Oilfield Layoffs

[dennishoddy]

Anyone who has lived in Oklahoma since the late '70s and was paying any attention at all has seen, first hand, the boom and bust cycle of the oil and gas industry, whether you were directly involved in it or not. (Or am I the only one who remembers the gallows humor that was pervasive in the early '80s, like "will the last person leaving Oklahoma please turn out the lights" and "I bank at FDIC--new branches opening daily!")

LOL, I retired off of that thinking. Buy when its in the tank, and reap the benefits when its up.

 

[1krr]

No, not an operator. I was a Instrumentation and controls technician with a certification in EPA emissions.
I spent a lot of time in the control room watching the live feed of how NG, wind and hydro could only supplement base load, not take it over.

Ahh got it. I know there are utilities (one in florida comes to mind but don't recall the name) that runs a wind/solar/NG combo for generation. If we could ever get to a unified grid without DC conversions to keep the phases in sync, I could see the western US powering itself and the east on good wind/sun days. What I think would be really cool is if we could code the controls required for distributed grid tied solar/wind and push some of the load out to idle home systems when peak demand spins up in the hot afternoons. Have them pay a reasonable access fee and still offer a net meter solution and these little systems combine with larger wind/solar deployments really could smooth out the curve where your large plants (be them coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc) could provide that base load and even idle down in peak production if they aren't needed. Then your multihomed multitechnology system is insulated from just about anything, financial or otherwise. Would be cool anyway to leverage all those assets.

 

[1krr]

Thankyou Veggie, you made my point exceptionally well.

Point being that the .gov rewrites history to suit it's purpose, and we see that they are rewriting the dictionary too! Only when it suits them of course.



1krr, I tell you what lets do. Lets get rid of all the tax breaks for ALL energy, not just fossil, but everything. While we are at it, lets get rid of basically all federal regulatory oversight too. Of course we keep the common sense ones, like dumping **** in rivers and such, but we let them have a free playing field. Then lets see who the market consumer purchases from. IOW, a truly fair contest. Deal? I'd go for that anyday and everyday.

I'll take that deal with only one more stipulation. You have to give me a century of advancement, lobbying and market monopoly that oil/gas has had. I don't know if I'm going to make it another century but I'll bet you a nice steak dinner that in 2115, oil/gas isn't going to be the dominate player. In?

 

[Shadowrider]

I'll take that deal with only one more stipulation. You have to give me a century of advancement, lobbying and market monopoly that oil/gas has had. I don't know if I'm going to make it another century but I'll bet you a nice steak dinner that in 2115, oil/gas isn't going to be the dominate player. In?

Nope. You have the same exact access to the 330 million consumer market that I do. If your technology has merits it will win. No monopolies involved and frankly I and my kids won't be around in 2115 so it won't really matter then.

 

[Shadowrider]

lpg stations are being installed at my Company as we speak... will they get some money from the gov. to do that? credits??

Don't think the federal "subsidies" are still in place (expired), but the state's probably are. I could be wrong tho...

 

[1krr]

Nope. You have the same exact access to the 330 million consumer market that I do. If your technology has merits it will win. No monopolies involved and frankly I and my kids won't be around in 2115 so it won't really matter then.

Sounds like you only want to play the game when you can write the rules in your favor. Pretty typical of oil/gas lobbies. You give me the same time you've had to tap that market, and I'll give you a country that doesn't want to drive a car they can't start in the garage without dieing (my electric preheats itself in the garage for me every morning and I really did feel bad for the folk stopped at gas stations with their cold nips poking through (well in some cases I enjoyed it but..)).

 

[vvvvvvv]

Anyone who has lived in Oklahoma since the late '70s and was paying any attention at all has seen, first hand, the boom and bust cycle of the oil and gas industry, whether you were directly involved in it or not. (Or am I the only one who remembers the gallows humor that was pervasive in the early '80s, like "will the last person leaving Oklahoma please turn out the lights" and "I bank at FDIC--new branches opening daily!")

There's people who still play the denial game... and pay full price for housing and cars on notes that take up the majority of their oilfield check...

A pretty good rule to follow in a cyclical job market is to live on only what you can reasonably make during the busts. If you save the rest during the booms, then there's a good chance you'll get to spend the busts fishing.

Thankyou Veggie, you made my point exceptionally well.

Happy to help by providing actual data!

 

[Shadowrider]

There's people who still play the denial game... and pay full price for housing and cars on notes that take up the majority of their oilfield check...

A pretty good rule to follow in a cyclical job market is to live on only what you can reasonably make during the busts. If you save the rest during the booms, then there's a good chance you'll get to spend the busts fishing.



Happy to help by providing actual data!

Did you actually look at it? That thing is ALL tax credits in some form. There were some in the "Consumer" category that could have been an actual payment by check, but I bet it was dang few of them.

 

[vvvvvvv]

Did you actually look at it? That thing is ALL tax credits in some form. There were some in the "Consumer" category that could have been an actual payment by check, but I bet it was dang few of them.

Yes.

My point was that the "subsidies" that everyone refers to are nothing more than normal tax credits and deductions available to all businesses on the production side and tax relief or assistance on the consumer side. In the case of fossil fuel industries, they have specific laws that limit what falls under those credits or deductions further than if they were treated as a normal business.

In other words, "big oil subsidies" is a political/media fiction.

 

[Poke78]

BTW there are 14000 wind turbines in California that are not turning now.

in California’s Altamont Pass, Tehachapin, and San Gorgonio areas and elsewhere around the world are testimony to the continuing and accelerating failure of hope over experience, funded with taxpayer monies. And these areas were selected as being “in the best wind spots on earth,” which are now, according to Natural News writer Jonathan Benson, just “spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.”

QFT - can't be repeated enough, IMO. I've driven through that area just once and was amazed. Add in this knowledge and it just becomes sad that humans choose to continue to prove Einstein right about insanity.