Sony's made from Sunshine?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

So there is the earthquake in Japan. Japan is huge importer of oil. Huge importer of everything in fact. And the nuclear thing seemed not so so bad, but since yesterday it's been looking pretty bad. This much you know already.

So... Obviously Japan is going to have to switch from nuke power to alternatives for some time to come. In the short term there are diesel generators to power an apartment building or a factory. Eventually they are going to have to get those old fashioned power stations up and running. Maybe coal or home heating oil. Eventually they can redo their Candu, or go Solar like mad. But unless they want to shut down their entire economy (Sony, Honda, Panasonic, SushiQ) right now they are going to need oil.

So riddle me this. Why did oil fall today? Makes absolutely no sense.

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Certain TP posts (http://community.livejournal.com/talk_politics/926912.html) can have very far-reaching impact.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Indeed they do. Can you imagine if every consumer product price jumped around as much as oil?

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but that's obvious. Anytime the supply is threatened the price goes up. Invasion of Kuwait. Invasion of Iraq. The Opec crisis of the 70's. etc.

And when demand goes up, slow and sure with emerging economies, the prices rise slow and sure.

But demand went up fast in last few days. There are several reacters off line right now. 4 just in one plant. Price of should have followed suit.

I don't think they'll just mothball every reactor, that's just silly.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Hefty reviews of existing and probably a moratorium on new, but not a total abandoning of nuclear.

Re: I don't think they'll just mothball every reactor, that's just silly.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

I never said they would. But it's possible, especially considering their bad experiences with nuclear. Regardless, their nuclear won't be on line for years and years to come. Probably decades.

Re: I don't think they'll just mothball every reactor, that's just silly.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

They have a total of 53 reactors, minus the six currently clusterfucked.

Re: I don't think they'll just mothball every reactor, that's just silly.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

Never said all 53 would go offline. But six are off line now. 2 that will never go back to work. 4 that will likely never go back to work. So there are six which provide energy that will need to be replaced sooner then later. Yes, that energy will have to be replaced somehow.

One clusterfuck in Japan has atomic energy commisions all over the world closely reviewing their own systems and practices. I can't imagine Japan not reviewing theirs. If the Japanese plants are as bad as some are reporting, then a few more will go off line soon.

Re: I don't think they'll just mothball every reactor, that's just silly.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

True dat.

Re: I don't think they'll just mothball every reactor, that's just silly.

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

Ironically the Fukushima's units 1 and 2 were schedualed for de-com as thier design is nearly 40 years old and newer units have been designed and built that are much more earthquake-resitsant.

Fukushima II is several miles to the south, closer to the epi-center, and not exploding.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Drop in actual demand.

They're not going to be able to switch or build new oil-powered power plants overnight, so I wouldn't expect oil prices to change on that basis.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

Correct.

Also, prices were probably artificially high. And who knows, maybe Japan will end up investing in technologies that get them off oil.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Dare I suggest tidal power?

I genuinely cannot think of any other viable alternatives for Japan.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

That's probably true. I don't know off the top of my head, but I'm thinking that there might be wind coming off the mountains and a geothermal seam somewhere that they can use.

I read that they were going to try space-based solar power a while ago; not sure what happened with that.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Sure, let's build giant solar collectors in orbit that can beam gigawatts of energy at a highly focused point on the Earth's surface.

What could possibly go wrong?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Actually the Space Based Solar systems need not be a concentrated beam, a diffuse one would work almost as well, you just put an power collecting antenna array on top of all the buildings to gather it.

The downside of course is dealing with the EMI/RFI it would create in electric devices.

There is also Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion as a possibility.

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

The problem is actually that they can't concentrate the beam very well, because the atmosphere diffuses the energy.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

!

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

In comes a tsunami and destroys all tidal facilities. We can't expect that it'll produce just some more electricity than usual, right?

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

Sure, but they do have the advantage that when the tsunami wrecks them, they don't release radioactive materials into the atmosphere.

More importantly, tsunamis *are* rare, other forms of generation are not immune to tsunamis and earthquakes either (as we have seen) and as tidal power generators tend to be composed of many small installations, rather than single massive installations (e.g nuclear, coal plants etc) they are less vulnerable to destruction en masse, and quicker to start begin restoring to operation when they are damaged.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if the company which was operating this nuclear power plant was conscientious enough and didn't systematically conceal data about the malfunctions of its systems, it would've undergone a proper maintenance and we wouldn't be made to shiver with the thought of a nuclear fallout now.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

^This.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

So riddle me this. Why did oil fall today? Makes absolutely no sense.

Because the price is not dependent on just Japan. There's other things going on in the world too. For example, it looks like Gaddhafiblahblah might win his civil war and restore "stability" there, that affects the price. And the price was already inflated so it's reasonable for it to come back down a bit.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

When Qaddaffi went bonkers on the protesters, 2% of the world's supply was at stake and oil flew. We saw time and time again that instability in the middle east raises the price of oil.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

Just not for supply reasons.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

But his neighbors, where the instability seems to be spreading, supply a bunch more.

Besides, the markets seem to over-react to uncertainty, it's not like we're seeing instability in Japan... outside of nuclear plants anyhow.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Because the Middle East is a region that collectively provides imports (though more Middle Eastern Oil goes to the Far East and Europe, the USA actually imports more oil from Canada and Mexico than from much of the Middle East) to a great part of the world, and fear of a domino effect can be much more powerful than sheer, mundane reality.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Actually... no. Japan is not going to switch (http://mitnse.com/2011/03/13/why-i-am-not-worried-about-japans-nuclear-reactors/) from nuclear.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

So... Obviously Japan is going to have to switch from nuke power to alternatives for some time to come.

I don't understand what's so obvious about this completely baseless claim.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it doesn't sound very serious.

[allhatnocattle.livejournal.com]

With cracked cores they'll need to be rebuilt, not just repaired. Even just the suspicion they may be cracked is enough to warrant replacement. I mean I guess they could do some half ass repair job. A little baleing wire, some duct tape, a wheel barrel of parging, etc. Even the bestest world famous nuclear repairmen won't be able to put HumptyDumpty together again.

So, for some time to come, maybe just a few years, but I suspect decades, they'll have to use another source for power.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I agree with one point: They shouldn't use this outdated technology anymore.

I disagree with your solution though: Instead they should invest in NEW reactors that use current, foolproof technology. You have to remember that these reactors were built pre-Chernobyl (albeit using a different method of cooling and some other stuff). Since then we've made leaps and bounds in reactor design.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the current designs have non-powered fail-states, for example.
No electricity required to keep them cool in a shutdown state, handled by gravity, pressure, etc.

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

There are several reasons. For the time being, many japanese oil refineries are closed and Japan is the 3rd oil-importing country in the world... Also a slowdown of the Japanese economy is predictable. The Japanese sell their shares to get liquidity for the reconstruction. This will have an impact on the global economy : a global slowdown (and oil consumption depends on economy). This is why every shares are falling. Now the investors prefer to invest in bonds rather than shares.

[tridus.livejournal.com]

Maybe they saw the Fox "News" report about nuclear power plants that are actually nightclubs and figured they could just stick some new ones in the closet (http://ca.gawker.com/5782025/fox-news-locates-nuclear-plant-in-nightclub)?

Seriously though... The price of oil is driven primarily by fear. There was a little less of that yesterday in terms of oil supply. What happens in Libya will affect it more then what happens in Japan.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Yes, irrational perceptions to a large extent drive the markets.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

More weight? I said no such thing. But let's dig.

Irrational is someone who's poorly informed or uninformed, and then uses solely their "intuition" to make decisions, not basing their decisions on any facts, data, knowledge of trends and events or any other such info. Decisions coming from the "gut" and "heart". Sometimes those turn out to be right. Many times, not. It's more a gamble than going the other way (which could be a gamble too, at times, but more often it's likely to be not).

But what's the worse part, people who are prone to more often using their "guts" to make decisions than their brains, are generally easier to manipulate by playing on their emotions, than those who first put everything to test, are skeptical and who ask the question "got any verified grounds/data for saying that?"

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

I see. We're to play semantic "I said - you said, I meant - you meant" games.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2002/12/09/333473/index.htm
http://www.fibtimer.com/subscribers_historical_reports/100822_fibtimer_commentary.asp
http://www.moneymanagement.com.au/tags/irrational-market-behaviour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrational_exuberance
http://investmentwatchblog.com/stock-market-irrational-exuberance/
http://wwwwww.mcgraw-hill.com.sg/html/9780071753371.html
http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/2011/2/Pages/Silver-Investing-Hits-Irrational-Exuberance-as-Price-Swings-54-.aspx
http://marketinfoforeveryone.blogspot.com/
http://weakonomics.com/2009/08/05/rational-investing-in-irrational-markets/
http://www.slate.com/id/2154152/
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/1/18/business/5475313&sec=business
http://robbourne.com.au/financial-news/the-irrational-market
http://seekingalpha.com/article/189996-can-investment-mistakes-be-considered-rational-decisions
http://www.thestreet.com/story/10436819/1/cramer-hedge-funds-are-moving-this-irrational-market.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Market-Can-Stay-Irrational-Longer-Than-You-Can-Stay-Solvent&id=1622074
http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/more.php?news_id=93418
http://citywire.co.uk/money/stock-picks-in-an-irrational-market/a353768
http://pennysleuth.com/the-stock-markets-irrational-buy-gold/
http://newswires-americas.com/markettalk/2009/08/28/is-irrational-market-cause-for-concern-or-are-speculators-just-having-fun/
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4279807
http://seekingalpha.com/article/208996-irrational-market-pessimism-part-one
http://www.safehaven.com/article/1895/irrational-market-bubbles-are-they-post-modern
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2010/04/27/am-irrational-people-make-irrational-market/
http://seekingalpha.com/article/114172-looking-for-opportunities-in-an-irrational-market-place
http://www.wyattresearch.com/article/irrational-market/22334
http://pennysleuth.com/making-sense-of-this-irrational-market/
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-05-04/ex-bear-stearns-chief-cayne-said-to-blame-market-forces-for-2008-collapse.html
http://www.supergolfonline.com/14397/irrational-market-pricing-the-mystery-of-callaway-golf-gurufocus-com/
http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=119579
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/3211193
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/behavioral-finance.htm
http://www.articlesbase.com/banking-articles/nigerian-banking-crisis-from-irrational-market-exuberance-to-regulatory-exuberance-1172041.html

[lai-choi-san.livejournal.com]

In fact, the oil price fall is part of a general phenomenon. Do you really think that what happens in Lybia is the only explanation for the American, European, Asian markets fall that we are observing now ?

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

So... Obviously Japan is going to have to switch from nuke power to alternatives for some time to come.

Except this is not happening.
What is your basis for this information.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

If one were doing an experimental analysis and the results were similar to what you state, the first thing that would come to mind is that you haven't accounted for all the variables.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Um, Japan has something like 16 Nuke plants and there were 3 damaged by the quake. Of those 3 only 1 is having serious problems and that one was already slated for retirement, odds of them doing any major shift away from Nuclear as slim to none and if they do it will not be towards Fossil Fuels because they don't have any and the cost of importing them would make other methods of generation relatively cheaper.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

53, actually.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

No, they have 53 Reactors, however those reactors are clustered into ~16 multi generator plants. For example Fukishima has 6 reactors but it is only 1 nuclear power plant.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

I see what you're saying.

Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]