-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In <199809092123.OAA17355@leroy.fbn.bc.ca>, on 09/09/98 at 02:09 PM, "Raymond D. Mereniuk" <Raymond@fbn.bc.ca> said:
William H. Geiger IIIwrote
Once an alternative fuel source is discovered that is more economical than oil, the arabs will slip back into obscurity.
Good point! Ever wonder why a decreasing commodity non- renewable resource is becoming cheaper as the known reserves become smaller?
Maybe they want to sell it all before it becomes obsolete and maximize their income from that resource.
Within the oil business I have heard this mentioned in regards to natural gas.
Most of these countries are economically "one trick ponies" and have little export revenue outside of oil. Because OPEC <sp?> has been a failure at enforcing production quotas there is a surplus of oil on the market thus driving down the cost (supply and demand). There are also large reserves of oil in Alaska, Siberia and elsewhere that are going unused along with other reserves that are too expensive to extract the oil at current market prices. The so called "oil shortage" of the 70's had more to do with Oil Companies profiteering than it did with any actual shortage. I have seen estimates in the past of our domestic oil reserves showing that we have enough oil to last another 100 years at out current rate of increased consumption if we stopped all imports today. Simple economics is that it is cheaper for us to import it than it is to produce it domestically. As much as the Greens whine and cry about alternative fuels, the simple fact is that as long as oil is cheap no one is going to switch. - -- - --------------------------------------------------------------- William H. Geiger III http://www.openpgp.net Geiger Consulting Cooking With Warp 4.0 Author of E-Secure - PGP Front End for MR/2 Ice PGP & MR/2 the only way for secure e-mail. OS/2 PGP 5.0 at: http://www.openpgp.net/pgp.html - --------------------------------------------------------------- Tag-O-Matic: Windows? Homey don't play that! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3a-sha1 Charset: cp850 Comment: Registered_User_E-Secure_v1.1b1_ES000000 iQCVAwUBNfb9g49Co1n+aLhhAQHHrQQAvX6z+/JeHTGzcT5PDdM+OeXOMcYDEIR3 mGm0I+R2Y0xzOgT01Z2h6DwJvy3e/bddd7+vFNUWuSCcbD33sFOO7psYWBgf2Vny xtnlNLQDjI54QLye/XIugRaUI50pSgDC/SOytIr7swB9fSHbgPYUlTulRb+EV5xE I0P5hjaPOzU= =f5ED -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----