http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...2T0&refer=home

We have all of the hybrid people to thank for this. Their fuel efficiency has ensured that we can expect declines in the cost of gasoline in the coming years.

Oil is currently $55.55 a barrel. I am keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to see oil return to $10 to $20 a barrel, where it belongs.

 

Is this really a good thing? See, if all the hybrid driver causes a decrease in fuel demand which in turn causes a decrease in oil prices, which in turn causes more SUV sales, which in turn causes more C02 and warm weather, which in turn causes concern and more fuel efficient cars to be used, AND causes less demand in oil for heating, which in turn.....

Do I see a spiraling scenario here? It's great for our pockets, but not good for the planet.

I see market forces dooming the planet, if given free reign. The market will not curb CO2 and oil usage until it becomes scarce or runs out...by that time, it may be too late.

I see drastic climatic incidence have to occur before we have the will to go against market forces.

 

I would like to see oil companies getting 10 - 20 a barrel, but i would like to see a tax that will internalize the costs to the environment into the price of the product.

Perhaps a 3 or 4 or 5 dollar a gallon tax that goes directly into cleanup and effeciency efforts to offset the damage done by the sale of the gas.

plummeting prices will dramatically slow the adoption of new technology, we want high prices for fuel if we are to have help from Joe Everyman in solving this problem.

 

Carbon dioxide is a relatively poor green house gas. Current carbon dioxide emissions cannot have any appreciable effect on global temperatures due to their logarithmic nature. It would take something far more potent like methane or ethane emitted in far greater quantities than carbon dioxide to have an appreciable effect on global temperatures.

By the way, I think gasoline guzzler taxes should be instituted on all new vehicle sales where the vehicles do not maintain at least 25 mpg city and 25 mpg highway, with the tax being $2,000 or 10% of the vehicle price per mpg under 25, whatever is higher (with the money from the taxes used in a tax rebate program so that the people raising gasoline prices give something back to tax payers to pay for their higher gasoline expenses). It would have a very positive effect on the state economy if the legislature passed legislation along these lines.

The oil companies are not and will never be getting ten to twenty dollars a barrel. The oil wells (i.e. OPEC) get roughly $55.55 a barrel. Much of the remaining cost of gasoline (when you calculate everything) goes to Uncle Sam with only about 20 cents a gallon (there are 42 gallons in a barrel) going to the oil companies. The reason they make so much is because they sell so much. If people would simply buy less gasoline, the oil companies would make less, even if oil skyrocketed to $1000 a barrel tomorrow (which would kill the economy, but would illustrate my point).

 

there is a mere 33 cents per gallon tax where I live. This doesn't constitute a whole lot and is far from being reasonably considered "much of the remaining cost". There needs to be a much higher tax at least 1 order of magnitude.

also from 1947 - 1972 oil was under 20 dollars per barrel and was again from 93 - 2000 excluding 95,96 and 97.
so for 29 of the last 59 years, or about 50 percent of the time oil has been under 20 USD per barrel. even adjusting for inflation.
http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif

 

Have you considered sales taxes, property taxes (on the oil company and on the gasoline station), tolls, income taxes (on the gasoline station and the oil company) and federal and state excise taxes?

Keep in mind that I did not list taxes on transportation companies (with the exception of tolls).

Edit: This also does not consider transportation costs, marketing expenses and the <5 cent per gallon profits gasoline stations make to afford a living, all of which are passed on to you at the pump.

 

I am not sure I understand the question. Sales taxes, property taxes etc are part of operating a business and are no different than mining costs, research, prospecting etc.

I am not really sure what any of that has to do with internalizing costs into the product so that actual costs to societies and environments are considered. If you sell a product that damages the environment you should also be responsible for offsetting that damage. If your product damages the air, and you dont own the air you should be responsible to repair that damage, and the cost to repair this damage should be reflected in the product.

 

Gee...does this mean I can go buy my Navigator and H2 now? What are we worrying about then? There's still trillion of oil that can be extracted from shales...and as far as other pollutant from gasoline, this will just get cleaner as ICE technology gets cleaner...

 

The three-way catalytic converter resolved this issue a few decades ago.

Have you forgotten that carbon dioxide is to flora as oxygen is to fauna? If there was less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it would harm all forms of flora in some capacity, which is bad for the environment. It is not like carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere once it is put there, hence the carbon cycle.

By the way, as for the Navigator and H2, I do not know, can you?

 

The whole point of reducing (not eliminating) fossil fuel consumption is to get CO2 back to normal and natural amount that had kept the global climate stable for thousands of years, From the industrial revolution till now, human have extracted trapped CO2 in exorbarant amount never seen before, and the rate is still increasing alarmingly now. The earth ecology can regulate itself and CO2 amount that's good for life, floral or fauna, very well, until human started to change things globally and theaten natural regulations -- not just CO2 but destroying plants, which is one mechanism for that CO2 regulation.

The carbon cycle is way of of wack just in the last 100 years, when hundres of thousands of years before now, it was a very stable cycle.