Re: [MV] Cost of petrol

From: Stephen Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Fri Apr 08 2005 - 09:50:20 PDT


Hi Ryan,

> No, but it would reduce the cost of Natural Gas used for Electricity
> Generation and thus the load on the NG/Propane market for other uses
> including I think the refinery costs for conventional Crude Oil
> Refined products. Lower Electricity costs would help as well on the
> electric Car market.

I disagree. There is a law of nature at work... unchecked demand will
always rise to meet the level of supply, then exceed it. The solution
is to lower demand, not raise supply. How do you think we got into
this mess in the first place? Cheap oil.

> I'm still under the impression that the Greenies stopping as many new
> generation/refining plants as they have is also part of the cost
> factor for the final end products at the meter/pump.

It might be a small factor, but rampant demand is the driving force.
It should be obvious that if you suddenly consume more you'll have to
produce more. Like the halogen lamp craze of the early 1990s... in a
few years it had undone nearly 2 decades of cost savings associated
with lower lighting initiatives.

> That's share holder value they're worried about.

Not exactly. Share holder value is only a means to an end for the top
decision makers of big companies. The end far too many of them are
worried about is the amount of money available to go into their own
pockets. Can't take home $100,000,000 in salary if your company has to
make some tough choices about how it conducts business. Better to
simply push it off for someone else to clean up later.

But share holder value is certainly a problem too because the holders,
i.e consumers, are as short sighted and greedy as the executives in
charge of the companies themseves. They are the ones that put the
crooks into CFO and CEO positions and said "I don't care what it takes,
just get my stock portfolio blooming!". Unfortunately they forgot to
specify that things should be done ethically and legally. No thought
put into sustainability at all.

Again, it all comes right back to the consumer.

Steve



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