Just as the world has a limited supply of Oxygen and water. Both are just as necessary as oil - even more so. Should we reduce our use of those as well?
Hydrocarbons are not the only world source of energy. They just happen to provide the best combination of energy density vs. cost to use today. When the price of hydrocarbons increase, other forms of energy will be available. That's how markets work. You don't have to decreee or subsidize alternatives - they happen at the right time.
That must be the most egregious false analogy I've seen in a great while. So much for your nym.
Even you should realize that Apples are not equal to Oranges.
And indeed, one should reduce the use of water, where at all possible. It is, indeed, a limited resource and one where the underground reserves are dwindling fast and competition for whats left is heating up. Just look at the Colorado river, or the perrenial water disputes between Ok and Tx.
I've gotten some filled (not exchanged) last year. It cost about the same, but more propane. One cylinder actually had 20lb in it.
Classic ad hominem response. When you can't challenge the argument, attack the messenger.
Demonstrating a lack of basic geology. Look up the water cycle. Water is not being destroyed or used up. Certain types of water may be less accessible than they have been in the past, but with a few small exceptions, every molecule of water that existed a thousand years ago exists today.
Just because that water was 200' below your feet yesterday, or in a river 10 miles away from your house today doesn't mean it always has to be there.
Getting water from point A (where it is), to point B (where it is needed) is the difficulty, of course. Pumping all the groundwater and letting it run out to sea doesn't help anyone (and in fact, that's a significant fraction of the change in sea level (13%)[**] over the last two decades).
In any case, unless you believe in abiogenic origination of petroleum, it isn't like water in any way, shape or form. Once used, it won't cycle out of the atmosphere and become petroleum again for millions of years.
And yes, a friend's well is now 200 feet deeper than it was just a decade ago. How do you suggest that we replenish the ground water given the number of millenia it would take for nature to replenish it?
You're buying gasoline in bulk out of the underground tanks, while the oil has to be packaged in quart containers, which takes extra labor and materials, adding costs and hence price.
Long ago, I worked as a cost accountant for a company that made paint, among other things. I was very surprised when I learned that the cost of the can was more than the cost of producing the paint inside of it.
They used to sell oil in five-quart containers, which was enough for most oil changes, and it was cheaper per quart than buying five quart cans.
Paul
Excellent! That's the valid argument for a difference between hydrocarbons and water. Hydrocarbons when used by burning or industrial process get changed into different molecules and to return. For the most part, water does not.
Moving on to Oxygen. While Oxygen does actually get used, it does get converted back into Oxygen by plants. So it shares a lot in common with the water cycle. Should we preserve the rain forest and other plant environments? Within reason.
Back to using hydrocarbons - I accept that there is a finite supply on this planet. Alarmists have been declaring that "peak oil" is here for decades. We continue to find new sources and forms (reference fracking).
At some point, will every form of hydrocaron that exists on this planet be exhausted? Possibly. Do we need to drastically reduce what we are using to extend that date? No.
Sometimes that is the case. I wanted a gallon of some dry cleaning fluid. Went to the place that sold it and they asked me if I had a can and I said no. The can was either the same as a gallon of fluid or about 50 cents more as the whole thing was less than $ 5 at the time.
Take a look at the 5 gallon gas containers now. While they can be reused many times, they are more than the gas that goes in them now.
Per Arthur Conan Doyle:
I never thought of oxygen as being something that is consumed without being replenished somehow - and I have never heard any credible science reported that says anything else. Doesn't mean it's not out there... but I have not heard anything... Has anybody else ?
But with water.....
On one hand, if my water is coming from, for instance, the Delaware River, who cares how much I use. Worst case I'm wasting electricity (in the water purification plants).... best case I am subsidizing the cleanup of a major river.
OTOH, if I am a farmer draining water from an aquifer much faster than the aquifer can replenish itself, one would think that conservation is a good idea.
apres moi le deluge or something like that. Ed Abbey preferred to drive big old tanks on the theory the faster the world runs out, the faster people will do something.
Here in Kitchener they don't sell gasoline but they do sell propane - and they kick everybody else's butts on price - less than half most of their local compwetition.
There is plenty of water, the problem is that most of it has about
36-37 PPT salt. The water we are in trouble with is fresh water and we are using it faster than it gets replenished in over half of the country. In the west they are really using it faster than it falls and in the south east we are just dumping it in the ocean before it can percolate into the ground with ill thought out engineering projects to drain the swamps.We will run out of cheap water long before we run out of oil and agriculture depends on cheap water.
Paint is an extremely high margin product.
They still do sell it in five quart containers. Walmart has it. It's cheaper than buying five one quart bottles at Walmart, but more than buying five one quart bottles at Costco.
True, but the cost of those quart bottles of motor oil has increased significantly, with the justification being the higher cost of the raw material. Not that long ago, a quart of oil was about $1.00 to $1.25 when bought in a case of 12, on sale. Now it's about $2.25.
True.
We actually are using a lot less oil than in the past, and wells have been idled to pump less, and presumably to support prices, though the side effect is to save it for the future.
When BP bought out Arco, they both had high-producing wells in Alaska, and they shut some of them down because they had more supply than their refineries could handle and did not want to sell the excess on the open market. They do supply a lot of independent gas station chains, including Costco (at least out west).
I can take a 20lb tank to the company who fills my bulk tank and they will fill it with the ACTUAL AMOUNT of 20lb. But the price is th same as getting an exchange tank. While I'd prefer getting the whole 20lb, I have to spend an extra gallon of gasoline to go to their company, then I often have to wait as much as an hour for them to fill the tank, because the guys are making a delivery and the only people there are the women who work at the desks. One time they even told me to leave my tank and come back the next day. I refused and just went to get an exchange tank at a local convenience store. To me, it's not worth the hassle of getting them refilled at that place.
I wish there was a way I could fill them myself from my bulk tank, but it would probably require costly equipment, and might be dangerous, so I'll just do the exchanges and be done with it. I only use 4 or 5 of the
20lb tanks per year, so it's not a huge expense.
To say nothing of a five quart container being a pain in the butt when your car takes a little less than four quarts... I just buy a case at Costco when it's on sale.
What's different about filling one of those than filling the old anhydrous ammonia applicators? Farmers did that own their own all the time years ago.
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