The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Tehachopi (SoCal) and Altamont Pass (NoCal) are visually interesting and don't really bother me (and I live almost within visual distance of Altamont).

I recently found out that the windmills in Tehachapi (Ralphie's parents live there) were owned by Enron at one time. I'm not sure who owns them now...

[Alex]

Enron only owned about half of the turbines there (there are, I think, four majore power companies with turbines and then lots of little companies that sell up the grid). GE Power Systems bought the assets of Enron Wind Corporation (including Tehachopi) in the early days of the Enron bankruptcy and so far as I know still owns them.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Truth is, there's plenty of barren, windswept spots in this vast nation for those ugly turbine fields. It's true that seacoasts are windy, but they are also a vast natural treasure that should not be ruined so we can play Nintendo.

The problem is that even though windmills are getting more effecient they still need to be placed reletively close to end users as they do create less power than other tradidtional means and the loss of power due to transport is more keenly felt. Also because they are still a dicey investment(its not always windy) in order to maximize production they have to be placed in the most windy places....often the most windy places are also the most picturesque.

Originally Posted by innerspaceman

(Of course, if they learn to disguise the big turbines as quaint Dutch windmills of yore, then we may be able to plant them in picturesque locales.)

That's not a bad idea but these new mills are quite imposing in size so the artistic task here will not be easy.

[Gemini Cricket]

They could paint them to match the landscape. But that would be a huge task. Maybe Disney could help.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

They could paint them to match the landscape. But that would be a huge task. Maybe Disney could help.

Great idea; maybe Tokyo University has something that might work....


http://projects.star.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp...DIA/xv/oc.html

[innerSpaceman]

Oh, I like the painting them to match the landscape idea ... since my Dutch sea of 800th scale quaint windmills was a joke.


I'm with Alex on this one. Find me a way to deal with waste, and include mega safety features - and nuclear is the way to go. Other energy production methods have environmental destruction built right in.

Of course, I'd much rather have nuclear fission rather than fusion, and have it done safely on the moon, with the energy beamed via microwave to the satelitte system also collecting energy pouring endlessly from the sun, for packet beaming to the earth. And I'll take my flying car and cup of joe to go with that, please.


Geeez, it's frelling 2006 and we have, whoop, cell phones!

[€uroMeinke]

Is it time for me to bemoan my lack of Jet Pack? - Tomorrowland indeed, we need the real Epcot powered by a GE Nuclear Power plant - that's the future that was promised me.

[Stan4dSteph]

FYI, you can't paint windmills to match the landscape, because then things like birds can't see them. Oops.

I actually like the simplicity of design of a wind turbine, and I don't mind having them off the coast. That beloved coast may get flooded out anyway if the oceans keep rising.

[scaeagles]

Sigh. The government wants to launch an investigation of gas prices. I have an investigation right here. It's symbolic, I realize, and political, but stupid. Oil is a commodity and the market dictates the price. Anyway....

Oil/Gas companies make an average profit of about 7.3-8 cents per gallon. That's profit. When you stop to think of the millions (billions?) of gallons sold daily in the US, that's a lot of profit.

The taxes (which vary by state) run an average of 40 cents/gallon. 18.4 cents federal, and anywhere from 14 to 44 cents state.

So let's see...who is getting more money from a gallon of gas?

Yeah, yeah, I know....taxes go to "the public". I still find it disgusting that taxes on gas are about 5 times the profits on a gallon, yet the government who levies the taxes wants to investigate the oil companies about them making too much money.

Sigh.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Yeah, yeah, I know....taxes go to "the public". I still find it disgusting that taxes on gas are about 5 times the profits on a gallon, yet the government who levies the taxes wants to investigate the oil companies about them making too much money.

Sigh.

All those numbers don't change the fact that price fixing is illegal.

Oil is a commodity and the market dictates the price.

Unless it's being run as a monopoly or cartel.

Now, personally, I don't think American oil companies are doing anything illegal, based on the price of oil per barrel. According to these numbers when oil was at $37/barrel in 2004, pump prices were about $1.70/gallon. Now that we're at about double the price of oil, we're at about double the price of gasoline. Seems about right to me.

The only thing I notice that's a little fishy is that when oil prices go up, there's an instant rise at the the pump to match. But when oil prices go down, it takes a month to see a drop at the pump. But even that is just pennies here and there.

But, that being said, I welcome an investigation. If it turns up nothing, as I suspect, so be it. But collusion and price fixing are a very real possibility and blindly saying "the market dictates the price" without keeping an eye on it is a sure way to allow price fixing to run a free market into the ground.