Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Raapys said:
Hah, here in Norway we've been at $4'ish/gal for years"

That's because Europe has very high taxes on gasoline making it artificially expensive. The US has similar taxes, but not to the extent most European nations do. This is largely because the US can and does produce a lot of its oil natively (more so than Europe can), so has less need to try to limit usage in an effort to reduce trade deficits a bit with OPEC nations et all.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Also the US cannot be compared to other countries (other than a few) due to the size and the scale of the industrialization. This isn't an excuse though, just has to be taken into consideration when comparing to other countries.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Here in Canada, we haven't been below $1 (CDN) per liter for a long time now (approximately equal to $4/gal). We produce a hell of a lot of oil domestically...too bad producing oil domestically has nothing to do with price, since NAFTA screws us over, as usual.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

In my state we have the 6th highest gas tax and currently are paying $3.50 a gal for regular. We have three refineries and get our oil directly from Alaska. So I ask you, why the hell is the cost of gas so bloody damned expensive here? Simple, price gouging. The State AGO and many legislators are looking into it. Of course the oil company's, much like the tobacco companies and the energy companies, deny any wrong doing, but we all know better.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

It is not as simple as gouging.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2006/05/katrinagasprices.shtm
http://www.illinois.gov/gasprices/pgVspv.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...042701693.html

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

*waits for GuyOfDoom's snarky response to aegisx' links, which largely factor in that whole supply and demand thing*

"...the post-hurricane gasoline price increases at the national and regional levels were approximately what would be predicted by the standard supply-and-demand model of a market performing competitively. The conduct of firms in response to the supply shocks from the hurricanes was consistent with competition. In particular, firms diverted supply from lower-priced areas to higher priced areas, firms drew down their inventories, refineries not affected by the hurricanes increased output, and gasoline imports increased."

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

More data:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/perfpro/major_findings.htm

The pdf linked there tells you the how much and why.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Until there is a cheap, reliable, and scalable method to convert cellulose crop waste into ethanol and misc other chemicals (one would hope fertilizers for the next generation of crops...), ethanol is not the way out. Hopefully some of the research dollars going into biotech can finance a marketable solution. I'm not holding my breath yet.

I suppose American taste in cars doesn't help either. Or the fact that many Americans are so gullible when it comes to marketing claims. For example, I saw an ad for a new Lexus car, a "green, SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle)"... that gets 23mpg. That does not strike me as Super Ultra Low Emissions...

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

It might not be ALL about price gouging but come on, you think those companies aren't watching people getting pissed off about the cost and screaming for new fuel sources? Once those sources are found and established it's going to be bye bye for the oil companies, at least the ones that dont have their hands in the cookie jar and are pulling the strings behind the companies that establish those new sources. It might not even be bye bye, but it more than likely will be bye bye to $36 billion in profits. Which means no more $400 million retirement packages. Which means, "Lets gouge now, just in case, call it a parachute".

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

May 15th is national "Don't Buy Gas" day, to protest.

"Rumor has it a gas boycott will be in effect on May 15, 2007. Have you heard of this? ... The e-mail stated, "Do not buy gas on May 15. In April 1997, there was a 'gas out' conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight. There are 73,000,000-plus Americans currently on the Internet network, and the average car takes about $30 to $50 to fill up. If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,292,000,000 out of the rich oil company's pockets for just one day. So please do not go to the gas station on May 15, and let's try to put a dent in the Middle Eastern oil industry for at least one day."
Greg M., Lake Charles, La.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Only problem with that is I remember that last year, nobody went, gas prices were down the day nobody was buying gas and the next day they went up.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

May 15th sounds like the perfect day to fill up.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

As mentioned earlier the previous gas shortage caused by OPEC in the 70's caused a few key events to happen. Most other developed nations implemented measures to reduce their dependance on foreign oil by making more efficient vehicles, improving their mass transportation and other measures along that lines.

The US decided it was going to be the "best" and provide everything for itself and starting looking into providing oil for itself. Thus Europe and the like have had "high" gas prices for sometime, but the price has remained relativly consistent. Presently the bottom is falling out of the US's ability to supply it's own oil and thus we're starting to see the shift in prices towards what Europe has seen for awhile.

So what's my problem with American Oil companies you might ask? Well they're the ones that helped push the move for self-dependance so much that NO alternatives were really ever considered. Now we're reaching the point were the end of the world's oil reserves are within a generation and America isn't even close to making a transition off of oil.

Yes there is supply and demand. My problem comes from the fact that most of the demand is artificially generated by the oil companies. There is some influence by world events and natural disasters to be sure, but these are overhyped and over-publicized to help justify the increased prices. If the oil companies actually cared about the general economy of the nation as opposed to their investors it would be a much different story. It's fine if you want to argue for profit margins in a corporation, my problem comes from corporate utilities that literally hold the nation's status in the palm of their hands and choose to still operate with the shareholders in mind rather than the general public.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

The government does not agree with you about demand:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/oil.html

"In the IEO2006 reference case, world oil demand grows from 80 million barrels per day in 2003 to 98 million barrels per day in 2015 and 118 million barrels per day in 2030. Demand increases strongly despite world oil prices that are 35 percent higher in 2025 than in last year’s outlook. Much of the growth in oil consumption is projected for the nations of non-OECD Asia, where strong economic growth is expected. Non-OECD Asia (including China and India) accounts for 43 percent of the total increase in world oil use over the projection period. "

And the FAS:

"World Oil Demand and its Effect on Oil Prices"

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32530.pdf

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Who needs gas? What we need are Water Powered Cars http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

No, we need a Mr. Fusion.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Im paying 1.83 $ for a litre, so 0.26 Gallons. That would be about 7.00 $ for a gallon so please stop complaining.

At least thats what wikipedia tells me about litre:liquid gallon

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Well, I'm not complaining cause I'm not paying close to that. But it was still quite a shock to pay 40+ dollars to fill my car up the other day. And I just drive a mid-sized four-door sedan. I can remember just a couple years ago the pickup and SUV guys complaining about $40 dollar fillups. Guess my next car I'll be back to the sub-compacts. Unless I can afford a hybrid by then.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

People like to complain, whether its gas prices, sports, weather or politics. If you're not complaining, you're not happy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

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Just one little thing about that: How much energy does it take to run the electrolysis process to separate water into it's componant oxygen and hydrogen? That is the amount of energy that would be released from burning it. Thus it is a no-gainer, just putting the job of generating power into the electrolysis phase.

Can this still be a useful invention? Sure, it could be thought of a volatile form of battery, storing power to be used later.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

We need super capacitors.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

The oil had to get there in the first place. Taking alkalines from your dead neighbour's garage is certainly cheaper than plugging in your old rechargables, but it leaves quite the mess http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

A Wave Farm in Portugal for generating power from the movement of the ocean's surface.

http://www.mongabay.com/images/media...is_515x235.jpg

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Best way to go (in my opinion) is to totally skip ethanol, which is utterly impractical, and go straight to hydrogen. If governments around the world pumped a few billion into developing hydrogen powered vehicles that were practical for everyday use, I bet we'd be driving them around in 5 years. Of course, you still need all the new infrastructure to support a hydrogen-based transportation system, and safeguards to make sure that everything doesn't go BOOM! every time there's a car crash, levelling the block! But hydrogen is practical, since hydrogen can be produced from 'clean' renewable energy sources (geothermal, tidal, hydroelectic, nuclear, etc) and would serve as the perfect fuel for vehicles.

The problem is, everyone is obsessed with ethanol at the moment which, if what I once read is correct, would supply only 1/3 of the US demand for fuel even if the entire arable land area of the US was given over to ethanol production. Also ethanol is having a very detrimental effect on agriculture. How you ask? Since more and more of the US corn production is given over to ethanol production, that corn isn't available to feed cattle, pigs, etc, thus making the price of producing cattle, pigs and all that go way up due to the shortage.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Many oil companies are diverting crude ear marked for the US market to other markets in order to drive up the prices here.

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This is untrue. This was a lie promoted by anti-ethanol people and the oil companies to mitigate the research and exploration of Corn and corn stocks for fuel. The truth is, like in Brazil, there is more than enough "sugar" products such as sugar beats, corn, and corn stocks in current supply to both supply enough fuel and food for current consumptions. Sure growth would be required but currently only part of the corn is being used to produce fuel. When they switch to using the ENTIRE corn plant the amount of fuel generated can increase up to 50 fold.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

I have to agree with AT about Brazil, A friend goes down there a lot and said they're pretty much independent of foreign oil due to the Ethanol production which they started many years ago.

Also on a business trip last month to Louisiana, many of the people down there were all talking about the new ethanol refineries being built and that a lot of the cotton farmers were seriously considering when not if to switch to corn.

Ethanol is going to happen here in the US. Whether it'll be owned by the oil companies or not, I don't know. Distribution and infrastructure problems still need to be addressed, but realistically it won't be any cheaper.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

One of the major hindrances to the acceptance of Ethanol isn't just from the oil companies, but from State Governments who derive a ton of money from gas taxes. When Ethanol goes mainstream many state governments as well as the Federal government, will have to scramble to pass new Ethanol fuel taxes. Many states are therefore resistant to accepting Ethanol and other alternative fuels.

Remember when Natural Gas was suppose to be the cheap alternative to Electrical power? Look at what they did there? They hiked the taxes on NG to the point that made NG less cost effective than Public Power.

Right now my state has the 6th largest gas tax in the nation and our beloved Governoress wants to raise the gas tax again because the sales of gas are down thus the revenue from the gas tax is down. This would put our price per gallon of gas over $4.20 a gallon here in WA. Instead of raising the Gas tax to compensate for lower gas sales my state government should temporarily lower the gas tax to help lower income people afford fuel.

Instead of bowing to the pay offs of the oil company to keep our state an oil owned economy the government should embrace alternative fuels and promote ethanol fuel production. Not only should they embrace it, but they should encourage it and help to support it by giving tax breaks to corn and sugar beat farmers, sugar and bio fuel distilleries, distributors and retailers.

But like I said, our government is bought and paid for by the oil company's and therefore any prospective interest in alternative fuels is actively denounced as a waste of time.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

Ethanol is *not* a viable alternative in the long run. Unfortunately, I don't have the links to prove it, and don't have the time to find it.

Also, I really think that people in the US need to stop complaining quite so hard about gas prices, considering that prices are so much worse in most other countries. Not liking it is fine, agreeing that we're being gouged, hey I totally agree as well. But seriously, your prices aren't so bad, comparatively.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

It's not worse, it's more representative of the actual price of oil. The US has been able to have lower gas prices because of it's own supplies, but as mentioned earlier the American oil companies are having a field day playing with those in order to rake in more profits and pointing the fingers at "Acts of God."

As for ethanol, I agree, it's not a long-term alternative. I believe the basic chemistry is that you put in just about what you get out of Ethanol making it not a wise choice for fuel. Hydrogen is a likely long term solution but people have to be willing to settle for a different type of fuel economy. To get the standard 300 mile per tank a Hydrogen car would have to be under extremely high pressure or be almost as large as the car itself. The other problem is finding a decent source as electrolysis of water takes too much energy to be efficient.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

The government will get paid whether it is oil or corn. You are right about the government getting a lot of money in taxes from gasoline sales. I recall the president mentioning alternative fuels a bunch. Here is an interesting fact:

"The U.S. Postal Service Has The Largest Alternative Fuel Vehicle Fleet In The World. Almost 13 percent of the 289,000 vehicle fleet are alternative fuel vehicles such as hybrids, biodiesel, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles."
http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/energy/

Its just an example of the changes that are already being made.

Did you know they already pay farmers to grow corn?
http://www.ewg.org:16080/farm/region.php?fips=00000
When the demand is there for the ethonal, the corn farmers will sell their corn for that purpose as it will make them more money.

Is Ethonal the best solution? Probably not. Is it better than oil? It sounds like it.

Re: OT: Gas Prices
 

As the resident Brazilian, I thought I'd pop in and add these tidbits:

"Despite having the world's largest sugarcane crop, the 45,000 sq km Brazil currently devotes to sugarcane production amount to only about one-half of one percent of its total land area of some 8.5 million sq km. In addition, the country has more unused potential cropland than any other nation."

Brazil no longer subsidizes its ethanol production. It was heavily subsidized at one point, but is no longer so.

There seems to be some debate about whether 'ethanol takes more energy to produce than it yields'. In any event this debate is over corn ethanol, while sugarcane ethanol produced in Brazil (where sunlight is much more plentiful) has a higher yield.

There are some drawbacks to ethanol, the main one (which most Brazilians are familiar with) being that ethanol engines have trouble starting in cold weather.

All in all I'd say ethanol doesn't work as a 100% substitute for gasoline, but it works as a 'let's consume less fossil fuels so we have more time to develop alternative technologies' kind of solution, especially if mixed into gasoline (Brazil already uses a 20/80 mix, I believe) or in bifuel cars which start up on gasoline and switch to ethanol once they're running, thus bypassing the cold-weather problems.