Oil - the new war on the US?

[urgalzmine]

lol funny rabbit

you make me laugh


If you guys have Smart Investor edition May 2008 10th page talks about oil as a percentage as income. I will just type the whole thing out so this is a direct quote:

" Over the past 25 years the price of petrol may have nearly tripled - the capital city average was 47.38cents per litre in dec 1983 and 138.76cents a litre in feb 2008.

As a percentage of our income it hasnt behaved so badly. A 60 litre litre tank of petrol costs 8% of average weekly ordinary - time earning in march 1984 fell steadily in 6.6% in march 1994 and 5.9% in march 2004.

It is on the rise again but at 7.5% of average earning, it still hasnt reached its former high. Even if it rises to $1.50 a litre that will represents 8% of weekly earnings.

For age pensioners with cars. a 60 litre tank of petrol costs 39.7% if their average weekly pension in 1984. It still represents more than 30% of their age pension today "


Take this article how you wil,l but according to this atricle petrol probably wont fall.

 

[ShareIt]

very valid points JW.... it looks like we are screwed for now... but the bottom line is that the human race has always adapted to changes and have been doing so for the last thousands of years of good and bad (way before oil came into play)... the sad thing is that we became so dependent on it but like through all years, our human instinct will get through it eventually and it will be another page in the history books

 

[Sean K]

I'm with you there, but a bit scared of the transition. eeeeek!!!

 

[JeSSica WaBBit]

Well, i hope you are right because i dont like thinking about being in the situation i have predicted.

Its a frightening prospect, but lets hope some smart cookie works out a solution pretty quickly.

Maybe we could clone 'Hawkins' and have 1000 clones working on it in some bunker deep within the earths crust.

Maybe if they can work out how to use the powers of quantum physics we might get over the line.............

Not sure, its going to take a miracle but nothings impossible.

Until i hear otherwise, i'll be long on oil.

JW

 

[ShareIt]

Well, i hope you are right because i dont like thinking about being in the situation i have predicted.

Its a frightening prospect, but lets hope some smart cookie works out a solution pretty quickly.

Maybe we could clone 'Hawkins' and have 1000 clones working on it in some bunker deep within the earths crust.

Maybe if they can work out how to use the powers of quantum physics we might get over the line.............

Not sure, its going to take a miracle but nothings impossible.

Until i hear otherwise, i'll be long on oil.

JW

There is thousands of years of history written that supports my point that we will recover... whether it happens in our generation is another story.... eitherway, long on oil is the way to go by the looks of it

 

[spectrumchaser]

wicked wabbit
"Best to have yourself some land so you can grow your own food, store your own water and do your best to be self sufficient."

We tried that in the 60s the best part of it was the
"free love" !

 

[rederob]

There is thousands of years of history written that supports my point that we will recover... whether it happens in our generation is another story.... eitherway, long on oil is the way to go by the looks of it

Those many years are not too relevant, are they.
Tell me what crude oil was used for 1000 years ago.
Sorry, 500 years ago.
Sorry, 200 years ago.
Sorry, 100 years ago. Ahh, that's better.
Now tell me what it will be used for in 100 years time.
Sorry, 50 years time.
Sorry, 20 years time.
Sorry, make that 10 years time and then tell me how much you think you will be paying for it.
In the meantime, tell me to the nearest billion how many people rely on oil related products for their present lifestyle. Then take a stab at how many billion more might like a slice of that lifestyle if they could afford it.
Not too hard I hope.

 

[ShareIt]

Those many years are not too relevant, are they.
Tell me what crude oil was used for 1000 years ago.
Sorry, 500 years ago.
Sorry, 200 years ago.
Sorry, 100 years ago. Ahh, that's better.
Now tell me what it will be used for in 100 years time.
Sorry, 50 years time.
Sorry, 20 years time.
Sorry, make that 10 years time and then tell me how much you think you will be paying for it.
In the meantime, tell me to the nearest billion how many people rely on oil related products for their present lifestyle. Then take a stab at how many billion more might like a slice of that lifestyle if they could afford it.
Not too hard I hope.

I think you REALLY misunderstood my point. Perhaps read a few posts before the one you replied to.

I wasn't talking about oil in this respect... I was talking about human instinct and how we adapt to survive current situations. JW made some valid points, but what I said is that I have thousands of years of history to prove that we ALWAYS find ways out of bad situations.

I am almost 110% sure that there were many people saying things like JW and yourself when the black plague was about, or during WWII, September 11, the list can go on for thousands of years... and the bottom line is that human nature has always responsed by adpating to situations... the Oil case will be no different, it might mean we take a step back... but whatever the outcome, we will adapt as history has proven many times

 

[Mofra]

The use of oil for fertiliser is tiny compared to its use as a fuel. We don't have to move all transport to electricity but the more we do the cheaper oil will become and the longer it will last. We have to have oil for plastic and fertiliser but even with better farm management and plastic recycling we could scale back our use of oil for those as well.

We currently have technology to make diesel fuel from coal and your never going to replace all oil based technology, in fact the world must use as much oil as possible while it can because with out oil the world would be a lot worse place. Hunger and standards of living would drop dramatically and we will never ever have any comparable cheap and energy dense fuel untill we get some serious technical advancements.

In terms of percentages of uses for crude oil, this is the best I could find:

18% used for non-fuel purposes, when you take into account jet fuel (no reasonable viable alternative on the near horizen) this is 21.4%, a significant proportion that will add upward pressure on oil prices in the medium & long term future. If major shipping has a viable alternative to diesel in the future, it would be gas/jet fuel as per the engines used in most modern warships however this will still swallow some percentage of crude oil production.

As for obtaining oil from coal, it is possible however both thermal & coking coal prices are rising faster than oil, and when you consider 60% of the US electricity energy needs are still obtained from coal, it appears unlikely that diesel obtained from coal will be economically viable anytime soon. When we consider the food crops now being grown to supplement drilled oil via ethanol production instead of actual food for human consumption, the food production figures could develop into a full blown crisis.

Taking into account the petrol engines in the new Chinese & Indian car markets and 2005 being the peak year for oil production I'm not convinced of any real retracement in oil prices in the near future.