Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: average joe who wrote (85817)	8/19/2000 10:46:21 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Cosimo why should oil companies put themselves out of to justify your moral code? Wow! AJ, that was quite a jump - where did I say anything about morals or my codes. There are economic impacts. Fact. Leases don't include those. Fact. I was making a logical and economic argument not a moral one. And I said nothing as brutish as putting people "out of existence". What you subsidize you get more of and what you tax, you get less. Econ 101. I've always said oil is "too valuable to burn". And we subsidize the burning of oil. Indirectly. If we are forced to make choices we must choose. Not choosing is choosing. Sorry. I don't know if you have seen the physics calculations of the power needs of 9 billion people all consuming at or near the rate of the U.S., but incredibly probable and calculable impacts of the heat plume alone boggles the mind. The simple truth is we aren't even doing R&D on non-petroleum energy sources. Or consumer appliance efficiency. At least natural gas has a higher H-C ratio which makes it friendlier (read lower, provable impact) than ones with lower H-C ratio. Coal is a pig. A terrible, terrible fuel. Dirty, contaminated. Like burning radioactive dirt. Can't really do it cleanly. And it's exhaust is almost pure CO2 with heavy amounts of S04. Billions of tons of it. And it's more radioactive than what comes out of nuclear plants' effluent. Come on, how did you see my statement as anything other than a point of reason? Why don't we just blow the lid off the ozone layer, because it might be part of the mutagenic evolutionary plan of God? We have the technology to do it, but should we? Any credible source of information about the greenhouse effect says that it will make things more unpleasant - increasing the variability of weather and extremes. It's not like people are making this up. It's based upon physics... You can hope it doesn't but I deal in probability. At this granularity, Heisenberg is nowhere to be seen. Do you bet double ought at Vegas? On your home? Sheesh. I hope not.

To: average joe who wrote (85817)	8/20/2000 12:00:53 AM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I know I already responded, but this sentence: Short sighted government policy made it uneconomic to replace depleted reserves in North America. Exactly how do you "replace" a depleted reserve? Not "replace" but "substitute others for" is correct (unless they have now found a means restock petroleum into the carrier rock.) I'm not being a nit-picky English teacher (IMO). When you give an oil lease, you're selling the product. Once it's gone - it's not coming back. Someone may be able to "lick the bowl" with steam injection, but basically, it's gone. You may have some business experience. If I come to you and lease a piece of equipment, your expectation is that you get the equipment back at the end of the lease. You (the owner) get to depreciate it because it has a limited life. That's a subsidy to you the owner. That's the way it is done. The U.S. government gave drillers a further discount after the lease to compensate them for the fact that deep oil cost more. The Oil Depletion Allowance allowed for the fact that the lease had a limited life for the people benefiting from the lease. It wasn't the owner that was depreciating the asset (the lessor), it was the driller (the lessee) who was being compensated. This is crazy and backwards. That subsidy (Billions and billions $$$$ over the years) was one of many ways that Big Oil caused people to artificially increase consumption at the lower domestic production rate and burn through the fixed asset at a rate that was not driven by the real economics of the system. That kind of below fair-market oil production scheme is what Teapot Dome was all about here in the Southern San Joaquin valley. It not only wastes the resources, a few people get rich doing it. It's wrong and illogical.