Short Quiz - Everything About Oil

[johnkarls]

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1. For a gallon of gasoline at $4.00 - (A) At $135/barrel for crude oil, how much of the $4.00 goes "off the top" to OPEC and other producers??? (B) How much comprises the Federal excise tax??? (C) How much comprises state and local sales taxes??? (D) How much is left for refining, transportation and marketing???

2. Of the portion of the $4.00/gallon that is left for refining, transportation and marketing, how much represents the cost of American environmental policies that have required a sizable percentage of our oil supplies, instead of being imported as crude oil in huge supertankers to domestic refineries and then distributed around the country in pipelines, to be refined in the Caribbean and then brought to the U.S. in barges and small product-specific tankers???

3. What are the comparable costs for different energy sources - petroleum, coal, nuclear, wind, solar, etc.

4. Of the energy sources that are cost competitive, what is the impact of each on the environment???

5. Of the energy sources that are cost competitive, which can be produced domestically and which require substantial payments to foreigners - putting the U.S. dollar, as we have seen recently, "in the toilet"???

6. How much of the recent increase in the US dollar cost of crude oil represents the plummeting of the dollar and how much of the increase represents a real increase (as measured, for example, in Euros)???

7. How much longer did we think the rest of the world was going to let us borrow money to buy foreign crude oil??? Have any of us ever had any success on a personal level finding a bank to lend us money every month to cover our personal expenditures???

8. How is our now being called "to pay the piper" aggravated by the fact that the U.S. dollar has been accepted up to this point as the world's reserve currency (for our kids to understand, as if the United Nations had also issued U.S. dollars for its members to use as international currency, except that WE issued the dollars and they represent OUR (not the UN's) IOU's to the rest of the world), but now the rest of the world is increasingly cashing in their dollar IOU's and using Euros instead to transact international business???

9. How much of our U.S. governmental bonds and treasury notes are held by foreigners who, for the same reason that foreigners are increasingly leery of holding dollars, are increasingly leery of holding dollar-denominated debt and securities???

10. Is there any irony in the fact that our spineless American politicians have refused to do anything to encourage energy conservation (such as through increasing CAFE standards), and now energy conversation is being forced on us by a worthless dollar???

11. Is there any irony in the fact that since our spineless American politicians, through their disastrous policies of permitting the dollar to remain so artificially high for so long which have resulted in the out-sourcing of so many American jobs, mean that we are now paying workers in China and India far more in terms of plummeting dollars than our own American workers would be willing to accept if they could only be trained to perform their old jobs???

12. In what year did the U.S. cease being a net exporter of petroleum???

13. If we wanted to become energy independent again through petroleum (while ignoring the impact on the environment), how difficult would it be to do so???

14. In this regard, why is it true that humankind has only used an infinitesimal fraction of the world's oil and gas to date??? (Hint - the answer to this question is the same as the answer to the question of why "experts" thought the world was about to run out of oil and gas 30 years ago when world production of oil and gas was only a fraction of what it is today.)

15. If we wanted to become energy independent by increasing the usage of coal (while ignoring the impact on the environment), how difficult would it be to do so???

16. Even if it is not too "audacious to hope" that coal can be made to burn cleanly, what is the next world crisis that sequestration and burial of carbon dioxide will produce that hasn't even been mentioned yet by the "experts"???

17. What is the position of Barack Obama on these issues???

18. What is the position of John McCain on these issues???

And for extra credit -

A. What issue is our author "tip toeing around" when he accuses Bush/Cheney of choosing to fight the Iraq War for oil???

B. What issue is our author "tip toeing around" when he talks about the Religious Right and the American South???

C. Is there a Religious Left in America???

D. Why has Saudi Arabia always tried to restrain OPEC prices??? Why has that strategy become ineffective???