Natural Gas? Methanol?Originally Posted by creaker
Natural Gas? Methanol?
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." ~ Albert Einstein
I expect that "they" will, once supplies dwindle and prices raise.
Right now though, at today's prices, petroleum represents a great bargain, when you look at the amount of energy embodied in a barrel of oil.
Even with the current boom of natural gas, I believe the quantities just aren't there. And refitting a petroleum based infrastructure would be costly.
It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow. - Robert Goddard (1882-1945)
Natural gas vehicles are already coming on line. With the massive supply of natural gas in North America that can't be easily transported overseas at present, it makes economic sense to begin using natural gas to supply our transportation needs.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...238882852.html
Petroleum replaced a means of getting work done that fell out of favor with enlightened societies, including ours: slave labor. As resource wars, the poisoning of our air and water, geopolitical conflicts caused by single resource players, economic downturns based on scarcity (real or imagined) and all the other lovely side effects of fossil fuel dependence become less and less tolerable it too WILL fall out of favor. There will be things that are taken for granted tomorrow that we can't even imagine today so I don't know what the ultimate replacement will be. Perhaps rather than a replacement source of energy we will just eliminate the need for most of it. Regardless, the next step will have to involve combinations of the several sources we have now before any replacement is simply swapped out for oil. But the short answer is, yes, I do expect that to happen to petroleum in the global economy. You just might not like the timeframe.
We're using it for other's needs as well - I've heard we're importing oil and using the cheaper natural gas to crack the oil into gasoline, which we're then exporting.
CNG busses have made such a difference in Boston. Diesel is nasty in cities.
Actually, no I was reffering to Georgetown Steel, the first example mentioned in Lainey's link, which happened when Romney worked there. Planet Money did an interesting episode a few weeks back where they looked into all the deals that took place at Bain during Romney's time there, which showed decidedly mixed results.
But regardless, an equally important question regardless of Romney and Bain would be whether there's a better way then the current equity capital "buyout" of companies with a small down payment and large debt being taken on by the purchased company. I honestly don't know what the right answer is since truthfully I'd rather err on the side of allowing businesses to make their own decisions, but it seems like there are a lot of examples of companies being bled dry by equity firms and either put out of business or of workers at formerly successful companies getting screwed over after equity firms have saddled them with too much debt and no cushion to survive changes or cyclical downturns in their competitive environment. Yet somehow the equity firm never seems to lose since they do like they did with Georgetown Steel in my example above and take out their profit early on in the game. What the solution is, I don't know.
Fair enough jp1, I'm sorry for jumping the gun. I also think that the approach you describe is problematic. What I can't really figure out is why the credit to take companies so far into debt is still so readily available when history shows it doesn't always work out so well? Why would banks keep lending when it becomes obvious the debt is going to have a significant negative impact on the borrower and there is a real risk they may not be able to pay it back? What's in it for the investment banks or other lenders that I'm missing? I guess its as simple as the lenders charging enormous fees up front then packaging and reselling the loans so an unlucky fool somewhere down the line is who actually gets stuck with the sour debt. If that is the case rules providing a little more transparency in lending might be helpful.
Interesting timing for this article from Fortune, via CNN. It talks a little about what the 1% are doing right that helps them get to that position. It's very short, only a page.
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