DrumBeat: September 21, 2006
Posted by threadbot on September 21, 2006 - 9:14am
Topic: Miscellaneous
For Bush, cheaper gas is premium
When it comes to President Bush's approval rating — the number that measures his political health — one factor seems more powerful than any Oval Office address or legislative initiative.It's the price of a gallon of gas.
Statisticians who have compared changes in gas prices and Bush's ratings through his presidency have found a steady relationship: As gas prices rise, his ratings fall. As gas prices fall, his ratings rise.
BP and Exxon at odds over Gulf oil project
BP, the UK oil group, and ExxonMobil, its minority partner on the Thunder Horse deepsea oil project, have been at odds over how to respond to mounting problems with the Gulf of Mexico oilfield, the Financial Times has learned.
OPEC May Link Oil Price Target to Production Costs
"We are looking at the current price regime within the context of our rising costs," [OPEC acting secretary general Mohammed] Barkindo told reporters at a conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, today. "The issue of rising costs of funding production, whether offshore, onshore, upstream and downstream, have sky-rocketed in the past several years."
Global oil cos' spending soars but production, reserves growth lag
Global energy companies boosted their investments in the upstream business by 31 pct in 2005, but only to achieve a marginal growth in oil and gas production and reserves.
Bangladesh: Protest over power outage
At least 50 textile workers were injured as police charged baton to disperse them from the Palli Bidyut Samiti office premises at Choala in the town yesterday.The textile workers were protesting irregular power supply to their factories.
Eyewitnesses said over 1000 agitated workers entered the Palli Bidyut Samiti-2 building at around 4:00pm and damaged documents and furniture. They set fire to 12 parked motorcycles of the Samiti, two transformers worth Tk 2.5 crore and the special circuit breaker in the control room. Ten policemen, including SI Rafique, were injured after being hit by brickbats thrown at them by the agitating workers.
Employees of the Bidyut Samiti took shelter on the top floor of the three-storied building to escape the public wrath during the attack.
Yukos loses its bankruptcy appeal
An ongoing public feud between the Nigerian president and vice president is adding to concerns about the long-term reliability of oil exports in a country already embroiled in violence directed at the petroleum industry.
Rising Fuel Costs Tighten Air Force Belt
The growing cost of crude oil combined with increasing fuel demands of the war on terrorism are forcing Air Combat Command officials to brace for a budget crisis while looking for future fuel alternatives.
Economist Says Better Metals and Minerals Data Needed as Nation’s Import Dependency Grows
U.S. sees delay in big rise in alternative motor fuels
The Bush administration says the United States needs an extra 20 years to meet Congress' goal of having almost a third of U.S. motor fuel supply come from energy sources other than gasoline.
Tom Whipple - The Peak Oil Crisis: A Report to the Senate
Sea levels are rising faster than predicted, warns Antarctic Survey
Rises of this order will present a substantial threat of flooding, storm surge and even complete submersion of many of the world's populous low-lying areas,such as Bangladesh, the Nile Delta and even London.But the new evidence, from a series of scientific papers published this year, indicates that this rate would be exceeded, said Professor Rapley, who runs the world's leading institute on Antarctic science - although he could not say what any new rate would be.
Gasification Process Key to Low Cost Diesel
"There is little waste, up to 85 percent of the feed material becomes usable liquid fuel at the other end."
If that's on a carbon basis, that's pretty good.
I would like to continue the debate on what determines oil prices> because I believe the issue has not been settled.
Robert Rapier and OilCEO, in their posts two days ago, said it is primarily supply and demand that sets the price of oil, Coilin and several others disagree. Coilin posted a link, which says that it is a combination of the NYMEX and the IPE prices that determine the price of oil. I cannot get the link to work today however.
Coilin pointed out that the amount of WTI and Brent crude actually traded is tiny, far less than 1 percent of all oil traded. And I would point out that the actual amount of trades on either the NYMEX or IPE that results in the actual delivery of any oil is also tiny. Probably also less than 1 percent of all trades actually ends with the delivery of any actual oil. That is, they are settled in cash, either before the close or at the close of the contract.
However, and this is very important, the actual number of contract barrels traded daily on the NYMEX alone, is approximately three times the number of barrels of oil actually traded around the world. For instance just yesterday approximately 251,000 futures contracts were traded. Over 62 percent of those contracts were for the near term October contract. Each contract was for 1,000 barrels of oil. That means that contracts for 251 million barrels of oil changed hands on the NYMEX yesterday, about three times the world volume of oil traded in the entire world. And that does not count the contracts traded on the IPE or the Tokyo exchanges.
I maintained, for several years, that NYMEX traders watch the spot price and other news around the world and try to follow, as near as they can that price. That is, if they see something that will make the price rise, they will andicipate a higher spot price in oil and move accordingly. However I am now having second thoughts. It seems that speculators and hedge funds do cause the price of oil to move. For instance the recent move from the high 70s to near 60$ was caused by speculators and hedge fund managers dumping contracts on the NYMEX.
What would have happened if they had not dumped their contracts? Would the spot price of oil dropped anyway. I don't really think so. It looks like that speculators, including hedge fund mangers that are also speculators, do control the price of oil.
Ron Patterson
It strikes me as something that will be endlessly dynamic. Monday's answer is not Teusday's answer, etc.
Um, just about everything you can imagine?
Or how about, the price of oil where? I imagine the price of oil leaking out of a Saudi pipeline in a desert is very different than the price of Alaskan oil leaking into the tundra, using a number of different scales to measure it.
Or how about, nothing controls the price? The operative term being 'control.'
Wrong! I can imagine thousands of things that have no affect on the price of oil. The question is whether supply and demand or speculators and hedge fund managers control the price of oil. Pay attention!
Are you taking up space on this list by just trying to be funny? Any damn fool knows we are not talking about oil spilled in the snow or sand. If you have some intelligence to add to this discussion please do so and stop posting nonsense.
The price of oil, all over the world moves together. If WTI spot price goes up, contracted oil from Saudi Arabia goes up as well. Check out world spot prices as compared to contract prices here.
Ron Patterson
As for price being influenced by anything you can imagine - prices are set by human beings. As a matter of fact, price itself is something that is imagined, looked at in the sense that price is a human construct, agreed to by those engaged in the transaction. For example, the money I use to pay for things every day does not say anything about the United States - and the price is not in dollars anyways. The fact that you imagine a factor to have nothing to do with price has absolutely nothing to do with two other people thinking it does - and if they are the ones buying and selling, your not being able to imagine what is influencing them is meaningless. To give a hint - look at how the Soviet Union used oil as a political tool.
As for the example of oil leaking - a bit obscure, but I decided to leave the explanation out. In Saudi Arabia, the infrastructure in place has been fairly simple to build and expand, and in that sense a barrel of oil in Saudi Arabia tends to have a production 'price' value which seems to be either in the penny or very low dollar range. On the other hand, the oil being produced in Alaska has extensive costs associated with it. In other words, what is the 'price' of a barrel of oil being leaked in the desert compared to the tundra? For the oil producer, that difference is measurable in terms of cost, as compared to price. This was a poorly done reference to the idea that the cost of producing oil keeps going up (in terms of infrastructure, for example), regardless of the price. Oil may be fungible, but the cost of production has a certain influence on how much the oil is worth, regardless of price.
Price is not an illusion, far from it, but price is not physical reality either. And I didn't even begin to touch upon EROEI - is it possible to even have a price for something which could be seen as negative - if it takes 5 units of X to produce 4 units of X, is price relevant? At some point, price capitulates in the face of reality - if you can imagine that. For example, how much does a passenger pigeon egg currently cost, or is price just a foolish perspective in terms of passenger pigeon eggs, from someone being anything but funny?
On inventories, the following points make the number not very meaningful:
- Now (9/06) the only reason US oil inventories are up are because of draw downs in the US SPR that haven't been replaced.
- As Days Forward Cover, current US inventories (minus SPR withdrawls is at the low range.
- Minimum US crude oil stocks for proper functioning of the system according to Matt Simmons are between 280 and 300M barrels - now we are "awash" with crude with 325M barrels, that only 1 to 3 days of supply before problems.
- Almost all countries in the world except the US (because we've drawn down and not replaced our SPR) have lower than average oil stocks in 2006.
- Drawdown in US SPR
http://www2.spr.doe.gov/DIR/SilverStream/Pages/pgDailyInventoryReportViewDOE_new.html Strategic Petroleum Reserve Net movement of 13.4M total from Sept 05 through Oct 06. Net US SPR drawdown of 11M barrels, net OECD donation of 2.4M barrels. No new fillings of US SPR ordered since Sept 05 and for foreseeable future.Very good info. Thanks.
Actually it is easy to get this idea -- the latest EIA weekly oil report released 9/20/06 begins with the title "How Low Can it Go?" and relies on both "technical" chart data (it is stated that the decline represents "the second-largest uninterrupted decline in the history of the survey (dating back to August 1990") and then also uses inventories as a reason why oil prices are dropping. A chart is very conspicuous that shows higher than average crude oil inventories (of course no mention of world oil inventories and the fact that we've withdrawn from the SPR). No other reasons are given for the price decline. see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp
As near as I can figure it .. all the dynamic
forces in the market place are played out on
a daily basis and reflected in the then current
spot contract price .. All the industry players dealing
in the actual physical commodity price their "deals"
at some differential to that spot price ..
Triff ..
(Not necessarily quickly, though. I believe there's a big correction coming up, from the fact that the market has ignored that oil is finite and immensely hard to replace, but this underpricing has been going on for decades.)
"Why does the NYMEX and the spot price for WTIC close at exactly the same price for 17 of the 20 trading days in each month? That just don't make any damn sense."
I posted a late reply, which I'll re-post here:
This (pdf) document by the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland answers your question:
"When most major U.S. newspapers
report the spot price of oil, they are
referring to the one-month NYMEX
futures price. A NYMEX crude oil
future is a contract for 1,000 barrels of
domestic light, sweet crude oil. To be
included in the contract, the oil must
meet specifications on sulfur content
and density. Because WTI meets these
standards, it is often traded in NYMEX
contracts. Therefore, the one-month
NYMEX crude oil futures price and
WTI spot price are nearly identical. An
exception to this is at the end of the
month, when the NYMEX futures contract
expires three days before the WTI
spot contract."
There is something in the above I don't really understand: is the 'spot' WTI actually a one-month contract? If not, how come it has an expiry date?
(WTI is really WTIC, or West Texas Intermediate in Cushing, Oklohoma.)
No, WTIC is not a one month contract, it is oil traded. Refineries actually West Texas Intermediate out of the Cushing, Oklohoma hub. It is actually oil, not a contract.
Ron Patterson
Ron Patterson
"An exception to this is at the end of the
month, when the NYMEX futures contract
expires three days before the WTI
spot contract."
So what does this mean? I understand what the NYMEX futures contract expiring means, but what does the WTI spot contract expiring mean if it is not also some sort of a one-month contract? What is an expiry date for a spot contract?
You ask whether NYMEX pegs to Cushing or the other way around. I agree that this is never made sufficiently clear, but my understanding is that Cushing pegs to NYMEX.
In support of this, I would point out that before the WTI there was the ANS reference price, and that due to oil depletion, there was often no actual physical oil delivered, and yet the futures trading continued nonetheless. This sounds absurd, but to me it shows that the futures trading at NYMEX does not need Cushing to determine prices.
Oil of course is contracted out of the Cushing hub, just as oil is contracted by the tanker load out of Saudi Arabia. But it is not a monthly contract and has no monthly expiration date. Buyers contract for so many thousand barrels from the Cushing hub, or from Venezuela or from wherever.
I repeat, the spot price for WTIC has no monthly expiration date. The price changes daily and it is always quoted as the spot price.
Ron Patterson
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:H4MFwpncAGoJ:www.iaee.org/documents/99fall.pdf+%22three+days%22%2 Bnymex%2Bwti%2Bexpires&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=13&client=opera
[...]
"Unlike petroleum products and crude oil delivered
by tanker, the term "spot" in a pipeline delivery system (such as used for West Texas Intermediate, the crude oil traded on NYMEX) refers to one month forward, the soonest it is possible to deliver. For example, the spot price for WTI in June refers to July delivery (until June 25, when the July pipeline delivery schedule is drawn up; afterwards, it refers to August delivery). The nearby futures price in June also refers to July (until June 22, when the July contract expires; afterwards it refers to August)."
[...]
Nothing has changed in the fundamentals or the geopolitics since early August. The "price fall is the sharpest in 15 years", so all bets are off.
Let's go back to May, shall we? Washington Post:
Now, the present. Washington Post Again: Now, all of a sudden, Bush is "Mr. Reasonable" -- where was he in May? See Leanan's chart at the very top of this page on the relationship between gas prices and Bush's popularity.I'll wait until November before I take oil prices seriously again.
But where is the discussion / investigation about this?
Oh and about the gold thing, I've known about this for awhile. My spring semester last year I took some gata.org printouts and we discussed this for about 20 minutes. He swore up and down it isn't really happening since there is no hard data from the sources doing dumping and such. He basically just defended the status quo without and ammo. I've got this guy again this semester. The first day of class he made it clear he remembered me. I took my first test Tues and I await my results. It seemed uber simple and short which usually is good for me.
After reading that...
In my head I am watching the classic Monty Python skit.
I Came here for an argument,
No You didn't,
Yes I did....
This is not an argument, you are merely taking the opposite side.
No I'm Not,
Yes you are......
Sounds like CROSSFIRE
sad sad sad sad...
in contrast, when "produced," oil and gas are used up, and stockpiles are not very impressive. At this point it appears nobody has the ability to lower the price for any length of time; though a number of countries (and financial entities) have the ability to cause prices to skyrocket.
It couldn't have come at a better time for the Republican party. I've got to ask, as we should all ask -- what's going on here? Again, I say it -- the fundamentals have not changed.
It looks like some very serious money has poured into commodities, jacking up the price; and after taking a soaking they are pulling out.
Oil prices are going down far less than gold, apparently. But the hedge fund manipulation has clearly distorted all commodity prices.
I'll repost a comment here that I posted in that Kos topic:
How to lower the price of gas at the pump
My tin foil hat sparked and smoked when I saw that futures contract volume for crude oil shot up as prices went down:
Suppose that somebody was simply creating futures out of thin air and dumping them on the market, causing the law of supply and demand to reduce prices. Ridiculous? What if your crooked political party is tanking in the polls and you want to give them a shot in the arm by causing lower gasoline prices.
If futures are cheaper, spot prices go down too.
But you just can't create crude oil futures out of thin air... futures are regulated by the Feds. They're regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. But what if you installed a Neocon True Believer to head up that commission?
Introducing Chairman Reuben Jeffery III.
Heckuva job, Reuben! But wait -- he did have actual experience on Wall Street and wouldn't Goldman Sachs make a super duper double secret agent for the crude oil-futures dumpage?
So, while this is tin-foil hat conspiracy theory supreme, it is possibile to control gasoline prices if you can control the supply of derivatives. Amaranth? Natural gas prices tanking is simply an unintended consequence. Not everybody understands that crude oil, natural gas, coal and ethanol prices are much more connected than they used to be. Oil goes down, natural gas goes down and so do all energy commodities.
OK, I'll have to see if Patrick Fitzgerald is still busy with that Plame thing and then ask him to get on it.
Okay - this sounds suspicious even to me. But its what I recollect as the explanation of how such futures markets work.
Any experts in futures contract creation?
Contracts likewise disappear into thin air, with money's exchanged of course. If I close my contract with $1,000 profit at the same time you close your contract at a $1,000 loss, the brokerage house debits your account $1,000 and credits my account $1,000 and the contract simply disappears.
Thousands of contracts are created daily and thousands of contracts disappear daily. And they are created out of thin air and disappear into thin air.
Ron Patterson
If you think someone was manupliating the market, driving the price of oil down by selling futures contracts, then they will literally lose billions trying to do that. They sold oil at $75 now they are obliged to buy that oil back at $62 or whatever the price is when the contract expires. They lose $13,000 per contract. It would take tens of thousands of contracts to move the market even a dollar or so. So any fool who tries to move the market with futures contracts had better be a multi-billionaire, and be prepared to lose it.
Ron Patterson
Hell, what a great ides. Now all I need is a few billion to make a few more billion.
Ron Patterson
It's just a shame hedge funds are not regulated by the SEC, but you know, I think we can trust them to do what's right for everyone...don't you?
Hell, what a great idea. Now all I need is a few billion to make a few more billion.
That was precisely the sales pitch Hunter used on Amaranth <ggg>
Triff
Darwinian, I'm sorry it's not that easy, your billionaire will not make the kind of money that you think he will. Let's take a look at this senario closely, because I think misunderstanding of the futures market is where alot of conspiracy ideas arise.
First off, you can't just sell a boat load of commodity contracts in an instant at a desired price. In fact, this works with anything stocks, oil futures, marbles, ice cream (it will melt before you can get enough people to eat it :) ). Let's take a look at what actually happens to the billionaire who tries to make money by 'controlling' the market.
Just because someone puts alot of contracts up for sell on the market for $75, doesn't mean he'll sell them all. He'll sell a few until the $75-buyers are all 'used up'. Then the price is sure to drop. If all of these sell orders are limit orders then the rest of his orders will go unfilled, because they are too far above market price. That is, until maybe the market rises again, some more $75 buyers arise, and some of his orders get filled. Only thing is, he hasn't really caused a drop in the price, he's just kept it at a certain level (for now).
But, let's say he enters these orders as market orders. Well, then he could sell alot more of his contracts, and yes drive the price down. Only thing is with each contract he sells, the price he gets is progressively lower, which is no good for him.
Regardless, in both instances, this billionaire has accumulated a lot of 'sell' contracts and has two options - either closeout the contracts before they expire or he can wait for them to expire, taking on the obligation to physcially provide the oil that he has sold.
In the first case, 'Billionaire Bob' tries to profit by closing out his sell contracts. But, wait he has so many! Remember, this guy has sold HUGE amounts of oil, enough to cause the market to tank. Just to close them out before the due date, he's buying any sell contract he can, but the price keeps rising, because again he is affecting the market, but this time in the opposite direction. I imagine that when he is done with his buying spree to close out all his contracts the price will have gone back up somewhere close to where he started selling, pending no large changes in the fundamentals.
In the second case Bob decides to take his contracts to the expiration date. Oh boy, he better be ready to pony up huge amounts of light sweet crude on the delivery date, because he is now obligated to do so. If he doesn't have it all, he's going to have to purchase from someone on the spot market, because he's in a pinch. I see the sharks circling...
Even is this guy does have has some oil reserves somewhere to provide the oil he sold on the market, whether he makes money depends on at what price he bought the reserves, which is not guaranteed to be lower. Plus, he's got storage fees and not to mention tying up all that capital.
But one might, if one had billions in margin money, sell enough countracts on the market, "at the market price", to drive the price down. Then one just might buy those contracts back at a lower price if one's timing is right.
I know very well that closing a contract in one direction has the exact opposite effect that opeaning it in the other direction does, all things being equal. But all things are not always equal. Early in a new contract month, for the close in contract, volume is always much less than in the last hours of the life of the contract. Therefore the sale of one contract, or many contracts, does not cause the same movement as many contracts in a much thinner market.
There is another strategy. First buy puts. Then sell the contracts, drive the price down, then close out your puts for a handsom profit. Then when the price is still low, buy calls, one call for every short contract you have. Then close out your short contracts driving the price back up, exactly like you said it would. Then close out your calls for a handsome profit.
With the above stratgey you would make nothing on your futures contracts but you would make a fortune with your puts and calls. Tell me why it would not work. Provided you had had the necessary margin money to margin thousands of contracts.
Of course the SEC may have a thing or two to say about such a stratgey, but other than that....;-)
Ron Patterson
Puts and calls cannot move the money unless traders see a huge amount of calls or puts and suspect that someone knows something they don't. But there is no way possible, unless that happens, that puts or calls can move the market. Traders usually totally ignore the amount of options traded.
A put or call that expires out of the money expires worthless. A put or call that expires in the money is worth exactly the amount it is in the money. Buyers of options take no risk other than the price of the option. Sellers of options take a tremendous risk. If one sells a put or call and the market moves against them they are required to buy back the put or call at the market price. If the put or call is deep in the money and you sold it when it was out of the money, it could cost you a lot of money.
I once traded heavily in futures and options. I am well familiar with how they work.
Ron Patterson
An at the market option has a delta of .5, which means it will move in price 1/2 as much as the underlying. As soon as someone buys or sells options, the marketmaker(unless they are adjusting their own delta or gamma) has to hedge this new exposure, which they do by buying or selling the underlying (in this case) for 1/2 the size. I assure you, options trades, in many markets, move the market considerably. Its all about the delta. The point here being that anyone with enough capital could dramatically move energy markets (or any other markets) just by buying options and no futures at all.
There is no formula that can tell you how much an out of the money an option will lose or gain as the underlying contract moves toward it or further away from it. It all depends on the volatility of the contract. A high volatility option will carry a much higher time premium than one with much less volatility. But an in the money option is an entirely different thing. An in the money option carries a premium exactly equal to the amount it is in the money plus any time premium.
Suppose you buy a $70 put when the price is exactly $70. Suppose you paid $2.50 for that put. Then the option has no intristic (in the money) value, only time premium. Suppose the contract moves to $60 where it expires. You would get exactly $10 for that option when the seller must buy it back. You make $7.50. That would be the $10 the option moved in the money minus the time premium of $2.50 it had when you bought it.
That is exactly how it works Nate.
Ron Patterson
If you bought a put for $2.50 then it would cost you $2,500. And if it expired $10 in the money then you would collect $10,000 and have a profit $7,500 after you substracted the amount you paid for the option.
An options buyer can lose only the amount he/she pays for the option. But a seller risks the total amount the underlying stock or contract can move against him.
Ron Patterson
In another life I wrote my masters thesis at University of Chicago on options pricing -believe me, there do exist formulas for determining how much an option will go up or down in price based on the movement of the underlying. Fisher Black and Myron Scholes made millions consulting hedge funds on this very concept.
But we are getting far afield. Im not disagreeing with your explanation of intrinsic value or time premium. The main issue I am trying to make clear is not what you or I get when we buy an option as an investment or speculative position, but what happens to the MARKET. (Since youve admitted in this thread that speculators DO impact the energy markets (and HOW recently...;))
The locals in the energy pits at NYMEX do occasionally keep decent size overnight positions for various reasons but most brokers try and go home flat, or as close to flat as possible. If someone comes to buy 10000 crude oil contracts at $70, the local or group of locals who sold those contracts has to buy them back somewhere to hedge, (hopefully lower) - they wont just stay short the 10,000 contracts they just sold to someone! Now, if someone comes in and buys 20,000 contracts worth of $70 strike price call options, this trade has the IDENTICAL impact on market prices, as the local will have to hedge out the mathematical exposure of those calls he just shorted (whose delta makes them worth precisely 10,000 long contracts IN MARKET EXPOSURE). Traders are constantly monitoring their delta (how sensitive their position is to a move in the underlying) and their gamma( how sensitive their delta is)
Im not talking gain or loss, profit or margin here - just the fact that the options markets can and do move the price of the underlying. As I stated previously, an at the money option purchase will impact the market 1/2 as much as a futures purchase.
Yeah, apparently not at Amaranth, though.
Supposedly, Citadel and some other large hedge funds have purchased the remaining assets so the selling pressure on NG (for that reason) might abate for a while. Interestingly, their bet wasnt directly long or short but they had spread trades on - were long dec 06 through Mar 07 and short other contracts, which explains why the calendar spread volatility in NG futures has been crazy of late.
The story is still (amazingly) under the radar, since it seems no laws have been broken. Stay away from hedge funds.
What's even better is that several very, very big players like Morgan Stanley appear to have been caught in this mess.
Alright, go collect some mushrooms, Bigfoot :)
Incorrect The SEC controlls ALL trades and licenses all brokers. All publically traded equities are authorized by the SEC. All futures and options trades are authorized and monitored by the SEC. The SEC is there to prevent fraud, and in spite of what some conspiracy theorists think, they do a damn good job of it.
If I ran a hedge fund and tried to buy puts or calls, then move the market by buying or shorting massive amounts of futures contracts, the SEC would be on me like ugly on a monkey.
Ron Patterson
Although hedge funds are exempt from SEC regulation, they are still subject to criminal laws, and the SEC has prosecuted a number of hedge fund managers for fraud, misstating fund returns, or stealing from hedge fund customers.
Sources:
Hedging Your Bets: A Heads Up on Hedge Funds and Funds of Hedge Funds
REGULATION IN BRIEF: Hedge Fund Regulation
SEC re-evaluates hedge fund regulation
Goldstein v. SEC (warning: PDF file)
http://www.sec.gov/about/commissioner/cox.htm
Naaa...I guess I'm just a looney conspiracy theorist. Bush would never practice cronyism, would he?
And the following gives me a lot of confidence in him...
During his tenure he also served as Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security; Chairman of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security; Chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security (the predecessor to the permanent House Committee);
Simply because someone is not registered with the SEC does not mean they are not subject to the rules and regulations laid down by the SEC. If you trade an SEC regulated contract or stock, then you must obey the rules. All exchanges are regulated by the SEC. There are some over the counter, (under the counter is a better description), derivitives that can be traded without SEC regulations. However there is no listing of these derivitives and one cannot move any market by trading them. All other trades are monitored and controlled by the SEC.
I am going to bed now but will reply to any objections tomorrow.
Ron Patterson
I don't think we're in disagreement but in my previous post I justed wanted to point out that hedge funds are not required to register with the SEC and that this means they are subject to very few regulatory controls. I was more or less quoting directly from the SEC's own web site (http://www.sec.gov/answers/hedge.htm):
There seems to be a subtle distinction, which I admit I don't fully understand, between "hedge funds" and "hedge fund managers" or "hedge fund advisors." However, according to the SEC web site, neither hedge funds nor hedge fund managers/advisors are required to register with the SEC.
I also pointed out that hedge funds must still obey criminal laws, including fraud, misstatement of returns, stealing from customers, etc. I believe this is what you are driving at when you say they are subject to the rules and regulations laid down by the SEC. Indeed, the SEC has prosecuted hedge fund managers for criminal behavior. Quoting again from the SEC web site:
But if you are implying that because hedge funds must follow the rules that they are the same as, for example, mutual funds, that is not correct. The differences are primarily, but not exclusively, in the levels of disclosure required from registered investment vehicles versus hedge funds. Here is what the SEC web site has to say:
The most interesting discussion of this is actually from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals case (Goldstein v. SEC - PDF file). They point out that even the definition of a hedge fund is notoriously difficult to pin down:
The Goldstein v. SEC case writeup goes on and on about what constitutes a hedge fund. If you're interested and have the time, it's a good read.
Sorry about writing such a long post for such a narrow topic.
Though the FinancialSense.com folks don't seem to think Amaranth is too worrisome. Something about them not being as highly leveraged as LTCM.
Do you know where it is? I printed out the article and lost it, but started reading it and got one page in. I have been looking for it but can't find it. Can anyone tell me where this article is? I really want to read how they are justifying LTCM as worse, although the nominal value are different. What is a 4 Billion loss in 1996 today?
Going to http://minneapolisfed.org/Research/data/us/calc/
I get it's =$5162523900.57, so this would be about equal or slightly worse. This is purely based on nominal value, but I understand LTCM was leveraged much higher and didnt have the ability to meet margin calls, whereas there is $3B left of Amaranth. Also Amaranth was big into future spreads which actually spreads the financial waves throughout the system. Don't forget in options someone wins at the others expense!
I think you are on very solid ground in suggesting that the proliferation of non-transparent hedge funds and derivatives contracts introcduces a level of risk into the financial system that is difficult to measure.
However, in saying there
will bea massive crash as a result is wandering off into the land of surmise and speculation. Didn't they teach you about probability and forecasting in thise finance courses?IMHO there is some major arm twisting going on to lower gas prices for the election. It just makes sense- there is no other obvious reason that I see.
When thing are muddy looking "follow the yellow brick road"...(money)....
Or maybe the fact that we are coming off Summer Drive Time Season, and the demand for gasoline is waning, certainly that wouldn't have ANYTHING to do with lower prices.
Or perhaps the fact that at this point in time, the fires around the world like Lebanon have quieted down so the risk premium on oil has dropped a bit.
No... I think you are right. Those sooper sekret shadow government people are manipulating the market to keep Republicans in office. No possible chance that maybe just maybe natural market forces and seasonal swings could be responsible for lower gas prices, pretty much like they've done for most seasons before this one. Or gasps could it be that maybe the Republicans are doing something right and transitioning us off a interest rate fueled economy to see if maybe the economy could chug along on its own.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of the Republicans lately, due to a number of reasons including lack of fiscal responsibility, immigration, and their handling of the War in Iraq, but the sheer blind hatred and demonization on these forums is almost made for TV comedy.
I think people give too much credit to the amount of power these politicians wield. To accomplish some of the things mentioned in this thread, Republicans would not only have to be doing all this, secretly and keeping it from the Democrats(who have their own resources for keeping tabs on things) who could expose this information for gain for themselves, but the Replublicans would also have to count on cooperation from a myriad of national corporations, and interests, as well as foreign governments, interests and corporations. The problem with conspiracy theories, is that in order to pull them off you have to tell a whole hell of a lot of people, and then count on all those whole hell of a lot of people to not say anything.
Now given human nature, what are the chances that out of dozens, probably hundreds involved to accomplish this that not a single one doesn't get drunk and say something they shouldn't. Or that one of the individuals who were trusted now decides the time is right to make a move to further themselves. Or even that an aid to one of these people picks up on something they shouldn't have and reports it.
Sorry but the probability of this all being a conspiracy is in my opinion slim to none. Too much control is needed, control which I just don't think is feasible to attain by any one faction of power. In order to accomplish this, multiple factions of power would have to all be working together with FULL TRUST in each other(something fairly rare in politics), which means most likely the Democrats would be in bed with the Republicans, which means they would be going in KNOWING that they will lose the elections this year, and frankly if that is the case, then why the hell are people stumping for the Democrats.
Sorry but there is a reason why conspiracy theorists on this scale are called crackpots. They have no appreciation of the amount of social and game theory mechanics which would need to be manipulated in order to come out with a winning scenario on this scale.
That's because that is a chart for oil to be delivered in a specific month - maybe October. Contracts exist for every month. Back in January, the October contract existed but not many people were trading in it. As the year went by and October approached, it gradually acquired more interest. Then in the past month, with October the nearest month for which contract trading is possible, trading volume is heavy. That's all you're seeing in that chart.
Bush and co. blowing hot and cold on Iran : he had a lot of people convinced that military action was coming soon. One way or another, it was almost certainly related to the US electoral timetable. If manipulation of the oil price was the chosen mechanism, it has succeeded masterfully. May would have been way too soon to talk down the oil price.
Now I get to thinking : what about that war in Lebanon? The Bushistas push the rather naive, militarily inexperienced Israeli government into a foolish war. Which pushed up the oil price still further, but was never going to last very long...
The higher the gas price, the bigger the electoral bounce when it comes back down. Smells like vintage Rove.
Now that ought to stir up a hornets nest! But it's true nonetheless.
Ron, my comments are mainly on the price of gasoline. The primary factor, although not the only factor, that affects the price of gasoline is supply/demand. We do not add up production costs, tack on a profit, and come to a price. We watch the price, our competitor's prices, and our inventories. If our inventories are falling and we can't keep up with our production, we raise prices. If our competitors are in the same boat, prices rise across the board. If not, some of our customers go over to the competitors, which draws their inventories down and allows ours to recover. Or, we keep our prices steady and run out of product, or start allocating to our customers.
In summary, we don't look to the NYMEX at all when making day to day pricing decisions. We do use it as a predictor of what prices will do, because what happens on the NYMEX will usually show up on the street, after a time delay. But if gasoline on the NYMEX, today, spiked up by $1/gal, and then back down by $1/gal in a couple of days, it probably wouldn't affect our pricing decisions at all.
With a promise of steady supply and prices, the Feds basically let big oil run the show and it worked well enough until US peak and the unavoidable importance of foreign oil. Volatility reentered the oil system in 70's and 80's and now once again today. Oil is now an essential commodity controlled by a few large actors who can at times work together or not. The old Big Oil companies have lost much of their power and are on the way to being valued purely as distribution companies.
The recent volatility has been a mixture of supply and demand, market manipulation by large actors, and arbitrage -- the present structure of oil trading makes it particularly attractive to arbitrage. So, its a mixture of things that sets the price of oil today, but the one thing it's not is the mythical markets of your Econ 101 class.
Volume of futures trading, in a sense irrelevant for trying to gauge impact on cash price oil as roll-overs are responsible for the bulk of volumes. Hence by far more important to look at open interest, currently 1.21m contracts, and in particular the changes. So a decline of say 100k in open interest, one can assess as having a selling impact similar to slightly more than one day in oil supply.
Galileo
There are certain alternative energy technologies that I believe will play an enormous impact in our future. Heading that list is solar energy, followed by wind power, biomass gasification, and possibly cellulosic ethanol. Most alternative energy sources that I think have a real chance to make an impact involve electricity generation. Therefore, in order to really impact the transportation sector, we need to move toward electrifying more of our transportation options.
I was recently asked what kind of cars we would be driving 100 years from now. Without hesitating for a second, I replied "Electric cars." A key reason we aren't driving them now is that the range and convenience is not what we are accustomed to with internal combustion cars. Therefore, not only are the alternative energy sources themselves important, but the key to making them viable for personal transportation is developing energy storage devices that improve the range. Wind power is great, but we have to develop better ways of storing the power for when the wind doesn't blow.
So, I was very pleased this morning to read the following story at CNN.com:
Gentlemen, stop your engines
It describes an innovative approach to energy storage, and one that could potentially "could blow away the combustion engine." Some excerpts from the article:
Of course the key there is "if it works as it's supposed to." A patent has been issued, so it's got some credibility. During my recent conversations with Vinod Khosla, one thing we agreed upon was that energy storage devices have great potential for revolutionizing the world. He indicated that he is invested in this area. In fact, the article says that his firm, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is backing the technology. Here's hoping they are right about this one.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/01/eestor_ultracap.html
What oil addiction? It seems quite apparent that the addiction is to motorized individual transport units (mitu, pronounced meetoo).
Not when you look at all the things we depend on petroleum for. Cars and SUV's make an easy target, and are, in fact, a fine example of our Oil overconsumption.. but I also hear all these 'Anti Happy-motoring' complaints as the most obvious social critique available... being easily annoyed by our neighbors or our own daily trudge to work.. and smacking each other around, often involving some class implications, in either direction. Rich-callous-Bashing, Poor-idiots-bashing.
But it is the oil that grows and carries our food, builds an unsustainable road system, makes tons of chemicals, containers, etc.. It reaches far into every corner of our activities, and when it withdraws, the cadillac-commute will not be the only casualty.
We're also addicted to fresh fruits all winter, to having lights and power all night, to having flights available and callers waiting for your order. Spare parts that get shipped overnight from anywhere to anywhere for anything you own, and an apparently unlimited number of offers for credit lines to buy it with.
Truly a house of cards, with a couple cars out front..
Texas and the Great Plains, and the Great American Desert are full of unused wind power sites. Energy storage is a problem that can be solved by recycling the water used in hydroelectric. Or, we could use the extra electric for doing work not crucial that can be done intermittently-my thought is desalinization of brines in subsurface formations. The areas most prospective for wind power and solar power are short of fresh water, and the main cost in reverse osmosis is pumping water, which is easily stored.
Perhaps they are being careful and appropriately hopeful -- but the technology is apparently based on capacitor storage, and if it is a breakthrough, it is in the realm of improved materials and process, not new science.
Not that that's bad -- they are not promising perpetual motion, or anything. ******
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&a mp;cid=1156716608555&call_pageid=968350072197&col=969048863851
EEStor Inc. in Cedar Park, Texas, doesn't call its technology a battery -- patent documents refer to it as an ultracapacitor-based electrical energy storage system (EESU) that is ideal for electric vehicle propulsion, electricity grid applications and mobile devices, such as laptops and MP3 players.
Based on past investor presentations, the company claims its technology will increase the run time of a laptop or music player four-fold compared to lithium-ion batteries. It will recharge in minutes and can be charged and discharged almost infinitely without degradation.
It's also based on non-toxic, inert materials such as barium titanate powder.
"None of the EESU materials will explode when being recharged or impacted," the company says in patent documents, adding that the technology "does not have any material that is explosive, corrosive or hazardous."
Since The Star first wrote about EEStor in early March, the blogosphere has been buzzing with speculation about how this technology could change the world or, according to the sceptics, how the company is a scam.
EEStor continues to operate in "stealth" and has yet to put up a Web site. Investors, including high-profile venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, remain equally secretive. But behind the scenes materials and production testing is ongoing and a big announcement is expected this year.
Ethanol production growth can't even keep up with increases in new cars and vehicle mileage, Khosla or not. The DOE only came with the report after a judge ordered them to. Otherwise we'd still be in the dark. In a country so focused on ethanol, it's quite a government statement.
By 2030, we'll be so deep in a crisis, all bets are off as to how much fuel of any kind will be needed at all. Or new cars.
Do us a favor and post the total $ amount allocated by the US fed government for alternative fuel projects vs. DOD spending.
And where would you suggest I find that?
Federal funding allocated for DOD programs (irrespectuve of commitments to Afghanistan/Iraq) is vastly diproportionate to that of alternative fuel development.
As such, if the US government really intended to commit to making alternative fuel a reality of x percentage on x timeframe as Congress has instructed, then the assistance allocated -either direct or indirect- to research, development and execution, would be substantially more.
I touched on the subject of priorities many times i.e. if the government really wanted to secure a modicum of domestic energy security (let alone independence) than it wouldn't be doing such a half-assed job.
OTOH there's not a great deal of incentive for private companies to go off and attack countries all over the world in the hopes that it will make Americans safer. Not a lot of profit in that.
Traditionally, the government is supposed to be there to do the things that private industry can't, like national defense, or universal welfare. Developing alternative fuels is not inherently a government function. Granted, in this day and age government does a lot more than the minimum, so maybe you could complain that they're spending money on the space program or some other extraneous function. But national defense is a pretty core governmental responsibility, probably the most fundamental thing it does.
But Halfin, I do think it's in our national interest to use government to pull ourselves through such a massive sea-change in how we get through the day as regards energy-policy or alternative directions. It is simply a form of leadership (hopefully inspired through us all, as represented by our members of congress) to incline us towards the place we need to go as a society. I don't see business, which is naturally more self-interested than Societally Motivated to initiate such movement. They'll go towards it if there's a financial reward, but that's why there's so much junk food out there. It earns great profits, but isn't really what we need, is it?
In the meantime, the money that this government does spend on defense doesn't really look like it will accomplish it's goal either.. does it? Fundamental, as in fundamentally flawed.. the best defense at this point might be in using that money to get a massive solar industry up and running.. and making sure we are building real relationships in the Middle East, getting people fed and educated.. imagine.
Bob Fiske
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
Hold the phone brother - you have this one flipped. The reason we have so much junk food is not because of private industry. It's because people in America choose to eat unhealthy and choose not to teach their kids to eat healthy. Business will provide what people demand.
My wife and I recently watched Drs. Roizen and Oz appearing again on Oprah (a hazard of working at home :-)). They wrote 'You: The Owner's Manual.' Roizen listed five quick no-nos:
Sugar, Enriched Flour, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Animal Fat, Hydrogenated Oils/Trans Fat
Sugar has been with us a long while. Enriched flour lets you bake fluffier, but has lost most of its nutritive value, so they must enrich it. HFCS just seems to be a cheaper sweetener than sugar, but dampens the leptins that tell you you're full.
Animal Fat has also been with us a long while. Roizen says they hydrogenate good oils to increase shelf life, but hydrogenated oils become more rigid, like bad oils and fat.
It is tedious trying to find foods without any of these ingredients. We just walk the aisles putting stuff back.
http://www.healthychefalex.com/
I read the first few chapters of The Omnivore's Dilemma, but decided to go back and finish Collapse first.
(I think manufactured foods, with transformed chemicals like the trans-fats are the worst. Everything else in moderation, and of course excercise to keep the body burning its fuel.)
A good mountain bike ride today made a big plate of chips and quacamole "replenishment" and not excess.
My exercise yesterday was stocking a ton of pellets into my basement. I was going to get all three tons now, but our dealer no longer delivers. He says that gasoline prices are too high. So we borrowed a truck, the dealer forklifted a pallet on the bed, and we set off.
Big mistake from a physics standpoint, as a ton of pellets will continue forward when you tap the brake. We pulled over, I spread the bags throughout the bed, continued home, carried them into my yard, and then had my stepson hand them down as I carefully piled them under the staircase.
The dealer was telling my wife that he now gets suspicious when anyone orders more than four tons. He was buying pellets on EBay, found himself high bidder and realized he had sold those same pellets to the EBay seller.
So speculation is driving up the cost of wood pellets.
the choosing and the teaching of Americans towards their food choices are spoonfed through a massive system of psych-propaganda that has as much to do with the purchases of just unbelievable quantities of junk and poison as the ideal of 'let the market decide'.. like oil, these behaviors are manipulated by the industry to preclude healthier choices, and they become both Habitual and Truly ADDICTIVE, both psychologically and chemically.. (Sugar, Caffiene, Niccotiene (it's not just for breakfast anymore))
How can you choose to teach your kids to eat healthy when you can still recite the contents of a BigMac faster than the four, basic complete protien groups? (I don't even know if it's four myself.. back to the Diet for a Small Planet)..
'Two All-beef patties, Special Sauce, Lettuce, Pickles, Cheese (food product), Onions on a Sesame Seed Bun!'
Still got it!
- Obey your thirst
The US government has stated (if not legislated) that x amount of fuel must be of alternative origin by x date.
Said agenda has nothing to do with what the gov is or is not responsible for in relation to free-market principles - it simply is. In other words, the government tasked itself and failed as evidenced by the recent DOE announcement that, "Sorry folks, but it looks as though we just weren't up to it".
So I ask you, "Did the feds even really try? Was alternative fuel a true priority?"
I say no, for if they had, you would have seen more than (5) F-22s worth of money allocated to the task. (Matt had a good arty on this yesterday).
And as far as national defense is concerned -fuel- not planes, not tanks, not battleships; fuel is the most critical component of a nation's military - the greatest strategic asset, the holiest of holies in all warfare past and present.
So many kW-hrs/liter = so much bang if shorted. Real simple.
Portable Electronics Battery
A battery based on the high stability of a class of the negatively charged hydrino hydride ions may have an unprecedented high voltage with the advantages of much greater power and energy density. BlackLight has analytical data identifying extremely stable negative ions, the hydrino hydride ions, which can stabilize positively charged ions in highly charged states. The extraordinarily stable hydrino hydride ions may balance the charge of the positive ions without reacting with them and function as an electrochemical compound of an advanced battery. At least a 10-fold increase in performance relative to current battery technologies may eventually be possible using BlackLight Chemicals.
http://www.blacklightpower.com/applications.shtml
And a 'vintage' page from when the press was repeating claims about a device the size of a briefcase that could power a car for 1000 miles
http://web.archive.org/web/20021012233711/www.blacklightpower.com/battery.shtml
Hopefully EEStor is less vaporous.
When EEStor ships - great. Till then, it is somewhere between the low cost mass produced stirling engine and hte perendev-type motors.
He has many investors and will not pre-release any data that would allow him and his investors to lose the 'game'.
Yet many have observed the results he claims to obtain and have stated that they do exist.
Since he eschews SQM(standard quantum mechanics) and instead believes that CQM(classic quantum mechnics) is the basis of understanding his 'orbitsphere' conception of the eletron in the hydrogen atom.
So far his math appears dubious but I suspect this is his desire.
Math and detractors mean absolutley zero IF he is able to show sucess with reducing the ground state of the hydrogen atom and releasing plasma and/or energy be it heat or whatever.
Only time will tell.
The reality of SQM is that 'there is no reality'. Read Shrodingers "Cat in the Box" explanation.
Even Einstein did not favor SQM. The whole question tends to revolve then bascially as to whether and electron is a wave or a particle. The accepted explanation being that it can be either.
It changes to a particle 'when it is observed by intelligence' but travels as a wave. Many experiments have been conducted pointing out the enormous disparity it then has with 'common sense'.
So I say then that 'we have no idea what reality is'.
It appears that electrons (and photons as well) can communicate across the universe immediately , thereby traveling faster than the speed of light. Impossible but yet the experiments seem to prove it.
Einstein called it 'spooky action at a distance'.
The study of the rapidly changing world of quantum mechanics is very fascinating and filled with many unexplainable effects.
So therefore why can't BLP and its concept be valid? It can IMO. The detractors are the die hard adherents of current thought and they fight against it hard , yet don't seem to disturb Mills in any event.
Note: Please don't try to argue the above since I added it without backgrounding it at all, just from memory. Go read the forum for yourself. It on Yahoo
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/hydrino/
Oh...its because there are asshats who make the above type of remarks. Makes my day. Was there something serious I missed in your remarkable one-liner?
Show me a working battery. Show links to actual progress on a working battery.
Show me a current interview with Mills where he discusses progress on his battery.
And how do YOU know what disturbs Mills?
Hydrogen Hydroxide = H2O
Di-Hydrogen Oxide = H2O
If Calcium Hydride = CaH2
What the Hell is Hydrino Hydride?
A made up name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrino
But Mills, the guy who came up with the theory, is not even a physicist. He's an MD, I believe.
I'm not willing to dismiss the man based on that. I am willing to point and ask "where is your product" however.
If they were able to show progrss via product or more interviews about how this product will be the techno-solution.
Not to mention the US military 'needs' good high power solutions. Such a need would be good for the bottom line.
Do you have a date for that archived page? I see "2002" as part of the link, and I am guessing that's it. If I write about BlackLight, I want to make a note of this.
EHydrinos combined with highly oxygenated matter would form the basis of batteries the size of a briefcase to drive your car 1000 miles at highway speeds on a single charge, without gasoline.
(Now, where is the US military grant money to get such batties into the hands of the troops?)
"I'll have demonstrated an entirely new form of energy production by the end of 2000," Mills responds. (Yea...and the battery is where again?)
I've seen the 2007 date mentioned, but I can't track down the source document....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0%2C3605%2C1627424%2C00.html
Friday November 4, 2005
According to Prof Maas, the first product built with Blacklight's technology, which will be available in as little as four years, will be a household heater.
And http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/08/letters_0811/
how do you convert them back to plain old hydrogen atoms?
That was the question I kept asking. The answer I kept getting is "the hydrino is the most stable state." So, I responded with "then why do hydrogen atoms exist?"
I read the Wikipedia article, and I see a big part of the problem. The jargon is difficult enough to follow, that it would be easy to run a scam like this, because very few people are going to be knowledgeable enough to rebut it. But sooner or later, if they promise a product and can't deliver, you know there is a problem.
Exactly. The Universe is wanting to be in a low energy state. I have yet to see someone explain the joules of heat 'released' from the 'hydrino production' and I've yet to see the joules of heat absorbed when a hydrogen atom goes from 'hydrino' back to hydrogen.
Think of it.....global warming solved. Hydrinos made in space to power all that space-stuff (mining, making stuff, destruction of toxic waste, general spacing out) shipped back to Earth where they absorb heat to become hydrogen, then reacted with O2 in the fuel cells to make water, the water shipped into space to make H2 then Hydrinos.
Might as well close down TOD becasue Oil is no longer needed!
Well as long as you are happy with an "explanation" rather than laboratory experiments and evidence, it is easy to remove your "I've never seen someone explain" problem. So here it goes:
The Universe as we know it is divided into the Core Beliefs Zone and the Reality Zone. Between the two zones there is a third, invisible zone known as the Forbidden Zone.
The Core Beliefs Zone keeps all thoughts carefully containerized within it.
Sometimes one sees a replication in the Reality Zone of imagery that first appears in the Core Beliefs Zone. Some scientists speculate that beliefs and wishes can tunnel through the Forbidden Zone and become actualized in the Reality Zone.
Observation of the hydrino has been well documented in the Beliefs Zone. Schrodinger's equation demonstrates that wishes can occasionally tunnel across the Magic-is-Forbidden Zone and reappear in the Reality Zone. Hence it is sound logic to expect the hydrino to make sporadic appearances in the Reality Zone with it releasing many joules of free energy as it does so. You need to only be quick enough to spot them. Are you?
Now, unless you lie, you can never say you "never" saw somone give you an explanation. :-)
Electrical-energy-storage unit (EESU) utilizing ceramic and integrated-circuit technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries
IMO, most patents have little value. That is, there are very few fundamental breakthrough-type patents. Most fields of endeavor typically have just a handful of patents (at most) which revolutionize the field and set the stage for inter-firm competition. So I would not bet the farm on this patent just yet. That said, I agree with you and Vinod Khosla that energy storage is a huge area ripe for innovation. If we had much better energy storage solutions, all of a sudden intermittent energy sources like wind and solar would become much more valuable.
I agree. I have seen some real crap get patented. Most patents never turn into useful products. I think companies are quick to patent a lot of ideas "just in case."
For example, one of my patents is for a novel butanol unit. It is a decent step-change from the status quo, and I demonstrated the concept in a pilot plant. But it would be too costly to retrofit an existing unit, and nobody is building new units because the profit margins aren't very good. So, the patent may never be applied commercially. However, if my (former) company wanted to build a new butanol unit, they would no doubt use it.
$9 of electricity @ $.17 KWh = 52 KWh stored.
to go 500 miles = ~ 10 miles/KWh
If the capacitor weighs 336 lbs, and stores 52 KWhs, it requires 6.5 lbs/Kwh.
My eGO electric scooter can travel about 20 miles on a .5 KWh charge, or about 40 miles/KWh. The Scooter weighs about 120 lbs, and the batteries are about half the weight (say 50- 60 lbs? I'd have look that up.) They hold 1.5 Kwh, but since they are sealed lead acid batteries they should only be drawn down 35%, or .5Kwh. (that's another advantage of a capacitor!)
The lead acid batteries then weigh ~ 100 lbs per usable Kwh, as opposed to 6.5 lbs/KWh with a capacitor (if it works). Plus, supposedly unlimited charges (as opposed to 500 - 1000 or so on lead acid, if you don't over draw them)
A vehicle would have to be very small, light and aerodynamic to get 10 m/kwh. But it would be a huge improvement over batteries!
For instance, Tesla gives 215 watt hours per mile, including all losses.
Driving 500mi takes about 8hrs. Maybe you'd need to average 10hp for 8hrs. I'm coming up with 215MJ of energy you'd need to store.
5min is roughly 100 times less than 8hrs, so you've got to get that energy into that storage device 100 times faster than you take it out. With no losses, I'm coming up with a requirement to charge it at 717kW for 5min to put in 215MJ.
So what voltage will this run at - maybe 300V? That's 2.4kA for 5min? I don't want to be around it.
I apologize if my numbers are wrong, but I'm taking a quick break from boring paperwork and don't have much time.
The thing about gasoline/diesel is that you are not storing energy in anything when you fill up - you are just adding material with the energy already stored in it, which takes little energy or time. I'm skeptical about any transportation scheme that requires storing such quantities of energy in real-time.
52 KWh/15 minutes = 200KW/hour (200,000 watts)
P=IV
200,000 w= i(220v)
i=200,000w/220v
i=909 amps.
Let's just round it up and say charging requires 1,000 (one thousand) amps.
WOW! (My mother in law just upgraded her large, feature laden house to a 200 amp circuit.) (the average household uses 20 KWh/day.)
This smells really fishy!
Lets' say you had a 50 amp, 220v circuit, and hooked up the car. That would be 11,000 watts/hour (a hellova big load!). And it would still take nearly 5 hours to recharge.
Since that would be unacceptable to many people, it is obvious that they lied by saying "15 minutes."
And if they lied about something as basic as this, then why wouldn't they lie about their basic premise? (i.e., having a capacitor that could handle such a load without danger)
Too bad it seems like BS. I would like to own one if it worked.
I should read more closely. It said FIVE minutes, not FIFTEEN.
Therefore, triple the amperage.
600 KW per hour!
3,000 amp fuses, coming up! what household can afford to be without one? Every house with it's own, dedicated high power line and transformer the size of a van!
(What absolute, unadulterated horseshit!)
At home you'd probably have a 220V circuit, with a 60 amp limit, for a roughly 12kw limit, so charging would take about 4 hours.
How long does it take to charge? "About 7 seconds: the time to plug it in at night, and pull out the plug the next morning" - Burt Rutan, the aircraft designer who created the first privately funded manned space vehicle.
Over here in Sweden I recon the euro standard 380-400V 16A three phase outlet to be about right. Most services can handle at least one such additional load, 2.5 mm2 wiering is cheap, it is not cumbersome in size and it roughly provides for the equivalent of one liter of gasolene per charging hour.
Ok for a plug-in hybrid or electrical scooter but probably not for an EV only wehicle.
The average US driver drives an average of about 30 miles per day, so would only need an hour per night. If you had a 52 kwhr battery, you'd have about 250 miles of driving range, which you would replenish as you used it, but you would rarely use the full charge. A full charge would take about 8 hours.
Again, as long as the car's range is long enough for your daily needs, and the charging can take place overnight, it doesn't matter how long the charge takes.
And, they get 5 miles/KWh.
Compare that to the supposed 10 miles/KWh claimed by EEStor, which supposedly "drive like a Ferrari" and will replace "300 horsepower brutes"
It would be cool if it works, but I'm skeptical.
Unlike internal combution engines, electric motors get more efficient as they get larger, so I think it's possible that a substantially larger car could get the same "MPG".
That's one reason why Tesla is starting with a sports car, because a big electric motor has that kind of synergy.
sqrt(3) x 380V x 16A = 10,5 kW
A litre of petrol have about 10 kWh of chemical energy but the converion to mechanical energy is less efficient then DC-conversion, charging the battery, drawing on the battery, power converion for the electrical engine and losses in the electrical engine. But a litre per hour is a nice round number over here and I like having some margins in my statements.
Would it be fair to say that a very efficient petrol vehicle would be expected to get about .04 liters per KM, or 25 KM/liter?
Tesla says that they use 134 watt hours per KM after accounting for all losses (conversion, etc), which suggests about 75 KM per 10 kwhr.
So, this level of power would appear to be equivalent to about 3 liters of petrol per hour. You could add a margin, but you probably should do so on both sides of the comparison, so it would be a wash.
The reason for this result is that a petrol engine is typically only about 15% efficient, versus maybe 75-80% for a good electric powertrain.
MXWL = Maxwell Technologies
http://www.maxwell.com/
I agree with you on electric transport .. sometime
in the future, but it is a hugely disruptive
technology and the current oil/auto boys will
fight it tooth and nail every step of the way ..
Back in the mid 1990's Solectria Co had a regular
looking sedan that could get +250 miles on a single
charge .. Google "Solectria Sunrise" ..
Triff ..
looking sedan that could get +250 miles on a single
charge .. Google "Solectria Sunrise" ..
I am looking into this. Do you remember what happened to it? That's a decent range, especially in the mid 90's.
You can also get a conversion for a Geo/Chevrolet Metro sedan version from Electro Auto (electroauto.com). The reality is if you use NiMH or Li-Ion the range on electric cars is already acceptable. It's not as high as an ICE, but still quite adequate for all around town driving.
The big problem with electric cars right now is Lead Acid batteries weigh too much and don't hold enough charge. In my opinion we don't need any major breakthroughs for electric cars to become viable, all we need is for Li-Ion batteries to come down in price.
Termites Could Eat into Oil's Bottom Line
... though perhaps he will not appreciate the adversarial tone of that headline ;-)
* the last sentence is a joke, you humorless bastards! But the question is serious.
Our primary source of microorganisms for our bioreactors came from cow's stomachs. They are also very efficient cellulose digesters, but not as efficient as the termite.
This surprised someone? I mean, its the exact same thing that happened to Carter. Economics and Politics both assume that people are rational. The thing is, they really aren't much of the time. We have these pesky little things called emotions that get in the way.
Preventing "flipping" through taxation would also have had the salutary effect of making the current housing bubble much less severe than it actually is.
As far as non-productive ... I know a guy that flipped one and made money, went into a second and is looking now for renters. I suspect it's a renter's market out there.
The thing is, he and his wife walk into a place and see what adds value. "Blow that wall out, put in a door there" kind of thing. That's not something I can easily see myself, and maybe others can't either.
(This is only valuable because houses built 20-30 years ago were built for a different lifestyle: small kitchens, separate formal and informal dining areasm etc. Now a modern, and higher value, house has the flowing kitchen -> informal eating -> family room.)
Read this one.
Confessions of an Ex-Mortgage Lender
http://tinyurl.com/os7az
"But ask Ted Janusz, who spent an interim period of his career learning the ins and outs of mortgage brokering as a loan officer in Columbus, Ohio, and he'll admit that what is really going on here is a game of subterfuge being played at the expense of borrowers with low credit ratings."
"The strategy of lenders, he learned, is to maintain an uneven playing field with their clients. "The average person only gets a mortgage every seven years. How can you become good at something you do every seven years, especially if you're dealing with somebody who knows all the ins and outs and is doing this several times a day?" he recently told BusinessWeek.com. "
Sure, an inside connection can be helpful, but my friend got a "family referral" and still the guy was trying to screw him. Extra .5% on the rate, and outrageous fees.
The best way to deal with mortgage brokers is to get 3-4 quotes from different lenders. Get all the information up front. (They are required by law to make a good faith estimate) Play them off each other.
And remember - it's all negotiable.
Another key component is not holding the note, but passing it on to the fed or the Chinese in mortgage backed securities.
In the old days, when banks held the notes to maturity, they were not about to loan to someone who might default.
In fact, I would say that the banking system may ultimately be in at least as much trouble as the borrowers. If a borrower is under water he can just walk. The bank holding the note cannot do the same. The bank has to dump it and take a loss. (though I suppose that might be considered also "just walking.")
The prices 'paid', and the mortgage payments made, have no connection to the value of the property, if it's assumed that value is related to the cost of building.
Total payments can easily be 3-4 times the selling price, and that price may already be many times the true building costs.
Add to that the fact that mortgages are the ultimate tool to create money out of hot thin air, and you're looking Ponzi straight in the face.
As Richebächer put it recently:
Needless to say, a 20-30% drop is nothing when it's been created out of nothing. It's not like anyone loses out on actual labor put in. If that were the case, you'd have a completely different discussion, no-one would build homes anymore.
I don't think you've been through many of these escalating neighborhoods. Everything from bathrooms, kitchens, out to new stonework and plants (I hate the word "softscape").
And out here the typical flipper does the construction himself.
It just remains to be seen if the market will value his labor and investment.
did nothing to it but put it back on the market at a higher
price. They all worked their butts off making them
attractive and modern enough to warrant a higher
market price. House flipping is a speculative venture
that requires a lot of skill and knowledge; quite
often learned the hard way (loss of harded earned
money). A lot of older properties would have been
lost to the wrecking ball if "flippers" did not exist.
You don't like the idea of someone making a profit and
would like to see the government take the "profit"
instead, huh? Is this out of jealousy or do you
honestly think the government can do a better job
with the money?
too? Do you think he should "have a limit on
how much profit" he makes? Maybe he should have
to wait six months after finishing before he
can sell it in case some "excess profits" might be
made by a purchaser.
If anybody should be taxed it should be
those idiots that produced that g*d d***n t.v. show
about how even hairdressers could flip houses and
make riches with no effort. Tax the morons that
watched that show weekly while your at it.
No offense meant to hairdressers otherwise.
Hmmm, kind of makes you think - doesn't it? Have we developed an economic system that reserves its highest rewards for those who display anti-social behaviors?
Seriously, the flipping is based on folks seeing houses as an investment, not a consumeable item and thinking that their judgement about real values is more accurate than that of the market at large, both of which are debatable.
I bought a house in Galveston, Texas and closed at the first of June. Its 3 bedroom, 1 bath, I can see the Gulf from my bedroom window and sleeping porch and I paid $79,500.00. My real expenses including utilities, taxes and insurance amount to $800-$900 a month, what I would have to pay for a 1 bedroom new apartment in the Houston Metropolitan Area. Needless to say, the neighborhood is marginal and the house needs a lot of remodeling. But, I didn't buy it as an investment. I live there, and I'd like to retire there. Its a consumable to me, and a possible inheritance for my son.
About two months before I bought my home a couple bought a house across the street to fix up and flip. They paid $50,000 for a two bedroom and have dumped about $40,000 in fixing it up, they have it listed for $129,000.00 and have not sold the property. I assume they borrowed most of the money and have had zero return on investment while remodeling, and probably can't rent the joint for enough money to pay the notes and expenses, and they can't live in it unless they suddenly develop psychic powers of bilocation. They are probably stuck for at least a couple of years, and if they weren't such unpleasant chumps I'd probably feel sorry for them.
This speculative fever has been fanned by the cognescenti who actually do make money. Real estate brokers and mortgage brokers get huge commissions, banks get interest on money that they have magicially created out of deposits.
Oil and gas investors are just as short sighted. I personally like shallow tertiary development oil prospects, but most folks seem to like natural gas deals. I see all the LNG import facilities being built and suspect the Majors are planning to flood the market with cheap gas just as they have with cheap oil for the last 50 years. I believe the experts that hang out here that worldwide oil production is at a plateau and will decrease soon while demand grows exponentially. But, who really knows? Maybe the new capacitors discussed above will actually kick us all in the teeth. Life is uncertain. Anybody who thinks they have a complete answer and can predict the future is delusional, and I will keep on working.
Don't deny the man his intellectual property rights!
The real estate agents make huge commisions just to type in the house specs in a database and open the doors when needed. Why not just put the info into the database and open the doors yourself? This would cost next to nothing.
As far as morgage broker, I don't understand what service the provide. Couldn't you just get a morgage from your local bank whithout any middlemen?
And the same for the old Anarchists. If it weren't for the prevalence of sociopaths in the world, I'd be totaly happy with everyone doing their own thing.
Preventing "flipping" through taxation would also have had the salutary effect of making the current housing bubble much less severe than it actually is."
I disagree with the above on so many points that it is hard to know where to begin.
First off, most flippers are taking a house that would not sell, investing in the house in various ways to make it more attractive, then reselling. How is this driving up prices artificially? The house wouldn't sell in the past at the final price obtained. The flipper had to invest to get the house to the level where it would obtain the final price, sometimes to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.
Further, if you don't want to pay that much, buy one of these "pre-flip" houses and fix it up yourself. You'll end up paying close to the same, minus a small percentage that went to the flipper (which is the convenience of not having to organize all the contractors yourself).
Flippers cannot sell far above the price of actual owners who are also selling so they cannot drive prices above where the demand already was anyway unless they can control so large a percentage of the market that everyone else has to play by their rules. I have seen no evidence that this is the case at all.
Flipping has zilch to do with the current housing bubble, which is entirely driven by artificial liquidity created by the Fed to offset the economic downturn post 9/11. What the Fed is trying to do now is arrange a "soft landing" from that liquidity infusion and then see if the world's economy can stagger forward on its own from there. I am not sure it can because of debt levels, particularly in the US but elsewhere too, but flipping houses had almost zero relevance that I can see to actual house prices.
However, in hot housing markets, there are many people that bought houses or condos just to sit on for a few months, or until it was actually built, and then sell it at a profit. There are many condos that have been flipped several times and aren't even built yet. I think this is what gets some a little angry about the whole notion of something for nothing. Investors would bid out regular homeowners since there were so few homes and so many buyers. However, it looks like this sure money scheme is not so hot anymore.
I agree that access to large amounts of money is what made it all possible.
Same old problem.
http://www.energybulletin.net/20649.html
A salient point:
8.99:1 — Ratio of US Halloween Budget vs Bush budget for renewable enegry research.
$5,000,000,000 : Amount Americans are expected to spend in 2006 on Halloween candy, decorations, and costumes. Washington Times
$556,000,000 : Funding in Bush's 2007 budget for Plug-in electric vehicles, Geothermal, Hydro power, Wind, Hydrogen, and Biomass research. Boston Globe
Halloween is the free market in practice.
Federally funded research is the government interfering with the free market.
By the way, I wish the numbers were reversed.
Rick DeZeeuw
So when the feds spend billions on weapons systems that don't work, is that socialism too?
I belive in the Free Market too, It's just that I've never seen one. ^_^;
I personally feel that the government needs to be more involved, not less. The government is supposed to be "for the people" and the free market is "for the executives and stock holders".
Rick DeZeeuw
Now, of course, there seems to be sufficient demand for PV and wind (if it doesn't get blocked by NIMBY).
My concern is if there is an emergency (Iranian war, etc.), that waiting lines for all alternatives will be backed up for years.
Bush's approval rating is not dependent on oil prices. Oil prices are one factor. The title and graphic imply that it is the only one. Had he handled the Katrina/Rita disasters with any competence at all, oil prices would not have risen so much, and if he had shown this competence, his approval ratings would not have fallen as much due to them.
Poor article, but interesting observation.
Supply/demand models don't reflect this psycological factor.
The article states
This is actually pretty precisely written for a MSM article. They state a correlation which makes people assume causation.
You say:
Really? Not at all dependent? Do you have any evidence of this?
Maybe that strong correlation is just random chance - but I'm wondering at the level of naiveté that it takes to assume this. The problem is in the assumption that just because we cannot see the mechanism (or indeed that there is a single mechanism) that somehow there isn't any manipulation. Bull. Do you really think that people with power and influence need to be told what to do in their own self interest? Do you think such people don't know how to take advantage of whatever opportunities arise?
Face it people, this battle for control of the public perception is lost. Reality will continue on undisturbed, and production will keep declining (in the general trend). But the people will not face it, and the opportunities to do anything useful will be squandered.
Oh by the way on the Real Estate bubble and flippers don't forget to give Mr. Clinton some credit for that too as he pushed the whole drop in taxation on real estate which definately supported the huge increase in 2nd and 3rd homes which are out their sucking up lots of resources be they utilities, raw materials, or capital. Kunstlers greatest waste to the power of 2.
I agree. The right way to do it is to take 100% of the gas tax revenue, divide by the number of drivers licenses, and send that amount of money to each person holding a driver's license. That way there is no arguement that every person that pays the tax is getting his fair share back.
It could also be done based upon every registered vehicle, but that might (make that would) encourage people to buy up and register 8 junkers in order to get a bigger tax rebate.
Which means those who do the right thing and don't drive get punished.
Though I suppose they could all get licenses anyway, just to get the credit.
The disabled who can't qualify for licenses will then be irate...
Want to spend it on gas? Fine. Might get chilly at home, but that's a choice.
Problem is, the process doesn't work in reverse. Taking things away from people is a political dead end, which will therefore never be tried. Until there is no more.
In the short term, you can propose exchanging one form of BTU for another, and that's what we see happen. And people will believe it's possible for at least as long as you're in office. After that, it's someone else's worry. The system works for everyone, just not for long.
Here's Todd's plan: Set high energy efficiency standards for everything from vehicles to TVs. The purchase price is increased by the percentage that the item falls below the standard by the same percentage. For example, if the item is 10% lower than the standard, the purchaser would pay 10% more. The funds collected wold be used for both amelioration (whatever that might mean), research and buy-downs for items that exceed the energy standard. For example, if the item exceeds the standard, the purchaser would only pay 90% of the price the balance being "bought-down". The standards would be evaluated yearly.
Complex? Maybe, but it seems pretty straight forward to me. But buy-downs have been shown to work. I got a California Energy Commission buy-down when I put in my PV system 6+ years ago.
Todd's Plan B is to have a competion every five years for the most energy efficient items. The winner gets to monoplize the market but must license the technology to others. The loosers pay the winner 8% (or whatever) of the winner's wholesale price if they wish to manufacture it.
That might work at first, but I can see a situation where the monopoly power gets such a financial stranglehold as to destroy the competition and wind up quickly stagnating all R&D efforts. Plus, why innovate when you can wait for someone else to?
If you don't drive, you probably don't buy a lot of gas, which means you shouldn't be getting the gas tax back.
I really think that the license approach is by far the fairest approach to significantly increasing the gas tax, and ensures everyone who pays it will get at least part of their money back. It is also the only option that would have a chance in hell of being agreeable to the american public.
But you'll still be paying for the increase in gas taxes, in everything else you buy.
And it won't stop everyone who is physically able from just getting a license, so they are eligible for the rebate.
For those reasons, I can't agree that your plan is the fairest or the most acceptable to the public.
Really, when you're talking taxes, you're talking about screwing some people to benefit others. All the different plans and such are just a question of who's getting screwed for whose benefit.
I'm not sure how we track it. Every person over 18, is granted the ability to purchase a specific amount. Energy you produce yourself is exempt. Polution controls are very tight. Pump enough co2 out there and we shoot you.
That creates a market for those who use very little to sell to the people who need more. I'm not specificaly talking about a dollar market, it might be a vegtable,chicken, or beef market. You could spin some interesting ideas on how people manage their allotment. Groups coming together for the expanded use of their energy to create more ways of producing energy. Elites trying to accquire more for whatever reason. It gives my 80 year old parents some bargaining power, trade my allotment for health care etc.
It also limits population, if you want children, you have to have a way to support your energy usage. Your children have none until they are 18. Unless you produce it yourself.
It's a level playing floor for all, except those who reproduce more.
It's all been done and written. Read for instance these files from Odum, or Hubbert (yes, that one).
There are many more examples, both from these two, and others. All that needs to be done is pick the best. It's hard to see how it could be done, but if it's not, people will start falling off the cliff in increasing numbers. That's how yeast deal with the issue.
What drop in taxation on RE are you referring to?
Branson pledges $3B to fight global warming
It's like the proverbial fire-fighter who sets fire to a building just so he can be the hero when putting it out.
If we are to do anything about peak oil and global warming, this is the kind of firepower we need.
It's the "Financing a clean energy future' syndrome, a tax write-off if you want to be cynical. By the by, who's on the advisory board but... Khosla. Nice to know what that clean energy will be.
And Branson merely uses money he makes polluting to clean up that same pollution. Running to stand still, or worse.
The CGI web site does so obliquely:
how to meet increasing energy needs while addressing climate change
However the reason the 'Sheeple' will never know of peak oil, or ever think of it as more than a fringe freak show is that it will be deliberately hidden and blamed on everything from Hugo chaves nationalising it's oil to Iran being an axis of non-bushiteness and delibarately holding back the oil, to hurricanes, to terrorist attacks, to martians stealing our oil (which by the way only 47% of Americans, mainly the bush voters and some three toed lemurs will fall for).
All efforts will be made to hide the onset of peak oil. When the Hirch report was submitted by the military to congress, white house etc, do you think that no-one believed it? Bush's closest adviser on energy was well informed. All the current puppet president has to do is pretend that peak oil does not exist by means of disinformation and smile a lot.
Marco.
Scary as it may seem, would not this be the rational ploy of governments if an extinction level asteroid were heading our way and there was nothing the governments could do to stop it? Why scare and panic the masses? Are they not better off going on happily with their blissful lives until the end comes and it then snatches away their lives swiftly and without warning?
This is a tough ethical and moral question. I don't have a good answer one way or the other. If you tell the masses, and they riot, then millions may suffer more pain than they had to. If you don't tell, then you are defrauding the masses and they can sue you for it afterwards (ha ha).
Tom Anderson-Brown
I'll take a chance of survival any day over blissful ignorance.