[Vwdiesel] Diesel below $3.00 - Alaska refineries and a little about our Guv...

[James Hansen]

> (by the way, that's falling through because the company its with needs
> the Alberta tar-sands pipeline first, and with falling prices the oil
> sands are not economical anymore.)

Last I heard, the magic number up in Ft. Mac was 53 a barrel and falling 
as economies of scale in production methods drop the per barrel cost.

then she's clueless about everything
> else. 

Heh.  And there are politicians that aren't?

> Yes, we do have in-state refineries, but they price themselves just low
> enough to deter out-of-state imports.  So, we pay lower-48 prices plus
> shipping, even though it's local fuel.  Of course, they say it's because
> we're a small stranded market and costs are higher, etc. etc.

Yeah, wah wah stranded market wah wah high cost of shipping wah wah...
Same nonsense I heard when we mined near Dawson City in the late 70's 
and 80's. Even after the highway was just spectacular from outside to 
Dawson (in the 70's the highway was really something), fuel was exactly 
double what it was out of territory.  Between that and the anti-placer 
mining mentality of the school children that were sent out to 
"enviropolice" us dirty miners, we pulled the pin on that deal.
> 
> I teach a fair amount of biodiesel classes, but with methanol prices
> hovering around $6/gallon plus HazMat barge shipping at $0.60-$1.00 a
> pound, it's hard to make it worth it in the remote communities.

You need to encourage someone to build a dragstrip.
Then there will be big methanol shipments after a few years once the 
motors get out of hand, and the price of methanol should fall.


Today I paid 4.37cdn per US gallon for diesel.  Yeah, here in sunny 
Saskatchewan, home of large petroleum reserves, 2 hours drive from the 
nearest refinery and 1.15 per litre fuel. Fuel hasn't dropped here much 
at all.  Every time I start a vehicle, or fire up a tractor, I feel 
screwed all over. We're told they have to use up the existing stocks of 
high priced inventory before prices can go down.

Funny how the inventory that has to get used up before prices can fall 
take months to disappear, while the inventory present when oil goes up 
seems to be consumed in four hours...
-james