Bloviating Zeppelin

(in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Petroleum and YOU

First:

Iran will either acquire nukes or you will be paying a minimum of $50 a gallon for refined gasoline. That is, if you can get it. How did I conclude this? Do what I call the Logical Extension.

Second:

From The UK Independent:

The demise of the dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

If this is true, then every aspect of your daily world is about to change negatively. I cannot even begin to predict the tumult that will result for Americans should this come to pass. Those denigrating America are about to have their wishes come to fruition. China, India, are the two most desperate countries to locate and lock in oil sourcing. Europe is fearful it will be cut off from Russian and Venezuelan oil sources. They'll do any deal with oil producing states. Couple this with the dollar's instability --

In an oil-based economy like ours, why hasn't this possibility been screamed -- above the fold -- in every national newspaper for days? Oh, that's right. Because we no longer have investigative journalists. We only have Media Sycophants.

15 Comments:

Tim said...: "Panic in Detroit! I asked for an autograph, wanting to stay home. I wish someone would call.."
Chill out, BZ. Chevy will have a Volt and besides, we are the Saudi Arabia of coal and AZ could be the SA of solar. The days of oil are numbered and it is time we kicked that addiction.
Yes, we will need it for planes, plastic and such, but there are ways around it if only people would stop panicing.
All we do by freaking out is play into their hands. Saudi is very good at playing up the fears of people like you and milking the maximum profit out of it. They keep oil JUST CHEAP ENOUGH so that we don't develop an alternative to it. Thereby undermining our own national security.; Mon Oct 05, 08:03:00 PM PDT
Tim said...: Don't forget, Canada is our #1 supplier of oil.; Mon Oct 05, 08:04:00 PM PDT
Bloviating Zeppelin said...: Yes, we have tons of coal. And tons of natural gas. We have even MORE oil off our coasts. But will we be ALLOWED to tap our resources? Of course not. The Religious Left would rather tank this country than allow it. And electricity? C'mon. Where's the infrastructure? It's just not there. Transferring everything to electricity is simply ridiculous. In the summer states frequently can't keep up with the current load, much less anything else. You see electrical genertion stations being built?

BZ; Tue Oct 06, 02:28:00 AM PDT
Ranando said...: Why hasn't this possibility been screamed -- above the fold -- in every national newspaper for days?

Because it's bullshit!; Tue Oct 06, 05:55:00 AM PDT
constant gina said...: This is our future in the U.S. until our leadership puts the future of the dollar over the political careers.; Tue Oct 06, 09:07:00 AM PDT
shoprat said...: We need solutions and while it's true we can't just "drill our way out of this" we can't do it without drilling. Too many (not all) on the left want us to solve the problem simply by reducing our use of petroleum, which is decades away. We need to do both, use less AND DRILL.; Tue Oct 06, 11:35:00 AM PDT
TexasFred said...: BZ, you gotta stop going into panic mode... The MSM is bullshitting us man...; Tue Oct 06, 01:23:00 PM PDT
Tim said...: "Too many (not all) on the left want us to solve the problem simply by reducing our use of petroleum, which is decades away."

They have been saying that since '73. The Arabs are very shrewd about lowering prices at the very moment we get ready to switch to an alternative. Hitler ran his war machine on synthetic fuels after losing the oilfields of Ploesti, Rumania. I think the Prius and the Volt scare them more than they will admit. We need to beef up our electric infrastructure with green technology AND NUCLEAR POWER. We can use the depleted uranium to make into bullets to strafe the Taliban with.; Tue Oct 06, 03:25:00 PM PDT
Bloviating Zeppelin said...: TF: the point isn't the panic; the point is to get OFF our ASSES and give ourSELVES a hand-up. WE have a great deal of what we need right here in the continental US and Alaska. We have untapped sources of coal, natural gas, shale oil, oil off our own shores. That the Religious Left REFUSE to let us touch.

On top of that, I'm sure you realize this is only a portion of a concerted effort by various nation-states to hit us whilst we're down and otherwise occupied on any number of global fronts.

Finalize that with Obama's insistence on crumbling us from within by staggering amounts of debt and taxes and -- well, I'm sure you get the idea.

I belong to the camp of "don't say it can't happen because it hasn't happened yet."

BZ; Tue Oct 06, 03:25:00 PM PDT
Bloviating Zeppelin said...: Constant Gina: thank you for visiting, and thank you for taking the time to comment. Please come back!

BZ; Tue Oct 06, 03:29:00 PM PDT
TexasFred said...: Tim, we might have our differences, but I have to say, you are right on the money about synthetic fuels and nuclear technology...

All we have to do now is get the asshats in DC to allow it..; Tue Oct 06, 03:41:00 PM PDT
A Jacksonian said...: While the Left decried nuclear power a funny thing happened: it got safer to generate and use. Now all the regulations put in to stop putting down nuclear power plant using 3rd or 4th generation technology is impossible to do as the vetting period is a decade or more. The technology didn't stop, but the mindset became encased in amber.

Synthetic fuels take energy to make and you aren't goint to get more total energy out of the system than you put into it as they are chemically based. Thus whatever you synthesize to get a yield energy is from the original energy source plus the energy necessary to get to it. You can use non-fuel source stocks, but those had natural oxidizing potential on their own - you are adapting them to be utilized for some other fuel base at a cost of energy so as to get useful energy from non-useful stocks. That isn't bad, but it isn't all its cracked up to be, either.

Algae systems on existing power plants and other facilities are re-capture devices and will not yield up more energy than put into the system. Recapture devices are wonderful, although they never yield back more than a fraction of the energy used in a system. That is no nirvana of energy.

Solar power is cheap to get in space, cheap to beam down, and its damned easy to get more of it via thin film capture systems... which is why the Left wanted the space program killed. All that money in its few millions had to be spent on earth to help the poor. We still have poor. And no cheap energy from space. Thanks, guys.

Then the Left didn't want drilling off the coasts using modern drilling technology... because they hated the drilling technology of the 1960's. Its advanced since then. The mindset is encased in amber forevermore.

When the cost of crude goes up, converting coal to liquid hydrocarbons, although a net yield loss in energy, provides feed stocks of more useful energy types for our infrastructure. But the Left hates that, has it 'regulated' so that even if the next gen is absolutely clean for conversion, you wouldn't be able to do it because of 'regulations'. Good job!

And Iran? Hasn't taken care of its petroleum infrastructure since 1979. At least not in any useful way. Their refineries are nearly dead and they import gasoline and diesel fuel. They import natural gas. No petroleum refining country ever needs to import natural gas unless its infrastructure is in shambles.

How to handle Iran?

Give me 5 A-10s and a nice, long night run over the petroleum pipelines and routing stations and Iran will implode within a month or two. Hell, equip the Baluchs and Kurds in Iran with a bit better weaponry and a few cash payments and they would do it for us. Guarantee a Free Baluchistan when Iran falls and you can set up a counter force against the Talibe in Pakistan. But that is playing hard-ball, down and dirty geopolitics... while we let Iran get the bomb. Strangely I don't think that Israel will be the first to be hit... and they would still be applauded as they would blame it on us.

We are regulating ourselves out of existance.

Perhaps it is time to stop trying to control yesterdays problems when modern technology can solve them. Mind you, if the Polywell system actually works (and it is looking good so far) then our 'energy' problems may just disappear... and with it the money flowing into the Middle East. Then we will have cheap power on a global basis to deal with and I'm sure someone will want to regulate that.; Tue Oct 06, 05:20:00 PM PDT
Anonymous said...: 'We only have Media Sycophants.' YES, LIKE FOX NEWS THE KING OF DENY.; Tue Oct 06, 07:02:00 PM PDT
Mahndisa S. Rigmaiden said...: I think Tim is right BZ. We are stuck in an archaic paradigm. It is 2009 and we are still arguing over resources used from the last couple of centuries. America is not only great because of our beauty and might, but because of good old American ingenuity. It was this that brought our technological revolution and helped us to get to space almost fifty years ago. I think that it is time to consider other sources of power on a large scale. The Volt and Prius models are only stopgap measures. I think we need an infusion of new ideas that are completely different than how we are all thinking.

AJ what do you know about plasma gasification technologies? Slag and synthgas are the byproducts. I think the synthgas can be sold back to the grid and the slag sold into industry. The slag looks like obsidian. I know you can never get something for nothing, but wonder why all localities don't adopt this technology?; Wed Oct 07, 01:35:00 AM PDT
Mahndisa S. Rigmaiden said...: BTW about the decline of the dollar...actually some rogue economists have been screaming about this in the msm for a long time. However, the msm hasn't given them credence. Fox news featured Peter Schiff but always discredited him with other bullish economists. And Nassim Taleb screamed about Black swans years ago. The truth is that many of us saw the signs but were in denial because our pockets were fat. Our duly elected politicians KNEW all this was going on but didn't care because they were getting PAID. Take away their pay, and I think they'd serve the American people well...; Wed Oct 07, 01:39:00 AM PDT

Bloviating Zeppelin

: Name: Bloviating Zeppelin; Location: Sierra Nevada Mountains, Fornicalia, United States

A former Democrat in my tender and ignorant youth, I am now a Conservative first and, these days, quite a distant Republican with a dash of Libertarian mixed in for good measure. I believe in God, the strength of America, the brilliance of our Founding Fathers, the valor of our military, and the need for Leadership in all forms and on every level. I am not an advocate of censorship as I believe everyone on the Far Left has a God-given right to be painfully stupid -- as I have a right to expose said stupidity. UPDATED NOTE: Recent legal references mandate that I make clear that these writings are ONLY my written OPINIONS and those of no one else. FAIR USE NOTICE - This web site may contain copyrighted material, which may not always have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such images and excerpts are made available for the purpose of analysis and critique, as well as to advance understanding of social, political, media and cultural issues. We believe this constitutes 'fair use' as explained in Section 107 of the US Copyright Law. ADVERTISING: I do NOT, however, ask for nor display advertisements here.

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Bloviating Zeppelin

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Petroleum and YOU

15 Comments:

Bloviating Zeppelin

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