http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/07/news/international/oil_alaska/index.htm?cnn=yes

I call fake. Seems like a bs excuse to me, especially when they "don't know when this will be up and working again"

8/7/2006 10:29:35 AM

i'm a little squinty eyed as well

8/7/2006 10:32:30 AM

we are fucked

8/7/2006 10:32:51 AM

This is clearly the work of Congressional Republicans. They're trying to drive up gas prices to record highs now, so people will be comparably less pissed when prices start a substantial decline right around October.

8/7/2006 10:49:37 AM

clearly

8/7/2006 10:50:08 AM

If by "driving up prices" you mean a $0.30/g increase and by "a substantial decline" you mean $0.02/g decrease, then yes.

They had to do something in light of the reduction in the number of hurricanes predicted for this season:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060731/sc_nm/energy_hurricanes_wsi_dc

8/7/2006 10:53:02 AM

Especially when the hurricanes are controlled by the US government's weather machines.

I mean you don't really think they named it NOAA ("Noah") for nothing, do you?

8/7/2006 11:53:24 AM

TGD - your dry and pathetic sarcasm has gotten really old. Save your elitist "I work in politics and this site is below me but I still post here attitude" for some 19 year old you are trying to impress at some shitty bar . Get over yourself.

8/7/2006 11:58:30 AM

BP Oil Executives = Congressional Republicans

8/7/2006 12:45:38 PM

too bad we dont have more areas to drill in alaska. maybe that would help take some pressure of of the common consumer. who in the world would not want to do that?

oh, thats right...

8/7/2006 1:00:41 PM

8/7/2006 1:02:23 PM

Alternative Fuel Source Advocates = Congressional Democrats

8/7/2006 1:02:24 PM

I was just making sure I understood TGD's insinuation. I was completely unaware that BP's oil executives had made it to Congress.

8/7/2006 1:04:13 PM

well from reading soap box i have learned that the entire basis of the iraq war was oil company profits

8/7/2006 1:05:34 PM

Quote :

"well from reading the cliff's notes version of the soap box i have learned that the entire basis of the iraq war was oil company profits"

Fixed it for you.

8/7/2006 1:06:33 PM

where did you read that, exactly?

[Edited on August 7, 2006 at 1:06 PM. Reason : n]

8/7/2006 1:06:39 PM

every thread in the soap box, exactly

8/7/2006 1:07:08 PM

oh, so, you're just full of shit?

gg

8/7/2006 1:07:31 PM

nice troll up there, gamecat. who's the troll again?

Opening up the Alaskan Wildlife Reserve to oil exploration will open up a vast and important source of energy that could help lessen the impact on American consumers. Why don't the Senate democrats (who blocked this measure) want to lessen the strain on American drivers?

8/7/2006 1:10:23 PM

you're right jwb

you can search the soap box with a fine toothed comb for hours on hours and not find a single insinuation that bush went to war to help his oil company buddies make money

where do i come up with this stuff?

^they care more about seabirds than the american people

8/7/2006 1:11:11 PM

so, you're just full of shit?

8/7/2006 1:13:53 PM

you are pretty boring when you're trolling

8/7/2006 1:16:55 PM

Quote :

"1CYPHER: TGD - your dry and pathetic sarcasm has gotten really old. Save your elitist "I work in politics and this site is below me but I still post here attitude" for some 19 year old you are trying to impress at some shitty bar . Get over yourself."

I don't drink, so I'm not really into the bar scene. Beyond that, though,

---

Quote :

"Gamecat: I was just making sure I understood TGD's insinuation. I was completely unaware that BP's oil executives had made it to Congress."

and when did you switch to the "there's no such thing as quid pro quo, unless an oil executive makes it into Congress" group again? 

8/7/2006 1:44:45 PM

Treetwista fucked another one up. gg man!

8/7/2006 1:47:12 PM

Oil crisis!

8/7/2006 1:52:03 PM

Well, with bp doing this,

the goverment shutting down this guy for his green energy research:
http://www.photonics.com/content/news/2006/June/21/83135.aspx
(but also giving purdue a LARGE grant)

and every person in this video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2464139837181538044&q=israel

getting their research shut down/bought out


My only thought is "glad I can reach my ankles"

8/7/2006 2:23:21 PM

^ I highly recommend the book Voodoo Science

The "Free Energy" crowd has been around since the late 19th century.

There is no economic basis for a firm or group of firms to supress a technique for acquiring free energy. If the technique is really easy then every scientist in the world is going to independently invent it, making supression not cost effective.
Or the technique is really hard, which means other firms will find it difficult to copy, particularly if the technique is patented. In this scenario, why drill/ship/sell oil which has a profit margin of 10% if you are lucky when you can sell "free energy" with a profit margin of 90%. Lower the price of energy just enough to bankrupt your competitors and no more, so that nearly every penny payed for energy is profit. Fire the oil drillers, tanker drivers, pipeline operators, everyone.
It is every corporation's dream to lay off the entire workforce without cutting into sales one cent. "Free Energy" would allow them to do this.

[Edited on August 7, 2006 at 4:15 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/7/2006 4:13:50 PM

I like how all the liberals who've been pushing high gas taxes so that we will start to conserve are just OUTRAGED now that prices are actually going up.

8/7/2006 5:11:33 PM

^ Well, if you think about it then of course they are upset. Driving up the cost of gas was a convenient front to collect revenue to disperse to their "friends." As it is, the cost of gasoline went up but the money didn't go to their friends, it wen't to someone elses friends.

[Edited on August 7, 2006 at 5:21 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/7/2006 5:21:05 PM

oh lol and i thought they were principled altruistic angels.

turns out they're driven by money just like all the rest of us

8/7/2006 5:22:00 PM

^4 The companies would still have to find out a way to lock down the "free energy". If it did happen to be water, how are you going to control that market? The oil infastructure is already in place, has been proven to work, and is generating revenue now. What are the oil lobby groups and the countries that depend on oil for most of their income going to do?

[Edited on August 7, 2006 at 5:54 PM. Reason : lone shark]

8/7/2006 5:53:39 PM

dang, cant believe this was made this morning...i was thinking of making a thread at about 2am but thought it would be old by then

8/7/2006 5:54:41 PM

Oh, I see...and why bother with cars when the horse and buggy industry is already in place

Or the personal computer industry when card-punch and typewriters were already in place

Or...any significant invention...ever

8/7/2006 5:56:05 PM

Those inventions created new industries and new revenue sources that were still able to be controlled by a small percentage of companies. If we had access to free energy [water], it would give too much power to the common citizen.

8/7/2006 6:02:53 PM

kind of like how the news industry stopped the blogosphere from forming

8/7/2006 6:08:30 PM

Quote :

"If we had access to free energy [water], it would give too much power to the common citizen."

How do you figure? Any Engine capable of running off water (presumably fusion) probably cannot be constructed out of common household items. All a company has to do is secure the rarest component of the engine to attain monopoly power, such as if the engine requires a difficult to reproduce catalyst or if it can be patented.

Once you have done this then price the engine such that you gain almost all of the utility benefit. For example, if a regular engine costs $5,000 and consumes $1,000 worth of gasoline every year for 10 years, then charge $15,000 for the engine (lower for time value consideration), regardless of what it cost to manufacture. If both engines cost $4,000 to make, then you have increased your profits by a multiple of 11.

Sure, the oil industry will suffer, but you're not in the oil business, you're in the business of manufacturing automobiles. If you fucked up and also own Exxon stock then just dump it before announcing the new technology. Hell, sell Exxon stock short until it collapses, then announce the new technology. Sure, other people will be harmed financially by your behavior, but why should you care? You just made yourself the world's first trillion-aire.

8/7/2006 7:23:04 PM

Quote :

"TGD: and when did you switch to the "there's no such thing as quid pro quo, unless an oil executive makes it into Congress" group again? "

I just don't think the assertion holds much water. There are varying degrees of guilt within the Congressional Republicans of what you sarcastically assert; I was commenting on the use of a blanket statement in spite of this fact.

8/7/2006 8:41:31 PM

^^ The people that have "supposedly" come close [skip ahead about 20-30 mins in the video I posted]
have been offered $1 billion cash from the Arabs not to go public.

If our country would embrace a new technology, why haven't we done so? That's why I posted the other links. There are numberous cases where people have been bought/ shut down/silenced in order *not* to go public with technology they invented. Hell, there was a lot of commotion when the pony express was being challenged.

The monopolies will not water to be used for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Even if they could save as much money as you claim [and your arguement does make sense], how would they distribute it? How would they control the market? The only way they could control the market would be to give control to the companies manufacturing the engines/cars [boeing/ford/etc]. This would be a huge shift in power from oil companies to car companies.

I'm under the assumption that even if they did come out with a clean engine, it wouldn't be priced for the average consumer until 5-10 years out.

8/7/2006 8:57:33 PM

Quote :

"If our country would embrace a new technology, why haven't we done so?"

Because evidently such technology does not exist.

Quote :

"There are numberous cases where people have been bought/ shut down/silenced in order *not* to go public with technology they invented."

Perhaps they bought the technology because it looked promising, only to turn out with further research to have been useless. People buy stuff everyday that turns out to be worthless, energy companies are no different.

Quote :

"how would they distribute it? How would they control the market?"

It strikes me that if you can hold a secret auction and sell the new technology off, the most likely buyer will be a financial firm. This firm will then short the existing energy companies and then announce the new technology. You see, stock prices are an estimate of future earnings and long before you have produced your first engine you have made yourself hundreds of billions. From there on the owner of the patent will most likely license to other manufacturers (such as Ford, GM, Fiat, Toyota, GE) which then manufacture the engines and sell them. And out of each engine that gets built anywhere and by anyone you got a couple thousand dollars. You didn't do a thing beyond getting a good lawyer and you've made yourself richer than bill gates.

Given this fabulous wealth on offer, can anyone believe this technology could have been successfully hushed up?

8/7/2006 9:24:24 PM

Good points.

How would they price the vehicles?

Would the cost of water [city utilities] skyrocket due to water being used to power cars/homes/etc?

Quote :

" can anyone believe this technology could have been successfully hushed up? "

Yes, because the energy companies have tons of money invested in a weak infastructure.
They would need to provide *fair* pricing , because they could not use the excuse of "a limited supply"

I agree with you that their profit would still be $$$ because they would have almost no overhead.

8/7/2006 9:40:25 PM

I haven't watched the video, but the article you posted isn't very convincing. Nature, a pretty highly respected peer-reviewed journal, claims that the his results couldn't be independently reproduced. Additionally, they claim that he's refused to make his source data public.

Not to mention, the number of people required to pull this off starts to take on conspiracy theory proportions.

8/7/2006 9:51:37 PM

Quote :

"How would they price the vehicles?"

The same way anything else is priced: at whatever price maximizes profits. Setting prices in any other way results in market failure and dead-weight losses for society.

Quote :

"They would need to provide *fair* pricing , because they could not use the excuse of "a limited supply""

I don't see why, they've simply switched products. Right now they sell oil products. If Exxon discovered "free energy" from water, their product would be special engines which run on water. Look at it logically: there are over a billion cars in the world, every single owner is interested in replacing them with water driven cars, but there is no way you can build a billion cars in a year or two. Because of this the market is going to be shortage driven for at least a decade, during which "a limited supply" will be obvious, everyone wants one, is willing to pay through the nose, thus they will pay through the nose.

Your theory about *fair* pricing would probably shock anyone that bought a High Definition Flat Screen TV 8 or 10 years ago.

Quote :

"Would the cost of water [city utilities] skyrocket due to water being used to power cars/homes/etc?"

To avoid violating the laws of thermodynamics, any engine using cold liquid water for fuel is most likely fusion powered which means actual fuel usage would be minuscule, maybe a gallon every year or so.

8/7/2006 11:25:28 PM

^ I appreciate your comments in this thread. I've learned from your posts and I respect the way you handle a differing opinion.

8/8/2006 2:45:49 PM

I want one of those fuel filters that that family made back in the 80's or 90's. (Yeah, you know what I'm talking about!) They used like a half tank of gas to go all the way to CA and back. That would really be nice right about now. Anything to make my $40 last a little longer.

8/8/2006 4:06:02 PM

Quote :

"They used like a half tank of gas to go all the way to CA and back"

you sure something else wasnt involved? like a different fuel source other than gasoline?

8/8/2006 4:07:46 PM

I really think it was only gasoline...but they modified the fuel filter I know for sure. They may have modified other parts as well, but of course, when the govt found out...well, you know what happend next. I'll keep looking for that story, and if I find it, I'll post the link. But it has been discussed on here before.

8/8/2006 7:39:06 PM

what in the god damn fuck are you babbling about?

8/8/2006 8:30:58 PM

i think this was a movie with Lee Majors (aka Six Million Dollar Man) who battled the fascists and their electric cars.

Quote :

" The Last Chase (1981) It is the future. Evil fascists have forced everyone to recycle and drive electric cars, and have oppressed all those poor people who want to drive Ferraris and smoke cigarettes. Hero Lee Majors, an ex-racing car driver, decides to make a statement by pulling out his old race car and driving cross-country at 150 mph (he siphons gas from old gas station pumps). Taking along a young computer hacker, he drives for the Holy Land the Free State of California! Of course, the Powers That Be try to eliminate him by hiring Burgess Meredith to shoot him down with a fighter jet, which, too, are virtually extinct. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082642/posters "

[Edited on August 8, 2006 at 8:49 PM. Reason : ]

8/8/2006 8:37:18 PM

^^I dont know who the fuck you are, but if you can't read that, then someting's wrong. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, then apparently, you didn't watch the news when growing up, or read older news stories correlated with today's news. It was all over the news then suddenly hush-hush...I'm still trying to find the story.

^No, this definitely was not a movie. These people made their own. Then took a trip to try it out. It had something to do with the carbeurator (sp?) as well. If it's that important to some of thise who don't know about it, then ask someone in the garage...somoene else knows about this besides me. I am not making it up, this is very old.

[Edited on August 8, 2006 at 11:28 PM. Reason : ]

8/8/2006 11:24:00 PM

^ I recommend a great book titled Voodoo Science

It discusses at length the trials and tribulations of people trying to game nature. Most don't set out to defraud the public, they just figure they have invented something when a reporter locks onto them and makes national headlines. It is usually much later that they realize they are wrong and begin lying to people to cover it up. But you are right, the story drops very quickly once actual engineers get ahold of the "device" and prove it a fraud.



[Edited on August 8, 2006 at 11:41 PM. Reason : .,.]

8/8/2006 11:39:28 PM