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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ron who wrote (5327)	12/27/2006 9:02:01 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24225

2nd Largest Oil Field Drying Up Faster By Justin Gardner \| Related entries in Money, The World Coming to a gas pump near you? It was an incredible revelation last week that the second largest oil field in the world is exhausted and past its peak output. Yet that is what the Kuwait Oil Company revealed about its Burgan field. The peak output of the Burgan oil field will now be around 1.7 million barrels per day, and not the two million barrels per day forecast for the rest of the field’s 30 to 40 years of life, Chairman Farouk Al-Zanki told Bloomberg. He said that engineers had tried to maintain 1.9 million barrels per day but that 1.7 million is the optimum rate. Kuwait will now spend some $3 million a year for the next year to boost output and exports from other fields. However, it is surely a landmark moment when the world’s second largest oil field begins to run dry. For Burgan has been pumping oil for almost 60 years and accounts for more than half of Kuwait’s proven oil reserves. This is also not what forecasters are currently assuming. Who knows…this may be what pushes us to have another space race to find truly renewable energy sources. Right now there isn’t much pressure. People are buying big cars, leaving all their lights, etc. And I’m just as guilty as the next person. Yes, we need a serious slap in the wallet, and that could be in the offing sooner rather than later… The implications for the global economy are indeed serious. If the world oil supply begins to run dry then the upward pressure on oil prices will be inexorable. For the oil producers this will come as a compensation for declining output, and cushion them against an economic collapse. However, the oil consumers then face a major energy crisis. Industrialized economies are still far too dependent on oil. And the pricing mechanism of declining oil reserves will press them into further diversification of energy supplies, particularly nuclear, wind and solar power. Wind and solar? How likely are they to cure the energy crisis? The future is most likely with nuclear energy, but try convincing a public who grew up with Three Mile Island that it’s smarter and cleaner to build more nuclear energy plants. Ahhh…energy… donklephant.com

To: Ron who wrote (5327)	12/27/2006 9:10:31 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24225

GM slams possible fuel economy changes Auto manufacturer says standards would place an unfair burden on Detroit and would essentially surrender the market for trucks, SUVs to Japan. December 26 2006: 2:51 PM EST DETROIT (Reuters) -- A proposal to increase U.S. fuel economy standards would force Detroit-based automakers to "hand over" the market for trucks and sport-utility vehicles to Japanese manufacturers, a senior General Motors Corp. executive said. Bob Lutz, GM's vice chairman and the head of the company's global product development team, said the proposed changes to the government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards would represent an unfair burden on the traditional Big Three automakers. Toyota could soon be the No. 1 automaker in the world. CNN's Ali Velshi is 'Minding Your Business.' (December 26) Play video "For one thing, it puts us, the domestic manufacturers, at odds with the desires of most of our customers, namely larger vehicles," Lutz said in a year-end posting on a Web site maintained by GM. He added: "That effectively hands the truck and SUV market over to the imports, particularly the Japanese, who have earned years of accumulated credits from their fleets of formerly very small cars." Lutz, a long-time critic of government fuel economy regulations, compared the attempt to force carmakers to sell smaller vehicles to "fighting the nation's obesity problem by forcing clothing manufacturers to sell garments only in small sizes." Shares of GM (up $0.34 to $29.76, Charts) rose 1.2 percent during afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. A group called the Energy Security Leadership Council, which includes more than a dozen prominent U.S. executives and retired military officers, issued a report earlier this month calling on Congress to take steps reduce the reliance on imported oil. Fuel economy estimates get overhauled The group called for tougher fuel economy regulation, including a 4 percent annual increase in CAFE standards, which have been held essentially flat for the past decade. In a related move, the Consumer Federation of America released a study last month showing that nine of 13 major automakers had a fleetwide average fuel economy performance that was lower in 2005 than it had been a decade ago. Auto executives have argued that the industry's flat overall fuel economy in recent years reflects the strong preference for trucks and SUVs by American drivers, a point Lutz made in his Internet posting. "As long as [gas] is around $2 per gallon here, people will exercise their freedom to buy the vehicle they want, V8 engine and all," he said. "Forcing us to alter the fleets to hit some theoretical average won't change what consumers want, or what they'll buy." Hybrid vehicles GM said last month that it would launch an electric hybrid vehicle, a step many environmentalists have hailed as a way to reduce both oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Lutz said GM would provide more details on its development efforts in that area at the Detroit Auto Show in early January, but he said much of the available technology to improve gas mileage was already on the road. "There is no technological bag of tricks that enable much better fuel economy than we have today," he said. "Despite what the alarmists may think, we don't have any magic 100-mpg carburetor that we're holding back because we're in bed with the oil companies." The U.S. CAFE standard, which applies only an average across the fleet of vehicles, is currently 27.5 miles per gallon for cars and 20.7 miles per gallon for trucks and SUVs weighing less than 8,500 pounds. Under the 30-year-old law, automakers face fines for failing to make the average fleet standard. Automakers can also earn CAFE "credits" to offset shortfalls in future years, a situation that applies to Japan's Toyota Motor Corp (down $0.46 to $131.45, Charts). and Honda Motor Co. (up $0.29 to $38.68, Charts) money.cnn.com