Whats the solution for gas prices?

[mikeg]

methane is the most polluting greenhouse gas pound for pound. more oil is not going to fix our problems with prices. also hydrogen is not a fix for our problem as well. you obtain hydrogen from coal and coal is obtained from stip mining or moutain top mining, which would mean tearing the top of the moutain off to get inside to the coal. fossil fuels may met our demands for a short period of time but as we can see now from gas, that won't last and we are killing our planet. i know this may sound a little off topic but it is on topic in a sense. america emits 24% percent of greenhouse gases and we are only 5% of the population. i mean america needs to get on track here, we can land a man on the freaking moon but we can't come up with an alternate self sustaining source of fuel?!? i saw a show on tv a couple days ago about greenland or iceland but anyway every home uses geothermal energy and everyone has hydrogen powered cars with hydrogen filling stations

[Hippie3]

[Lookyhere]

Here are 2 graphs. The first is oil prices in todays Dollars. It looks like it was at an all time low in 2000 right around the time Bush took office. The second chart is our national debt, you can clearly see the results.

[Hippie3]

the democrat-controlled congress is where the budget originated the last couple years.
bush cannot appropriate money
but pelosi and reed sure can.

[bugs]

Methane is an extraordinarily clean-burning fuel, can be produced at VERY low cost, and is incredibly plentiful.

Yes, it's a potent greenhouse gas. It's certainly better to capture this effluent of rotting turds and use it to replace fossil fuels than to let it escape into the atmosphere.

Ever see capped-off landfills, with those pipes sticking out? Guess what's venting into the atmosphere. Yep. Methane. Double whammy. Wasted fuel and added greenhouse gas.

Try googling "methane fuel" or "natural gas fuel." Interesting stuff.

Now, if we can figure out a way to capture cow farts....

[Hippie3]

i wouldn't want the job...

[bugs]

[bugs]

[wildburr]

Originally Posted by bugs

Poo. Manure. DooDoo.

When you put shit in a sealed container, stick a hose in the top, and let 'er rip, out comes methane. Which is natural gas.

Farms in India have been dong this for decades, using the gas to power tractors and cook their food. I've read reports here and there about folks doing this on various scales all over the world.

Plenty of raw material. Factory farms produce kilotons. Big cities, well, you get the picture.

It's low tech, cheap, and easy. Anaerobic bacteria do the work. Very little energy input, lots out.

What pisses me off is that where I live in Michigan we have many landfills that produce more narural gas than we know what to do with and we are still paying over $1.00 a CCF. $200 - $300 a month gas bills. sucks ass bigtime, for as much as the landfills produce we should be able to afford to heat our homes during the winter for almost nothing but they still use petrolium to make the methane. Fuckers!

[steeq]

Thanks for the laughs guys! LMAO

[Doctor D]

CNN reports that if a major hurricane catastrophe hits the Gulf of Mexico this summer, gasoline prices within the U.S. may rise to $6 a gallon due to lost refining capacity.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/22/news...ion=2008060110

Ouch... six dollars a gallon. That smarts! How much higher can you all go before you need to consider major changes in transportation? Such as, walking, bicycling, or taking mass transit?

I estimate I can go about double what prices currently are before I need to start thinking of major lifestyle changes. $10 a gallon is my utmost limit. I'm not liking the prospect at all.

I have heard that motorcycles get good gas mileage; is this true? I am considering purchasing a motorcycle or scooter, or an even higher gas mileage car than what I've currently got. I read the other day on one of the news sites that the old Geo Metros are becoming big sellers again, due to their 40mpg fuel economy.

[Hippie3]

[Lookyhere]

Originally Posted by Doctor D

I have heard that motorcycles get good gas mileage; is this true? I am considering purchasing a motorcycle or scooter, or an even higher gas mileage car than what I've currently got. I read the other day on one of the news sites that the old Geo Metros are becoming big sellers again, due to their 40mpg fuel economy.

Motorcycles get great gas mileage. Scooters get up to 100-120 MPG. Most get 75-90. I think that's the route I'm going when I get back to FL.

[omentheduck]

I don't think that one thing can solve it , but All of them used together with innovations in each of their markets that could eventually lead to a solution but as of now well... for every action there is a opposite but equal reaction that will take its toll, but I mean hell who the hell am I to judge the worlds crises, once again it is going to take calibration from every one, to not just to find and have one solution but to do everything that helps till one is found!

[MycoChondria]

Just got thru all the posts in this thread...way cool and extremely thoughtful.

Let me offer a slightly different perspective...
..."high" gas prices have yet to be discussed along with (or in the context of) falling consumer spending power. For example, if gas prices rise x% year-over-year, would it matter so much if real wages rose by x%? My real wages have been declining for the last five years, and I consider myself very, very fortunate. When I had to change jobs 5 years ago to one that paid 50% less than what I was making, THAT'S when I started paying attention to things like the price of gasoline, medical insurance premiums, rent, and food. Data from the Beareau of Labor Statistics is released just as publicly as data about gas prices, so why do we really never hear about this? Check out "Zeitgeist, The Movie", and just about anything by Noam Chomsky to bet a big picture.

Gas prices and oil prices are NOT set by the oil companies, but by the financial markets where these commodoties are bought and sold. The prices reflect supply/demand, world politics, market sentiment, the weather, to name but a few factors. The energy markets are partcilarly volatile right now, and some even think a bubble is forming or has already formed and ready to burst. Oil companies make money in any case.

Until we have Mr. Fusion units in our homes and cars, the long-term solution will be the development of industrial processes that allow for the use of solar energy as a source fuel. Technological advances will eventually allow the energy from the sun to be converted to usable fuels, provided the supporting infrastructures are financially and (perhaps more importantly) politically sustained.

If genetic engineering could produce photosynthetic bacteria that convert sunlight directly into gasoline or another distillate of petroleum, that would solve a lot of problems, wouldn't it? Home fusion reactors may be a long time away, but I'll bet technology kicks the ass out of solar energy usability issues in the nearer term. I've seen stranger things happen.

[aumbrellaforainydays]

I heard once that "our lives are subsidized by oil" ...i am coming to believe this to be more true every day, and every time i go to the pump.

i agree with what CoyoteMesc said, higher octane fuel will give you better mileage. i also use 89 octane when i can, my car requires at least 88 so 87 is outta the question. but also we should be conservative drivers not defensive drivers. put your car in neutral on hills. dont let your engine rev high, keep pressure in your tires, roll down you windows and turn off the a/c,

but yeah retrofitting existing cars will be a good market for people. biodiesels and waste veggie cars will help offset that. but what is ethanol and methanol other than highly distilled vegetable oil?
i think that honda, toyota, mazda, vw have been pretty innovated thus far.
hybrids and lightweight compacts should be the norm for people who are just moving their fat ass from point a to point b, why do you need the excursion to drive to work and back? (image).

we can make better combustion engines and we should have them in every car. variable timing (shuts of certain cylinders that are in use while driving), reclaiming the heat from engines and exhaust, rotary engines, even the layout of your cylinders and the placement of the engine can drastically effect efficiency.

electric cars, still got to plug it in and recharge it. and recharge what? those old heavy obsolete type batteries that will have to be disposed of soon anyway. why not lithium battery banks?

the tesla motor weighs 150 lbs, when you brake it stores energy, can go 220 miles and 0-60mph in 4 seconds


why cant all cars have that car's engine?

other options i heard were:
the bicycle (needs tires, tube, and lube)
the horse (needs water, land and grass)
getting out of the city - thats where we go to get the money to afford our gas
gardening - well this could save you money if you know how to do it right
biodiesel - diesel is still diesel, diesels may be more efficient, but to make it, it aint.
hydrogen - good if you had a free source of energy to make it from (wind, solar, tides, geothermal, etc)
recaptured methane - well it aint going into the atmosphere, thats a plus, and it can be made to replace natural gas and propane appliances, a plus for the rural peoples since it can be made from waste. search: biodigester, this methane could be used to make hydrogen or to distill biofuels, or to run our vast acreage fossil fuel farms.
forget ethanol from corn since the price of food is dependent on the supply of our corn. but i guess if the middle east closed down tomorrow we'd have to a lot more of it. since we are the world's top producer of corn maybe we can bend some political might to those who depend on our low corn prices. they raise fuel, we raise corn.

first the infrastructure needs to change. so one way is taxes, lower income taxes, make incentives for alternative energy, charge higher for fossil energy taxes. mass transit, diesel trains and buses converted to electromag trains and electric trollies. mpg limit set at 100mpg. all farms, waste treatment, and landfills all made to capture methane. building design changed completely to sustainble models (long list here). community design, no sprawl, mass transit integrated. our planes need new engines, plain and simple, and probably a whole new design. large ships with reactors (the Navy does it). wind farms across siberia, the sahara, antarctic, northern canada, greenland, gobi desert, the oceans!
solar farms in similar locales (possibly right under the wind farms).
tides = very powerful, core of the earth = very hot.

but for now i am going to use my two feet run by locally grown food. we vote with dollars, with our dollars we can change the world!

[Algae]

you dont have to nationalize the oil companies.regulate the bassards to death.think A.T&T.ma bell aint the monopoly she once was.long distance for pennies.own your own phone no more leasing their property forever.first a democractic congress says good buy oil subsidies ,that money goes for r&d.state owned refineries,the montana gov. is begging to develope the oil shale reseverves there equal to saudi.next limit obscene oil profits tax ,tax and retax the oil companies.and when they artifically dry up supplies,then buy foreign Chavez would love to screw mobile and exon.why be patriotic now the U.S. oil monopoly isnt, we owe them shit.thats the quick fix . long term Manhatten project for alternative fuel sources and fuel savings.mass transit developed,more local buss systems,more solar,more wind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tooj...eature=related and always and forever bleeding the life out of the U.S. oil companies.they are not our future but surely our demise. from their ashes a thousand new and helpful little companies will spring.death to big oil.

[Hippie3]

big oil would simply move out of american jurisdiction-
we need them more than they need us.
they have plenty of other countries that would welcome them
and gladly buy their oil.
death to communism !

[aumbrellaforainydays]

i'll bet i can name at least one big oil company that is bigger than almost all of africa's GCP (gross continental product). big oil are corporate multi-nationals soon to be meta-nationals (bigger than nations).

[Hippie3]

so ?

[bugs]

Anybody seen info on other sources of ethanol? Using corn cuts into the food supply. But how about sugar beets? Potato and other starchy vegetable waste? Seems that with a bit of creativity, we could find easy-to-grow crops that ferment easily.

Another thing that might help is making (finally) a big investment in fuel efficient mass transit. Most of the developed world is way ahead of us in that arena.

The old arguments against mass transit subsidies don't hold up any more IMO. And, after all, the automobile industry has been hugely subsidized for generations. It's time to move on. Get with the program. I dunno, how about 250MPH monorails wailing down tracks built above the medians of the interstate system?

[Theodore Blass]

Instead of wasting money on a pointless war and furthering our dependencies on irreplaceable natural resources, we should invest in research to find alternative energy sources, and I'm not talking about bio-diesel.

[TVCasualty]

As we wait out the coming apocalypse, might as well have fun with it. A friend of mine has built herself one of these, and once the engine was broken in it topped out at about 45 mph. That's pretty fast for a bike, and calls for a few safety precautions not normally needed for bikes. It's a bit of a fabrication challenge if you put it together yourself, and it sounds like a weed-whacker when it goes by. You ought to get a sturdier helmet than the normal type for bicycles, and the best tires available since a blowout at 45 mph on a bicycle really sucks.

She commutes about 9.5 miles one way to work, over a large and steep hill at one point, and she buys about a gallon of gas a month. It's a fairly low-traffic area, but legal to take anywhere as it's under the DOT's 50cc cutoff for engines requiring registration.

http://www.staton-inc.com/photo_gallery.asp

[eatyualive]

for the oil companies id say from business standpoint, milk it while you can until none is left! and don't tell anyone when it will run out! that way, you can make the most profit!

[mycobri]

lots of good discussion in this thread
here are some more fuel-free ideas too keep us moving

[Lazlo]

It could be a lot worse and more than likely will be so. The U.S. is something like 31st in the world for high gas prices, so it is a lot worse elsewhere. The Saudi's are saying that they may not be able to produce much more than they are for another decade or more, so there's not going to be any relief coming from them anytime soon. Brazil on the other hand has hit a couple of large wells off their coast that could bring some relief, but not within the next couple of years. Takes time to get rolling on a well. Don't be surprised if gas prices nearly hit $6 a gallon by this time next year or possibly earlier. There's no relief in the near future. We need to start looking into sugar cane production instead of corn production when it comes to ethanol as well. I don't see this ethanol from corn making a bit of a difference. Sugar cane is around 7 times more efficient in ethanol production than corn is as well. Brazil adopted this technique almost 30 years ago and is nearly an import free country when it comes to oil. They may be free I think. Can't remember.

[aumbrellaforainydays]

hemp and switchgrass for the northern areas

you can only grow sugarcane in the southern and tropic states.

i heard 1500 gallons per acre from switchgrass. i go through about 300-500 gallons a year.

so that one acre could fuel me for three years, minus the tractor and equipment, that one acre is fueling the tractor and the car. and that could be just one harvest. during fall i could plant some alfalfa and graze cows, sheep, goats, chickens on it early summer. then regrow the hemp or switchgrass for the years fuel.

[bugs]

There are bound to be solutions, from conservation and efficiency to new fuels to wind/solar/tidal etc. energy. What seems to be lacking is the will and drive to make solving the problem a real priority. It's certainly not coming, in this country, from those elected to serve us.

Being a bit of a conspiracy theorist, I don't believe that the entities now profiting from oil, centralized energy production etc. will be part of the solution. And they may well be working against a solution, since the best answers may well be highly highly decentralized and not conducive to concentrating massive wealth into a few hands. Those who currently possess the greatest resources have the most to lose from such a scenario.

Time will tell where all of this leads. I think it's bound to a trickle-up answer, as opposed to the Reaganite dribble-down. The folks amassing the great wealth are very talented at that one thing, but don't often seem to have the vision or even ability to do anything else. And they sure as hell won't let anything trickle out if they can help it.

It's going to take -I hesitate to use the tired phrase- grass roots ingenuity and drive to experiment with various technologies and ways of life that might lead into a more realistic and sustainable future.

Many will be ridiculed, vilified, shunned and ignored. But maybe with luck, there will be a few, somewhere, who plant the seeds of a better future than what we're looking at in the near term.

I certainly hope so. And I hope it's not too long in coming.

Already, many of us are looking at "bunking together" to get through next winter. Shutting down some houses and congregating in others to share the cost of keeping warm and fed. Families and friends together, communes if you will, to share skills, abilities and resources. Not so much from idealism, but plain damned survival.

[oibchip]