Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 174 posts

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#71

Post by attachedbiscuit »

zkhalique wrote: post #66
Frozenlock wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And then what? And then the price of the scarce resource will go up, pushing us towards alternative energy sources. And as time passes, we should have more efficient ways of harnessing those.

By that time we might have already destroyed an ecosystem. It's not just resources coming in, but the entropy that comes out of doing useful work with them. Whether pollution, or great pacific garbage patch, or overfishing, etc. The invisible hand of the market hasn't been very great at solving externality problems. Neither has government, as an institution. What we should be doing is investing more in initiatives li…

Overpopulation isn't a problem. It's human desire for luxury, as is meat, as is 5 AC components for each room of your house. Problem is that the whole world cannot live as an average citizen of USA (when it comes to energy use, not the health care and the bad bits) but the whole world, when it realizes, wants exactly that.

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#72

Post by saryant »

nostromo wrote: post #35
ori_b wrote: post #11

This is slightly worrying, because if we want to reduce CO2 emissions, we need to leave the oil in the ground. High prices may not be ideal economically, but they do reduce demand for oil, and increase demand for alternative energy.

Well, counter-intuitivley, consumer gas prices aren't falling nearly as much if at all. Personally I think the DOJ should investigate refineries, as none of the seem particularly eager to compete on price. They're making record profits as the price of crude collapses while the price of gasoline is flat. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-refinery-profits-recor... It seems very fishy to me that we have so much crud…

Airfare isn't falling because the domestic airlines a) have a triopoly and b) have learned not to compete on marketshare, so capacity isn't increasing as much. The big 3 have become much more disciplined when it comes to revenue management.

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#73

Post by callmeed »

dwharrison wrote: post #25

And it will go lower! Canadian crude hit $23/bbl earlier in the week. North America is close to maxing out storage capacity...possibly within 90 days. We've not been this close to max storage capacity in more than 80 years. North American crude oil production currently exceeds demand (meaning what we have capacity to refine) by over 1 million barrels a day. All that extra is getting dumped into storage. And the sprea…

So, how long until my 5-figure position in UCO gets back to June levels?

https://www.google.com/finance?cid=14807175

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#75

Post by maerF0x0 »

ori_b wrote: post #11

This is slightly worrying, because if we want to reduce CO2 emissions, we need to leave the oil in the ground. High prices may not be ideal economically, but they do reduce demand for oil, and increase demand for alternative energy.

There are legion ways to mitigate expelled CO2. But probably the cheapest is just to leave it in the ground.

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#77

Post by pyre »

zkhalique wrote: post #64
jessaustin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact it's low because supply is increased. Saudi was annoyed by North American innovation, and sought to dissuade private investors from financing any more of it. Private investors do wish that the price were higher, but it turns out that exploration and production costs are now low enough for North American production to be profitable still. For the most part, despotic regimes who control various national oilfiel…

It is a race to the bottom in oil to fend off the development of new oil, but that will still happen once imported oil becomes more scarce. The problem is that capitalism rapes externalities. Even if you are not against the killing of an individual animal for food, for instance, the capability of doing so drives an increase in demand which drives an increase in supply -- billions of animals raised for the sole purpos…

The real "problem" with Capitalism is that the effects of the trade-offs being made are either not felt directly by the perpetrators or the feedback loop is too long that you end up in a "slowly boiling frog" situation.

If the person that reaps all of the money for a particular business makes enough money off of the venture that they can insulate themselves from the consequences, that is a failure of Capitalism. For example, someone lives in a community that depends on a particular waterway. They make a bunch of money by skimping on correct disposal of toxic waste, instead dumping it into the waterway. Once they've "made it," they take the money and leave the area. They are no longer feeling the effects of their actions, instead they are forcing them onto others. This is the legacy of Capitalism.

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#78

Post by maerF0x0 »

Frozenlock wrote: post #62
zkhalique wrote: post #61

I wonder why so many people are only looking at the economic side of this DO THEY NOT REALIZE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND HOW WE USE FOSSIL FUELS? We burn (no pun intended) through resources as fast as we want until there are none left. And then what?

> And then what? And then the price of the scarce resource will go up, pushing us towards alternative energy sources. And as time passes, we should have more efficient ways of harnessing those.

Scarce resource might be clean air and land in a place that doesnt hit 120f daily.

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#79

Post by mrbill »

throwaway12309 wrote: post #4

One one hand, I'm a bit worried as I know various folks that are dependent on the oil industry and this will probably mean more layoffs/companies closing, on the other hand, I'm really happy to see this (helps many economies as well as ordinary folks) and it seems some of the changes from oil to other sources of energy are finally showing some results (I hope)

I'm glad to be out of the oil/gas industry. Got laid off from one of the largest energy services companies back in January, after more than twelve years. Got another sysadmin gig, and I've never been happier.

Re: Oil Falls Below $40 for First Time Since 2009 as Glut Grows

#80

Post by lolive »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #75
ori_b wrote: post #11

This is slightly worrying, because if we want to reduce CO2 emissions, we need to leave the oil in the ground. High prices may not be ideal economically, but they do reduce demand for oil, and increase demand for alternative energy.

There are legion ways to mitigate expelled CO2. But probably the cheapest is just to leave it in the ground.

"There are legion ways to mitigate expelled CO2."

Could you please elaborate on this assumption?

Post reply on HN