Speculation

Gas is overpriced. We've all seen the very rapid increase in prices at the pump. Many people claim that this is due to increased demand. Well then why did the prices go up much faster than the demand did? And now, demand is actually decreasing due to the high prices, but the prices are still going up. Obviously there is something else affecting prices here.

Big investors are always looking for the next big thing. There was the tech stocks in the 90s, then mortgages and making up new mortgage products to make them look lower risk than they really were, and now we have commodity speculation. Buying billions of dollars of a commodity acts like increased demand, and causes the price to go up.

"The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price."http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8878

Not only is this causing rising oil prices, but speculators are driving up the cost of food as well (and the cost to transport the food). Since they don't seem to care that rising food prices are hurting the poor throughout the world, they need some incentive to not be horribly unethical monsters. Perhaps the threat of going to jail?

Here's an idea: how about making a law that says that if you buy commodities you have to take delivery of those commodities. (Such a law was recently proposed by Rep. John Larson, D-Conn). Where are they going to store the billions of dollars worth of oil, corn, rice, stuff? Some argue that speculators would just move to other markets, but it seems many in Europe want to limit speculation as well. Plus, a lot of the speculators are hedge funds and pension funds in the US, and I imagine that many of those investors would like to continue living here (out of prison), and would choose to stop speculation when that type of speculation became a crime. They would move on to the next big thing.

In the mean time we have two new bills that don't really do much and we await the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's report that is due out on September 15th. http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/27/news/economy/congress_speculation/?postversion=2008062715
Congress might address this issue after the 4th of July. Hopefully they'll get something done and not just argue about more drilling or windfall profit tax.



http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,559550,00.html
http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/24/news/economy/oil_legislation/index.htm?postversion=2008062413
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/26/cnoil126.xml
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/05/26/cnsoros126.xml

and the pretty graph is from http://zfacts.com/p/35.html

Dear US Senate, Please Protect the People from Even More Spying

It is a good news, bad news day. Thank you to the Supreme Court and Shame on the House of Representatives. Warrantless wire tapping is illegal and needs to stay that way. This is a write to your representatives issue here. The Senate hasn't voted on this yet, so write to them. Anyone who participated in warrantless wire tapping should be prosecuted and no one should be granted retroactive immunity.

http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2244

Second Amendment Rights Upheld

In a 5-4 ruling the Supreme Court struck down Washington D.C.'s ban on handguns.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080626/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_guns

This is very interesting stuff! This is the first time that the Supreme Court has touched this issue.



When guns are outlawed, only the outlaws have guns.

What is your opinion?

Global Warming and Global Cooling Happens - Don't Freak Out!

So, this global warming thing is something that the media and celebrities want you to believe is happening now and accelerating and is dangerous, and that its caused by anthropogenic carbon dioxide.

Well, they are wrong. Yes, I'm going there. I'm tired of people freaking out about this.

Check out these awesome videos:
Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4
He really blows this out of the water.

So, is Earth warming? It has natural variations in temperature. We are in a comparatively stable period with smaller variations than in the past - not an ice age, but a period with things like the medieval warm period and the little ice age. Yes the end of the 20th century was kinda warm, but there was nothing unusual about it.

What about CO2? The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has varied with little correlation to temperature. If CO2 isn't significantly effecting global temperatures, and man made CO2 is such a small part of that then why are people freaking out about CO2? Maybe because its easier to measure and tax than other gases or things that contribute to climate like the sun.

Here's a quote about CO2:
"But what about carbon dioxide? Produced by all forms of combustion and fermentation, CO₂ has been the focus of debate on climate change to such an extent that controls on CO₂ production have been connected to world economics (Kyoto Treaty) and pollution bartering.

At the present time, carbon dioxide makes up approximately 0.03 percent (or 300 parts per million) of the earth's atmosphere. In and of itself, that number is small when compared to the other major gases in the atmosphere. For example, oxygen and nitrogen are present at 21 and 78 percent respectively.

To obtain a sense for how much heat carbon dioxide absorbs and therefore contributes to global warming, the following information must also be considered.

More than 98 percent of all CO₂ in the atmosphere is produced by sources other than by man. For example, CO₂ is produced by forest fires, volcanoes, fermentation and animal and plant respiration.

Carbon dioxide does not remain in the atmosphere. It is absorbed in the oceans, lakes and rivers and is used by marine life to produce shells and food. It is also used by terrestrial plants to produce cellulose, sugar and other plant products.

Carbon dioxide is an essential and beneficial nutrient and is actively involved in a dynamic, not static process.

By comparison, water is present in the atmosphere in amounts varying from a few tenths of a percent in desert areas to as much as 4 percent in humid tropical areas. The amount of atmospheric water content changes dramatically with temperature and air pressure.

Clouds and fog are made up of water and 70 percent of the earth's surface is covered with water. Approximately 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are added to the atmosphere each day, of which 98 percent is naturally produced.

In other words, only 2 percent is anthropogenic. Around 1.16 billion tons of water is evaporated each day. At any given time, there are 10⁶ billion tons of carbon dioxide and 12.9 x 10⁶ billion tons of water in the atmosphere."http://www.liberty-page.com/cliches/globalskip.html

Just like I've been telling people.

But what causes climate change?
The things that matter most to the climate of Earth are: distance and output from the sun, shape and changes in Earth's orbit, tilt of Earth's axis and its wobble.

It's pretty well known that the tilt of Earth's axis is what causes the seasons. The Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun July - September.
There's a lot more to it than that.

Milankovitch Theory

Earth's orbit varies in how elliptical it is from almost a circle, eccentricity of 0.005, to kinda elliptical, eccentricity of 0.058 on a period of roughly 100,000 years. Currently, the Earth is closer to the Sun in the Northern Hemisphere's winter decreasing its severity, while the Earth is farther from the Sun during the Southern Hemisphere's winter.

The angle of Earth's axial tilt (obliquity) changes between 22.1° and 24.5° and back on a period of about 41,000 years. This effects the severity of the seasons. More tilt means stronger seasons. Earth is currently at 23.44 degrees from its orbital plane.

Earth also wobbles, precesses on a period of about 26,000 years as the directions of Earth's axis of rotation changes relative to the stars.

This explains it nicely.
http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm

Here are some presentations that explain the variations in Earth's orbit. That first one has some good pictures.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/slides/slideset/index.html

and the more simplified wikipedia version
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles

And the output of the Sun also varies, sometimes there are more sunspots and sometimes there are fewer. The Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age are examples of more recent and shorter length (100s of years) climate change both caused by variations in the Sun's output. The MWP was warmer than present and people did pretty well. The LIA was colder than present and it had devastating effects on crops and populations, but made for some excellent violins.
http://www2.sunysuffolk.edu/mandias/lia/little_ice_age.html

Here are some more articles about global warming being something to not freak out about:
http://canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm
http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1824
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=23359
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/11/07/weather-channel-founder-global-warming-greatest-scam-history

follow the money
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,251458,00.html


Don't freak out about global warming. There are much more important things to freak out about.

An Update

I'll start with a little update in the the Lieberman-Warner bill has been tabled for now. Congress is not going to vote on it at this time. However, it is likely that they will try again later, so pay attention.

Lieberman-Warner bill (America's Climate Security Act) - Should be called the America Hating Bill

If you haven't heard about this bill, you need to pay attention. The S. 3036 Lieberman-Warner bill (America's Climate Security Act) would raise energy costs for all Americans and cost us many jobs as well! This act would be the largest tax increase in US history and it is being debated in the midst of a recession!

Here is an article in the Wall Street Journal about it:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121244985951839615.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

A cap on Carbon Dioxide emissions would be passed on to consumers. Price increases in food and energy are regressive in that they are a larger burden for poor families as a percentage of their income.

The Lieberman-Warner bill will also cause jobs to be moved to countries that don't have the environmental regulations. It is ineffective in reducing CO2 emissions as it would just move them somewhere else along with the jobs.

If you don't know who your representative in Congress are you can find them here: http://www.govtrack.us/

Please write to your representatives and tell them to shoot down this bill. While I think President Bush is likely to veto it, I think the next president we elect would consider passing it just to have the appearance of fighting global warming. Congress needs to show that they are strongly opposed to this kind of legislation.

Read the text of the bill here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:s.02191:

Other bloggers write about this:
http://lighthousepatriotjournal.wordpress.com/2008/06/05/legislative-alert-s3036-lieberman-warner-climate-security-act-of-2008/

http://mainstreetamerica.wordpress.com/2008/06/03/lieberman-warner-climate-security-act-a-catastarophe-of-incredible-proportions/

Gasoline from Coal

Since the price of gasoline has gone up so quickly (and with it the price of everything that is transported using gas) I am going to have several posts about different ways to lower the price of gas and alternative fuels. I'm sure there are competing products out there that are economical at today's prices around $4 a gallon, that oil executives don't want us to know about.

So the first fuel we'll be looking at is making gasoline (and diesel and jet fuel) from coal, a resource that there is more of than oil and that is more evenly distributed around the world.

This is not a new idea. Germany made gas from coal during World War II (more than 124,000 barrels per day worth in early 1944). Germany had almost no petroleum supplies of its own, and as supplies were cut off, they made gas from something they did have: coal.

The United States government funded research on making gas from coal starting April 5, 1944 with the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Act. In 1948 America starting importing more oil than it exported. On March 15, 1948 the act was amended and funding extended to 8 years amidst concerns of an energy crisis and accusations that oil companies were driving up prices. (That part sounds familiar) The cost estimates were revised several times. In the early 1950's estimates of cost per gallon ranged from 11 cents to 34.8 cents. Gas from oil was about 10.6 cents per gallon at the time.

Then we imported more oil from the Middle East and the oil companies used their clout to stop funding for the competing product in March 1953.
http://fossil.energy.gov/aboutus/history/syntheticfuels_history.html

Some benefits of making gas from coal are: reducing dependency on foreign oil by using a domestic fuel, coal is relatively inexpensive compared to oil, we can also use heat waste by placing the coal refining near things like electric plants, and creating jobs here in the United States.

Here is a presentation by the Department of Energy's Lowell Miller http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/conf/miller/miller.ppt
It is actually pretty interesting if you give it a read (I promise that there are pretty graphs). South Africa is making gas from coal right now, and there are three of these plants under construction in China, more are in planning stages throughout the world (including the United States). Mr. Miller estimates that this will be economical at prices of $45 to $60 per barrel! And as production ramped up would decrease to $35 per barrel. With today's prices of over $100 a barrel that is a significant difference!
Mr. Miller also gave a statement to the U.S. Senate in April 2006 which can be found here: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/epact/pdfs/plg_docket/statement_lowell_miller.pdf
in which Mr. Miller gives a nice summery of the history of gas from coal:

"Production of liquid fuels from coal has a long history, and the significant advances made in technology over the past two decades make it a potential component of a strategy to increase domestic production of liquid fuels. In the early 1900’s coal was first reacted with hydrogen and process solvent at high temperature and pressure, and produced a coal-derived liquid or synthetic crude oil. This direct liquefaction approach was later improved and used by Germany in the second world war to fuel the Luftwaffe with high octane aviation gasoline. In the 1920’s two German scientists, Fischer and Tropsch, passed synthesis gas – consisting of carbon monoxide and hydrogen – over metallic catalysts and produced pure hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons produced by the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process proved to be excellent transportation fuels. This overall coal-to-liquids process, known as indirect liquefaction because it first involves complete breakdown of the coal to synthesis gas, was used commercially in the 1950’s by the South African Synthetic Oil Corporation (SASOL) to produce transportation fuels (gasoline and diesel) using synthesis gas produced by the gasification of coal. Since then, SASOL has built two large
facilities that produce over 150,000 barrels per day of transportation fuels. The South African government enabled these plants to be built by providing a price floor safety net for SASOL’s coal liquids. In both cases, Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa, the primary motivation for government support of coal liquids was that the countries were not able to access world oil markets."

Mr. Miller also says that "These indirect liquefaction of coal processes produce clean, zero sulfur liquid fuels that are cleaner than required under the EPA Tier II fuel regulations" (and he assumes that CO2 is a pollutant, but that's another post)

This is sounding pretty good. You could alway write to your representatives and tell them you like this gas from coal idea while telling them to shoot down the Lieberman-Warner bill aka America's Security Act of 2007 (What is with the 1984esk naming of this stuff anyway?). If you haven't heard it would put a cap on CO2 emissions and tax the American public for making CO2 and letting the rich buy exceptions. It would also cost the U.S. an estimated 1 to 3 million jobs by 2020.

Anyway, when can I buy this gas from coal at the pump?
Happy Reading. :)


http://www.knowledgeproblem.com/archives/002049.html

http://environmental-engineering.suite101.com/article.cfm/coal_gasification