From: The Caucus Blog – NYTimes.com
Senate Democrats on Tuesday abandoned all hopes of passing even a slimmed-down energy bill before they adjourn for the summer recess, saying that they did not have sufficient votes even for legislation tailored narrowly to respond to the Gulf oil spill.
Although the majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, sought to blame Republicans for sinking the energy measure, the reality is that Democrats are also divided over how to proceed on the issue and had long ago given up hope of a comprehensive bill to address climate change.
…
“Ask anyone outside of Washington, and they’ll tell you that this isn’t a Democrat or a Republican issue, it’s an American issue,” Mr. Kerry said. “It’s American troops whose lives are endangered because we’re dependent on oil companies in countries that hate us. It’s American consumers who are tired not just of prices at the pump that soar each summer, but sick and tired of our oil dependency that makes Iran $100 million richer every day that Washington fails to respond.”
h/t to Tom Nelson
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The U.S. imports ZERO oil from Iran.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbblpd_a.htm
Sen. Kerry is talking out of his hat, as usual.
mikelorrey says:
August 4, 2010 at 4:02 am
“If they want energy independence, why are they punishing coal the most?”
Indeed, and why do we have a moratorium on off-shore drilling, and why aren’t we building nuclear plants. Why haven’t we embraced hydrogen as an eventual replacement fuel?
That’s the key question proponents of energy legislation and MSM keep ignoring. How does preventing the construction of coal-fired power plants in the U.S. promote energy security, energy independence, or whatever other goal they are trying to acheive other than driving us into poverty.
@GM
“And when someone brings up the abiogenic “theory” of oil origin, you know the lunacy fest is on…”
I did ask if anyone had any harder evidence than one bloke called Crispin, a Wiki-entry and a couple of lightweight links. I’m not a petrochemical engineer or geologist but I do understand chemistry. So please GM – show us the colour of your money rather than go all disparaging on us.
If you’re degree is in either of those fields or something related, please contribute to the debate.
If methane can be formed abiogenically, it’s not beyond reason that other hydrocarbons and derivatives can be formed in like manner. At some point or other in the past, amines were formed abiogenically and became peptides and became life……
Kerry: “Ask anyone outside of Washington, and they’ll tell you that this isn’t a Democrat or a Republican issue, it’s an American issue,” Mr. Kerry said. “It’s American troops whose lives are endangered because we’re dependent on oil companies in countries that hate us. It’s American consumers who are tired not just of prices at the pump that soar each summer, but sick and tired of our oil dependency that makes Iran $100 million richer every day that Washington fails to respond.”
Under cap-and-trade, energy prices and the prices of over 400 everyday items that use oil will “necessarily skyrocket,” we’ll be paying foreign countries billions each year in green wealth redistribution schemes such as carbon offsets (and if some greens get their way, we could be paying hundreds of billions/year to foreign countries in eco-reparations), and our troops would STILL be fighting wars in the middle east in order to keep the oil flowing to the other countries that are still going to be using oil.
Bill Tuttle says:
August 4, 2010 at 3:12 am
___________________________
You mean it didn’t worry you when Manitoba’s licence-plate logo changed from “Friendly Manitoba” to “Take Another Look”?
#11 Rhys Jaggar, that’s certainly an interesting European perspective. Here’s my response:
1. Don’t let your birthrate fall to 1.2 and
2. Don’t embrace immigration from Mulsim countries.
3. Don’t let socialism take over so completely that rioters burn pregnant women to death for simply being at work (Greece).
4. Don’t let your “peaceful” economic integration fool you into thinking that the old animosities are gone.
5. Don’t pretend that reducing greenhouse gases 10 or 20% (Germany) can be extrapolated into the future or to other countries since all you did is:
6. Don’t offload your GHG “pollution” to other countries and pretend that you lowered GHG emissions.
7. Don’t let the gangs (see #2) beat up women on your very efficient trains
8. Don’t pretend that the wars you are not in (Afghanistan and Iraq) are any worse than the ones you were in and will be in once your liberty is threatened (see 1, 2, 3, 4, …)
The dems will probably try to pass climate legislation during the lame duck session of Congress, after the elections, possibly by using the reconciliation process since the House already passed a bill, if the Senate can come up with a bill, however streamlined it might be Of course, the EPA is waiting in the wings to impose cap and trade, carbon tax, and other rules and regulations to accomplish the Administration’s goals, non-legislatively, if they are unable to pass legislation after the elections.
This battle is far from over.
Of course, “energy independence” is just their ruse to try to sway Democrats who are on the fence, and even some Republicans to vote for this monstrosity. Kerry claims it’s an “American issue”. In a way, he’s right. It is unAmerican to vote for a bill that would raise energy costs, hurting business and especially hurting the poor and middle class for no reason whatsoever, and at the worst possible time.
As for the lame-duck session, how many lame-duckers are going to be willing to essentially commit political suicide on this? I guess we’ll find out, but I’m betting, not enough.
Rhys Jaggar says:
August 4, 2010 at 3:04 am
Thoughts:
1. Put in some bullet trains between US cities to start cutting down on short-haul domestic flights.
2. Stop buying gas guzzlers and make do with a Yaris, a Mini, an Escort or the like.
3. Make some nicer friends who’ll sell you some oil.
4. Stop going to war for oil: you don’t make friends that way.
5. If you do go to war for oil, stop talking about doing it for democracy. It makes you out to be liars.
6. Remember you’re only one nation on this earth. And there’s nothing special or different about you. You just occupy a big chunk of land between the Atlantic and Pacific.
7. Think about the enormous amount of sunlight in your SW deserts: perfect for solar power, wouldn’t you say????
8. Build your houses better: then you’ll need less energy to heat them.
9. Embrace community public transport to reduce journeys of less than 3 miles. Ditto with bicycles. It’s called community pride, not socialism……
10. Stop blowing billions a year on drugs. Then you could afford more petrol.
11. Get as many as possible of you to generate micro-biomass generators to minimise your need for external energy.
That’ll do for starters.
Better than bombing the shit out of countries, isn’t it??
More respectful of human life, isn’t it????
Rhys, you bring up some interesting points, as you may imagine, as an American, I take some exceptions to some of your points.
You said, “Don’t mean to be rude, but America’s as hard as nails when it comes to making money from foreigners.”
Perhaps in some ways, however, our trade deficit has been a constant almost my entire life, so, I’d say you probably have a misconception about our trade policies. “Hard as nails” isn’t how I’d view a nation that freely gives away food to impoverished nations without using it a leverage for trade, but your free to have your own opinion. When we complain about the oil dependence, many aren’t complaining to others, but rather our politicians complicity in the dependence.
From your thoughts,
1. Probably a good idea
2. Maybe a good idea, or it may be a defeatist attitude. One of the wonderful things about the American culture is we don’t except we have to do without.(There are some here, but for the most part we don’t.) Further, an Escort isn’t a viable option for much of this country. I live on a gravel road, a new Escort doesn’t do well in those conditions. Experience has taught me that.
3. “Make nicer friends.”……???? Yeh? Honestly, as pointed out upward in this thread, we don’t need anymore than the friends we have. Not that most of our “friends” have ever repaid the kindness we’ve shown, in terms of saving their behinds in various wars. But they’re welcome anyway. We didn’t do it for enduring loyalty, and for the most part, we sure didn’t get it either.
4. “Stop going to war for oil.”? If it is in our national interest to secure oil, then I make no apologies for it. However, I don’t believe that is why we are in Iraq, but other than Iraq, can you name another war we were in that someone can conceive we were there for the oil? You make it sound like we are serial oil war mongers. History doesn’t agree. But again, if it is in our national interests, so be it. We have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury our dead.
5. If we did, indeed go to war for oil, as you suggested, then why haven’t we simply taken the oil? We didn’t. You should check where Iraqi oil goes. In 2008 57% went to Europe and Asia while the Western Hemisphere 41%. Maybe we went to war so you could have oil. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cabs/Iraq/OilExports.html
6. Sir, I could go into excruciating details about what separates us from the rest of the world, but time and space prohibit such an endeavor. From our political and religious inception to the cultural melting pot, to the uniqueness of this land, we are indeed “special”. I don’t expect you to see it, but you should understand why I believe we are special.
7. Solar power may be the way to go, going forward. Today, however, this simply isn’t a viable alternative to fossil fuels. When one factors cost and reliability, it is laughable to suggest we can simply turn the switch on and have a replacement for our traditional energy sources. Please remember we still cannot store AC power.
8. Better built houses certainly is a reachable goal, thanks for pointing that out, I’ll pass that one the powers that be that don’t believe that is a direction we need to go towards.
9. Sis, if I had less than 3 miles to go, I’d probably just walk. But I don’t see how that contributes to the pride of the community. I’m not sure you understand the demographics of the U.S.
10. Another good call on your part. Again, I’ll pass that on to the crack and heroin users of this country.
11. We’ll have to take the micro-biomass generators under study. Wouldn’t it just be easier to build nuclear plants?
Maybe it would be “better than bombing the shit out of other countries”, but I haven’t read where much of the world was complaining in 1944 and 1945. Well, there were probably two countries, but that was about it. Maybe we should apologize for being mean to the Taliban? or Al Qaeda?
Rhys, I’ll join you an a call to show life more respect. However, the realities of this world shows us that the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.
Personally, I believe the U.S. is too involved in the machinations of the rest of the world. I believe the U.S. doesn’t need the rest of the world to maintain this nation. We have enough natural resources and food and manpower and technical abilities that we can do just fine without the rest of the world. And that whatever happens in the rest of the world, well, a smart man once said “People deserve the government they have.” and the condition of the public well being.
Coal. We consume a lot of coal that is produced in a country that has a lot of people that hate us.
It matters very little whether methane can be formed abiogenically, what matter is whether the oil we’re using was formed abiogenically (it wasn’t, which is backed up by mountains of evidence) and whether the amounts of oil we’re using are being replaced abiogenically (they aren’t).
mikael pihlström says:
August 4, 2010 at 4:46 am
mikelorrey says:
August 4, 2010 at 4:02 am
If they want energy independence, why are they punishing coal the most?
—–
“Punishing coal? Fossil fuels receive about 10 x amount of subsidies
compared to renewables worldwide. And those are the easilly traceable
subsidies. In addition, diffuse production supports.
For oil industries in USA, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html?emc=eta1”
mikael, I’m not sure about worldwide, but I can speak to the U.S. I’m not sure I’d take the NY Times as an authority that doesn’t need fact checking. You should read the real numbers. Go here http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy2/pdf/execsum.pdf . Please look at tables ES5 and ES6. Also, while you’re reading it, don’t confuse energy from synthetic coal derivatives with the traditional coal industry. The two aren’t the same. Then look at subsidies per BTU.
GM says:
August 4, 2010 at 3:45 am
It is truly amazing how people will readily believe in even the silliest myths if it suits their preconceived world views.
You mean like the myth of CAGW/CC? Right, it’s because people don’t understand the 2nd law of thermodynamics that people (at least the ones able to think for themselves) no longer believe in a fairy tale. Just keep telling yourself that.
GM,
You cut ‘n’ pasted this:
Why cut and paste it if you’re not going to answer?
Did you come here from climate progress, relaclimate, or another of those faith-based pseudo-science blogs? Here, we need more than your assumptions.
Show us your “mountains of evidence”, keeping in mind that abiogenic oil is about where plate tectonics was in 1978.
@GM
Thanks for your opinion.
No links – No cred.
While using something like 5 times the amount that’s found (globally, not in the US, in the US it’s much worse)
Which can only get us from recoverable 40% to recoverable 100% (not that it will and not that we are “increasing our abilities to extract oil” by anything more than small percentages), with much lower EROEI. Hardly enough to prevent Peak Oil and allow for growth.
Do we? Airplanes, for example, are close to the limit of efficiency. And improved efficiency has never stood a chance against exponential growth
1. We aren’t prudent
2. It’s not even a problem of how much oil is left, if we can’t grow the economy (and our oil consumption in turn), this society falls apart. Which is happening right now
Here is some past experience for you – I suggest that you examine the track record of extrapolating past experience into the future
Nobody really does and it’s not really needed. A lot of the points raised by people concerned about resource depletion are really axiomatic and self-evident. It is, however, impossible to predict where exactly collapse will happen and how it will play out. What we know is that it is not really a matter of how much oil is left, it is a matter of oil flow. And most likely it will not take a giant disruption in the flow of oil to bring the system down.
One of the biggest tragedies of the “environmental movement”, and the reason why it is so useless and often even harmful is that people focus on single issues and very few take an integrated view of things. So now we have the activists focusing on global warming and the deniers on the other side doing their best to hold the front (very successfully, one has to admit). In a way it doesn’t really even matter whether the globe is warming or not (although it is), because even if it wasn’t, the combination of the depletion of fossil fuels, phosphorus and other irreplaceable minerals, fossil aquifers, topsoil loss and exhaustion, etc. all, against the background of severe overpopulation and a social system that requires infinite growth to sustain itself would still do us. You can deny the existence/severity of one issue, but you have to a complete lunatic to deny them all, because a lot of them follow directly from the laws of nature and the basic principles of ecology. Of course, the unchecked dominance of free market ideology provides no shortage of people who deny them all…
—
At 3:04 AM on 4 August, Rhys Jaggar offers the following recommendations, which I address seriatim:
“1. Put in some bullet trains between US cities to start cutting down on short-haul domestic flights.”
Economically non-feasible. Were that not so, private companies would still be providing this service, as they had done in the years before commercial air transportation became technically feasible as a superior alternative. Even in the very densely populated northeast corridor (even in New Jersey, which has a population density equal to that of Bangladesh), neither light rail nor “bullet trains” have proven cost-effective in terms of capital and operating expenditure per passenger-mile. Metropolitan rail systems – like the subways in New York, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington DC – cannot even generate sufficient revenue to pay for normal maintenance and repairs, and rely upon tremendous federal subsidization for senseless expansions, which the entrenched lobbies of the contractors and labor unions impose upon the nation. Studies and experience have shown that buses work with greater flexibility and cost efficiency (both intra- and inter-city), but the bus manufacturers simply haven’t got the cash to buy enough politicians.
“2. Stop buying gas guzzlers and make do with a Yaris, a Mini, an Escort or the like.
What the Englishman dismisses as “gas guzzlers” are vehicles with four- and six-cylinder engines, structurally designed for American roads. Except for those who simply do not depart the confines of major metropolitan areas, no other vehicles are practical in these United States. Europeans do not have any real grasp on how big this country really is. For example, the distance between Chicago and New Orleans (which doesn’t look like much on the map) is about the same as that between Berlin and Moscow. Those Americans who are still employed in the wake of Dubbya’s administration and that of our current Fraudulence-in-Chief routinely commute to and from work over distances that would shock the average Eurozone citizen. A great many people who work in New York City and points east, for example, cannot find affordable housing anywhere closer than Carbon County, Pennsylvania, and must daily drive the full width of the state of New Jersey to get to and from their jobs. Little econobox cars are utterly impractical for such high-mileage, high-speed driving.
“3. Make some nicer friends who’ll sell you some oil.”
Don’t need to. As long as the currency currently being debauched by our Federal Reserve System is in any wise acceptable to vendors of petrochemical feedstocks in the global market, it doesn’t matter if those vendors are “friends” or not.
“4. Stop going to war for oil: you don’t make friends that way.”
Or simply stop engaging in armed conflict against other nation-states in the absence of a declaration of war, as is required in the U.S. Constitution.
“5. If you do go to war for oil, stop talking about doing it for democracy. It makes you out to be liars.”
See above. “…every human race tries every political form and that democracy is used in many primitive societies … but he didn’t know of any civilized planet using it, as Vox Populi, Vox Dei translates as: ‘My God! How did we get in this mess!'” (Robert A. Heinlein)
“6. Remember you’re only one nation on this earth. And there’s nothing special or different about you. You just occupy a big chunk of land between the Atlantic and Pacific.”
On the contrary. America started as the political instantiation of the philosophical Enlightenment, and to the extent that this nation yet retains the elements of that heritage, in which the institution of civil government is held to have no legitimate purpose except the defense of individual rights “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and is therefore obliged to operate under the rule of law, “American exceptionalism” is genuine and unassailable. The Brits might lay legitimate claim to John Locke, but the only place in the world where his Two Treatises finds genuine expression today is in these United States. By succumbing to victim disarmament (“gun control”), the British have forsworn Locke’s “right of rebellion,” and therefore their pretense to government limited by rule of law no longer rises even to the level of a farce.
“7. Think about the enormous amount of sunlight in your SW deserts: perfect for solar power, wouldn’t you say????”
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (National Socialist, California) has been implacable in blocking the construction of solar power electricity generation facilities in the sere and otherwise useless wastes of the Mojave Desert for many years. She and other entrenched National Socialist politicians (we’re not calling them “Democrat” any more) will continue doing such things in the name of “environmentalism.” Besides, solar power – unless you’re speaking about solar power satellites in geosynchronous earth orbit (GEO) – is far to diffuse a source of energy to significantly support an industrialized civilization. Figure it out in turns of watts per square meter of collecting surface (even if you assume 100% efficiency, which is impossible), and you’ll see that this is right.
“8. Build your houses better: then you’ll need less energy to heat them.”
Who pays for this? We are presently experiencing the “bust” phase of an economic bubble in the American housing industry, inflated by National Socialist Party political measures (reaching back into the reign of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and sharply exacerbated during the malfeasances of Bubba, our Perjurer-in-Chief, but ever and anon sustained by the Republicans). “Energy efficient” residential and commercial construction is not without substantial monetary cost, and the question is never “How much will be saved?” but rather “How the hell do we pay for this?” You might as well ask why houses are not constructed like hardened concrete bunkers in the “Tornado Alley” states, or why the people living in the below-water-level flood zones of New Orleans did not have their houses constructed on pontoons or boat hulls so as to rise and float when the levees failed.
“9. Embrace community public transport to reduce journeys of less than 3 miles. Ditto with bicycles. It’s called community pride, not socialism……”
Economically non-feasible. Again, such mass transit systems have proven consistently far more costly in terms of both capital investment and operating expenses per passenger-mile. In America, the most cost-efficient transportation option is the privately owned automobile. Moreover, just how the hell many people in America even make “journeys of less than 3 miles”? I live in New Jersey, the only state in the union that is – from Cape May to the Water Gap, from the Delaware River to the Hudson – rated as entirely metropolitan, and I cannot go grocery shopping without driving five to ten miles at minimum. And you try getting anywhere on a bicycle in the heat of a typical American summer (a helluva lot hotter than anything experienced by northern Europeans) and the stormy cold of a typical American winter. Britons – in their “right little, tight little island” – get the balmy benefits of the Gulf Stream. We do not.
“10. Stop blowing billions a year on drugs. Then you could afford more petrol.”
Courtesy of Barry Soetoro (he never did change his name back to “Barack Hussein Obama” after being adopted in Indonesia by Lolo Soetoro) and the rest of the National Socialist Party, that number is trillions, not billions. And as we Americans succumb – by virtue of this entirely unconstitutional violation of our rights – to the equivalent of Canada’s socialized medicine system, let us take note that the provinces of Canada are being bankrupted by their government health care expenditures. Or were you referring to “recreational” drugs? Well, the solution to that is decriminalization, and let Say’s law operate as the drug warriors’ price support program is withdrawn.
“11. Get as many as possible of you to generate micro-biomass generators to minimise your need for external energy.”
Again, economically impracticable. Too diffuse in energy yield to matter. Remember, you’re speaking of an industrialized civilization, not a hippie commune succumbing to pellagra on a bit of waste ground in one of the flyover states. Such a silliness cannot confer any sort of economies of scale, obliging enormous inputs of time, effort, and materiel for minimal-to-zip energy output.
All of the obvious idiot “thoughts” of the watermelon types (“green on the outside, red to the core”) have been considered, evaluated, and dismissed, in every case for good and substantial reasons which have everything to do with objective reality in spite of well-intentioned fantasy.
—
Gosh, there are so many issues in this thread.
I believe the energy way to go lives in coal, shale oil that we can extract oil from economically, and nuclear ships and subs. Think smaller, community/local/regional based power plants that could easily fit in a carrier or sub, and geared to power an industrial complex or city/town/rural community.
I also believe we should close and fully patrol our boarders and lengthen the path to visiting us for temporary purposes and for citizenship. If that means other countries do the same to us, so be it. We have no more right to shop in France than the French have to shop in the US.
But by God, once you are here to live legally as a citizen, freedom to become (or not) a prosperous citizen should be your daily sustenance, and to live or die by it. If you want health care and you are a person capable of work, you should earn your health care. Medical costs would plummet tomorrow if suddenly we had to pay for it instead of Uncle Sam.
And our skies would be much clearer if we didn’t have jets crisscrossing our land. We don’t need so much air travel. If you are rich, okay, have a nice flight. Otherwise why would anyone need to hop a jet to fly to another state? If you can’t walk it, ride a horse to it, ride a truck, train or bus to it, or drive your car to it, tough titties.
“Shales do not count because shale oil is not really oil, and you can only think it is if you are utterly ignorant of geology and thermodynamics. ”
Oil shale is not Petroleum oil since it has formed differently. It is a solid mixture containing Kerogen which can be processed using available technology to form a synthetic crude that is essentially the same as petroleum oil.
It is currently more expensive to process than buying oil at current crude prices but was very attractive when OPEC decided to raise the price of crude oil and empose an embargo. Massive projects to process shale oil were underway until The Saudi’s realized they might loose their grip on energy supply if coal liquification and Shale projects were built. The Saudi’s killed the projects by lowering the price of crude and ending the embargo. Competition works! As I recall, coal liquification and gasification required about $80-100/bbl to be economically viable in the 80’s. Shell has announced that their in-situ extraction process of oil shale will be competitive at $30/bbl crude price, so there is considerable promise.
There are massive reserves in the Canadian Tar sands although slightly less than in Saudi. Pelosi and her minions are trying to ban the use of tar sands because their production produces more CO2 than conventional crude oil production. The Chinese are ready to step in if we are stupid enough to ban the Canadian oil sands.
Most of the US oil comes from Canada, Mexico, Venvuela, (soon Brazil) and locations other than the middle east. It is a lie that our crude comes primarily from the unfriendly countries in the Middle east although Venzuela is not exactly our friend these days.
Where do we start? Geological settings of reservoirs? Isotope composition? The existence and geological settings of oil shale and natural gas? The empirical reality of depletion?
The last one doesn’t disprove abiogenesis per se, but it disproves the argument that there is no reason to worry about peak oil because of abiogenesis.
Really, I heard that this place was ranked first among the science blogs on the internet some time ago, yet it seems like a congregation of cooks of any possible kind. I am waiting for the anti-vaxxers and creationists to pop into the conversation any moment…
GM says:
August 4, 2010 at 7:22 am
“It matters very little whether methane can be formed abiogenically, what matter is whether the oil we’re using was formed abiogenically (it wasn’t, which is backed up by mountains of evidence) and whether the amounts of oil we’re using are being replaced abiogenically (they aren’t).”
Really? That’s what matters? Not to me, but insisting on something that has “mountains of evidence” and then not providing any evidence is silly. I’m real interested in how you think the oil got there. But, whether it is a finite resource or not, doesn’t really matter to me and I’m curious as to why it matters to anyone. The alarmists say we should cease oil use today or we might run out. But if we do run out, wouldn’t we have to cease oil use then? How does this matter?
Regardless, to repeat, I’m very interested in hearing your theories of how oil got here.
Wow – that was intense GM. You sure showed us.
Thing is, I’m pretty sure oil is biogenic, but I’m not 100% sure. The more I see about this miniature debate the more I wonder if the “crazy Russians” might actually be on to something. All of the hallmarks are there: experts dismiss abiogenic believers as idiots, there is a consensus in the field, I hear a lot of appeal to authority, and people who should be interested in researching the possibility just ignore it as whacko.
Thanks to branches of Science infested with junksters like climatology, nutrition and pharmacology, it has become almost impossible to trust experts and consensus. We all have to question a lot of what we think we know, since so much of what we KNOW is just plain wrong. Then again, I highly doubt you’re the kind of person who believes that is even remotely possible.
I work in an oil-related industry, live in an oil-financed city, and live in an area that booms and busts based on oil prices. I have many friends and acquaintances that are oil company execs, IT people, geologists, wildcatters, etc. and have watched an increasing number over the last few years giving the abiogenic theory some interest.
I don’t really have the time and energy to do your homework for you (I have actually been wondering why I am wasting them here since yesterday, but I get in that mood sometimes). Not that if I did it, it would have made any difference.
Once again for those who have missed it – prices do not matter here, it is the net energy you get out of the process. Which is reflected in prices to an extent, but prices are fundamentally wrong way to look at anything that has to do with the real world.