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Thomas Elias writes in the Los Angeles Daily News that just one week before many California motorists began paying upwards of $4.30 per gallon for gasoline, oil tanker Teesta Spirit left Los Angeles headed for ports on the west coast of Mexico carrying more 300,000 barrels of gasoline refined in California. At a time when oil companies were raising prices by as much as $1 per gallon in some regions, oil companies like Chevron and Phillips 66 shipped about 100 million gallons of gasoline out of California. "Oil refiners have kept the state running on empty and now they are sending fuel refined in California abroad just as the specter of low inventories drives huge price increases," says Jamie Court, president of the Consumer Watchdog advocacy group.
According to Elias as the oil companies were shipping out that fuel, they reaped unprecedented profits reportedly approaching $1.50 for every gallon of gasoline they sold at the higher prices. "Gasoline prices are determined by market forces, and individuals who understand how commodity markets work have recently testified that those markets are working as they should," responded Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, to charges of price gouging. "All of the many government investigations into gasoline markets in recent years have concluded that supply and demand are the primary reason gas prices go up and down." Kathleen Foote, who heads up the antitrust division at the California attorney general's office, agreed that the industry operates like an oligopoly in the state. But proving price fixing is difficult in a field where only a few players exist. "This system is made to break because oil refineries keep it running on empty," concludes Court. "They have every incentive to create a price spike like this."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gravis on Wednesday July 29 2015, @06:47AM
i don't know about the rest of you but i'm really just done with oil companies. everything they do is just evil. we really need cheaper batteries and solar panels with larger subsidies. the longer we wait, the worse off the future will be.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday July 29 2015, @07:33AM
Just from curiosity: why do you need larger subsidies? A quick search brought some data 1.5 years old [cleantechnica.com] (Feb 2014), which says:
(note: if I'm not mistaken, the Q2/Q3 are 2013?)
True, the cost of the panels on your roof isn't that low. Same source says:
I guess the first thing would be to check how the heck these "soft costs" blow up the total to 7-10 times the cost of the panels. Some council taxes or something?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Wednesday July 29 2015, @10:05AM
The average electricity price in the USA was somewhere in the range 8-17¢/kWh in 2012. Apparently it's higher now, though I don't have numbers for that. Let's pick 10¢ as a rough ballpark to work with. If the cells cost $4.72/W installed, then that's $4,720/kW. At 10¢/kWh, you need 47,200h of generation to reach break even. That's about 16 years, assuming 8 hours a day of sunlight on average. If electricity costs 20¢, it's 8 years. In some parts of the USA, it's closer to 4 years. Of course, if you're getting solar panels installed on your roof, then you may as well install solar water heating at the same time, which saves a lot more if you live somewhere where heating, rather than cooling, is important for a house.
The UK is currently cutting solar subsidies because the panels are cheap enough that relatively small commercial installations (a smallish field, not a rooftop) are very profitable and the subsidies are just sending taxpayers' money into the pockets of investors who would still make a good return without it. They've done their job and got the panels down to an affordable price.
The problem with home installations is picking the time to buy. Cheap panels have gone from about 8% efficient to about 12% in the last few years, with some expensive ones at 21-22%. It looks as if 20% is quite feasible for mass production, 25% might be too. The theoretical maximum for photovoltaic is around 45% and getting near 40% is very hard. If you can buy 20% efficient panels in two years for the same price that you can buy 12% efficient panels today, then it may be better to wait. New panels come with a guarantee of 80% of their initial efficiency for around 20-25 years, so you're not going to want to replace them soon after you've installed them. This doesn't apply to commercial installations, where the installation costs per Watt are a lot lower.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday July 29 2015, @10:51AM
"Energy prices never go down." (grin)
Seriously speaking, theoretically is not impossible, in practice however...
I got my 4.2kW with about $1.6/W about 2-3 years ago, when the energy price was 22c/kWh. It is now 28c/kWh. As I'm a net exporter, ditching $1300/y on my energy bill leads to a RoI of 5-6 years
(before you ask: Melbourne, Aus)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Wednesday July 29 2015, @06:49PM
>>we really need cheaper batteries and solar panels with larger subsidies.
>>Just from curiosity: why do you need larger subsidies? A quick search brought some data 1.5 years old (Feb 2014), which says:
Well, it would be nice to have alternative energy subsidies that were at least as large as the subsidies that oil companies get so as to level the playing field.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday July 30 2015, @04:25PM
Perhaps rather than outright subsidies, we need the installation cost (which is the bulk of the cost) supported by the zero interest loans the banks normally get from the fed. Set the payback such that the homeowner sees an immediate 10% savings over their power bill and keep it that way until it's paid off.
(Score: 1) by Marco2G on Wednesday July 29 2015, @08:14AM
Yes, well, I'd really love to have a Model S in my garage but it's not like I have 100k Shaboozies lying about.
Aynway, if we want to break the oil camel's back, we'll need nuclear power. A lot of it. Good luck getting that one through the people's collective thick skull...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @08:17AM
The patents on large capacity NiMH batteries [wikipedia.org] should be expiring soon. IMO, the current practice of using the relatively volatile Li-ion chemistry is just an expensive work-around for these patents.
The standard Prius uses NiMH a battery. The plug-in version uses the more expensive Li-ion.
I have run into the 3Ah limitation building a lighting system for my bicycle. I was quoted about $50 per cell for 10Ah NiMH D cells. Grey-market cells from China only costed me about $50 for 16 cells.
In typical retail stores, the NiMH D cells you see (if they are sold at all) are only 2-3Ah. The reason is that they are actually AA cells in a D size case. You don't get a discount for buying such cells: they are priced as if they are D rather than AA cells (huge mark-up mentioned above aside).
(Score: 2) by black6host on Wednesday July 29 2015, @09:22PM
I hear you regarding D cells. You can buy adapters that make an AA battery the same configuration as a D cell. Sure, there is an upfront cost but at least you won't be paying a premium for essentially the same thing every time you buy a D cell.
(Score: 1) by Flyingmoose on Wednesday July 29 2015, @09:49PM
The article you linked says "On August 24 2010 patent US6413670 expired due to lack of fee payment, hence removing any patent encumbrance in the USA." So, what gives?