U.S. fuel efficiency keeps demand flat

[rcjordan]

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Industry/2015/09/17/US-gasoline-demand-flattens-out/8941442482585/

in related news, Canada's oil-based economy is pretty much screwed.

Canadian natural gas exports to U.S. plummet
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Industry/2015/09/17/Canadian-gas-exports-to-US-plummet/7811442489232/

<added>
Canadian economy enters recession
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34116189

[Mackin USA]

Armed Conflict in the Middle East may change the outlook for oil.

IMO
We need more coal fired power plants to fuel electric cars 

[rcjordan]

Oil may change the outlook for armed conflict in the Middle East.  Basically, if we become non-OPEC-dependent then the general attitude here will be 'let those fuckers go pound sand.'

Debbie says we've crossed some kind of line in oil/coal and we ain't going back.  The response to any tightening of fuel pricing is going to be to turn up the technology on alt fuels.  We're more than ready to be done with this crap, at least to whatever extent is possible.

[Mackin USA]

'let those f###ers go pound sand.'

Would it not be GREAT

[BoL]

When they crack this nut we can look forward to 95% efficiency of solar -> chemical energy

http://phys.org/news/2014-01-quantum-mechanics-efficiency-photosynthesis.html

Apparently when a photon enters the photosynthetic factory... it finds the right place to go by travelling to all destinations at the same time. Highly efficient when all your wrong answers are also the right one!

There's always nuclear if we don't manage to find a suitable alternative soon.

[rcjordan]

>alt soon

From what I'm reading, if you stripped away all the gov subsidies for petroleum/coal, solar/wind is starting to edge close to price parity.