Re: Wind energy a boon for farmers - tenfold returns !

From: Tim O'Flaherty (pinwheelsfudge_at_gwi.net)
Date: 11/26/04 

Date: Fri, 26 Nov 2004 14:48:41 -0500

<jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message news:x6edncqqevl4aTjcRVn-3A@rcn.net...
> In article <XJqdnWvVqul9CT_cRVn-3Q@gwi.net>,
> "Tim O'Flaherty" <pinwheelsfudge@gwi.net> wrote:
> >
> ><jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
> news:HpKdnfxoZ8XfegDcRVn-pw@rcn.net...
> >> In article <U-mdnUjKa451uQDcRVn-pA@gwi.net>,
> >> "Tim O'Flaherty" <pinwheelsfudge@gwi.net> wrote:
> >> >
> >> ><jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote in message
> >> news:RMmdnV1wrc2iPAHcRVn-ow@rcn.net...
> >> >> In article <B8SdnfHju93tHgHcRVn-sA@rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com
wrote:
> >> >> >In article <vsSdnUsfppSLdQbcRVn-2Q@gwi.net>,
> >> >> > "Tim O'Flaherty" <pinwheelsfudge@gwi.net> wrote:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>"Alex Terrell" <alexterrell@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> >> >> >>news:d81e59c9.0411161514.627f3377@posting.google.com...
> >> >> >>> "Tim O'Flaherty" <pinwheelsfudge@gwi.net> wrote in message
> >> >> >>news:<t4qdnb1uB6lslQfcRVn-iQ@gwi.net>...
> >> >> <snip>
> >> >>
> >> >> Explanation in order.
> >> >>
> >> >> One of the reasons I'm being such an *** about this subject
> >> >> is because I'm getting a definite feeling that people are
> >> >> deciding to disallow building refineries and power plants
> >> >> because of this new promise of cheap and free technology.
> >> >
> >> >Nothing cheap or free in windpower but it is competitive. It would be
> >even
> >> >more so if the hidden costs of oil were paid at the pump or on the
> >utility
> >> >bill.
> >>
> >> I don't think my bill hides the cost because there is a fuel surcharge
> >> line item. I doubt very much that hidden costs of oil don't show
> >> up in the gas pump price. A large chunk of our gasoline price is
> >> taxes which go directly to a black hole, AFAICT.
> >> >
> >> >Regarding refineries, a story on NPR
> >>
> >> I smell a rat :-); NPR's bias is to be highly suspect these days.
> >>
> >> > ..yesterday noted that while a lack of
> >> >refineries is often cited as a bottleneck they aren't being built
> because
> >> of
> >> >the declining raw material stocks.
> >>
> >> Sigh! What decline? Note that these idiots are interpreting
> >> the refinery bottleneck as a decline in raw material rather than
> >> a maximum in capacity.
> >
> >Well to be honest, decline was my term
>
> Exactly. Now a good doobie would try to figure out why you
> used that word.
>

Must be insidious propaganda. eh?

> > ..but the thrust of the item was the
> >expectation that oil as a resource was peaking.
>
> You need to examine the language and how it was used to help
> you reach this conclusion and then leap to the conjecture
> that the supply was declining.

Not that much of a leap. Worldwide demand is growing rapidly, if and when
supply peaks the slice of the pie for everyone will need to decline as more
players come to the table. We can only maintain our existing share by
paying more.

Perhaps you could elaborate on who the "people" are in your statement from
above...
"people are deciding to disallow building refineries and power plants
because of this new promise of cheap and free technology."

Who are these "people" and what power do they have? More power than Exon
or Mobil?

>
> >It is also a lot harder to clear the environmental hurdles for a big
> project
> >like this today than it was in 1976 when the last US refinery was built.
>
> What environmental hurdles?

The various Clean Air Acts and among others. Refineries can be messy in
case you didn't know.

 All those lawsuits have to do
> with transferring monies from one pocket to another with the
> explicit goal of preventing anything useful to get done.

What lawsuits are you referring to?

> >Still I don't doubt that a lack of refineries is a useful way of jacking
> up
> >prices though so the incentive not to build is there.
>
>
> THEY WON'T MAKE MONEY IF THEY CAN'T SELL ANYTHING.

They make MORE money if they game the market like ENRON did or Like OPEC
did or tried to do. Profit margins have been soaring for refineries of
late.

 http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/utilities/nw/nw004257.php3
[Shell Accused of Closing Refinery to Raise Gas Prices]
]Oil refining capacity and its contribution to the rise in gasoline prices]
[Limited refining capacity is one of the reasons for the recent run-up in
gasoline prices. In California, Shell is closing one of its three refineries
in the state. Jamie Court, of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer
Rights, accuses Shell of playing its own OPEC-style game, choking off gas
from one refinery so it can push up prices. But the oil giant says the oil
fields in the area are running dry. ]

They
> won't stay in business if they don't pay the dividends.
> Dividends are real cash. If there is no cash income, there's
> no money to pay dividends. If no dividends get paid, stock
> becomes worthless. Now the company goes into Chapter 11 or
> other stuff.

Right. They are making more money by maintaining bottlenescks, much as they
did during the oil embarbo, holding full tankers offshore as the price
skyrocketed.

>
>
>
> > .. I don't think there
> >is a connection between this and expectations of green energy, just the
> same
> >disconnect that has people driving gas hogs with yellow ribbons on the
> back.
> >>
> >> [muttering emoticon here] If I were king of the world, I think I'd
> >> ban the % sign from all keyboards. That is the most abused
> >> statistic glyph.
> >>
> >> > .. A refinery is a big ticket item, who
> >> >wants to make that investment without a guarantee of raw material for
> >it's
> >> >lifetime?
> >>
> >> This doesn't explain why working refineries have been turned off.
> >> One of these days, I'm going to investigate that one.
> >>
> >
> >I remember a few years ago the loss of one plant making a key chemical
for
> >the production of anti-freeze drove the price sky high right before
> winter.
>
> Now do you remember what happened the next winter? In a capital-based
> economy, people would notice the rarity of said chemical and decide
> to manufacture it.

So maybe next winter we'll have cheap gas again. I doubt it though not with
diminishing or maxed out resource and growing demand plus no new refineries.

>
> >It's a good way of gaming the market like Enron and others did with
energy
> >during California's troubles.
>
> The gaming of the energy market was specifically created by the law
> Congress passed to split up the regulation of the electricity biz.
> This was all about politics and nothing about business.

Other states didn't have CA's problems. The exact details of deregulation
were left to the states. Dereg was about promoting competition. If you
don't want competition then let the govt. run the power companies.

Regards,
Tim O