Jeezus

iTrader: (4)

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.

workinprogress80

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.

Rotor_king

iTrader: (2)

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

ray green

iTrader: (14)

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

Ray

Jeezus

iTrader: (4)

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

yetterben

start lining up again ray based on plates lol!

axle

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

Glazedham42

iTrader: (4)

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.

Jeezus

iTrader: (4)

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.

yetterben

covert that sucker to propane stu

PercentSevenC

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.

rxtasy3

iTrader: (2)

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

grandgarson

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.

blackdeath647

iTrader: (2)

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 ****

axle

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

Mickster

iTrader: (2)

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

grandgarson

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.

Jeezus

iTrader: (4)

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.

grandgarson

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.

FirebirdSlayer666

iTrader: (3)

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

swbtm

iTrader: (2)

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

ray green

iTrader: (14)

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.

PercentSevenC

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.

Re-Speed.com

iTrader: (3)

I found this interesting:

http://www.progressiveautoxprize.org/


-billy

yetterben

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.