Hurray for High Gas Prices!

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Hence the need for some tough love .

The smarter of us drive more like 8,000 miles a year and drive cars that get closer to 30 mpg.

What do you do? Only take jobs that are on your block?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sprayber
Do you happen to have a three seater bicycle that the two kids could ride on behind me? Perhaps a really big basket in front to carry all the **** I have to have with me.

You were talking about a commute to work. You can own a car and not use it to commute.

[Kuciwalker]

@ Spec

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon


Fine, but what are you going to do about the wasted infrastructure? As I said above, that's a lot of money.

I don't think it's as serious a problem as you may think.

Rebuilding isn't necessarily a bad thing for an economy.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by Kidicious


What do you do? Only take jobs that are on your block?

Even 8000 miles is high. I put maybe 6000-8000 km a year on my car.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


I think the "normal" or average or whatever milage is something like 12,000 miles a year. Though I drive much less than that on an annual basis.

12,000 a year is what a lot of leasing companies consider to be average.

To everyone else comparing mileage. My daily commute is 22 miles round trip which comes to (22 * 5days a week * 48 work weeks a year) = 5280. Even if I double the mileage for nonwork travel it still comes to less then 11,000 a year and my Toyota gets a decent 28 miles per gallon average (an older Camry). My Dad's work is even closer and he has bought a VW Passat turbo diesel which gets a combined 42 mpg. Best of all he goes down to Tijuana once a month to be cheap medications for him and his girlfriend (much cheaper then US) and while there he fills up with diesel which the Mexican government subsidizes so that it costs half as much as in the US. About $2.45 per gallon vs $4.75 per gallon north of the border.

Those $2.30 saved add up when you consider the tank is 28 gallons.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
But even those with the up-front capital or credit weren't purchasing it. Even with generous tax incentives. The carrot just wasn't working.

Some people were getting on-board. Costs were decreasing. It takes time for such changes to occur. I remember my first PC cost $4k, and it wasn't really anything special (even for it's time). But costs come down and now you can get a PC for $400.

Technology needs time to take hold and drop in cost. Driving up costs (relative to purchasing power) delays the ability to adopt it.

In that situation, how many people do you think were banging down the doors for solar panels, if only they could afford them?

Me, for one. (Though I'd prefer a parabolic dish/array, that'd be awesome.)

Have the government basically give away the solar panels by huge tax breaks on buying them. That would solve that problem wouldn't it?

Not for people losing their homes. Not for people who can't afford the panels in the first place. But it is an important step... if the lost revenue is made up somehow. We can't afford more debt. And the economy needs to be strong for the technology to be more within reach.

And as I said, in CA it already was the case you could get wind/solar installations that were basically free after tax breaks. (If not right off, then within a few years.) The real issue is people's ignorance. Educating people about the cost:benefit would be somewhere to start. Most people probably don't even know the tax breaks exist, or how it will affect their pocketbook.

Undermining people's ability to afford to do so is not a good solution.

Increased acreage to Biofuel has been around for waaay longer than this crisis.

I said rising fuel costs. Which have been going on for quite some time now.

It's not a long term fix, but spending on mass transit and a move to more fuel efficient cars is going to help out quite a bit in the long run. The oil shocks of the 70s gave a MASSIVE boost to more fuel efficient cars, especially from Japan. Without that shock, I dunno if the Camry or Accord would be the best selling car in the US.

But the dumb went right back to gas guzzlers when the shock was over. In fact we as a society increased our dependence on oil afterward. We added SUVs to the sports cars, and extended suburbia and the car culture even further.

Once this shock wears off the real issues are still going to exist.

[Hauptman]

This thread just made me throw up a little in my mouth...


A bunch of kool-aid drinkers here arent there. Ok now back to the real world. Higher gas prices mean those things that require gas (such as trucking/ trains/ power stations/ toy manufacturing/ shoe manufacturing/ Cheesycreammycheesy bagels... The list goes on forever) Have to offset the higher cost by passing in on to you, the consumer. Higher fuel costs = higher everything costs. It isnt just for JoeBlow and his suv. It's moms who need to buy baby formula, dads who want a new set of golf clubs, and forum trolls who wish to spend more time trolling the web.

You think wages will increase to offset this? well if they offest the wages, that requires more price raising, thus negating the wage increase.

"Ok make more ethenol." Ethenol in this country is made from corn. Corn used to be used to make food. I'm not just talking tortillas here, they feed it to chickens. Chickens make poultry and eggs (man I'm getting hungry) they feed it to cows for your bigmacattacks. Now here's the real kicker. Corn has to be grown using fertalizer, it absolutely will not grow without it. Industrial Fertilizer is a HYDROCARBON made from OIL! Did that one sink in? So in effect you need to use more oil to make more corn to turn into ethanol, thus again, gaining no net gain other than food riots.

Hydrogen cars! Well... lets take a moment to think about a cars exhaust. In todays cars you have 3 main exhaust gasses. H2O, that is... water. CO2 you know, that noxiouse gas coming out of your pie whole right now that they seem to think is melting the planet. And NOx, an inert gas that in large quantities looks brown, but is otherwise very harmless. So water, co2 and 'smog'. 1 gallon of gassoline properly combusted = 99% water vapor, and that remaining 1% is split between the other 2. Todays cars are very clean, If you turned one on in some of the 'smogiest' locals, like mexico city, the exhaust is cleaner than the outside air. So now we come back to Hydrogen cars. Fuel cells. Yippie for the hippie. You know how they make that hydrogen for your fuel cell. They take H2O, combine it with a carbon (that is burn it in laymens terms) wich causes the Oxygen to seperate from the hydrogen and cling to a carbon atom. So now. 1 H from water leaves 2 O to combine with that carbon to create CO2. At a 50% ratio you realize that creats more co2 than your car or pie hole does right?

The answer? screw to migratory perry stork's nesting grounds and put in a darned oil well. Because oil is still the best thing going. And if you like modern life, deal with the occasional oil spill or else, just go live with your moose and let me live the life I want. You know, the one that has computers and the electricity to power them.

That is all.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by notyoueither


I don't think it's as serious a problem as you may think.

Rebuilding isn't necessarily a bad thing for an economy.

?

If that were true, we'd just keep building ghost towns.

[Garth Vader]

Originally posted by Hauptman
This thread just made me throw up a little in my mouth...

The answer? screw to migratory perry stork's nesting grounds and put in a darned oil well. Because oil is still the best thing going. And if you like modern life, deal with the occasional oil spill or else, just go live with your moose and let me live the life I want. You know, the one that has computers and the electricity to power them.

That is all.

So there is enough oil in protected areas to keep prices lower forever?
Or will there be just enough supply to lower prices for a few years then we'll be right back in the same spot we are in now, except having destroyed some irreplaceable natural beauty.

[Arrian]

Drilling in ANWR would hardly impact prices, IIUC. It's not a solution.

We will be dependant on oil for a while yet. But we can either get to work now on switching over to alternatives, or we can stick our heads in the sand and pretend it's not a problem. High gas prices tend to remove people's heads from the sand, forcefully.

-Arrian

[Dinner]

High prices are the best solution to wasteful use of energy.

[Krill]

Originally posted by Hauptman
Hydrogen cars! Well... lets take a moment to think about a cars exhaust. In todays cars you have 3 main exhaust gasses. H2O, that is... water. CO2 you know, that noxiouse gas coming out of your pie whole right now that they seem to think is melting the planet. And NOx, an inert gas that in large quantities looks brown, but is otherwise very harmless. So water, co2 and 'smog'. 1 gallon of gassoline properly combusted = 99% water vapor, and that remaining 1% is split between the other 2. Todays cars are very clean, If you turned one on in some of the 'smogiest' locals, like mexico city, the exhaust is cleaner than the outside air. So now we come back to Hydrogen cars. Fuel cells. Yippie for the hippie. You know how they make that hydrogen for your fuel cell. They take H2O, combine it with a carbon (that is burn it in laymens terms) wich causes the Oxygen to seperate from the hydrogen and cling to a carbon atom. So now. 1 H from water leaves 2 O to combine with that carbon to create CO2. At a 50% ratio you realize that creats more co2 than your car or pie hole does right?

Wrong.

[Krill]

Honestly, Who here understands how a hydrogen fuel cell works?

[DinoDoc]

I don't really see the problem with drilling here as part of an over all program to solve the issue. In and of itself, it really isn't a solution though.