Gas
 

One thing I have never figured out is the dollar is dropping, economy sucks, gas is getting higher, yet the oil companies are having record profits and claim that they are in line with everyone else in profits.


wtf?

I know this topic is beat to hell, but we can still have a civil discussion about it.

Reason I have it here and not the lounge is because the lounge sucks and the RX takes $50 to fill up now.

Ha...$50? I filled up the Dodge yesterday for $97.00. That is like almost half my pay for a week. I wish they would go ahead and start drilling our own oil that way the price will come down.

I started riding my bike every other day to compensate. It really sucks right now..

Yep I submitted $52.00 for my 14.5 gallons today. Oh well, we new it was coming back in '72.

Ray

That was for the RX only. The protege is another $42.

start lining up again ray based on plates lol!

our pres owns an oil company so don't expect any help there maybe if every body started complaining about the price of milk that might at least help on one thing that is just as expensive if not costs more

They need to put a price ceiling on the oil companies. The only problem is that if they do that, then there will likely be a black market for it. If the oil companies were faced with a price ceiling, the demand would increase because of the price drop. Oil companies would be unable to provide a sufficient quantity of gas at the lower price because they are already operating at maximum capacity (supposedly). So then you've got a bunch of people wanting to buy cheap gas and there isn't any to buy. Thus the introduction of the black market.

The real solution is a new energy source, or new technology. New technology breeds new jobs, stimulates the economy, reduces foreign dependence, likely helps the environment, etc. As much as I hate the increase in gas prices, I think it is beneficial in a technological sense. It has finally become lucrative to pursue new energy sources since the price of crude oil has become so outlandish.

I personally think that someone needs to set up some kind of old school competition like when Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic. Lindbergh got a nice cash price for his efforts back in the day, if I remember correctly. While the Orteig price was $25,000 back in 1927, it still didn't pay for all of the investments in the project. The real payoff came when transatlantic flights were a reality. Think of all the jobs, wealth, and wages that the Lindbergh flight helped promote.

A similar prize of a hundred million dollars for a viable energy source would be interesting. People wouldn't compete for the prize as much as they would the fame and recognition of solving the energy crisis of the modern world. It would be instant fame if someone were to come up with something worthwhile. I think that Bill Gates, or some other fat cat should really do something like this.

I just don't want to have to fill her up that one last time :(

Maybe we can configure her to run off veggie oil or something.

covert that sucker to propane stu :)

Ethanol. You can make it in your backyard if you want to, and it'll get you a little more power than gasoline if tuned correctly. :)

don't we have oil wells in texas or did they all dry up the reason we're so dependent on foreign oil?

I think this topic is just insane. Everyone throws a fit about the price of gas, yet the same people will think nothing of paying an outrageous amount for a gallon of water at the store. Plus gas hasn't gone up as much as a lot of other things. It's like nobody understands inflation. It happens with everything, but yet this is the one thing that people freak out about. And as far as those of us in the US, I think that most of us need to do a little research before we start running our mouth about how high the cost of gas is here. Take a look at how much it costs in other countries (and do the math. 1 US gallon = 3.78541178 liters). Gas is still cheaper in the US than pretty much anywhere else.

I think it's things like this that make people in other countries have the opinion that Americans are ignorant self centered jerks. And in many cases they are right. Many of us don't think beyond our back yard.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I'm not trying to bash my fellow Americans, it's just that I think many of us have gone completely insane when it comes to this subject.

a water powered rotary would be awesome, not exactly sure how that would work, but if we can keep the rotary and have other methods such as electricity or water, or ethanol or w/e it'd be the shit :zip:

there is an alternative fuel its called E-85 sells for$1.75 a gallon but YOU need a flex fuel motor or figure out how to convert a rotary to use it it's basically ethanol with a little gasoline mixed in it's being used in south America

Oil prices and economic reality
 

We consume a quarter of the world's annual supply -- three times more than China and eight times more than India. As prices surpass $4/gallon our consumption starts falling and keeps falling, the petroleum sector reacts to the decreased demand.

Back in the 1970s, everyone thought the world was running out of petroleum. There are trillions of barrels of untapped crude oil in the Earth. Congress has not acted in our best interests to ease our dependence of foreign oil. We also have not added a new refinery in over 29 years. Inexcusable.

Our Federal and State governments make more profit from taxes on each gallon of gasoline than the oil companies who do all the work to supply the fuel that drives our economy.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/gas-price.htm

My dream car would be an electric car. And before you start bashing the idea know that electric cars have come a long way. Here's a link to prove my point. If I ever have the money and a place to build it, I'd love to take apart a 1st gen and use it to make molds and create an entire car using carbon fiber and fiberglass (carbon fiber for the frame and other structurally important parts) and build an electric car out of it. That would drop the weight of the car enough to easily get the batteries needed and still have very good performance out of it.

Go for it, I want to see an electric RX7, especially a first gen!


But I have seen home projects with 12-20 car batteries just to carry it 200 miles.

That's the biggest limitation on electric cars right now. They're working on lithium ion batteries for automotive use (I think they've actually solved the safety issues by now. The last time I was researching it, it sounded like Toshiba was pretty close to having a viable Lithium Ion Automotive battery.), and once those are readily available then it will really cut down on the weight from batteries needed to make the car useful for more than driving around town. That's the main reason for my idea of building the entire car out of fiberglass and carbon fiber. It would make up for the added weight of the batteries.

I'm pretty sure that the Tesla Motor's Roadster uses Lithium Ion cells, so they must have solved the safety issues, or at least lessened the dangers to people in the car. The reason Lithium Ion batteries weren't used in electric cars before is because of the danger of them catching fire (like the laptops with Sony batteries that has issues a couple years back). Once Lithium Ion automotive batteries are readily available then I think electric cars will really take off, because that will really cut down the weight from the batteries and when you cut down the weight the car will have better acceleration, and with those batteries they would still have a respectable 200 miles per charge.

Alot of the problem is that China is in it's industrial revolution right now and their demand for oil is going up rapidly. They are willing to pay the prices to get the oil so that in turns help drive prices up because everyone else has to pay that price or they don't get the oil. There's not really anything we can do but cope and hope for the best. Gas here is $3.89 for regular and almost $5 a gallon for diesel. I've heard if Diesel hits $5 or more that the truckers are going to shut down, and if they do that the economy won't be in a recession, it will stop completely

Research the tesla a little bit... they use ordinary batteries that you can find in the store... just a crap load more of them!!!

# Cell type: lithium ion, 18650 form-factor (18mm diameter by 65 mm length). Most laptop computer batteries already use this type of lithium-ion cell.[37]
# Cell count: 6,831 cells arranged into 11 modules connected in series; each module contains 9 "bricks" connected in series; each "brick" contains 69 cells connected in parallel (11S 9S 69P)

No body ever considers the carbon foot print that it takes to create a battery and either reuse it or dispose of it properly... look at any place in the vicinity of a nickel mine... desolation

And, along with the ecological stupidities of batteries swbtm points out, don't you have to plug electric cars in at night? Hmmm, isn't that energy coming out of that plug? Oh that's right! And where did it come from? Burning fossil fuels like oil, or worse, highly polluting coal, or even worse, deadly long lasting waste generating nuclear plants.

Stop looking for a magic bullet guys, the answer is obvious - use less gas. We could start by outlawing SUVs, pick up trucks and other luxury gas guzzlers.

Here, read this, from today's NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/28/op...dc8&ei=5087%0A

Time for a little truth, $4.00/gal gas and higher is here to stay. And that's a good thing.

The point is, electric cars can also use electricity generated from clean energy sources like wind, solar, and yes, nuclear (which is relatively a very, very clean energy source). We are not tied to a specific energy source like foreign oil that will only keep getting more and more expensive as the easily accessible reserves run out. It also puts the burden of emissions control on the large plants, which is good for a variety of reasons. Electric motors are also far more efficient than any internal combustion engine, resulting in much less energy use overall. They also have an advantage of making peak torque from 0 RPM, making drivability generally better than small-displacement gasoline engines.

I suggest ethanol as a temporary solution due to its relative ease of production (and by that I don't mean corn) and compatibility (after a few modifications) with existing ICEs. But the future is in EVs and biodiesel for trucks.

I found this interesting:

http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/


-billy

e85 is almost the same price as gas here. Wish it was that cheap lol. Gas prices rise food prices are threw the roof its just changeing with the times does not really bother me too much.

"The point is, electric cars can also use electricity generated from clean energy sources like wind, solar, and yes, nuclear (which is relatively a very, very clean energy source). We are not tied to a specific energy source like foreign oil that will only keep getting more and more expensive as the easily accessible reserves run out. It also puts the burden of emissions control on the large plants, which is good for a variety of reasons. Electric motors are also far more efficient than any internal combustion engine, resulting in much less energy use overall. They also have an advantage of making peak torque from 0 RPM, making drivability generally better than small-displacement gasoline engines.

I suggest ethanol as a temporary solution due to its relative ease of production (and by that I don't mean corn) and compatibility (after a few modifications) with existing ICEs. But the future is in EVs and biodiesel for trucks."

Thanks Percent, that helps me understand why so many people think electric cars are the cat's pajama's. If as you say the overall efficiency and pollution advantages are greater then yes I can see it happening (but I sure will miss my internal combustion engine!).

But I still have an issue with the ethanol, like the issues with batteries you need to take everything into consideration. For example the stress our current ethanol policies are putting on the world food supply - another example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. And when the poor get poor enough, it starts to get ugly.

As it stands, ethanol in this country has caused more problems than it has solved and the farmers and big agriculture are whistling all the way to the bank.

Have any of you guys read up on HHO? I've been trying to decide what I think of it and I can't make my mind up. Basically you run electric current through water and then take advantage of the hydrogen gas that is a byproduct. Check it out on youtube. There are apparently some people who are claiming 10mpg increases just by doing this "water combustion" thing.

Jamie

There is some merit to that, but be careful if you buy a kit, there are a lot of scams out there claiming to work miracles.

HHO = water. Come on guys, you aren't that stupid.

Water has essentially no usable potential energy in it. Ever see the water dripping out your tail pipe? Yep it's what's left over after you burn your hydrocarbon fuel and get out all the usable energy in the system. It's an energy depleted waste product.

Basically it works like this:

Hydrocarbon + O2 (oxygen) = CO2 + H2O + lot's of free energy released

The released free energy is what makes your car go. That's the energy that was previously stored in your increasingly precious hydrocarbon fuel, the energy that was captured by eons of plant life soaking up the sun and converting it to biomass that later got compressed to that luscious oil we crave.

In order to get energy out of water, you first need to put energy in - that's what putting the electric current through the water is all about - it's called electrolysis. Of course the electric current was created by, you guessed it, burning oil.

The energy in the electric current splits the water into H2 (hydrogen gas) and O2 (oxygen). This stores the energy from the electric current in the hydrogen gas, which you can burn and get back some of the electric energy (but not all) that you put in to make the hydrogen.

Anybody see a problem here?

Or, to put it in more simple terms, I challenge any of you to burn water and get out any energy. Come on guys get real, we use water to put the flames out.

Scientific illiteracy is one thing, legal scams to exploit scientific illiteracy is another. These HHO scammers need to be locked up.

Oil company profits per dollar are absolutely mid-pack for fortune 500 companies, they're making their money on the volume of oil sold which is steadily increasing due to China and India buying all they can get their hands on. Attempting to put in place another windfall profits tax will do the same thing it did when Carter tried it, decrease US production and increase our reliance on OPEC nations. The capitalist system is the worst thing ever, right up until you compare it to every other system that has been tried and failed. Try and keep some perspective.

They make money because of the volume with low profit margin.

Oil is not gas refining process cost a lot of money. Transport costs money and exporation and retrival costs money.

Taxes amount to a lot as well as California and other special forumulations cost money.

The reason it's so expensive is the demand.

India, China, Russia etc... every pimple faced teen in China wants a 4 banger.

India traffic?

Every day like so many cars and bikes are sold and each has a tank to fill.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM

Hydrogen is a terrible fuel.

ray you have a very valid point creating hho for welding purposes is one thing (the navy has been doing this for a while in their ship yards but your car is not plugged into a wall socket your motor has to make the extra electricity and on an rx-7 we all know from experience that there is not much to spare the alternators are wimpy so there goes your fuel savings because of the extra draw on the charging system plus you have to reajust your carb or ecu or your idoling to fast so when you are first starting your car there would be less hho so would create a harder start problem and if you tried storing the hho it is highly explosive more so than gas so like the ford pinto you are driving a rolling bomb

paid $4.59 in Seattle today. plus $4.89 premix. DD a turbo fb is expencive. duh

This is all relative. Where I live most of the electricity is from hydroelectric, so that's not true. Also, there are other solutions. You could build a solar powered "gas pump". You could setup a few solar panels connected to enough storage to hold enough electricity to recharge your car. That way once you are done with the expense of building the car and the "electric gas pump" you are driving for free.

I would also say that Hydrogen is not a terrible fuel... it is the most abundant source of energy in the universe... look up at night and there's the proof... every star is an almost limitless amount of hydrogen (in our reference time scales)

If we can figure out how to control fusion (through gravity or strong magnetic fields) enough hydrogen plants would replace ALL sources of energy... and the by product of such a plan??? Helium!

Then if we were really hard pressed to find hydrogen we could fuse Helium into Li, Be, B, C.... and on down the line until Iron... then all we would need is a supernova to create heavier particles (keep in mind a supernova uses up energy in its process) Each successive step to a heavier particle ends up with less net positive energy. So we end up with iron.. but we would probably stop the process somewhere around Helium since Hydrogen is so abundant.

We bask in our own ignorance and attempt to create new power sources when we orbit the most efficient one ever in existence.... not completely true (main sequence stars are a little less efficient than white or brown dwarfs... ) any ways... hydrogen is good

the same fear mongering was said about gasoline when we were switching over from horse drawn carriages... this is just a resistance to change... change in mentality and infrastructure.

Fin

You know what's really sad. Coming back from Denver, I stopped at Julesberg CO, during a gas war shortly before the first gas crunch. Paid 19.9 cents/gal. Now the taxes are more than twice that. Then spent the next 20+ years driving 55 mph, that really sucked, lol.

That's what I'm feeling like right now Scott. :D Who knows how much longer this stuff is going to skyrocket up. I'm using what I can while I can still afford it. Hopefully I can get the 7 done in time to drive it a little bit while I have the funding....

"You know what's really sad. Coming back from Denver, I stopped at Julesberg CO, during a gas war shortly before the first gas crunch. Paid 19.9 cents/gal"

You are getting old Scott, that 19.9 cents is worth $4.26 today.

I'm prepared for $10/gallon in the next 12 months, then I'm hoping Obama can talk some sense into the world.

you can hope ray but governments are not that efficient just look at the road crews in your area 1 guy fills a pot hole one guy tells him how while he is doing it and a third guy supervises the second guys instructions this is our governments local state and Federal this is a good example of why it takes so long to change things they don't want to run things efficiently because than at least one third if not more people would be out of work i.e. instant depression with so many out of work on all three levels of government
sorry for the long post but gas prices are not going to get any better soon

I'm thinking of getting a scooter haha. I was looking at the Yamaha Zuma scooter. It's got a 1.5 gallon tank and gets an estimated 123 mpg. Thats like 184 miles to a tank(basically what my 7 gets with 13 gallons) and only cost around 5 bucks to fill up. I'd use that for going to work and other places, and make the 7 a weekend car.

Now that scooter idea is intelligent TT!.

axle, good news here in Georgia. We don't have potholes!! Not sure why, but buy a GA car if you can.

On a more serious note, I think we should increase the gas tax so that we use less gas - gotta be good in the long run. We can use the extra money to fill the potholes.

well up here were we have snow the roads are like tank traps at least here in Spokane six million dollars left in the city budget last year and what do they use it for red light cameras that they have tried before and they failed to make money for the city instead of fixing the roads thats smart government for you

Alex

Other countries can do it because they're not burning coal to make electricity. Doesn't make as much power (about half of the RX-8), but for commuter cars the hydrogen-RE can be promoted for its smooth, vibration free operation like in the old RX-2 adverts.

I don't think Mazda is promoting their H-RE enough, which is a true hybrid engine. I'm seeing huge talk about Honda's and BMW's engines, but they don't run on both petrol and hydrogen. It's a good bridge car while the infrastructure gets changed over.

Another rant I have (not directed to %7C) is all the people complaining about new tech/alt fuel vehicles, expecting them to be some magic bullet that gets a million mpg.

I plan on buying a bicycle here in the next week or so to commute to work and back on nice enough days. It'll save gas/miles/wear and tear on the SA and it'll get me out exercising again which is something I want to do. Another thing I find really interesting is 15 years ago we were seeing cars built that had the same mpg rating as some of these new hybrid vehicles out. We have the technology for cars to get 50+mpg in a mid sized sedan but you have to love big oil keeping technology down

Exactly!! Not to mention Solar panels in your home, would further reduce the consumption by a huge factor.

Electric car technology exists already. It existed over 10 years ago.
The Oil & Car companies buy all the technology and squash it. Theres still
to much money to be made from oil to them.

If you have the time - please see the documentary
Who killed the electric car?
It is a wake up call, and very well made. I put a link
up to the whole vid on Google Video.

That sounds great in theory, but there are many cities that have added a tax to gas to do that, but somehow it just never ends up being spent on that. Just goes to bloat unnecessary budgets. It would be nice if the person writing the tax bill actually wanted the money to go to that, but that's very rarely the case, and is usually just a way for them to get people to vote for something that will give them more money.

Even more benefits of this. If you convert your home to solar power and leave it hooked up to the grid, in most places if you are producing more electricity than you are using your meter will run backwards and you will actually be selling electricity to the power company. Not all companies will work that way where they will be actually buying electricity from you, but most will at least give you a credit, so if you end up using more electricity than you produce in the winter but the other way around in the summer than chances are you would never pay a power bill again.

Also, electric cars have been around a lot longer than 10 years, it's just that in the last 10 years or so the technology has been developed enough to make it a viable option. And I don't think it's been so much that they have suppressed the technology as it has been that they've put a bad spin on electric cars so that everyone thinks of an electric car like the ones from the 70's & 80's where you had no power, no range, and took forever to recharge. And it's been easy for them to do, since most people hate change and don't want to believe that an electric car could possibly perform as well as they're gas car. Then guys couldn't stand around and talk about valves, pistons and head gaskets . . . oh, wait, we don't have to talk about those things with rotaries either. Isn't it great. lol

Some of the earliest cars (we're talking mid-19th century here) were electric.

Also, I feel I should mention that what I said about hydrogen sucking only applies to hydrogen ICEs, not hydrogen fuel cells, which are quite a neat technology that might well be worthwhile.