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Old June 19th 17, 04:32 AM posted to sci.space.policy
Fred J. McCall[_3_]
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Default Power Satellite Economics

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

Jeff Findley wrote:

In article ,
says...

David Spain wrote:

On 6/9/2017 5:24 AM, Fred J. McCall wrote:

Terrestrial solar and wind drive UP prices unless they are heavily
subsidized.


Oh no argument from me. And if heavily subsidized the cost is shifted
from direct payment of an electric bill to the indirect payment through
higher taxes so you could have removed the "...unless" part of that.


Just trying to keep anyone from leaping on 'consumer cost' and making
claims that don't stand up.

If the Middle East didn't contain copious amounts of oil, the US
wouldn't have literally spent trillions of our tax dollars invading
Iraq... twice. So this "renewables aren't fair because they're
subsidized" is b.s. of the first order. If it wasn't for oil, the only
involvement we'd have in the Middle East would be to make sure Israel
can defend itself (which it can).

You can counter my argument when the US has subsidized renewable energy
to the same amount of tax dollars that we've spend on wars in the Middle
East since the first Gulf War.


You understand that the United States gets little to no oil from Iraq
and the 'war for oil' meme is bull****, don't you?


You do know petroleum is a global commodity, right? Remember the oil
crisis of 1973?


Yes, I do, but you do not appear to.


We also don't get all that much from Kuwait.


Correct, but we didn't want Iraq to go further and destabilize the
entire Middle East.


Do you think they would take up drinking their oil? If not, as you
say, petroleum is a global commodity. Saudi Arabia, which was largely
behind the oil crisis of 1973, learned a lesson from that. It's why
you don't see them trying to use the 'oil weapon' anymore.

Looking at all US petroleum imports (both
crude oil and other petroleum products) from the top 15 importers to
the US (which includes both Iraq and Kuwait) for 2016 comes out to
around 9,061,000 barrels per day. Iraq's share of that comes to a
little over 3%. Kuwait's contribution is around 2.25%. Hell, we get
more petroleum from RUSSIA than we get from either Iraq or Kuwait.
What do you think Iraq would have done with the oil barring US
military action there? You think they're going to drink it, perhaps?


Again, petroleum is a global commodity. Choke off supply from the
entire Middle East and global supply would have suffered. The leaders
in charge at the time pretty much all remembered 1973.


And the entire Middle East is going to take up drinking oil? Never
happen. They want to sell that ****. As you say, petroleum is a
global commodity.


Of course the two gulf wars were before large scale fracking became the
technology of the day, which changes the equation somewhat. That and
OPEC can't seem to get its members to reduce production, even when they
all agree to do so. Again, this is because petroleum is a global
commodity and today's lower prices are hurting many oil exporting
nations. Today, OPEC member nations are not about to hurt themselves
even more by reducing oil production.


Like I said, they're not going to start drinking that ****. They want
to sell it. You're living in a very simplistic world. Study up on
what happens with cartels like OPEC. I would expect any reasonable
economics text to have a treatment of the subject.


If it weren't for oil, the US wouldn't have given a rat's ass that Iraq
invaded Kuwait.


Perhaps not, but a lot of First World countries gave a hell of a lot
more than a rat's ass about the Middle East long, long before oil was
an issue. Just why do you think that is?


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn