wtfdetroit needs to solve the energy crisis

[b-diddy]

first off, before reading the rest of this post, i give my highest recomendation that you spend 1:22:51 of your time and check out this documentary:

http://www.stage6.com/user/ChotaPapa...19/Eco-Movie-4

its probably the best documentary ive ever seen. blows "an inconvenient truth" out of the water, and makes al gore look like a child pornagrapher. its probably the smartest and most honest look at oil/ the energy crisis available.

a few things that really stuck with me:

1) the US has 2% of the world's oil reserves, consumes 25% of the world's oil, and imports 2/3 of its oil. obviously that is gonna have HUGE implications on our foreign policy. suddam hussein's real crime wasnt huminatarian or possessing illegal WMD's. does anyone believe that if iraq had been optimizing its oil output and selling it to the US that we would have invaded. no chance in hell.

2) one barrel of oil, containing 42 gallons and sold at an exchange for less than $100 dollars, contains the energy equivalent to that of 12 men working for one full year. when you think about that, no wonder we are willing to commit genocide over it. also, oil is ridiculously under priced. when you can drive your car 2 miles and only consume ~20 cents of gas (assuming 3.20 a gallon) and you can lug hundreds of pounds of stuff with you, its a no brainer. if option 1 involves driving and fossil fuels, option 2 which doesnt involve driving and fossil fuels is gonna be waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay worse than spending 20 cents.

3) there are alot of indicators that we have already achieved peak oil output, or will in the relatively near future.

4) the human race's population exploded with oil, and life as we know it is bound to oil. when oil runs out, if we dont have plan b figured out, no way can we provide for 6 + (it might be way higher than that when we get to this problem) billion people. the video speculates we might be able to provide for 1.5 to 2 billion people. so what happens to the other 5 billion?

5) the financial market is completely bound to oil, too. every company traded at the NYSE assumes cheep oil is available. when that assumption is no longer true, those companies are overpriced. with rising oil prices, were already seeing some pretty tumultuous times with stocks. in the last two weeks, weve seen lows that we havent seen in years. and oil trading at a hundred dollars a barrell might be concidered cheep in the very near future, so what happens to the market then?

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so video is pretty mind blowing. it mentioned how JFK said lets go to the moon and then we went to the moon, and that a president could do the same thing today w/ weaning us off oil (though one dude says it would be more equivalent to colonizing pluto). right now, i dont see any of these presidential candidates stepping up to the plate. barrak would probably be the most likely, but he isnt showing his cards on pretty much any issue, so thats mere speculation/ hope.

but before you go to the cellar and hang yourself, ive already come up with the solution, hinted at in the video.

all we have to do is build a solar pannel ~ the size of texas and orbit that shit in the atmosphere. then, using technology developed by Tesla a hundred years ago, we're gonna broadcast that solar energy all over the world. fueling up your car, changing batteries, plugging in power cords, will all be distant memoreis. everything will just run. and incase your wondering if you can get a little taste of that energy $, the answer is no, douchebag. im gonna give away the energy to all. obviously, im gonna need $ to maintain the solar panel and related infrastructure, but that will come from the UN.

[b-diddy]

also, if you want to make a little do on the side, i would heavily suggest buying some CL (Light Sweet Crude Oil) futures options calls. buy them for the latest date available. i havent looked at prices, but whatever the premium, if you bought a call option for, say, 2015 at a strike price of $100 / barrel, well, oil for 100 a barrel in 2015 might be the steal of a lifetime. you could make an absolute fortune if you put a few thousand dollars in now and didnt mind sitting on it for 10 or so years.

but thats not exactly solving the problem.

[b-diddy]

incase your saying "b-diddy, you nancy, this will all just work out. weve gone through energy crisese before, this is no big deal".

this is a big deal. we went through a crisis in the 70's when we realized we had already peeked our oil production, but then we realized we could just rape the rest of the world's oil. and as soon as opec started playing ball, problem solved, or so we thought.

the problem today is that we pretty much know where all the oil is. yes, there is some in alaska that we could tap, but thats not a solution. and yea, better technology makes oil that we cant get to / not feasible more available.

but even with that, and all other sources of energy (pretty much all alternatives are pretty fataly flawed), new energy becoming available has pretty much flatlined/ dropped off, while demand is still increasing exponentially. unless we find energy on the moon, or something, were facing a pretty f'd up situation, IN OUR LIFETIMES.

one last thing from the video that really got the hook in me: will our grandkids ever fly in a plane? almost certainly not. only the top 00.1% will probably beable to afford to fly then.

[b-diddy]

also, if you want to make a little do on the side, i would heavily suggest buying some CL (Light Sweet Crude Oil) futures options calls. buy them for the latest date available. i havent looked at prices, but whatever the premium, if you bought a call option for, say, 2015 at a strike price of $100 / barrel, well, oil for 100 a barrel in 2015 might be the steal of a lifetime. you could make an absolute fortune if you put a few thousand dollars in now and didnt mind sitting on it for 10 or so years.

but thats not exactly solving the problem.

uh, exactly how much money are we talking?

well, 1 futures contract of CL is 1000 barrels of oil. 1000 x $100 is $100,000.

if oil goes up to $150 a barrel, that would be $150,000.

but could oil really go up that high?

oil was trading at $50 a barrel 2 years ago. in 2015 it could be trading at $500 a barrel for all we know.

so i need to invest $100,000?

no, in futures you invest on margins. to buy an oil futures contract, the exchange overnight margin is $4,500. but we are buying futures option calls, not futures. (buying option calls is buying the right to buy such a contract at such a date at such a price). the only risk would be the initial investment, which would covrer the premium on the contract (the consideration in exchange for the righ to buy the contract). i dont know what options are trading fore these days, but the ability to buy multiple options contracts is within most people's means.

[b-diddy]

oil went up to 102 / barrel yesterday. breaking a significant resistance level at 100. how high can it go?

[Zip Goshboots]

As high as they want it to. The American Ego will still pay, and still want vehicles the size of Texas to prove it can handle anything.

[Zip Goshboots]

I've always wondered why people are all, "Welll, hey, man, the politicians have gotta do something about this problem. I keep waiting for them to tell me what to do and they won't"

AND, HOW many cars are now in production that get good gas mileage? I'm talking over thirty. And, HOW many of us need to live 45 miles from where we work so our kids can "have a better place to live"? AND how many of us REALLY need more than 1 or 2 kids?

AND, how many of us get in our cars and go toodling around all weekend with no purpose in mind???

If Americans wanted to, we could save an incredible SHIT TON of gas just by modifying our habits.

But of course, we are waiting for a politician to say that, and he (or she) won't because that turns the mirror back on us and means that the guy who says it becomes an EX politician real quick.

[Hermy]

JImmy Carter said "wear a sweater" and it became a national embarrasment.

[Zekyl]

I drive a shitty little biodiesel pickup truck from 1981 that gets 45 mpg and I walk everywhere I can. I live in the shittiest apartments in town because they're right across the street from campus and within walking distance of a stop & go and a dollar store, so I can get most of the essentials like TP, butter, milk, etc. Its not the best situation but I'm saving a ton of money and a ton of fuel, so I'm happy with it.

[WTFchris]

I've always wondered why people are all, "Welll, hey, man, the politicians have gotta do something about this problem. I keep waiting for them to tell me what to do and they won't"

AND, HOW many cars are now in production that get good gas mileage? I'm talking over thirty. And, HOW many of us need to live 45 miles from where we work so our kids can "have a better place to live"? AND how many of us REALLY need more than 1 or 2 kids?

AND, how many of us get in our cars and go toodling around all weekend with no purpose in mind???

If Americans wanted to, we could save an incredible SHIT TON of gas just by modifying our habits.

But of course, we are waiting for a politician to say that, and he (or she) won't because that turns the mirror back on us and means that the guy who says it becomes an EX politician real quick.

We live about 25 minutes from Denver, but we take the light rail into town everytime we go to an event to save gas consuption, and also to put money back into the pockets of those building mass transit. The trouble is most cities don't have great mass transit systems.

We also bought a 4 cylinder Mariner to save gas (we had to have a 4 wheel drive vehicle with room for our 100 pound dog, but not a big SUV). It gets 25 MPG, good for a SUV. Our Focus gets 35 MPG.