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Originally Posted by GMAN
It is a shame that congress allowed the major oil companies to merge. I don't know about Chevron, but Shell and BP are both foreign owned. It seems to me as though it is a matter of national security to keep U.S. oil companies domestically owned. While these two foreign oil companies are owned by what we consider friendly countries, they are still foreign with their own interests.
As far as "Major" oil companies go, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips are the "major" American oil companies. There are also the smaller ones. Sunoco, Hess, Sinclair, Marathon. All those companies drill for oil and natural gas. All market petroleum products under their "Logo". Marathon bought Pilot a couple years ago, and they just bought "Wingfoot" tire centers from Goodyear in the last few weeks.
Then you have the guy's that drill for oil and natural gas, but don't deal in marketing. Occidental Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum, Chesapeke Energy, Williams Energy, and dozens of smaller fish.
The largest leaseholders out in the Gulf of Mexico right now though, in terms of DeepWater production, aren't our "Majors", they are BP, Shell, BHP-Billiton, TotalFina, SaudiAramco, CITGO, and now Italy and Brazil are buying in.
Longsnowsm wrote
Quote:
Stan,
That one is pretty easy to answer on how many wind generators to replace one coal fired plan... I just hopped out to the GE Wind division and looked at their large wind platforms:
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/pro...s/en/index.htm
GE's come in:
1.5 mw
2.5 mw
3.6 mw
And the technology is fast moving and these things are producing more and more power in a pretty short time frame. Considering the size of the space they are talking about in the great plains to put these there isn't a problem with space to place them. It now becomes the race for the most competitive products and driving these costs down further. GE gets and arm and a leg for these and has already sold their entire production going into 2010.
I am not sure why we want to replace coal fired plants however. It makes sense to move natural gas into a transportation fuel, and try to replace that natural gas used in the power plants with other available resources. I personally have no problem with coal fired plants, just put the scrubbers on them so that the emissions are clean. There is no such thing as clean coal, but carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.
Longsnowsm
You need to take a road trip. Go out to Palm Springs California, where the first commercial wind generators are still working. Most of the original generators were 30 and 40 kilo watt turbines. There are hundreds of them along I-10 between Banning and Palm Springs. Now, around them, are hundreds of the new turbines, the 2.5 and 3.6 mega-watt turbines. The entire area looks like one huge "Cluster ****" and is uglier now than before...and the new ones...the ones closest to the road...are leaking oil like sieves. I have a friend in Spokane WA. He works for one of the company's that services the turbines, and he travels all over the country, doing his job. It takes them weeks to service just one of the turbines...and they are not keeping up with construction.
How long before the "NIMBY's" close down the "Wind" farms, like they did nuclear plants??
Look at the hundreds of 1,000 + mega-watt coal fired power plants we have in operation nationwide. Then look at the hundreds of 80 to 150 mega-watt "Gas-fired" generators that were built the last 15 years. There are a handful of 400 to 550 mega-watt gas plants...less than 20.
These guy toteing "Wind" generation are looking for the fast buck....nothing else. They have no plans for servicing those generators. The turbines are far more labor intensive than is a 1500 mega-watt coal fired plant.
Natural Gas power plants drove up the cost of natural gas. How much higher do you think it will go, if 30% of available natural gas went to supplying "Automotive" fuel?
How about Solar power? BP has a huge solar complex out in the Mojave Desert, north of Barstow CA. The problem there, is damage that the sun and wind cause to the collector panels.
There are home owners whom have invested in solar...but not enough to matter...and those that have solar...still rely on the "System" for the majority of their power supply.