Energy Crisis

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

rick hart

The surest way for fight higher prices is to decrease demand.

That might be true in a free market environment. Last I looked I had no choice of suppliers for any form of energy except gasoline, and they're all charging the same rate. So what competitive market?

What will really happen when demand is reduced is the price will go up to compensate for the drop in revenue.

That's how government and monopolies operate.

 

[rick hart]

Re: Energy Crisis

The point I was trying to make is price follows demand. It does not matter if there is a monopoly if you aren't buying, they aren't making money. Right now, all the energy producers are selling all they can for all they can get away with. Let a stockpile build up and the prices will fall because the producers don't want the cash flow to stop.
While you may be in what seems like a dead end, regulated market, the people serving regulated customers are not- their costs are free market and track the consumption.

Simple example but you get the idea. I really don't blame anyone for being cynical when it comes to energy prices. There are some real worms in the business. But thankfully, they are seeing thier names on more and more indictments.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

I'm sure we don't disagree all that much. Let me give a somewhat recent example from my area.

We've got this thing called BART. And in San Francisco there is MUNI. They both did the same thing.

Usage dropped significantly enough to cause a real fiscal problem (like that's new).

The solution? Raise rates to compensate. Anyone could guess what the results would be.

But that's the difference between private and public sector. I don't know where to place utilities because they're sort of in the middle. They're private but at the same time they're so strongly regulated that it's all but impossible to tell the difference.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

Charlie E. would know more about this than me but I don't see the price of a lump of coal effecting my utility bill.

Maybe it's averaged over a decade. I don't know. But I do know that regulation is at least partly responsible for the effect being invisible.

 

[rick hart]

Re: Energy Crisis

That BART/ Muni example is sorta where I was headed with the guvmint involvement. The government is supposed to lead the way with public transportation, energy research and a whole bunch of things that are not profitable for business. The idea is to get the life cycle costs down for whatever by getting the research and development out of the way for the private sector to take over. Once things are proven effective (still waiting on public transportation to take off in Texas also)mandates for thier usage- energy codes, HOV lanes, T8's, etc. become the norm.
Still government involvement does have some sucesses- TEFLON, peeing in zero gravity and wind power generation. Did you realize wind is now competative with natural gas because of the current price of energy? If there was not the public funding of wind back years ago,we would not have the resource today to offset demand. Private investors are now building wind farms and making money at it. One small victory from low hanging fruit, for sure. What needs to happen is some real alternatives for energy on demand though.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

But then you also realize that private sector has a superior track record for R&D and being successful with it over a shorter term.

I was like 5 years old when we started getting BART misrepresented to us. That's like 36 years ago and it still either can't or wont be allowed to pull it's own weight.

Although it gets buried in politics the last 5 or so years because it was used as a federal funding weapon instead of a transit system.

[ April 29, 2005, 03:58 PM: Message edited by: physis ]

 

[charlie]

Re: Energy Crisis

You know, this topic reminds me of arguing union vs non-union, religion, or politics. We all have separate viewpoints and no one is going to change their views.

Well, in my opinion . . . . . . . and that is why you are all wrong.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

Trying to make it worse Charlie?

 

[apauling]

Re: Energy Crisis

Charlie: only your opinion is right? profit takes precedence over safety?

 

[charlie]

Re: Energy Crisis

profit takes precedence over safety?

Paul, when did I ever make even an insinuation like that?

 

[apauling]

Re: Energy Crisis

you said we were all wrong and the only point that I really made was that safety had to take precedence over profit.

You didn't say you were wrong, only us, and if I'm wrong, then what i said was wrong. i could try it a third time.

paul

 

[charlie]

Re: Energy Crisis

Now I am mad at you.

 

[peter d]

Re: Energy Crisis

Originally posted by don_resqcapt19:
The use of energy should be regulated by cost, not by the government.

Don, I see you are taking a very libertarian view of this. While I am by no means advocating big government, I must disagree.

What if the cost of energy begins to fall again? It's unlikely but still possible. Then there will be no incentive to conserve. Even with high energy prices now, conservation efforts are minimal, at best. There has to be some type of regulation in place.

 

[iwire]

Re: Energy Crisis

Originally posted by peter d:
What if the cost of energy begins to fall again? It's unlikely but still possible. Then there will be no incentive to conserve. Even with high energy prices now, conservation efforts are minimal, at best. There has to be some type of regulation in place.

Who made it the governments job to force conservation?

 

[peter d]

Re: Energy Crisis

Originally posted by iwire:
Who made it the governments job to force conservation?

Well, by that line of reasoning, we can ask that question about a lot of things the government regulates. I can see that we will probably have to agree to disagree.

The government has been regulating energy efficiencies for a long time; this is nothing new. Energy codes have been in place in California for a long time now, and other states as well, even Massachusetts.

Let me get something straight, I am no fan of government regulation, let me be clear about that.

All I am saying is that energy prices are rising rapidly energy codes are one way to help. If I saw widespread volunteer efforts to curtail energy use, then I would change my mind about government regulation in this area.

 

[iwire]

Re: Energy Crisis

Originally posted by peter d:
Well, by that line of reasoning, we can ask that question about a lot of things the government regulates.

Yes and I often do.

Originally posted by peter d:
The government has been regulating energy efficiencies for a long time; this is nothing new.

IMO the fact that it has been done has nothing to do with it being the right thing to do.

Originally posted by peter d:
If I saw widespread volunteer efforts to curtail energy use, then I would change my mind about government regulation in this area.

So just to be clear, as long as everyone had the same thoughts as yourself the govt. could stop forcing us to conform?

 

[charlie]

Re: Energy Crisis

What happened to the idea of a free marketplace? Let energy prices go wherever they will. If gasoline goes through the roof because of not enough capacity in the refineries, so be it. Either people will conserve or alternative fuels will come to the forefront. If we wish to become independent, let the free market work. I am not a libertarian . . . yet, but the more I listen to Neil Boortz, the more sense he makes.

 

[wdhopper]

Re: Energy Crisis

I've heard it said that a virtuos society needs few laws. Ever wonder why we have so many lawyers?
Cheap energy and no regulation of how this resource is used only increases consumption.
That is what makes it the governments business.

 

[rbalex]

Re: Energy Crisis

Someday, someone will win the Nobel Prize for economics when they show that the Laws of Wealth and the Laws of Energy (thermodynamics) are virtually the same and they are intimately tied together ? and if I could explain what I just said, I?d be the one getting the Prize.

Essentially though, beyond subsistence, standard-of-living is tied more to abundant energy than anything else. With regard to increasing the standard-of-living, conservation is important where it emphasizes efficient use of energy; otherwise it simply exerts a pressure back toward subsistence. Whether either direction is good or bad is a matter of opinion.

 

[physis]

Re: Energy Crisis

ZERO POINT ENERGY

That's what this at least used to be called. I've always figured it's a got a pretty high science fiction factor. I was reading something over the weekend that this was interspersed in.

'One of the true pioneers in this field is Dr. Bruce DePalma, a former Harvard and MIT physicist. DePalma's preeminent demonstration of this "new physics -- a device he began working on over twenty years ago, called "the n-machine" -- seems to violate both the First and Second Law of Thermodynamics; it directly generates more electrical energy out of the interaction between "space" and the high-speed rotation of its extremely energetic magnets, than required by the motors that spin those magnets.

(The fact that this technology is on the verge of being commercially applied by India -- in thus another Third World "first" -- under the direction of Chief Project Engineer, Paramahamsa Tewari (5),' should be ample evidence of how its current practicality is viewed in countries beyond the United States, in terms of economic implications of its immediate development.)

The "high speed" mentioned is 7000 RPM.

No polution just free energy.

So there ya go.