The first half megawatt - Page 31

 On 4/8/2011 2:50 AM, Bill Ward wrote:

Notice that bill ward didn't dispute the premise - hidden costs that
keep gas and oil artificially cheap - but if you can't come up with
an EXACT number your claim must be invalid, lol.

Royalties and taxes already figure into the price of gas at the pump of
course, they are direct costs and not hidden, so that challenge is bogus.

The amount of money paid to subsidize fossil fuels around the
world was $
57 billion in 2008, which is up from $
42 billion in
the previous year. This doen't include the cost of military actions
in the middle east and environmental damages resulting from the mining,
refining, and burning of fossil fuels.

http://www.iea.org/files/energy_subsidies.pdf

  wrote:


Nor does it reflect the non-payment of leases on American Indian
land; the Federal Government is supposed to collect that money for
the Indians, but it refuses to do so.


--
http://desertphile.org
Desertphile's Desert Soliloquy. WARNING: view with plenty of water
"Why aren't resurrections from the dead noteworthy?" -- Jim Rutz

 

It's quite easy to subtract Exxon Mobile taxes paid (zero). The number
would be variable depending how many fishermen were put out of work that
year or if we had to bomb some country or not. In any case plenty of folk
have made attempts at an accurate number.


So I'm saying A LOT.

I was agreeing with you that governments messing with markets by using
subsidies causes an imbalance or disruption in costs and innovation.  Our
cheap oil keeps us from being forced to develop more efficient cars and
so on.

For kicks you can google:
true price of a gallon of gas

$
5.14 a gallon, according to the International Centre for Technology
Assessment. (a summery: http://www.progress.org/cobb01.htm )

Here is another summery of various studies:
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/oil-gas-crude/461

http://www.ndcf.org  - links to 2007 report by Copulos (late of the
Heritage Foundation) on the true cost of oil.  He puts it at price at the
pump + $
.35

see: http://ndcf.dyndns.org/ndcf/energy/NDCF_Hidden_Cost_2006
_summary_paper.pdf

for an overview of the various factors used to calculate that number,
keeping in mind these are 2006/2007 numbers.

Other numbers are floating around from $
0 a gal and on up.  Some of the
estimates are older but it comes down to 2 to 4 times what we pay at the
pump if the estimates are accurate.

Whatever number you come up with is going to be more than what we pay at
the pump.

 On Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:57:40 -0500, z wrote:


For me to believe that, you'd need to show evidence that the amount the
government receives due to oil related taxes and royalties is less than
that paid out in "subsidies".  If the net income is positive, how can
there be a subsidy?


But you couldn't actually show any subsidy, and admit you don't even know
the "true price of oil" or any consistent, defendable way to calculate
it.   Is it something you make up to scare people and collect rent?
 

Looks like "economic justice" at work to me.
 

That would be you making up the number, not me.
 

 On 4/8/2011 12:53 PM, Bill Ward wrote:

Haw! Let's examine this argument. You lease my land and extract minerals
that I own from it to sell, and pay me for the privilege. Then I should
turn around and hand the money back to you, but as long as I don't
give back every penny it isn't a subsidy. Lol, this must be some kind
of Tea Party arithmetic.


http://www.iea.org/files/energy_subsidies.pdf


Yeah that's the form of "justice" where the rich get richer and
the poor get poorer, meanwhile the world gets more and more dirty.


Obviously not, he gave justification for the estimates whereas bill
ward hasn't done anything but talk through his ass.