Gas prices: Who or what is to blame?

Well, let's see. The national gas price in the US is about $1.75 a gallon. However, there are a couple states where people are paying over $2 a gallon. I think this is ridiculous. What's going on with the price, and why can't it stay at a decent price for awhile? Who or what is to be blamed for the prices? What can we or the government do to lower the price of gas?

What do you think should happen in order for this to do. If this keeps up, I'm quite sure that if Bush gets re-elected, he'll untap the Alaskan wildlife for oil... not like he will, but he may.

I'm suprised gas prices aren't higher. No commodity is more essential to daily life, and you can't get gas just anywhere. Gas companies could get away with charging any price they want, and we'd have to pay it. Most people won't be too quick to pull out the bicycle, walk, carpool or take public transportation. Hey, maybe that's not such a bad idea. Raise gas prices so high that it encourages people to find alternate means of transportation, and thus cut down on pollution and traffic in one move. Some people might even get more exercise. Who's for a price hike?

I'm with Machiavelli Garland on this one. We (America) could use some exercise.

yeah but then people wouldn'y buy cars and the car companies would be mad and the econmy may go down a little bit and all the stupid stuff.

...and bottled water sells for what, $3 a bottle? And the bottles are much less than a gallon (about half a Litre, I think, whatever that equals to). Frankly, I find it kind of surprising that gas is so cheap, considering all of the effort it takes to retrieve and refine it.
Also, like Garland said, if the gas companies do hike their prices, what can we really do?

Too bad water is not a fuel for automobiles, or else we'll have an (nearly) unlimited supply. But wether or not prices of gasoline should in fact be cheaper, not everyone will afford it if it is sold for more than it is. Here where I live gasoline is like $2.50, which sucks badly.

Out in California, predictions are that gas prices will rise to $3/gal. The prices around my area are pretty decent at $1.63/gal. Though I remember around late 2001-early 2002 that gas prices were as low as 1.05/gal. So I typically try to drive as least as possible.

We need to hurry and find a new fuel source, because we're still going to need that remaining oil for lubricants and plastics, you know?

Really, though, gasoline is kept incredibly cheap in the US, and the Europeans are really going to dig into us for this thread ;D

Be that as it may, we still should have developed other means of transportation that do not rely on gasoline already. We have the technology at our disposal, we need to use it.

96 Octane fuel costs about 70 American cents per litre (roughly 2.2 pints) in my country, but it seems every event is an excuse for another price increase. World peace? Price goes up because oil producers are taking advantage of the stable market. War? Prices go up because supplies are restricted.

Reserves are running out, slowly but surely. Prices will steadily increase, research into alternative fuel sources will continue at its painfully slow and underfunded rate. Eventually petroluem will run out, and we'll be in the doo-doo, particularly western Europe and the United States.

I'm hoping that governments will start to take a serious, rather than token, interest in funding alternative fuel sources. Heck, hydrogen fuel cells have been in use since the moon landings, but relatively little progress has been made toward implementing the technology for everyday use. If fuel cells had got a tenth of a percent as much R&D as internal combustion has had since then, we'd have had non-polluting vehicles by the 1980s.

We would be in trouble, that's certain, but fortunately, solar and electric powered vehicals are already in existance, so the crisis would simply be a matter of producing enough of these vehicals to replace people's obsolete gas vehicals. That seems like an immense obstacle, but consider that the supply of petroleum won't vanish overnight, and the world will have years to prepare for the inevitable. Those years will be enough time to get the gas dependant parts of the world outfitted with the already viable, but simply unpopular alternate power.

96 octane fuel? You don't need that for most cars, really :p

Well, 91 and 96 are both about the same price, but 96 octane is better for older vehicles, like my astoundingly suave '76 Triumph. More octane = more grunt = more fun.

It seems like having and operating a car is moring out of the ability for most people to afford. I make a good salary and so does my wife and there is no way we can afford a car. I think I herad on the news for the states, and I know it is this way in canada, the majority of what makes up the price of gas is taxes, like 65% taxes

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Originally posted by Zefiroth
Too bad water is not a fuel for automobiles, or else we'll have an (nearly) unlimited supply.

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One of the major problems with running an automobile on something as easy to obtain as water would be that there would be twice as many vehicles on the road as there are now as they are now easier/cheaper to run and maintain. Also, places like California that already borrow 3/4 or their water from the mountains to the east (Colorado, Utah, Nevada, etc...) would be in a real crunch as their water is already in short supply. Basically any state that is semi-arid would be in a bind.

there is really no real reason for the gas prices. here in cali they are roughly $2.09 a gallon for 87 gas. there is no reason and i know the gas companies are saying it is because they need to out the gas through more "refining" for the summer, so the smog is not as bad here in so cal. it is just a reason for them to get more money. the reserves are not that low. we do have the resources.

last time they pulled this triple A indicated they were going to do an investigation on the price hike and suddenly they dropped...no real reason. triple A needs to step in and announce an investigation again.

too many officals are gettign kick backs from the oil compaines, why else would they not step in and complain?

Well, the only true and powerful, yet inexpensive and vast source of energy is nuclear power. Though the downside to this is that nuclear waste is hard to clean up, and many people wouldn't feel right driving a nuclear powered engine that probably costs about as much as a regular fill up to power the car for over a couple of weeks or even months.

Yay! Mr. Fusion!

Ya know, it's 2004 and I still don't see anything that shows promise for putting hover-cars on our roads and in our skies by 2015. If I don't get my hover car there'll be hell to pay. :aimmad:

Talking about gas prices, my parents live about an hours drive aaway from some pretty big refineries that supply their town with all of their gas, but gas prices are rediculously high in town, even though the distributor claims "transportation costs". Yeah right, they just want to gouge people. :cry:

I'm paying 2.23 in CA for 89 octane :(

That's how much I'm paying. Good thing my car is pretty economic.

It's the oil companies fault. There's no shortage of oil, just a high demand. They periodically raise prices, lower them again, and raise them again higher than they were before. People are just too dumb to notice. I remember when gas was $0.99 less than eight years ago. Look at it now.

Plus it makes it sad that because of gas prices people get more excited about a 5 cent drop in gas prices here in the US than they do over Christmas morning or other such happy times.

How many litres is a gallon?

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Originally posted by Big D
96 Octane fuel costs about 70 American cents per litre (roughly 2.2 pints) in my country

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=O!

Norwegians pay 1,4 USD per litre, I think.
But everything is way overprized here... =(

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Originally posted by Yamaneko
That's how much I'm paying. Good thing my car is pretty economic.

It's the oil companies fault. There's no shortage of oil, just a high demand. They periodically raise prices, lower them again, and raise them again higher than they were before. People are just too dumb to notice. I remember when gas was $0.99 less than eight years ago. Look at it now.

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Everyone seems to be discrediting oil companies, but they do exactly what a fundamental economist would do.

If a company cannot meet with high demand, they raise the prices...if they can meet with demand efficiently, they lower the prices. Though some people might look at this as fraud and such, it's actually a smart and very fundamental business sense and anyone who owns a large company knows that it's no one's fault but the consumer's.

well, here in Atlanta we have low gas prices, about $1.50 for 89 octane, and Atlanta has horrible traffic and huge numbers of gas-guzzling SUVs. Maybe if gas were more expensive here, less people would drive these wasteful vehicles. Maybe if gas prices were higher less people would drive. They would buy more economical vehicles, be more choosy about when and where they drive, etc.

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Originally posted by eestlinc
well, here in Atlanta we have low gas prices, about $1.50 for 89 octane, and Atlanta has horrible traffic and huge numbers of gas-guzzling SUVs. Maybe if gas were more expensive here, less people would drive these wasteful vehicles. Maybe if gas prices were higher less people would drive. They would buy more economical vehicles, be more choosy about when and where they drive, etc.

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Yeah, in some ways I like gas price hikes. Those people who drive SUVs drive them in ways that consumes gas almost 1.5x more than normal cars. SUV drivers accelerate too fast to be economical, I welcome the gas hikes...sometimes. But i don't mind it, people need to quit braking so hard, accelerating so fast, and driving so fast.

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Originally posted by Zefiroth
Too bad water is not a fuel for automobiles, or else we'll have an (nearly) unlimited supply. But wether or not prices of gasoline should in fact be cheaper, not everyone will afford it if it is sold for more than it is. Here where I live gasoline is like $2.50, which sucks badly.

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invest in fuel cells and hydrogen car models

kthx

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Originally posted by Garland
Most people won't be too quick to pull out the bicycle, walk, carpool or take public transportation. Hey, maybe that's not such a bad idea. Raise gas prices so high that it encourages people to find alternate means of transportation, and thus cut down on pollution and traffic in one move. Some people might even get more exercise. Who's for a price hike?

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That's all fine and dandy if you work locally but a lot of people have to commute over long distances because of a lack of jobs in their area.

I believe right now over here it's 2.15 for 87, 2.25 for 89, and 2.35 for 91. Then again, I haven't seen the gas prices since Thursday. :p

they've allready invented a car that runs on water but it's still in the devlopment all the major car producers are involved. (p.s it's treated water so it would still cost)

But oil is used massively in creating plastics and synthetic fibers. this is what we will miss.

Even if a car could run on water, it would need to use like 10x more volume of water than gas. It simply not a very efficient form of energy. Not unless the car somehow becomes organic like a plant or something...but then there be more problems because of that...but eh.

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Originally posted by Dingo_Jellybean
Even if a car could run on water, it would need to use like 10x more volume of water than gas. It simply not a very efficient form of energy. Not unless the car somehow becomes organic like a plant or something...but then there be more problems because of that...but eh.

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Like the car devouring you alive? Yeah, that would suck.

A car running on water is just some far-fetched dream. In order for it to work, you'd literally need a cold fusion engine in your car. We're nowhere near creating cold fusion reactions (some say its even impossible), let alone one small enough to fit in an automobile and still be efficient. Hell, we can't even make a fission engine for a car!

If anything, I predict that if our oil resources over run out in the next 50-100 years, we'll be using a hybrid of electric power and ethanol to run our cars.

A car running on water is far-fetched, but hydrogen fuel cells have the handy advantage of producing no waste products except for water, definitely a plus I'd say, although I'm sure plenty of petroleum companies will make gloomy 'scientific' predictions about the effect they'll have on global humidity or something...

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Originally posted by Flying Mullet
One of the major problems with running an automobile on something as easy to obtain as water would be that there would be twice as many vehicles on the road as there are now as they are now easier/cheaper to run and maintain. Also, places like California that already borrow 3/4 or their water from the mountains to the east (Colorado, Utah, Nevada, etc...) would be in a real crunch as their water is already in short supply. Basically any state that is semi-arid would be in a bind.

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uhhh... not really... only 4% of the water on the earth is clean enough to drink... we would need sea water powered cars :D that and the above... its time to stop relying on cars. lets go with the price hike!

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Originally posted by xenapan
uhhh... not really... only 4% of the water on the earth is clean enough to drink... we would need sea water powered cars :D that and the above... its time to stop relying on cars. lets go with the price hike!

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Yeah, but you have to have pure/clean clean water to run the vehicle. Just like your gas can't have crap in it, your water can't have crap in it as well.

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Originally posted by Flying Mullet
Yeah, but you have to have pure/clean clean water to run the vehicle. Just like your gas can't have crap in it, your water can't have crap in it as well.

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fair enough... but where is all that clean water going to come from? and how you we going to clean it? :P hrm.... blue gold?:o

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Originally posted by xenapan
but where is all that clean water going to come from? and how you we going to clean it?

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I completely agree, that's why I made my point. Most people assume that running a vehicle on water would be a great thing but it wouldn't be much better than the current vehicles.

A car running on water is far-fetched, but hydrogen fuel cells have the handy advantage of producing no waste products except for water --Big D

Bad thing about hydrogen, so far as I understand it, is that hydrogen can't be "mined" or collected like oil or other fuels. There aren't just huge underground pockets of hydrogen we can suck up and transport in tankers. Hydrogen has to be chemically extracted from other materials. And to do that takes power. Very likely we'd have to use traditional power plants to produce the hydrogen to run our cars. That'd take us back to square one. But I'm no expert in the field, so maybe I'm wrong.

Yoy know i cannot believe you americans, crying about how much it costs per gallon of 'gas'. If you wanted to fill your car up here in britain it costs about £60 thats about $108. now ok thats not in gallongs but thats a *considerable* load of money to pay just to go to work or wherever, but also we now pay £5 to enter central london, and we also pay 17.5% VAT whilst you americans pay 8% i think. So now think about it, well i may have to pay $2 per gallon of fuel but those limeys pay for 4 weeks worth of fuel in one go.

EDIT: wait a sec i take that back, let me do some more calculations...

Edit by Big D: Watch your language, don't try to sidestep the profanity filter. Also, there's no need to attack "you Americans" just because their opinions and language are different to ours.

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Originally posted by Dr Unne
A car running on water is far-fetched, but hydrogen fuel cells have the handy advantage of producing no waste products except for water --Big D

Bad thing about hydrogen, so far as I understand it, is that hydrogen can't be "mined" or collected like oil or other fuels. There aren't just huge underground pockets of hydrogen we can suck up and transport in tankers. Hydrogen has to be chemically extracted from other materials. And to do that takes power. Very likely we'd have to use traditional power plants to produce the hydrogen to run our cars. That'd take us back to square one. But I'm no expert in the field, so maybe I'm wrong.

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Of course there is...just go to the sun and collect it...the sun's practically made of it(with some helium). But of course we need material strong enough to withstand 6000K.

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Originally posted by Dingo_Jellybean
Of course there is...just go to the sun and collect it...the sun's practically made of it(with some helium). But of course we need material strong enough to withstand 6000K.

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That's way too far-fetched. For one, you can't just "mine" from the sun - the hydrogen in the sun is continually undergoing extremely hot nuclear reactions. Like you said, we'd need material that could withstand the heats. Also, the sun is just too far away. I don't see anything like that happening within the next one, or maybe even two hundred years. And even then, it just wouldn't be feasible. It's just way too far-fetched.

Meh, I don't understand why everyone's so worried. There are so many forms of extremely powerful energies in the universe and on earth... we just have to find ways to harness them.

Good point, War Angel... but unfortunately, it costs money to research and develop new and better ways of making energy. Many companies will gladly destroy resources and environmental stability if it'll allow them to continue making money without having to endure the messy, costly business of 'changing things'.:(

I'm torn on this. On one hand I have a big full-size 88 Blazer with a 350; a total gas-guzzling beast that eats as much gas as a Viper. My other vehicle is a MN-12 Cougar, which if anyone of you have ever owned one, you'll know that it's far from efficient, especially mine, which is the first year they made them. Nothing beats the roar of an American-made V8, but as cool as they are they're so totally inefficient and bad for all involved. I'm going to miss muscle cars and monster trucks, but they're not worth the hassle when you can get a 4-cylinder like an RSX or an S2000 that is still an amazing car, as well as more friendly on the environment.

Oh yeah, here's a thought - maybe Honda or Toyota could try making a hybrid car that isn't the ugliest thing on the road. Prius, Insight, they're ugly. The Civic Hybrid is even ugly, but it looks good compared to those other turds. I will never drive anything like that.

And another thought - premium is $1.99 a gallon where I live now, and minimum wage is $5.75 last time I checked. Before someone ignorantly comes in crying "you Americans, you Americans" he should do his homework and look at the cost of gas versus the cost of living, because I find I have little to no money left over after paying my stupid bills, and it's $60 dollars a week in gas that is killing me.

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Originally posted by DocFrance
That's way too far-fetched. For one, you can't just "mine" from the sun - the hydrogen in the sun is continually undergoing extremely hot nuclear reactions. Like you said, we'd need material that could withstand the heats. Also, the sun is just too far away. I don't see anything like that happening within the next one, or maybe even two hundred years. And even then, it just wouldn't be feasible. It's just way too far-fetched.

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I was just joking on that one.

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Originally posted by LH
Oh yeah, here's a thought - maybe Honda or Toyota could try making a hybrid car that isn't the ugliest thing on the road. Prius, Insight, they're ugly. The Civic Hybrid is even ugly, but it looks good compared to those other turds. I will never drive anything like that.

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The Honda Civic Hybrid is a pretty decent looking car, it looks just like a regular Honda Civic and drives pretty nice too.

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Originally posted by LH
Oh yeah, here's a thought - maybe Honda or Toyota could try making a hybrid car that isn't the ugliest thing on the road. Prius, Insight, they're ugly. The Civic Hybrid is even ugly, but it looks good compared to those other turds. I will never drive anything like that.

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Yeah, most hybrids are ugly. I think it's so that the major car companies can say, "See, we made a hybrid but no one wants it. Guess we'll just keep using gas cars." and thus they keep their oil company bedfellows' pockets loaded.

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Originally posted by LH
And another thought - premium is $1.99 a gallon where I live now, and minimum wage is $5.75 last time I checked. Before someone ignorantly comes in crying "you Americans, you Americans" he should do his homework and look at the cost of gas versus the cost of living, because I find I have little to no money left over after paying my stupid bills, and it's $60 dollars a week in gas that is killing me.

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Why do you need premium gas? Most cars run fine on regular gas, and if you are driving a car that takes premium gas and are bitching about price, then you shouldn't have the car in the first place because you can't afford it.

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Originally posted by Dingo_Jellybean
...it looks just like a regular Honda Civic...

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Haha, yeah, that's my problem with it. ;)

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Mr. Mimic:
Why do you need premium gas? Most cars run fine on regular gas, and if you are driving a car that takes premium gas and are bitching about price, then you shouldn't have the car in the first place because you can't afford it.

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I don't use premium gas. The difference between premium and 87 is rarely anything more than 15 cents a gallon, so no matter what I use in my car I'm paying a lot. I'd save about two bucks a fill-up if I use the lowest grade instead of the highest.

What about solar electric cars? They have the benefit of already existing, after all. Solar lets you drive all day, and electric lets you drive a good distance at night. Unless you have the endurance to drive 24 hrs straight, there's not much such a vehicle couldn't manage.

Solar power is kinda hard to capture. Even if a car was solar powered, it wouldn't run very fast. I remember seeing a solar car in person when I was in 5th grade. It could barely go more than 30 mph. And even if you do store the power, it would run out in about half an hour. And AC, radio, heat, etc. would run down the battery quicker too...but eh. It could be a combination of all three, gas-electric-solar...that could be the ultimate and most convenient way to build a car's fuel source.

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Originally posted by Garland
What about solar electric cars? They have the benefit of already existing, after all. Solar lets you drive all day, and electric lets you drive a good distance at night. Unless you have the endurance to drive 24 hrs straight, there's not much such a vehicle couldn't manage.

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You'd need a 200,000km long solar panel to substitute for all the power that oil gives us

The only way that people aren't going to die is by either growing soy beans, or lining every single highway and buliding with small solar panels

People will have to stop wasting so much. How come huge plantations in the Australian outback can run on solar and wind power alone, if free energy is as inefficient as you all say?

There is no choice anyway. In another five years, there'll be no oil left in the world except for some hard to reach areas in Sibiria. That means people will use bicycles and public transport again, less children and pets will die on the streets, and Shell's private army will stop murdering locals in Africa. I can't wait for oil to run out. It's the devil's semen.

I live near Chicago, IL, and I have heard that this summer gas prices are supposed to go over $3.00. Right now they are $1.83-$1.95 (unleaded, which is what I use). I just wanted to vent about this. Needless to say, I am pretty pissed off about it. Bring on a different source of power already(yeah, I know it's not easy, but damn)!

we clearly need to build a dyson sphere.

With the current rate of pollution, we'd suffocate to death inside a Dyson sphere within half a year.

We need to build solar panels, wind and tide powerplants, and cars that run on hemp or alcohol (thought that'd be a waste).

...Not to mention that a Dyson Sphere would require destroying thousands of solar systems, just to get the raw materials... pity, it's such a cool concept.

Anyway, there's practically limitless energy out there, waiting to be harvested. The sun - gives us light and heat; the winds can be harnessed, rivers diverted through hydro dams... so many ways of gathering energy without fossil fuels of any kind.

That was one of my favorite episodes... Dyson Spheres rock.

Yes, there is limitless energy out there. The only questions are, how do we harness it, and how do we do so efficiently enough to power everything we need in this day and age? Solar power is all good and well, but it takes an enormous amount of money and space to do what a gas power plant can do.

You're absolutely right. Every machine used to build a 'clean' power-pant is going to churn out pollutants, unless someone comes up with a solar-powered bulldozer sometime soon; all the plastics used in circuitry and wiring are made using toxic chemicals... even the 'clean' alternatives require a lot of mess, just to get underway.

It's basically going to take sweeping fundamental changes in every area of industry before things truly change. Because in every production line, every process that builds the things we use, traditional forms of energy are absolutely essential in this day and age.

It'll take time, but I think the change can be made.

Those other thousands of solar systems are harboring terrorists bent on destroying Earth's way of life, we must launch a preemptive strike to mine them dry so we can build our dyson sphere.


Alcohol's an idea, though. I mean, if we can run things on, say, fermented corn alcohols...

We'd need to work out a large-scale growing system, though. City-sized greenhouses and the like. Then again, I suspect large, hyrdroponic greenhouses may be the future of agriculture..

someone clue me in on what a dyson sphere is? :D

plus the problem lies the in population not the amount used. with the growth rates, nothing will ever supply that amount of energy for all the people efficiently at a decent price for one it would need to be renewable *gasp* that means the current infrastructure would need to change as well and we all know how much modern culture resists change.

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Originally Posted by Dingo_Jellybean

Yeah, in some ways I like gas price hikes. Those people who drive SUVs drive them in ways that consumes gas almost 1.5x more than normal cars. SUV drivers accelerate too fast to be economical, I welcome the gas hikes...sometimes. But i don't mind it, people need to quit braking so hard, accelerating so fast, and driving so fast.

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I have an SUV. It's a 90 chevy blazer and gets about 19 miles a gallon. And I accelerate too fast because I have a big engine and I liek to shot it off :)

I don't drive at all simply because my conscience does not allow me. Enviromental resons, basically. So I ride my bike when I need to get somewhere, and if it's very far I might take the bus. In the area of alternative power sources I admire the japanese car manufacturers for producing many car models that run on electricity and hydrogen.

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Originally Posted by Shadowdust

That's all fine and dandy if you work locally but a lot of people have to commute over long distances because of a lack of jobs in their area.

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my school is 15 miles away. I'd have to get up at 2 in the morning to ride there and I wouldn't have any fingers left after the winter.
anyhow, although it sounds like the same rhetoric you've always heard, opec is to blame. 50% of all american oil is domestic. 25% is south american. 15% is from other non arab nations. 10% is kuwait. the problem is that in a global marked however much one supplier raises their prices the other's will raise more. you can't ween america off of energy, and we won't accept more expensive sources. we need fuel cells, and a massive nuclear plant. meltdowns aren't as frequent as muckrackers make them out to seem. we need a lot of cheap energy. Nuclear

Heh, I hear you all go on and on about why you think your gas prices are getting higher and higher and I still don't see anyone name a good reason. I think I know why you people there in the US are suffering from those high prices, and believe it or not, it has to do with the stupid little ugly @@#!@!!@#@#$!$%#@$^!#@%!!#&^!#$%^!$##$%#%!#$$%!&*^$(@#$~%@%!#$^!^ that I now have for a "president". If you want to know more, look for Venezuela.

And please, if there is anything you can do to help us down here, I'd really appreciate it.

so you'd rather elect a fool who want's to raise the gas prices with a monsterous gas tax. You can't incite me to find different forms of transportation out of the county, and that's not one of the 18 enumerated powers of the constitution. Believe it or not, most of what congress has done in the last half century is unconstitutional: congress is only allowed to do 18 things.

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Originally Posted by Clyde Arronway

so you'd rather elect a fool who want's to raise the gas prices with a monsterous gas tax.

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Uhm....who's this directed to Clyde?

It's asking you (seriously, not sarcastically) if you'd rather elect Kerry since it's clear he'll make it much worse.

I don't think either Presidential candidate can help the gas prices right now. With the problems in Iraq, it's likely that the entire Middle East will be an even bigger problem, regardless of the outcome.

What needs to be done, is find alternatives to gasoline, or else, we'll always have to have a vested interest in countries we probably shouldn't be sticking our nose into.

Take care all.

The US has some of the lowest gas prices in the western world. It probablly SHOULD be taxed more, so we stop wasting the stuff.

From what I've heard, the US have the cheapest petrol prices anywhere in the world. It is also responsible for most of the world's pollution.

The reason why petrol is getting more expensive is that it's running out. Everywhere in the world. In a few years there won't be a drop left. I guess you'll all have to get used to your bipedal nature again. It's going to be paradise for me. I hate cars.

Like I've said before, we need to stop burning the stuff ASAP so we can still make plastic...

The high gas prices are probably due to the fact that at some point in the near future there will not be any oil left. Thus, we could blame God, for not making enough when he created the earth. Of course, it would be more logical to blame ourselves, our parents, and our grandparents for wasting it all. I don't think gas prices are going to go down anytime soon, and new oil sure isn't appearing very fast, so I think it might be a good idea to find a new fuel and power source.

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Originally Posted by Clyde Arronway

It's asking you (seriously, not sarcastically) if you'd rather elect Kerry since it's clear he'll make it much worse.

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Uhm... sorry Clyde, can't answer that question, as I can't elect any of your presidents.

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Originally Posted by zendust1

Uhm... sorry Clyde, can't answer that question, as I can't elect any of your presidents.

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"you'd" is a contration for "You would." it means essentially: which candidate do you want to win. I know you may not have an opinion, and it seems that you have implied that your citizenship is not american, so you couldn't vote, but america has the power to doom or change the world. Who do you want in power here.

Anywhoo... the plastic argument is one I hadn't heard before. It's good. But if we want to stop using oil it will involve temporarily going in the opposite direction. We need to cut funding to large portions of economically opressive government orginizations and develop our technology. The US government has a lot of power to make us advance. Though we're going up fast on a nano-scale, we need to advance on a macro scale. That means Huge better energy sources (Gamma radiation flies towards earth each day. It's virtually infinitly more powerful than solar. Orbital sattelites to collect it before the ozone layer destroys it and then send one really big beam to a collection plant on earth.) and most important: fuel cells! Most of the stuff in your house was created or influnced indirectly by the space program. If bush gets his space initiative through, it will benefit us much more than any welfare programs or EPA would.

I remember in places like France, gas equivalently is about $4.70/gal.

In Carcarus or some country like that, gas is 14cents/gal, equivalently.

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Originally Posted by Dragonflame

The high gas prices are probably due to the fact that at some point in the near future there will not be any oil left. Thus, we could blame God, for not making enough when he created the earth. Of course, it would be more logical to blame ourselves, our parents, and our grandparents for wasting it all. I don't think gas prices are going to go down anytime soon, and new oil sure isn't appearing very fast, so I think it might be a good idea to find a new fuel and power source.

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This is of course if you believe in God.

But remember, most cars, even hybrids, are 15% efficient. The rest of the potential energy in gasoline goes off as heat.

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Originally Posted by Clyde Arronway

"you'd" is a contration for "You would."

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You're (as in "you are") kidding right? I know what a CONTRACTION (I'm sorry, but you spelled it wrong) is and what it means....

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Originally Posted by Clyde Arronway

it means essentially: which candidate do you want to win. I know you may not have an opinion, and it seems that you have implied that your citizenship is not american, so you couldn't vote, but america has the power to doom or change the world. Who do you want in power here.

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Well, America does have the power to change the world for it is a whole continent. Now, if you were reffering to The United States, you may also be right, your country is one of the most powerful of the world. Anywhoo (as you so intelectually put it) I don't know much about the candidates that run for your upcoming election (although a cousin of mine, who is now living in New York, tells me that Kerry could influence our situation here in Venezuela) but I do think that if Kerry was to win, he would help us down here and if that were to happen, then I'm sure your gas prices would drop or stop increasing (at least a bit) because we would be glad to supply you with petroleum once again (for I don't think that you are recieving much as of late because we now have a "so called president" that is totally Pro-Cuba and Pro-Fidel, in other words fascist, and HATES the USA).

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Originally Posted by Dingo_Jellybean

In Carcarus or some country like that, gas is 14cents/gal, equivalently.

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If you are reffering to Caracas, Dingo, it's a city, and the capital of Venezuela, my country. If you were reffering to that, then yes I can fill my car's tank (a little more than 11 gallons) with just $1.25 (about 12 cents/gal).

i dunno what your crying about here in UK it costs 80p per litre. Rip off

Crying? who's crying?

I'm not sure what's the metric for gallons to litre is, but in Canada we are paying about 1$ a litre. At the end of summer in canada, Ive heard the gas prices here will hit about $1.50 a litre... :mad2: