Oil industry a failure; no new US refineries since 1976: NY Times.

[NNadir]

(N. Scott Trimble for The New York Times)

"About 100 miles southwest of Phoenix, in a remote patch off Interstate 8, Glenn McGinnis is seeking to do something that has not been done for 29 years in the United States. He is trying to build an oil refinery.

Glenn McGinnis hopes his Arizona Clean Fuels will build an oil refinery southwest of Phoenix.
Part of his job is to persuade local officials and residents to allow a 150,000-barrel-a-day refinery in their backyard - no small task. Another is to find investors ready to risk $2.5 billion in a volatile industry. So far, the effort has consumed six years and $30 million, with precious little to show for it...

...The last refinery to be completed in the United States was in 1976, and Mr. McGinnis knows all too well that community and political opposition squashed earlier projects..."


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/09/business/09refinery.html?

When are Americans going to realize that the oil industry doesn't work? When will it be shut down?

[Dr.Phool]

1. No new ones, but they used to have excess capacity

And shut down several of them. BP in Lima, Ohio is the first to come to mind. About 10 years ago.

[EVDebs]

2. As in all dying industries, consolidation (read M&A) increases

just prior to the 'bitter end'. These high oil stock prices are really the last gasps of a wheezing fossil-fuel infrastructure. The Saudi's puffery on their Ghawar oilfield's lifespan and the simple arithmetic of 1 trillion barrels of oil being consumed at greater than 80 million barrels per day means that the clock is running down and we have less than 35 years to go...and what are we going to substitute oil with ?

More important, why bother militarily or geopolitically with the Middle East AT ALL ? Their religion despises 'the infidel', the least we can do is accomodate them ! They ironically really do need us more than we need them. Just read Bernard Lewis' book "What Went Wrong".

[Nordmadr]

3. Why would you build more refineries? There won't be any

additional oil to refine. We have enough to refine the amount of oil that is being pumped right now, and the amount of oil being produced right now is ballpark to the greatest amount we will EVER produce. So new refineries are an inherently BAD investment.

Olaf

[phantom power]

4. To understand that, you'd have to be.... not deluded.

I realize I wasn't being very clear. What I meant to say was something like "Many people wouldn't understand your point, because they are deluded that oil isn't beginning to run out".

Yeah, that's what I meant.

[louis-t]

5. So what you're saying is: president fartace calling for more refineries

now is a good indication of why he failed in the oil business?

[Nordmadr]

6. President "fartface" failed in the oil industry for probably

the same reasons he is failing as a President.

He is a spoiled rich kid who's father was both the head of the CIA and the President of the United States. He was pushed along and passed along. He is stupid, but might be bright enough to KNOW that he is stupid and should get people to help him. Problem is, the stupid kicks back in again and he picks VERY BAD advisors. Anyway, deciding to build more refineries now is not going to help anything long term. Nor will the hydrogen economy he thinks he is going to push on us. Can you say NO NET ENRGY GAIN IN THE PROCESS? I knew you could.

Energy sink. Energy transport mechanism. NOT energy source.

Olaf

[louis-t]

7. Good assessment of the hydrogen economy distraction

Creates more problems than it solves. Light years away from solving those problems and making hydrogen a viable mass power source.

[reprobate]

9. Hydrogen will be a valuable energy source when fuel cells are cheap and...

...plentifull enough to be a large power source.

[Nordmadr]

11. I don't believe you have looked at the energy processes

with converting hydrogen (which generally does not occur unattached to other molecules in nature)into a usable fuel source. It is not the costs that make it a poor choice, but the energy input output ratio.

Here is a quick link to an article that I was able ot find real quick that explains my point some.

http://www.econogics.com/en/heconomy.htm

Olaf

[Massacure]

8. New refineries convert oil to gasoline and diesel more efficiently though.

[RegexReader]

10. we ought to do like France

and have a safe standardized nuclear reactor design and get 85% of our electricity that way. Makes absolutely no sense to me that Louisiana imports coal to burn to make electricty with all the natural gas reserves that are there. The trains literally pass the gas fields on the way south from Montana to goto Lake Charles.


RegexReader
$USA =~ s/Republican/Democrat/ig;