The Oil Drum | DrumBeat: August 30, 2008

217 comments on DrumBeat: August 30, 2008

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DownSouth on August 30, 2008 - 9:55am

More today on the use of natural gas for a transport fuel:

Surge in Natural Gas Cars Has Utah Driving Cheaply

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/30/business/30gascars.html?hp

Natural gas for a transport fuel seems to be following the same trajectory as corn alcohol for a transport fuel: government intervention in the form of subsidies and controls. In the case of corn ethanol, we have a combination of subsidies for domestic production and protective tariffs on imports.

In the Utah example for natural gas, we have a combination of price controls and subsidies:

In fact, some unique factors apply in Utah. Natural gas prices at the pump here are controlled and are the cheapest in the country...

Natural gas prices are cheap because under Utah regulations, the utility is obliged to offer about half of the gas that it sells to its retail customers at the cost of production.

and

Gary Frederickson, a 48-year-old computer technician, has bought six natural gas vehicles on Craigslist over the last year, flying as far as Portland and Oakland to pick up the cars. One 1998 Ford Contour he bought for $3,000 in effect cost him nothing because he will receive a $3,000 state tax credit for buying an alternative fuel car.

Could either one of these two alternative transport fuels stand on their own without government intervention?

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NeverLNG on August 30, 2008 - 10:33am

Could exclusion of reasonable alternatives stand on its own without corporate-driven government intervention?

There is no "free market" in the USA now -- if there ever was.

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JNK on August 30, 2008 - 12:12pm

Nate,

Have you read Naomi Kline's "Shock Doctrine"? It is a real education on Free Market economies and how our neocon government works.
Everyone should read this book so you know how to deal with the future regarding diaster capitalism.

John

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Leanan on August 30, 2008 - 12:16pm

Speaking of disaster capitalism (literally)...someone posted in the Gustav thread that Blackwater is recruiting goons to provide post-Gustav security.

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joemichaels on August 30, 2008 - 1:53pm

Let me guess they are going to protect the oil facilities from home-grown terrorists...

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musashi on August 30, 2008 - 6:59pm

How is that unusual?
They have standing emergency contracts with FEMA and HS.

Why would they keep staff full time when needed only occasionally?

They are professional security people and I would wager that most whiners would be extremely grateful to be able to call on them if their kids or parents were taken by or in the way of a mob.

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ccpo on August 31, 2008 - 5:28am

Your lies are not needed nor helpful. They are mercenaries, nothing more. Thugs, to boot. NO federal force used against the citizens of the US is constitutional.

Shut up.

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davebygolly on August 30, 2008 - 12:29pm

I've given out 20 or so copies of the book to friends. Her interviews don't do her justice (not that they are bad). And there is little in the book that I wasn't aware of in a very general way. But the details in the book are what make it spell-binding and totally devastating.

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super390 on August 30, 2008 - 1:38pm

I'm up to the part about the screwing of Russia by Yeltsin & Co., which I understand may have been one of the greatest humanitarian disasters since, well, Stalin. Putin should have sent a copy of this book to everyone in the US so we would understand the definition of the term "act of war".

I think the most audacious part of the book is tying the CIA torture and mind-control experiments to neo-capitalism. It's a reach, but it's a way to demonstrate to the public that its standards of justice and fairness, its definition of legitimate government, and its understanding of liberty and property, all have been revised in the past. We don't mean the same things by those words as our grandparents did. But thanks to massive corporate-supported indoctrination, we are made to mean what our great-great-grandparents did, when they accepted imperialism, robber baronry and Christian theocracy as the natural and immutable order.

The intent has been to mold us into the very worst possible people to confront with a resources crisis.

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aangel on August 30, 2008 - 1:42pm

For a first-person account of someone who did some of the dirty-work Kline talks about in Shock Doctrine, read Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.

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souperman2 on August 30, 2008 - 5:17pm

...and Overthrow By Stephen Kinzer

Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq

http://www.amazon.com/Overthrow-Americas-Century-Regime-Change/dp/080507...

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CSS on August 30, 2008 - 6:45pm

Just finished this.

I guess I must have been out-to-lunch during History class because I had no idea the U.S. was so disruptive all around the world. I thought we didn't "turn bad" until the unwarranted invasion of Iraq.

The whole Russia-Georgia thing has a new perspective now.

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weatherman on August 30, 2008 - 7:47pm

I likes that review from publishers weekly, that it was implausible and lacking in detail. despite his crisis of conscience the tone was very flat. One for conspiracy buffs.

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Todd on August 30, 2008 - 2:28pm

I'd also include Crossing the Rubicon by Mike Ruppert and Catherine Ann Fitts' "book" at http://www.solari.com

I certainly found them as upsetting as The Shock Doctrine. It's hard to come to terms with seeing that your beliefs were nothing but BS.

Todd

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DIYer on August 30, 2008 - 8:15pm

If you want to be reminded your beliefs are BS, read John Michael Greer. What with my ADD, and further foreshortened by the internet and too many birthdays, I can hardly bring myself to plow though an entire book, but I do ~~waste~~ spend a lot of time reading blogs.

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robmar on August 30, 2008 - 10:36pm

off topic.. a few days ago there was debate over eia and texas rrc natural gas production #,not sure if this was mentioned but the rrc does not register production # from their pending file accts,(07 was 218bcf)maybe this accounts for the higher eia production figures for texas? r.m.

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