OT - The price of gasoline

[nancy]

Two years ago we rented a diesel Punto when we spent two weeks in Yorkshire. We loved it! Got over 50 mpg. And, yes, I did all the conversions.

 

Claire, do they still make the Bedford Rascal? I absolutely love those. They look like mini VW vans - and half the width - like maybe no passenger side.

[philologus]

I drive a 2litre diesel Citroen Picasso.

Diesel costs about $7 a gallon where I live (UK).

Because I add a fuel additive called Titan 20, I get 56mpg. I drive around 15,000 miles a year.

There is a 1.6 litre common rail diesel version of my car available that does 0-60 in ten seconds and gets around 60mpg.

I live in the north east of the UK and a company has just started producing bio-diesel so I'm hoping that this will be available soon.

[Claire Owen]

I dont think they still make them , Nancy. But its still fairly easy to get hold of one! They are by far the cutest vans we see over here!!!

[DebC]

I remember when my father, sister and brother all owned VW bugs - excellent gas mileage and with the engine in the rear they were great in the winter!!!

Now I own a Subaru and think I am doing well with about 30mpg (highway). I just changed jobs in the spring and now drive farther to work, and I do feel the pinch. Plus the lovely state of NY with all of its taxes put my gas at over 3$ a gallon (still).

Someone is actually building an ethanol plant in one of the neighboring counties, and it is being welcomed because of the jobs it will create during construction/operation. But don't you dare say "wind turbine" around here!! LOL! That is a perfect case of NIMBY!!!! Personally, I would love to have a wind generator for our house, but even with the incentives it is still cost prohibitive at this time. It is in our long term plans, though!!

[Lunar]

We're really feeling the effects of the prices here because hubby and I share a vehicle... which means I have to drive him to work, drive home, go to work, come home to let the dogs out and get changed, go pick up hubby, drive home. And we have an SUV (for the dogs, of course). We can't really change anything, though I stay home when I'm not working to conserve driving. When we get a second vehicle it was going to be another SUV - now we're thinking a nice car for hubby.

[IronHorse]

IMHO the world and especially the USA face an economic catastrophe as the supply of oil dwindles in the coming years.

IMHO the world and especially the USA face an energy revolution as the supply of "easy to get" oil dwindles in the coming years.

 

If you Google ?proven oil reserves? you will see that the USA reserves are 21.4 billion barrels of oil. With a consumption rate of over 20 million barrels per day, and assuming we imported no oil, our own supply would run out after 1068 days -- just under three years.

"proven oil reserves" have always been subject to suspect due to a multitute of reasons.

By definition, a proven reserve is one that can be developed economically. But many oil reserves fall somewhat below a standard index of affordability and are therefore not counted. In addition, there are political issues. Most proven reserves estimates are kept in synch with Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) estimates, and OPEC production quotas have long been tied to proven reserves. As a result, known oil producing areas are not explored, reserves are not reported, and reported reserves are discounted for commercial and political reasons.

 

1879 -- US Geological Survey formed in part because of fear of oil shortages

1882 -- Institute of Mining Engineers estimates 95 million barrels of oil remain.

1920 -- David White, chief geologist of USGS, estimates total oil remaining in the US at 6.7 billion barrels.

1926 -- Federal Oil Conservation Board estimates 4.5 billion barrels remain.

1932 -- Federal Oil Conservation Board estimates 10 billion barrels of oil remain.

1944 -- Petroleum Administrator for War estimates 20 billion barrelsof oil remain.

1950 -- American Petroleum Institute says world oil reserves are at 100 billion barrels.

1980 -- Remaining proven oil reserves put at 648 billion barrels

1993 -- Remaining proven oil reserves put at 999 billion barrels

2000 -- Remaining proven oil reserves put at 1016 billion barrels.

 

There are, Mark Twain famously said, three types of lies: "lies, damned lies, and statistics."

 

The bottom line is that there is a lot more more oil out there than conventional wisdom reports from the "proven" reserve category.

 

Considering all the original oil supply in the ground, the USA reached the halfway point of its consumption in 1970. The cold hard truth is that the USA is almost out of oil. We depend on foreign oil to supply us with this indispensible commodity.

This is a fallacy and is based solely on the "easy to get oil"

 

"In 1971, the world's proven oil reserves were 612 billion barrels. Since then, the world has produced 767 billion barrels. We should have run out of reserves five years ago, but we didn't. In fact, today's proven reserves are 1,028 billion barrels, or 416 billion barrels more than 1971.

 

How could this be?

 

Thanks to improved exploration and development techniques, costs have declined, investments have been made and reserves have been created. The sky is not falling."

 

~ Forbes

The USA is far from being "almost out of oil"

In fact the USA holds the largest known oil reserve on the planet.

This reserve is known as The Green River Formation

(a stretch of land covering portions of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming)

 

There are over 16,000 square miles of oil shale in the Green River formation...

The most abundant areas hold up to 2 million barrels of oil per acre ? it?s the most concentrated energy source on earth, according to the Energy Department.

The federal government owns 80% of this oil-rich land.

In fact, the government placed protective legislation on this land in 1930, forbidding anyone to touch it.

You see, the government always knew this land was saturated with oil ? but getting it out has always been expensive.

Buying oil from foreign countries was always the cheaper bet. It has been for the past 80 years.

The US contains about 70% of the world's oil shale reserves, or 2 trillion barrels, which is equal to 8 times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Colorado contains 1 trillion barrels of the richest oil shale reserves in the US (and in the world).

Below forty dollars a barrel, oil-shale oil is not competitive with conventional crude oil. If the price of oil were to stay permanently over forty dollars a barrel (with no chance of declining, which could be the case if oil shale were to be exploited on a large enough scale), then companies would exploit oil shale.

It now appears that it may be possible to economically produce these oil reserves in a very environmentally-friendly way. In-situ production avoids the surface disturbance of the ground.

Many Processes for in situ retorting of oil shale have been developed as well as patented.This is not a new technology by any means, but it is a technology that is being refined and improved for efficiency 24/7 at this time.

 

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 signed into law on August 8, 2005 has opened this area for the development of oil shale.

A great deal of activity is taking place at this time by a multitude of developers to exploit this massive reserve.

 

Bottomline "Necessity is the mother of invention" and unless or until a viable alternative energy source which is economicaly superior, you can bet the bank that this oil will be squezzed from the ground.

 

Meanwhile, the dynamics of the world oil market are undergoing major changes. On a global scale the world?s two most populous countries, China and India, are ramping up their economies. That requires a lot more oil. The market and price of oil is global, so the USA will be competing with all other nations for the limited and decreasing supply.

Isn't a global economy exactly what the world needs to stablize the human condition and allow us to forge ahead into the future to create a global community that has the potential to be prosperous??

 

In case you haven?t been reading the world news lately, there in a high worldwide level of concern over Iran?s apparent program to build nuclear bombs. The radical Iranian leadership seems intent on going nuclear and are showing no sign of being willing to dismantle their program. It might very well be that the only way to stop Iran is through military force. But if that were done, Iran would almost certainly shut down the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic. That would cause economic chaos, the likes of which the world has never seen.

Your assuming that in the event of a military solution Iran would have the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.

Don't underestimate the USA's military ability, even if the rest of the world were to sit on their hands (which they wouldn't)the USA is more then capable of removing Iran from the equation. The oil will flow and god forbid that the USA takes the gloves off and uses its military to its full potential.The world would witness an event the likes of which it has never seen.

 

How would you deal with having to spend $250 to fill up your gas guzzler?

The same way I deal with spending what I do now to fill them up, pay for it

[Hector]

My working career spanned 35 years. In 1965 I bought a 3/4 ton Chev pickup truck new. I sold it in 2000 with 80,000 miles on it. I only used the truck when I really had to have a motor vehicle.

 

During that time I rode a bicycle about 6000 miles a year (commuted to work) and took the public bus another 1000 miles a year. Riding the bike saved a lot of money and the exercise kept me healthy. I am retired now and this summer I am pedaling the bike about 120 miles a week for exercise.

 

The nice part about bicycle commuting is that it incorporates your exercise into your daily routine. But to be safe a person must be able to ride on low traffic streets away from heavy car traffic. I purposely chose the location of my residence to make that possible.

[KrisK]

Also posted on converting gas vehicle thread

 

There is a future for electric cars - check this website. The philosophy is create the BEST car for the 'rich' and then the technology will filter down so it becomes affordable. If you can make 'electric' appealing - that's the way to get changes happening.

 

http://www.teslamotors.com/index.php?js_enabled=1

[Dixie_Girl]

The problem with elec is that you need to plug them in. Which means more elec will need to be produced and it becomes a vicious circle. Of course if your house is solar powered you would have free fuel! I am thinking they should be able to come up with a solar roof for cars. Coupled with alternators on each wheel so that as the car is going it returns juice to the battery. To me that would be ideal. They already have deep cell batteries that could handle a lot of recharging. There are ways elec could work.

[KrisK]

Actually, they are already working on a special paint that will allow for solar power...just imagine, your car's paint will provide the power.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/toronto/features/solar/sargent.html

 

here's the link to the article...now if we could just convince the 'powers that be' to spend some $$ on the research...oil would be almost a thing of the past

[Dixie_Girl]

I've always said that with all the evidence of what solar power can do and how we can use it, the only reason it isn't out there is that the guvment ain't figured out how to tax the sun!

[Hector]

It is easy to get excited about some new technology and then start thinking that it will solve everything. Unfortunately it is usually a very long way from building a single test model and putting the technology into mass production.

 

If the sun were shining directly overhead 24 hours a day then solar panels could be installed at houses and they would supply all the electricity needs. But on the average it is dark for half of the 24 hours, and for at least a third of the daylight hours the sun is low in the sky. It would be very complicated to have mechanical devices on all the solar panels that kept them pointed directly at the sun as it moves through the sky each day. And when there is heavy overcast (clouds) the sun's rays don't work well.

 

All this means that the time when the sun can supply good power to solar panels is a limited number of hours per day. And it also means that very large (and costly) battery arrays must be installed to store electric power generated from the sun so that the power can be used when the sun isn't shining enough or at all. If a person lives out in a rural area, they may have enough land to put out a big array of solar panels. If a person lives in high density housing in an urban area they don't have any place to put solar panels.

 

I haven't priced it out, but I am guessing that if a homeowner tried to install enough solar panels and batteries to handle all the electric needs of a standard house, the cost would be very substantial. If it were easy and reasonably priced, people would be doing it. But we don't hear about that being done. It works fine on an experimental test basis, but it is not cost effective on a mass production basis.

[Dixie_Girl]

Well, I know there are people who invested the $30,000 it takes to go completely solar. New houses are being built that have copper tubing running through the floor and hot water heated by solar power is used for heating the houses. It is said this type of heating is more effective because there are no hot/not so hot spots. And this would be used exclusively in the winter. Just like people think you can only get a tan when the sun is shining. Not so. The ONLY sunburn I ever had in my life was on a cool day with cloud cover! It is not heat that we get the power of solar. Solar power is probly one of the best bets as far as I can see. The biggest prob with elect. is that it can not be "stored" easily. Batteries are the best thing we have so far. Also, the technology of solar has moved up. The panels are much smaller than when they first attempted it. And even if we had to depend on grid elect. during the night, it would be way less than all the time. Most elect use is during the day. Unless they are nightowls such as myself! I still am putting my bet on solar.