OT: Gas Prices

[narf poit chez BOOM]

We need super capacitors.

[Suicide Junkie]

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

[AngleWyrm]

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

[Renegade 13]

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.

[Atrocities]

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

[Atrocities]

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.

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.

[Santiago]

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.

[Atrocities]

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.

[Renegade 13]

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.

[GuyOfDoom]

Renegade 13 said:
considering that prices are so much worse in most other countries.

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.