artificially out of reach due to a lack of economic freedom in the Middle East and South America, or a hyper-sensitivity to environmental activists in the U.S.'"

So, as long as we increase "freedom," we'll be just fine, thank you....

As a device explicitly designed to outrun the Second Law of Thermodynamics, an air-conditioner vividly illustrates the inevitable destruction caused by all economic activity, ...

Georgescu-Roegen wrote in his 1971 book "The Entropy Law and the Economic Process" that despite the neat, closed-loop flow charts depicted in textbooks, the economic process "is not circular but unidirectional. As far as this facet alone is concerned, the economic process consists of a continuous transformation of low entropy into high entropy, that is, into irrevocable waste."

Georgescu-Roegen went on to demonstrate the futility of growth-dependent economic systems, showing that in human societies, "production" is a phantom, that economic activity can be represented by just two factors: consumption of resources -- concentrated energy, useful materials and our ecological life-support system -- and elimination of useless or less useful wastes. When all is said and done, he argued, an economy's only product is nonmaterial "enjoyment of life," which can be banked only in the form of memories.

As it creates fleeting enjoyment through a state of low entropy (in this case, an island of coolness in a sea of heat) but only by increasing entropy at an even faster rate elsewhere (by using up fuels and materials and releasing useless wastes), air-conditioning is a poster child for the inevitable decay that, according to Georgescu-Roegen, is a defining characteristic of economic growth.

It's no coincidence that when the first modern central air-conditioning system was installed back in 1902, it was to cool the New York Stock Exchange.

This even links to our debates about ethanol:

Meanwhile, the high standard that's been set for passenger comfort is helping doom efforts to run cars and trucks on alternative fuels. In 2005, air-conditioners in U.S. vehicles burned up the equivalent of the nation's entire fuel-ethanol production -- twice.

http://www.physorg.com/news70809806.html

Mine that topsoil! :)

See if you don't agree?

http://www.memritv.org/search.asp?ACT=S9&P1=1050

Comments?

Now why would our lawmakers';plpl g[;uPP  do this if there is plenty of oil left right ?

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/06/29/ap2850879.html

Newspaper article about expensive asphalt in Atlantic city:

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/story/6436420p-6292335c.html

so my calculation is:

USD 450,000 per mile at 1,5 inch and every 15 years
2,27 million miles * 450,000 USD/mile makes
USD 1,021,500,000,000/15 years comes to
68,100,000,000 per year to maintain USA roads
That's 68 billion USD per year.

Asphalt is mostly recycled and has only 5% oil content.

That 68 billion USD annual repair and maintenance cost goes up continuously due to increasing energy costs of 10-15% per year so for a road paved this year costs 8 times as much in 15 years to repair as 15% inflation doubles costs every 5 years(2 x 2 x2 8)
100 x 1,15 x 1,15 x 1,15 x 1,15 x 1,15 x 1,15 x 1,15 x1,15 x 1,15 x1,15 x1,15 x1,15 x1,15 x1,15 x1,15 = ca. 800

So the cost of maintaining the USA roads in 15 years would be ca. 544,8 Billion US Dollars.
Presuming that the US economy grows at 3%/annum for the next 15 years.

12.5 trillion USD x 1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x 1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 x1,03 12.5 trillion x 1.558=19.47 trillion

So current percent of  GDP required to be spent to pave roads is
68.1 billion/12.5 trillion = .545%
In 2021 however544.8 billion/19.4 trillion = 2.8%
2.8 / .545 = 5.14 times as expensive to the economy to maintain the roads.

A bit of background and history of asphalt:

http://www.hotmix.org/history.php
http://www.alasphalt.com/asphalt%20facts.htm

On Costs of roads/infrastructure:

http://72.14.221.104/search?q=cache:ZbKYVVEFkcwJ:www.asce.org/reportcard/pdf/fullreport03.pdf+what+d o+us+roads+cost+annually&hl=en&gl=de&ct=clnk&cd=5&lr=lang_en

Quote from Above:

"Bottom Line
Report" estimates that capital outlays by all levels of government would have to increase by
42% to reach the projected $92 billion Cost to Maintain level, and by 94% to reach the $125.6
billion Cost to Improve level"

So I guess that means they are spending about 65 billion dollars, maybe just for the asphalt and forgetting all real repairs to bridges or improvements of any sort at all and the more expensive asphalt get the less improvements will be made to anything else.

Further they analyze all USA infrastructure  and conclude:

In 2001, the estimated cost for infrastructure renewal was $1.3 trillion over a five-year period.
Today, that cost has risen to $1.6 trillion over a five-year period. While solutions to repair our
crumbling infrastructure can be addressed through a renewed partnership between citizens, the
private sector, and local, state and federal governments, reauthorization of TEA-21, and
passage of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act can provide critical funding to
repair our transportation, water and dam infrastructure.
The trends for renewal of the 12 infrastructure areas were assessed by a panel comprised of 20
eminent civil engineers representing the broad spectrum of civil engineering. The forecasted
trends were based on the condition and performance of each infrastructure area as reported by
federal sources; capacity of infrastructure versus need; and current and pending investment of
state, local and federal funding for infrastructure versus need.

I bet the costs will just keep going up with thee energy costs and what will get done  will be less and less until the whole infrastructure gets so decrepit that everything gradually falls apart like in soviet union,e.g. roads, sewers, water, electricity, schools and hospitals, dams, etc. 1.6 Trillion/12.5 Tillion= 12.8% / 5 years = 2.56% per year of GDP for renewal and maintenance of all infrastructure. But now of course with big tax cuts, new wars planned and everybody going into retirement spending on infrastructure is impossible. As I speculated above with increasing costs to maintain roads, as the infrastructure falls more apart and the population grows and the energy costs increase the gap between reality of what we need to spend and what we are spending will get bigger all the time until it is all a big joke like medicare or social security. We will need to spend 10% of GDP to repair and improve infrastructure but everybody will be starving and the infrastructure like highways will be superfluous when nobody can afford to drive anyway.