time to send a message

[Ell]

i don't know about the rest of you, but i'm getting tired of big oil dictating to me how much i have to shell out of my paycheck every week to put gas in my car.

what, are we powerless here? is there nothing we can do?

the number of members in the Gasoline Users Who Drive Cars Association is what, 70 million people in the U.S. alone, with what, anther 1.5 billion international members?

and we have less power than the oil companies?

i hereby call a boycott! walk, ride your bike, carpool, anything that reduces your weekly fuel consumption, and tell all your friends, and tell them to tell all their friends. Pass it on!

[cindianna_jones]

I've been doing that for the past few years.  I only drive three times a week.  That's total trips.  I plan everything around one of those three trips.  I only fill up once every 6 weeks or so.

Yes!  Use less and spend less!  Put the money to something more important..... geeesh... I wonder what that might be?

Cindi

[tekla]

Got rid of my car (which I dearly loved) on 9-12 thinking that they could have my car before they ever got my kids.  I walk, ride a bike and take public transit.  The best part is I have an extra month vacation every year for not having to work to pay for the car, gas, tires, parking, taxes, plates, insuring the beast and all the rest of it.

[natalie]

bike commuted to work for well over a year.
it was great, i was fit and lean.

but after getting run off the road one too many times, the last time into the back of a parked van
i called it a quits. ouch...

moral is to ride defensively. like no one sees you. and wear a helmet.

[Ell]

I've been doing that for the past few years.  I only drive three times a week.  That's total trips.  I plan everything around one of those three trips.  I only fill up once every 6 weeks or so.

Yes!  Use less and spend less!  Put the money to something more important..... geeesh... I wonder what that might be?

Cindi

every 6 weeks? that is incredible. you are inspiring.
i cut my gas consumption by half on Mon. and Tue., and also carpooled once this week...

[LostInTime]

To make the biggest change right now you have to figure out a way to run the speculative investors out of the market. When we had pretty much a small niche of investors who had a good grasp on the market, the system worked. Now there is a huge influx of investors looking to make a quick buck.

[tekla]

I do not think there is any change you can make that will shift the basic problem that oil is finite, the supply is diminishing, and the demand is still rising. 

[LostInTime]

Plenty of supply for the foreseeable future. Technology does amazing things.

[tekla]

Classical economics tells us that if you have ever less of something that people want ever more of, the price is going to skyrocket.

Oil reserves are such that with current usage rates we have about 40 years of oil left, but that number may well be as low as 15-27 years.  Not a long time.

2/3 of that oil sits under Mideast nations that are not exactly our friends.

The USA uses about 25% of the world's oil, despite having 5% of the population (though demand in both China and India is growing at close to 7% over the last decade - which equates to a quadrupling of demand in 20 some years).  On a daily basis, the USA uses about 882 million gallons of crude oil.  Sorry, there is no possible energy source in the foreseeable future that can replace 882 million gallons a day.  Just stop for a second and try to visualize 882 million gallons, per day, every day.

Oil - production:  7.61 million bbl/day (2005 est.)
Oil - consumption:  20.73 million bbl/day (2004 est.)
Oil - exports:  1.048 million bbl/day (2004)
Oil - imports:  13.15 million bbl/day (2004)
(source: CIA Factbook)

I would encourage you to find the site, Life After the Oil Crash, because the effects of what is going on are far flung, and far reaching.

But here are just two that are ongoing as we read this.

1. The value of houses built on the periphery of urban areas is in free-fall.  I saw a recent article where a house valued at over a million dollars last year could not be sold for $700,000 one year later.  This is going on all over the United States. 

2. The shift from pricing oil in dollars to euros has caused the currency of the US to lose huge amounts of late.  Over the last three months the dollar has lost one cent every three weeks, and while a penny does not seem huge, there are only 100 of them per dollar.  For the first time in history the Canadian dollar is worth more than the US dollar, and not by a little, it jumped by a lot.  One odd effect of this is that in places like New York and SF the influx of foreign tourists has been a boom.  Its cheeper for people to fly to SF, get a hotel and do their Xmas shopping then it is to stay in Japan because the rate of exchange is so good right now that they can buy stuff here for often half of what it would cost in Japan.  In contrast, a friend of mine just got back from Paris where given the rate of exchange, a coffee and a roll at Starbucks (yes they have them in Paris too) is about $20.

[LostInTime]

I actually write on this and have tread the whole peak oil hysteria over and over again. They were wrong in the 70s and they are wrong now. This is merely an adjustment period to other countries finally starting to do things like industry and energy infrastructure. India has more nuclear plants that will be coming online in the next few years and other countries are expanding their refining capacity.

The oil companies have sunk their monies into exploration, expansion, and even alternative energy. There have been huge pockets of oil found around the world but it will take time to get everything ready to roll. Ohio is going to start drilling in their state and others are sure to follow. Technology has been growing and the oil fields have only been upgrading as they need to in order to increase their recoverable oil quota.

If you want to do something constructive, get people to use CFLs. Save $$$$ on the bills, reduce emissions, and reduce demand for foreign oil. Just be sure to recycle them when they burn out. I have one that finally went out on its 6th birthday and have reduced my electric bill by an average of $30/month.

[Ell]

I do not think there is any change you can make that will shift the basic problem that oil is finite, the supply is diminishing, and the demand is still rising. 

forgive me, but i don't accept that. it sounds exactly like something the oil companies would say. the way i see it, there is not a fuel crisis, just a perception of a fuel crisis. which is exactly what the oil companies want us to believe. trust me, when the oil runs out, they will have mysteriously figured out another way to produce an alternative fuel for around the same jacked-up price, and they'll use the same tired logic: fuel is in crisis mode! what a crock. everyone knows the sun provides more than enough energy in one day than the entire world's energy needs for a year. but they won't figure that out until all the fossil fuels have been sold, burned, and done their damage to the environment. yes, we can make a difference, if we all pull together. just look at Cindi's example. Boycott. boycott. boycott.

-ell

[Suzy]

I commute to work, but cannot carpool, as I am called out from my office to many places every day.  I never know what each day will bring.  So that won't work for me, unfortunately.

I think it's as simple as the law of supply and demand, or more accurately, the public perception thereof.  LIT is right about the oil reserves.  Certainly the supply of oil is finite, but it will indeed last quite a long while.  There is enough known oil in Alaska to make the USA self sufficient, but for environmental reasons, some are afraid to get it.  The northeast coast has vast reserves that can't be touched for political reasons.  New technology is making wells productive again on the Gulf Coast, and I could go on.  Basically, for the forseeable future, there is plenty of oil.  Those are the facts.  To alleviate the crisis we need the following:
1.  A government who will bring sanity into this energy chaos, and stop the big oil companies from raping the people.  I, for one, am tired of not being able to afford groceries every time someone in Pakistan or Iran sneezes funny.  None of this has ever caused a shortage of supply, though we pay as if it did.
2.  A government who will actively support developing our own oil assets.  Environmentally friendly ways of producing oil and gas exist now, so why are we buying foreign?
3.  Alternative forms of energy must be developed that will bring an end to the excessive need for petrolium.  Wind power needs to be expanded.  Solar is OK for residential supplementation.  Ethanol production should be greatly expanded, though at current, it takes a lot of energy just to produce ethaol, so we need better technology.  Nuclear energy needs to make a comeback.  It has proven itself to be safe and effective.  Some of the experiments with wave motion sound promising to me.  Of course, fuel cells are awesome and totally pollution free, though there needs to be a better way to produce cheap hydrogen.  Hybrid cars need to be better and more available to the public, meaning that the initial cost and the maintenance costs need to be as good as or better than a traditional gasoline vehicle. 
4.  If we could do the above, our need for oil would run short way before the supply did.

If we do not stop the lunacy we are certainly going to end up in recession.  There is not enough extra money to absorb the steep jump in transportation cost.

Kristi

[LostInTime]

There is a new study showing that ethanol blends around the E-30 range actually have increased gas mileage for some vehicles, including those that were not labeled as flex fuel capable. Also a new poll shows a very strong sentiment for ethanol expansion in spite of the misinformation campaign by the petroleum interests.

[Christo]

I live in frisco.  I paid 3.75 for a gallon of gas today.  man!  thats hella expensive.  I take the bus sometimes.  I walk to work.  only live 7 blocks away.  I'm a comercial driver so I dont pay for the gas the truck wastes.  ppl gotta take buses or subways and dont buy gas.  thats the only way.

[Berliegh]

Try living in the U.K where we pay far more for our fuel than you do....

We now have a car that runs on LPG...

[Jordan]

Half the world pay $12 a gallon, I pay $3 for it... Point put

I'm not complaining, the stuff will run out eventually, it will be funny.

Sorry to sound so sarcastic, they already have pure electric cars capable of 250 mile trips between refills that you plug into a outlet, plus it does 0-60 in 3.7 seconds and is only $60,000, 2 cents per mile.  Im saving for a Breast Augmentation and that car. LOL

But then again I drive a 440hp V8 mustang so Im a hypacrit

http://www.teslamotors.com/

[Wing Walker]

I really wonder about the true cost of driving a gasoline/electric hybrid car, or that of an all-electric car.  Does anyone have reliable numbers for the life cycle cost of a hybrid or an all-electric compared to a gasoline-powered vehicle that gets 15 miles per gallon average?

There must be a cost here for fossil fuel needed to generate electricity to recharge the car that has not been factored-in.  I'd appreciate some numbers to make a valid comparison.

IMHO the supply of oil available to the American consumer is greater than we are being lead to believe.  The oil cartels (can you say "Bush" and "Cheney" and "Halliburton" and "Osama bin Laden", et al?  When the price per barrel is high enough to finance the rebirth of the United Arab Emirates and make it worth the while of domestic American producers to shear we, the sheeple, the oil will flow, refineries will be modernized, and we will have no more gas pains.  Between fuel, heating oil, food, housing, and taxes we will be in a new "Gilded Age" where the difference between the haves and have nots will be greater than ever in the history of this nation.

The soapbox is now open.  Thank you for hearing me out.

Wing Walker

P.S.  I believe that a Ford Mustang with a 440hp V-8 Ford Mustang must be getting 15+ mpg if it's fuel injected.

[Jordan]

Well it is stated by tesla that the cost per mile is averaged at 2 cents, so 20 miles of driving would cost you $.40USD, better than $4.00

As for the life cycle, the tesla car uses li-ion batteries 18,640 of them to be exact, the point to it using so many is as they fail just replace individual cells, In essence the rest of the car is just a car, except for the electric motor, and it is well known that electric motors take 100 times more abuse than a gasoline engine, so I would say it is pretty certain that a Tesla model car will last with proper maintence (which they quote at every 12k miles) theoretically much better than a gasoline car with it hundreds of systems that fail because of hundreds of factors.

I mean the point is your car fuel bill, is included into your home electricity bill, I like the idea personally, plus the car fully charges in 3.5 hours.

Oh and ya 15-16MPG when I drive good, 8-12 when I dont LOL ALL MOTOR, and its a 2000 V8 GT

[Sarah]

Here's my message:

I also take the bus for everything else. I see no need to won a car in a place with good public transportation. Especially since I don't have a business that requires one.

[IsabelleStPierre]

Well...not having a car any more is perhaps the largest step that I can take...no more money spent on gas! At least without having to put money into the gas tank of a car I can afford to keep my HRT going! Priorities, priorities...

Peace and love,
Isabelle St-Pierre