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Gold/Mining/Energy : Big Dog's Boom Boom Room -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Tomas who wrote (23119)5/29/2003 3:43:51 PM
From: Tomas  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 206114
 
Natural gas prices expected to stay high
Bloomberg, Thursday, May 29

Natural-gas prices will remain over $5 US per million British thermal units throughout the summer as industry efforts to refill depleted storage reservoirs compete with demand from what is expected to be an unusually warm summer, a trade association said.

Demand is expected to rise among power plants, many of which use gas to generate electricity for air conditioning, and for residential use as new homes are built, the Natural Gas Supply Association said in its first summer gas-price report. Commercial and industrial demand likely will fall as high prices drive down consumption.

Gas prices have averaged close to $6 this month after reaching more than $9 in February.

Driving the prices was a drop in production following unusually warm weather in 2001-2002. The mild temperatures cut prices almost in half and eroded incentives to drill more wells. The 1.8 per cent decline in 2002 production left the industry unable to refill storage following this year's exceptionally cold winter in the North and East, the association said.

U.S. gas inventories are at 990 billion cubic feet, 35 per cent lower than the five-year average and 44 per cent lower than year-ago levels.

Overall summer consumption in the U.S. is expected to fall 3.1 per cent to 52.5 billion cubic feet of gas a day, mostly because of an 8.4 per cent drop in industrial demand as businesses shut down or switch to cheaper fuels.



To: Tomas who wrote (23119)5/30/2003 11:10:10 AM
From: Archie Meeties  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 206114
 
Tomas,

The author dismisses the problems of oil without much thought.

Problem #1.
"The consumption and production of oil spoil the environment."

His reply - "air pollution from combustion-diminish as technology progresses" - a childish distortion of the truth.
Engines have become more efficient, but air pollution from combustion has not diminished because a) the total number of sources has increased b)efficiecy gains are offset by larger engines (ie avg. fuel economy hasn't changed - or has it gotten worse?).

Problem #2
"Reliance on the Middle East for oil supply is dangerous."

Answer - "It's no more so than reliance on Nigeria or Venezuela for oil supply or on general trade for economic health."

Whoa! Are we really so naive to ignore the distinctions between say Canada, and Iran, Lybia, or Saudia Arabia? Or if supply from Venezuela is also risky does this mean we should passively sit back and do nothing? Is it really all the same? Or can we count on a different response from these countries in a time of crisis?

There are differences, and fundamental differences between nations, governments, and the men who run them. We can not escape the reality that the Mid East can bring massive economic disruption to the west and that this power is not some remote, obscure threat, but a very real force - a force (religion) more powerful than reason. The solution is not to say 'hey, it's all the same anyways, let's just let the market take care of itself', but to actively seek alternatives, to make contingencies, to have the means to protect ourselves from this threat.

Problem #3
* Burning oil causes global warming.

Answer - "This remains hypothesis, unsubstantiated by observation yet overwhelmingly accepted."

It is overwhelmingly accepted by those who spend their life studying it. Saying it's not happening over and over and over will not make global warming less of an issue. And mountains of money spent saying it doesn't exist over and over will not make it go away. Glaciers are melting, ocean temperatures are rising, ecosystems are moving north, and avg. world temperatures have risen faster in the last 20 years than at any time in the recorded past. At some point we need to acknowledge that we've released into the atmosphere much of the energy that the planet has been saving up for the last 100's of billions of years in the course of about 100, with the majority in the last 20. And we need to be honest and understand that we can't do that without upsetting something.

Rant over, go CRK. -g-