It was more a reprocession plant than a nuclear power plant. Nothing Germany could have produced energy with. Germany can consider itself lucky to have the best educated politicians in the world Some of these guys don't know shit and don't see the easiest economic issues we have here. Instead we build this reprocession plant for a shipload of money. Wait 10 years until a green politician comes along and then sell it to China for some cents. That's cool. We urgently need some professionals in politics!

You have to spend 0.66 units of energy to recover 1 unit of energy from tar sands! Shame no one pushes this down the throats of greens. As we get more desparate for oil, crap like this will seem quite rational.Even now, according to MikeBell's link "Alberta's bitumen deposits were known as tar sands but are now called oil sands." Next step is for them to be called a strategic reserve...Within a few years I expect to see plants like this powered by nuclear. This is of course mad, but internally consistent. Hydrogen is a pain in the arse for cars, andfew people now advocate uranium fuelled SUVs. Thus this may be a bath to indirectly powering gas guzzlers.Coal can be turned into fuel for cars, though this is about as bad as tar sands. Easy coal is mostly gone now, so we're looking at the reserves under the seas.Political pressure pushed Britain to become the leader in this, under the "every piece of coal, regardless of cost" doctrine. This is neither safe, nor environmentally nice. However, these reserves are within reach of non-oil countries, which we will be soon.

Your comments are strange. Who made it out that environmentalists are somehow in favor of the tar sands? The point was that hard-to-get resources like the tar sands will put upper limits on the prices of easily available crude. I don't think we're at those upper limits, and I agree with Mike's earlier comment that Canada's tar sands won't exert downward pressure on prices in the near term. But in 10-20 years? It could become more feasible, particularly if better means of getting it out surface. And as for the pressure of environmentalists? Who wouldn't rather drill in Alaska or off the coast of California than to dredge up 100's of cubic miles of Canada? It's an economic point, nothing to do with the 'greens'.-t.

Hydrogen is an energy carrier not an energy source. When I see all these hydrogen car/vehicle stories and how clean they are, I cringe. Where do they get the hydrogen from? Hydrogen is a negative energy source. Meaning, you need to spend more energy on producing hydrogen than you get out of it. So yeah, your nice new hydrogen car might be clean and is producing drinkable H20 as a byproduct but the accumulated environmental impact of producing that fuel is far greater than that of combustion vehicles. Hydrogen is also a lot bulkier than oil. You need a lot bigger container of hydrogen (11 to 12 times bigger if I remember correctly) to produce the same energy output when compared to a container of oil so the transportation costs will also have to be higher.Not to mention that the most cost effective way of producing hydrogen is from natural gas, coal an oil. So, we've made a full circle back to oil. I see no market forces out there that could exert any downward pressure on the price of oil in the next 20-30 years. Unless we make some inroads with "cold fusion" or zero-point energy (don't hold your breath for any of these... that field is full of cranks), we'll just have to adapt and learn to live with high energy prices. And even if ZP energy works -- or any other one of these 'alternative energy sources -- It would not help much at all because it's not only the gas that depends on the price of oil. Oil ecosystem is so vast and widespread that fluctuations of oil prices have a huge impact on every industry out there. We are an oil based economy and everything more or less depends on oil. From pharmaceuticals to plastic manufacturers to fertilizers. If you know any organic chemists or engineers out there, ask them what they use as their basic building block, the source of hydrocarbon chains. High oil prices could also end globalization fairly quickly... you can forget about outsourcing... I doubt it will be a problem in 15 years. Think about a networking effect that would happen if fertilizer prices (for example) shot up 100%. Scary? You bet.

QuoteOriginally posted by: mikebellHydrogen is an energy carrier not an energy source. When I see all these hydrogen car/vehicle stories and how clean they are, I cringe. Where do they get the hydrogen from? Hydrogen is a negative energy source. Meaning, you need to spend more energy on producing hydrogen than you get out of it. So yeah, your nice new hydrogen car might be clean and is producing drinkable H20 as a byproduct but the accumulated environmental impact of producing that fuel is far greater than that of combustion vehicles. Hydrogen is also a lot bulkier than oil. You need a lot bigger container of hydrogen (11 to 12 times bigger if I remember correctly) to produce the same energy output when compared to a container of oil so the transportation costs will also have to be higher.Not to mention that the most cost effective way of producing hydrogen is from natural gas, coal an oil. So, we've made a full circle back to oil. I see no market forces out there that could exert any downward pressure on the price of oil in the next 20-30 years. Unless we make some inroads with "cold fusion" or zero-point energy (don't hold your breath for any of these... that field is full of cranks), we'll just have to adapt and learn to live with high energy prices. And even if ZP energy works -- or any other one of these 'alternative energy sources -- It would not help much at all because it's not only the gas that depends on the price of oil. Oil ecosystem is so vast and widespread that fluctuations of oil prices have a huge impact on every industry out there. We are an oil based economy and everything more or less depends on oil. From pharmaceuticals to plastic manufacturers to fertilizers. If you know any organic chemists or engineers out there, ask them what they use as their basic building block, the source of hydrocarbon chains. High oil prices could also end globalization fairly quickly... you can forget about outsourcing... I doubt it will be a problem in 15 years. Think about a networking effect that would happen if fertilizer prices (for example) shot up 100%. Scary? You bet.Ummm...again, I don't know if you guys are only focusing on certain words or what, but my comment about hydrogen was that it would make nuclear power more acceptable to NIMBYs, not that it was some magic source of energy. Here's my comment on hydrogen:"What do you guys think about hydrogen? Wouldn't it be nice if we could erect a bunch of nuclear reactors away from the NIMBYs (all of us), and transport the energy as hydrogen? "-t.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperQuoteOriginally posted by: tristanreid Who made it out that environmentalists are somehow in favor of the tar sands? No one, least of all myself.Rather I said that the environmentalists were against drilling in Alaska and off the Cali coast.QuoteWho wouldn't rather drill in Alaska or off the coast of California than to dredge up 100's of cubic miles of Canada? It's an economic pointand my point exactly.I find it strange that people such as yourself are debating the merits of exploiting the oil sands when there are other more economic resources accessible.Thanks again for your selective reading. Maybe if you keep saying that I'm somehow in favor of exploiting the tar sands, it will become true. I don't think there's any 'merits of exploiting the oil sands', the point was that they will only become viable when available crude is scarce. I guess if you have nothing original or nice to say, it's more fun to manufacture a disagreement, that's a great strategy.-t.

QuoteOriginally posted by: tristanreidUmmm...again, I don't know if you guys are only focusing on certain words or what, but my comment about hydrogen was that it would make nuclear power more acceptable to NIMBYs, not that it was some magic source of energy. Here's my comment on hydrogen:"What do you guys think about hydrogen? Wouldn't it be nice if we could erect a bunch of nuclear reactors away from the NIMBYs (all of us), and transport the energy as hydrogen? "-t.I did not quote your H comment which means that I was not directly replying to your points. I was just making a statement... sorry about a misunderstanding.

Sorry, apparantly the misunderstanding was mine.I agree with what you're saying, anyway. One thing about hydrogen that never seems to get mentioned in these panacea media articles is that it has to be stored under a lot of pressure. No hydrogen pipelines! And even when you store it in tanks, the hydrogen starts to leech into the metal, making it brittle. I think titanium is one of the only metals capable of storing hydrogen long-term, but titanium ain't cheap.-t.

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperQuoteOriginally posted by: tristanreid Who made it out that environmentalists are somehow in favor of the tar sands? No one, least of all myself.Rather I said that the environmentalists were against drilling in Alaska and off the Cali coast.QuoteWho wouldn't rather drill in Alaska or off the coast of California than to dredge up 100's of cubic miles of Canada? It's an economic pointand my point exactly.I find it strange that people such as yourself are debating the merits of exploiting the oil sands when there are other more economic resources accessible.I oppose offshore oil drilling off the Central California coast.I wonder how much time anyone here has spent in one of these offshore drilling communities where these roustabouts and roughnecks have their layovers. Perfectly nice seaside towns before they arrive.And then this white trash comes and they have a bunch of money from 2 months on the rigs and they blow it on alcoholic binges, whores and massive doses of amphetamines. Do you want these toothless animals harassing your sister?Have you ever actually visited Houma Louisiana or the slimy parts of the Gulf Coast where these rats thrive?That ain't gonna happen here. We don't want this slime around destroying our communities.This does not mean I support tearing up huge chunks of Saskatchewan.Matthew

GMIKE--I love it, do u know anything about oil at all?If u took time to even examine the underlying contract and its relation to physical supply across the globe, u would understand in small time why CL is high and gonna stay high. ITs a long term structural problem, along with supply shocks, terrorism and other factors.. one of which is a serious lack of refining capacity and big growing asian demand. Japan uses just a little under china... china has many more ppl.. the only thing is time time time..

Gmike2000 Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of The Prize by Daniel Yergin.But before that, since you know the bubble is obvious, where's your market on Cal '05 CL swap? Please show both your bid and offer.