Did Oil Just Become Too Expensive?

[bowtieguy]

Originally Posted by SentraSE-R

You have a higher tolerance level for dealing with non-thinkers than I do, clencher. Thanks. Once they've shot their credibility in a thread, I'm done with them. They're not enemies. They're just not worth my time.

and some shoot down their own credibility in EVERY thread w/ the intellectual "i can't be wrong" attitude. that's mistake one. mistake two is the "not worth my time" idea, WHEN TIME(and posts) IS CONTINUALLY spent on said individuals. do we truly hear ourselves, or are we just listening to intellectual fodder?

as for non-thinkers, if that was directed toward me...i've made a career of "THINKING out of the box." i watch and study people, jobs, etc trying to find the best application be it working more efficiently, helping others w/ their struggles, etc. do intellectuals do this and put their thoughts to real life situations and people over numbers? doubtful for many!

that would be strike 3--YOU'RE(idea/thought)OUT!!!

[Jim T.]

Originally Posted by bowtieguy

and some shoot down their own credibility in EVERY thread w/ the intellectual "i can't be wrong" attitude. that's mistake one. mistake two is the "not worth my time" idea, WHEN TIME(and posts) IS CONTINUALLY spent on said individuals. do we truly hear ourselves, or are we just listening to intellectual fodder?

as for non-thinkers, if that was directed toward me...i've made a career of "THINKING out of the box." i watch and study people, jobs, etc trying to find the best application be it working more efficiently, helping others w/ their struggles, etc. do intellectuals do this and put their thoughts to real life situations and people over numbers? doubtful for many!

that would be strike 3--YOU'RE(idea/thought)OUT!!!

I think he was directing it at me bowtieguy. I quoted something from a conversation I was part of without wasting two hours of valuable (for me) time double checking the numbers thru online research. I don't really give a rat?s *** about his perception of me anyway. He doesn't know me and while its easy being an internet tuff-guy I can guarantee that if we were discussing this over coffee he would be a bit more humble.

While I?m all for developing real alternative energy sources (nuclear would be nice) its not going to happen quick enough to suit anyone. Too many folks have a vested interest in non-renewable energy sources.

As for drilling here on North American soil, any idiot that doesn?t see the folly in our usage of an average of 20 million barrels of oil per day while we only pump 5.1 million barrels a day in North America. We are handing the country over to foreign investors & terrorists.

And just like children, multi-vehicle families are a part of the problem, not the solution.

Jim

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by ben98gs

Plus the '09 is far from "all plastic". Sure, the plastic skin is all that you see on the surface, but them there is a "styrofoam" absorber, a metal beamed bumper, metal frame and crumple zones, etc.

Over a decade ago I crashed my 1997 Pontiac Grand Am. It happened at high speed but it wasn't a hard hit; I spun out and the front bumper tapped the guardrail. Result: Bumper was displaced sideways.

I took it apart. When I got the plastic skin and the foam off, I found what looked like the thinnest sheet steel I've ever seen and I figured it would be a piece of cake to bend back to where it belongs.

Hours later with big chains hooked up to trucks jerking the car sideways by its bumper I gave up. I determined that the sheet metal's formed shape must have been designed by Stephen Hawking.

Originally Posted by ben98gs

Or it could have been because the car is built like a tank (like most people consider older cars to be) and took the hit/force that was transferred to it without any damage. If you hit a newer vehicle in the rear hard enough to spin it, there is going to be significant damage due to the crumple zones. Sure, if the guy hit Jay's car and still continued to the tree, the tree probably did some more damage, but even if he just clipped Jay, there was significant enough force to damage most newer cars.

If the choice is a car that gets expensive damage in low-speed collisions and a car that will transfer all of a crash's energy to my body...I think I'll take the former.

[Jay2TheRescue]

You want details, I got details.

Setup: I was on a 2 lane road on the opposite side of a partially blind curve waiting to make a left turn. Speed limit for the road was 45 MPH. Truck came through the curve, and was going too fast. State police estimated his speed at time of impact at about 30 MPH. (He was really standing on the brakes to try and stop once he saw me.)


I wish I had pics of it, but this was long before everyone carried camera phones in their pocket. He had a mangled bumper, then everything else was either pressed into the firewall, or under the cab. The tree was stopped by what was left of the bumper. My car's rear bumper is what pushed his engine under the cab.

To even be more detailed, in the accident , his front bumper rode up under my rear bumper. My rear bumper rode along the top of his frame and pushed everything to the firewall, then my car spun off.

Total damage to my vehicle:

1. Small crease on bottom of rear bumper. Only visible from underneath car.

2. Trim piece that went around keyhole on trunk was knocked off.

3. Small dimple on rear of trunklid.

4. Entire trunklid was pushed forward about 1/2 inch.

5. Driver's side seat back was slightly bent in accident.

[JanGeo]

Just to get back to the original topic - I found a chat group online where one of the guys there worked on an oil rig drilling in deep water. The problem with that drill site is they didn't cement the pipe into the surrounding ground to hold it into the bedrock. That means the ocean floor is mostly silt and mud and until the pipe hits the granite there is nothing holding the pipe into the hole they drilled so if they capped it off and stop the oil flow it would simply blow the 30,000 feet of pipe out of the hole in the earth. Now I have also heard some different pressure numbers but one was like 70,000 psi - try to hold that back . . . well they do when they are drilling with heavy mud in the mile of pipe from the surface to the ocean floor or even further down but because they filled the pipe with ocean water? they couldn't hold back the pressure - again the blowout preventer was defective but it didn't matter because they didn't cement the pipe into the bedrock if they did activate the blowout preventor it would just blow the pipe out of the hole in the earth like the paper wrapper on a plastic straw. Think of it this way . . . the ocean pressure at 5000 feet is about .5 psi per foot or 2500 psi at the blowout preventor and the oil and methane is still flowing out of the pipe which is 30,000 feet deeper than that into the earth and the only thing even slowing the flow a little is that 30,000 feet of pipe causing some drag on the oil flow . . . oh and the far end of the pipe is about 4 inches in diameter inside from what I read and 21 inches at the blowout preventor. And finally the pumps that are "sucking" the oil and gas mix up the mile of pipe are at the surface I think and can only suck so much up that pipe since it really is the 2500 psi of water pushing it up the pipe with a vertical mile of oil weight pushing it back down. Water can only be sucked up a pipe 32 feet at sea level into the air vertically since there is about 15psi of air pressure . . . about 0.5psi per foot.

[jmf]

Originally Posted by Jim T.

And just like children, multi-vehicle families are a part of the problem, not the solution.

Jim

I do use a lot more fuel when I drive all my vehicles around at the same time.

[theholycow]

Originally Posted by jmf

I do use a lot more fuel when I drive all my vehicles around at the same time.

Apparently I represent a lot more actuarial risk when I drive all my vehicles around at the same time...that's the only way I can decently explain how expensive liability insurance would be if I kept all my vehicles insured all the time.

[Jay2TheRescue]

I find it quite difficult to reach the controls of 2 vehicles at once, unless the doors are removed. Because of this I limit my driving to one vehicle at a time.

[JanGeo]

I can put most of my other vehicles in the back of my main vehicle so it's not a problem for me. Now the guy I saw yesterday with a double trailer car trasnport was interesting - has to really park in a straight line to be able to drive across the gap between the trailers to get the cars off the front trailer and over the second to the ground.

[Jay2TheRescue]

Reminder to everyone, please restrict political comments to the political forum.

Thanks.