OT: Gas Prices

[aegisx]

We probably cannot produce everything by ourselves, but I think that is a good goal to strive for. Ethonal might be a good idea for us then. We grow a lot of food (i.e. corn) and we are strong in pharmaceuticals/genetic engineering. I would hope we can use that to our advantage in producing plenty of ethonal. There are a bunch of issues right now with corn Ethonal but its a start. I think a Prius that runs on E85 would be a good thing.

[GuyOfDoom]

Ethanol will be a nice stepping stone, but I don't believe it's the "wave of the future." The cost of production for ethanol limiting on how effective it will be right now, unless as you mentioned we engineer something to reduce that.

[aegisx]

Yep, its a start and thats exciting. I think Gas prices will be high for a long time now. It is gonna cost $$$ to convert to a non-oil based infrastructure.

[Raapys]

Hah, here in Norway we've been at $4'ish/gal for years O_O

[Fyron]

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.

[aegisx]

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.

[GuyOfDoom]

Yes, but there should have been alternatives for a long time now. We're the only developed country out there that hasn't been concerned with fuel economy and the US is also the only country that didn't do the right thing after the gas shortage of the 70's.