Gas thoughts

[GregW]

I bet you like elevators

 

[Silverghost]

William, like you I take the METRA everyday for work. I did so so at first because road construction meant 1 1/2 drive times. Then gas started it's climb. Now I can't imagine driving everyday. My minivan has a 25 gallon tank (or there abouts) and at $4/gal and at least one tank a week - OUCH! My company allows me to purchase my METRA pass with pretax dollars, nice bonus!

Now with no gas bills, no maintenance costs, and other related expenses, I took the money I'm no longer spending and bought a 56 Jaguar! :laugh:

 

[terriphill]

My husband runs a territory and puts lots of miles on his company car. They give them a gas allowance. Last 1/4 we spent over $600 out of pocket for gas. Recently they decided something had to be done, so they upped the allowance-$35 a month! Not even a 1/2 a tank of gas anymore.
AAARGH.
It scares me about what these types of prices are going to do to the economy before the bubble bursts!

 

[angelfj1]

We don't see a substantial decrease in traffic here! :frown:

 

[William]

William, like you I take the METRA everyday for work. I did so so at first because road construction meant 1 1/2 drive times. Then gas started it's climb. Now I can't imagine driving everyday. My minivan has a 25 gallon tank (or there abouts) and at $4/gal and at least one tank a week - OUCH! My company allows me to purchase my METRA pass with pretax dollars, nice bonus!

Now with no gas bills, no maintenance costs, and other related expenses, I took the money I'm no longer spending and bought a 56 Jaguar! :laugh:

Well, my daily driver is an NA Miata that's suffered from, shall we say, some deferred maintenance for a couple years now. Driving it into the city would just be stupid. But, I've never cared much for hitting the expressways every day-I went to school in Chicago and rode the train every day so this is not a new routine for me at all. (Fun Fact: I dug my copy of <span style="font-style: italic">The Thin Man</span> out of the book boxes and found a Metra one-way ticket still stamped "C&NW". It was from August of 1995, probably from orientation when I transferred to school downtown)

Funny thing is, I've kinda sorta been looking at getting a new car. New new, not a used car-I'd just like to have a new car for a switch. But I'm hardly driving right now as it is, and I'll likely move into the city soon, which means more public transportation, so I'd be putting miniscule miles on it. Would be a waste of a new Mini (which I was scoping out the other day), or a Saturn Sky (found a used one at a dealership that caught my eye). Plus I don't really want to get rid of the Miata (it's virtually worthless, monetarily speaking), so that'd be two cars not being driven.

This is all hypothetical anyway-I haven't even gotten my first paycheck yet.

-Wm.

 

[AweMan]

We HAVE TO drive out here {the western states} Mass transit doesn`t even come close to bieng sufficient! {you can`t get there from here on mass transit!} $4.00 A gallon is KILLING US! Aside from bieng vast distances to where one needs to go, even "Economy" minded vehicles are a substantial whack out of our budgets. Then there is the FIXED INCOME issue for some of us. Our paycheck isn`t getting any bigger, the 4% C.O.L.A. we will recieve doesn`t even come close to the Actual C.O.L.A. due to rising prices. The only choice we have is to give up something nonessential in our budget to survive this "BUBBLE"
For now, it`s my TR-3 Project *SIGH*

We all know what the problem is with gas prices, all I will say is I hope "THEY" get off of thier derriers and do something soon. {doubtful, real doubtful}!
All I will say is this crisis isn`t ALL the oil companys fault like "THEY" want you to believe.
The rest of my comment would be much too political for further discussion.

 

[Basil]

We all know what the problem is with gas prices, all I will say is I hope "THEY" get off of thier derriers and do something soon. {doubtful, real doubtful}!
All I will say is this crisis isn`t ALL the oil companys fault like "THEY" want you to believe.
The rest of my comment would be much too political for further discussion.

Some of what needs to be done should have been done 10 years ago, but it never will be done because it isn't PC: Drilling and building new refineries (we've not built a new refinery in 30 years). These two things should be done WHILE we search for the holy grail of alternative fuels.

There are 2 primary reasons for the rise in prices: 1) Increased demand, especially in exploding economies such as China and 2) Speculators artificially driving up the price of crude. Believe it or don't.

Basil

 

[terriphill]

Is it correct that the U.S. has not built any new refineries since 1976? Add to that the loss of one in LA two years ago due to Katrina and another in MS (?) due to fire, both of which have not been replaced or repaired.
I understand part of this is the environmentalists who have put such restraints on repair/replacement/new construction, but overall...I would think that some of the "record breaking profits" we've seen from oil companies in the last three to five quarters should be invested somewhere.
I'm with Aweman on the mass transit thing..it doesn't exist in our area. Yes I drive an SUV-5 miles a day and a Midget whenever possible. But it doesn't help us when my husband drives a company owned van that we have to put gas into. That's where we are getting hit HARD! He has even tried putting his customers off until he is "in the area" in an attempt to save on miles, but this is not going over well with management. I don't know where this is going...we are hoping the bubble bursts soon.

 

[aerog]

I'm with y'all on the mass transit thing. It works great for my GF - but unless Disney sticks a monorail or TTA station down the street from me, the airport, the photolab, and a few other places, it won't work for me.

 

[Dave Richards]

We all know what the problem is with gas prices, all I will say is I hope "THEY" get off of thier derriers and do something soon. {doubtful, real doubtful}!
All I will say is this crisis isn`t ALL the oil companys fault like "THEY" want you to believe.
The rest of my comment would be much too political for further discussion.

Some of what needs to be done should have been done 10 years ago, but it never will be done because it isn't PC: Drilling and building new refineries (we've not built a new refinery in 30 years). These two things should be done WHILE we search for the holy grail of alternative fuels.

There are 2 primary reasons for the rise in prices: 1) Increased demand, especially in exploding economies such as China and 2) Speculators artificially driving up the price of crude. Believe it or don't.

Basil

10 years, or more, ago...very short sighted. I'm going to go out a limb here and say we will not see gas at under $4 again in the US, for all of the reasons, and more, stated above.

By the way, if you own mutual funds, changes are, you are the oil company investors. (If I'm not mistaken, something like 95 million Americans own oil stock.)

For some real fun, Google "peak Oil" and for some insane fun, read Kunstler's Long Emergency. Yea, he's depressing, but he's smart, apolitical, (or at least equally critical of all politicians) and makes some really astute observations about American society.

 

[PAUL161]

We have more oil than most people know about. In Oklahoma alone, West of Tulsa there are wells that were drilled in the late 40's that were capped off just after striking oil and never opened. Many successful wells have been drilled since then and many of them were also capped off. It's all about money folks, all about money!

 

[NutmegCT]

Basil: <span style="font-style: italic">"Some of what needs to be done should have been done 10 years ago, but it never will be done because it isn't PC: Drilling and building new refineries (we've not built a new refinery in 30 years). These two things should be done WHILE we search for the holy grail of alternative fuels.

There are 2 primary reasons for the rise in prices: 1) Increased demand, especially in exploding economies such as China and 2) Speculators artificially driving up the price of crude. Believe it or don't.
</span>

Completely agree! But I have to confess my ignorance here. Are USA refineries restricted to selling their gasoline/diesel only to USA distributors?

If USA begins drilling and pumping from all of its known fields, builds new refineries from coast to coast, and cranks up gasoline production all over the country ...

Would all that "newly available" gasoline go into USA gas tanks? Or into Chinese gas tanks because China is much more "desperate" for economic expansion than "developed" countries?

Thanks.
Tom

 

[Basil]

Completely agree! But I have to confess my ignorance here. Are USA refineries restricted to selling their gasoline/diesel only to USA distributors?

Would all that "newly available" gasoline go into USA gas tanks? Or into Chinese gas tanks because China is much more "desperate" for economic expansion than "developed" countries?

Thanks.
Tom

All of it? probably not. But since we are a net importer (as an exporter we are ranked #15), I would venture that most of it would go to domestic markets. But more importantly, the world supply would increase and just the threat of more supply would have the speculators who are driving the prices up jumping like rats from a sinking ship and the market prices for crude would decrease.

 

[tony barnhill]

DON'T GET ME STARTED!

 

[Mickey Richaud]

DON'T GET ME STARTED!

OK.

 

[tony barnhill]

Mick - did you link up with Jason while he was in-country?

 

[Dave Richards]

We have more oil than most people know about. In Oklahoma alone, West of Tulsa there are wells that were drilled in the late 40's that were capped off just after striking oil and never opened. Many successful wells have been drilled since then and many of them were also capped off. It's all about money folks, all about money!

It is about the money, and it's also about economy, e.g. the costs associated with production. There may very well be 100's or even 1000's of capped wells because the cost of producing the oil exceeds current value. Oil quality also factors in.

The longer refineries are maintained, as opposed to being built new, the lower the production costs of fuel are, but this is just one more factor of production.

The fact is "we" can't do much to increase, or decrease, the price of fuel. It's not an infinite supply, regardless of how much is left. Developing countries are going to increase demand and that's going to contribute, in a major way, to the upward pressure on the price at the pump. As fuel takes a proportionately larger percentage of operating expenses on business and households, there will be a steady decline in output and growth (recession).

All we can do is ride the waves that come, we can't make our own waves.

It's also worth considering that we currently consume about 90 million barrels of oil a day (as of 2007). We should look quantitatively at all known world oil reserves (usually inflated #'s) instead of referring anecdotally to wells here and there. Even by the best estimates, if we continue to consume oil at the current rate (which is unlikely) we'll have used up all known reserves in less than 40 years.

 

[aerog]

Oil. Fuel. Who cares. Isn't <span style="font-style: italic">anyone</span> upset with the price of gold? <span style="font-style: italic">ANYONE</span>!? Have you tried buying your girlfriend/wife jewelry lately? It's nuts.

Anyway, GAS-X is the solution to everything.

 

[DrEntropy]

read Kunstler's Long Emergency. Yea, he's depressing, but he's smart, apolitical, (or at least equally critical of all politicians) and makes some really astute observations about American society.

I've been picking it up and throwing it down again for over six months. :smirk: :madder:

 

[bugimike]

Why can't someone (smarter than I)take this technology and apply it to automotive propulsion? :confuse:

https://hytechapps.com/aquygen/generator