What REALLY are our options to deal with $3.00/gal gas?

[napi21]

I already plan my trips to make sure I get everything done in one, and I mentaly map out a route so I don't backtrack. I check "gasbuddy" http://www.gasbuddy.com/ on line to make sure I'm getting the lowest prices in the area.

I don't have the $$ to be able to go buy a new hybred car, and even they aren't CHEAP to operate!

The only hope I have is that others are NOT SHOPPING the same as I am, and that between the increase in food prices and everything else (due to the high transportation costs) will cause every non-oil business in the World will start kicking and screaming at the oil companies, who seem to be gouging the public so they can show record profits for Wallstret!

Anyone have any ingenious ideas how we as comsumers can put some pressure on them too?

[BlueEyedSon]

1. Pay up, drive less, get a more fuel efficient vehicle

You DO know that gas is $5 to $7 in europe, right?

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. We got used to Canadian prices so there was less shock coming home *l*

[ClintonTyree]

6. And in Europe they have socialized haelthcare.......

to show for it. It'd be happy to pay those prices if we actually GOT something in return. The only people benefiting from this price gouging are the oil companies and the wall street traders. The rich get richer, at our expense, and the poor get poorer. Capitalism at it's finest! :grr:

[napi21]

15. Not quite apples and oranges. Here's current comparrison worldwide.

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/price.html


Gas prices around the world
Think you pay a lot for gas? Perhaps you'd prefer to live in Venezuela.

Gasoline prices in the United States, which have recently hit record highs, are actually much lower than in many countries. A few countries, like Venezuela have prices that are far lower.

The main driver of price disparities between countries is government policy, according to AirInc, a company that tracks the cost of living in various places around the world. Many European nations tax gasoline heavily, with taxes making up as much as 75 percent of the cost of a gallon of gasoline, said a spokesperson for AirInc.

In Venezuela, on the other hand, oil is produced by a government-owned company and local gasoline prices are kept low as a benefit to the nation's citizens, he said. All prices updated May, 2004.

Nation City Price
UK TEESIDE $5.64
HONG KONG HONG KONG $5.62
UK MILFORD HAVEN $5.56
UK READING $5.56
UK NORWICH $5.54
GERMANY FRANKFURT $5.29
DENMARK COPENHAGEN $5.08
NORWAY STAVANGER $5.07
NORWAY OSLO $4.93
ITALY ROME $4.86
TURKEY ISTANBUL $4.85
PORTUGAL LISBON $4.80
KOREA SEOUL $4.71
SWITZERLAND GENEVA $4.56
KOREA KOJE/OKPO $4.53
AUSTRIA VIENNA $4.50
CROATIA ZAGREB $4.32
JAPAN TOKYO $3.84
AUSTRALIA SYDNEY $2.63
CAMBODIA PHNOM PENH $2.57
TAIWAN TAIPEI $2.47
GEORGIA TBILISI $2.31
LAOS VIENTIANE $1.66
THAILAND BANGKOK $1.60
CHINA TIANJIN $1.54
CHINA SHANGHAI $1.48
RUSSIA MOSCOW $1.45
KAZAKHSTAN ALMATY $1.36
KAZAKHSTAN ATYRAU $1.35
TAJIKISTAN DUSHANBE $1.32
AZERBAIJAN BAKU $1.15
VENEZUELA CARACAS $0.14
*********************************************************************

I think it's important to read the note at the top of the chart, and the explaination of the discrepancy between Countries. Last I heard, the drastic price increase here in the US had NOTHING to do with TAXES! Sounds like GREEDY oil companies to me!

[BlueEyedSon]

18. "All prices updated May, 2004." Probably safe to assume

that they are 20%-30% higher now....

[kaygore]

26. They have also invested in reliable public transportation

We haven't and even now, Congress wants to cut subsidies to Amtrak while building more highways!

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

30. They keep telling us how lucky we are....

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. My husband

is thinking seriously of making a bybrid car. We have old vehicles with blown engines but good bodies, etc. He has to check out a few things, but if it works, I'll share what he does with everyone here.

[BlueEyedSon]

7. I don't think its something one can "make"

probly need a couple PhDs and it would cost 5x the purchase of a commercial one. Lots of custom hardware and IT inside.

[Strelnikov_]

10. A HEV Conversion May Be Difficult

But an EV conversion good enough for a local commuter/errand vehicle is possible for $3k to $6k. People have been doing it for years.

I was thinking about it, but the problem I ran into is finding a good donor car. Finding a car, preferably small w/ manual trans., with a shot engine but with a working transmission and good body/interior is difficult. Someone in the auto repair/salvage industry would have better luck.

http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Downs/4214/links.html

http://www.electroauto.com/index.html

[deadparrot]

4. I'm attending college in a small town.

You can walk across town in a half hour. Let's just say that I'll be walking A LOT in the coming months.

[CrispyQ]

16. You will be fit & looking fine! -eom

[deadparrot]

19. Definitely.

Well, hopefully.

:D

[eallen]

24. That's one of the smartest things you can do.

Great exercise. Shoes are cheap compared to cars.

[TheFarseer]

5. bend over and smile

Rush Limbaugh has it all figured out. Would you like to hear his brilliant strategy? Here it is: "Find a job that pays more money." tah dah! Wow, it's just as easy as that! Nevermind that if I could find a job that pays more money I would probably take it no matter if gas costs 5 cents a gallon or 500 dollars a gallon, but a stupid shit like Rush Limbaugh can't think in those terms. If he wants more meny he just gives himself a raise. He probably wonders why everyone doesn't do that. And liberals are elites!

anyway . . . . . . . . . . . . . that's one way to go on that problem.

[PFunk]

9. Actually the funny part about this is....

....that my current car, a 1990 Chevy Caliver station wagon actually gets better gas miledge that most of todays cars equal to or slightly smaller than it. And runs just as good. Strange isn't it?

[Delphinus]

33. Hi Pfunk,

First off, Welcome!

Secondly, I have a '97 Chevy Cavalier - don't recall exact numbers, but I get around 28 mpg in the city (usually the only place I go is to work and to get groceries, except now, my mom's in the hospital), and lots more on the highway. I can't afford a hybrid or any other car for that matter.

[MurryMom]

12. Energy Crisis solutions

One other solution to the problem that should have been obvious to Rush is to invest in oil and gas companies. I bet Rush has already loaded up his boat with energy stocks.

For the rest of us, we can use public transportation and encourage our legislators to subsidize public transit fares; raise the federal tax on gasoline to encourage conservation; and impose higher taxes on gas-guzzling vehicles like SUV's. With W in the WH and a Repukie Congress, I'm not optimistic that these rational and easy ways of coping with the high cost of energy have much chance of success.

[TheFarseer]

32. investing in oil companies won't work

you see, supply ALWAYS rises to meet demand and when it does, prices will fall back into line. That's basic economics.

As for public transportation, that's for God damn hippies. Also taxes should not be used to "manipulate" people into buying a certain kind of car. The free market should decide. In fact, I think murder should be legal and if people don't like murder, the free market will stop it by itself. Obviously this entire post was :sarcasm:

[Deja Q]

27. I can't wait until he explains how we can ALL be millionaires...

:crazy:

[TheFarseer]

31. It's easy

Work hard. He had to work really hard at being a lieing piece of shit and now he's the best lieing piece of shit in the world. Or start your own business. You don't even need a business idea, a marketable product or any kind of experience - just good old American gumption and rolling up your sleaves will do.

[johnaries]

8. Not much we can do as individuals, but there's a lot we could do as a

country IF we had a REAL president.
Bush could stop filling the Strategic Oil Reserves which is driving demand higher, and instead open it to consumers like Clinton threatened to do.

We could switch to Biodiesel blends. It is available today.

We could increase the use of ethanol.

We could also start an investigation into why Oil Companies are raking in record profits despite higher oil prices and lower production.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Oil_companies_rake_in_record_profits_in_spite_of_falling_product_0725.html

I smell price fixing....

[eallen]

23. Most of that won't help much.

Ethanol takes more oil to produce than it saves. Don't forget that modern agriculture is quite energy intensive. Even the fertilizers come out of the ground. The ethanol program is a nice subsidy for the big ag companies, but does nothing to reduce our dependence on oil.

The strategic oil reserve can be used to dampen short term price fluctuations. It can't do anything about long term price moves. Do you think the current price trend is temporary or long term?

[wuushew]

29. I really doubt that when counting only fuel burned in farm machines

the fertilizer uses ammonia produced from natural gas and the energy used in the production could come from coal, nuclear solar, wind or burning bio-mass. The liquid energy content from one acre of corn exceeds that used in the machinery from 5 or 6 times. In the grand scheme of things you may barely break even, but if you are able to produce a given volume of ethanol you are doing ok.

Also recent developments in cellulose ethanol look promising. Hemp would go a long way to meeting transporation needs.

[johnaries]

38. I think current prices are short term. I think price fixing is going on.

Just like the California "energy crisis" in 2000. Yes, I believe that there are long term problems, but those require long term solutions.

I believe that we need short term, mid-term, and long term strategies to solve the energy problem. These are just some of the short term strategies that we could use.

ANY production of ANY portable fuel is energy intensive and requires more energy to create that it produces. However, ethanol is renewable whereas oil is not. And I would rather see the Ag business get subsidies for growing something than for not growing something, like they get now.

[eallen]

39. Doesn't matter if it's renewable, if it takes more energy to produce...

If it takes more commoditized energy to produce ethanol than it provides, then it causes increased consumption of energy sources. Which is to say, it increases oil consumption rather than decreasing it. To look at it another way, simply using the oil to produce gasoline would be more efficient, in terms of total oil used, than using the oil to grow corn to produce ethanol.

An energy source makes sense only if the energy it provides is greater than the energy that is put into its production. That's true for oil, nuclear, solar, coal, and every energy source. It doesn't make sense to drill an oil well, if the drilling and extraction process expends more energy than the oil brought to the surface provides as useful fuel.

Ethanol doesn't yet pass this threshhold.

I disagree about your diagnosis of current prices. The California crisis occurred in a local, highly controlled market. That allowed a few companies like Enron to manipulate it. What's happening now is happening in the global market. The only group that is capable of manipulating that market is OPEC, and it has been doing its best to lower prices by selling everything it can produce. So far, that has not much worked. Demand is simply growing faster than supply. Prices will continue to rise until supply either catches up, or economic conditions cause demand destruction.

[johnaries]

40. No, it is NOT true that oil and coal produce more energy than it takes

to produce them. Not when you consider the costs of exploration, harvesting it, transporting it, and then refining it for use, AND the energy used to build the machinery to perform all these functions - which is what Pimentel and Patzek did to come up with the figures for ethanol. And other scientists and researchers don't agree with them - well, except for the petroleum industry (surprise!)
http://www.news-gazette.com/localnews/story.cfm?Number=18703

And who says that oil has to be used as the energy source to produce ethanol? And although petroleum is used to produce some fertilizers, it is not the only source of fertilizer and there are better choices (manure, for instance).

You have to consider that there are 2 types of energy sources - portable and non-portable. By portable, I mean a source of energy that can be carried in some type of container. By non-portable, I mean an energy source that requires electric lines to distribute the energy. Portable energy will ALWAYS require more energy to produce that it's potential output if you use Pimentel's and Patzek's formulas(except possibly for one experiment currently being built at a turkey plant using the waste from producing Butterball turkeys, but we'll have to wait and see how that turns out). However, fuel cells can use ethanol with much more efficiency than combustion engines, and helps lower the ratio.

However, solar, wind power, hydroelectric, geothermal, and nuclear power are basically non-portable. Nuclear requires a fuel, and also has extremely hazardous waste, so it should not be considered. However, the others are potentially unlimited as far as duration although they only produce limited amounts at any one time. By using these sources for most of the production of ethanol, it becomes a much more desirable choice than oil.

Also, although demand has increased, they said the same thing about the CA crisis. Just check the recent record profits for oil corporations. We are not being told the whole truth.

I'm not saying ethanol is "the answer", we need long term solutions. What I am saying is that there ARE things we can do TODAY to help until long term solutions can be available. Bio-mass being one of them.

The Union of Concerned Scientists released a study showing that even just a 10% switch to renewable energy sources (including biomass) would have a huge impact on the economy.
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy/page.cfm?pageID=1505

John Kerry even brought this up in the Senate - but he was ignored.

[Burma Jones]

11. Three Bucks ain't as bad as it's been

Gas prices adjusted for inflation (courtesy of the NY Times)



I was an undergrad from '78 to '82 and didn't drive much - looks like I missed out on the last nasty peak.......

[BlueEyedSon]

13. What are our real wages, adjusted for inflation?

[Burma Jones]

20. They've been dropping for a while now.........

Still, things sucked big time back in the late 70's to the early 80's, why do you think a clown like Reagan got in?

[skids]

14. Optimize your home heating.

The other place you use gas (in this case, diesel) is home heating. It's much easier to save here, and you can use the extra cash for your transportation needs.

First work on conservation... insulate, and make sure heating sources have proper air circulation. If you have a room you don't really need to heat in the winter, turn the heat off in there and keep the door closed.

Then look into solar hot water -- when combined with an upgrade to an old, inefficient/badly insulated water heater, some solar systems can break even in well under 5 years at current prices. The more the prices of heating oil go up, the faster you end up with extra money to spend. The main problem here is finding a good contractor that has experience and won't gouge you.

[eallen]

17. Bicycle, walk, carpool, live cheap, and invest in energy.

Admittedly, alternate transportation is tough if you live in the suburbs. On days you would air condition, open the windows. (I write this from an unairconditioned house in the south.) Purchase long life, low current light bulbs. Turn the temp on your water heater down a bit. Put a little more air pressure in your tires. Browse websites on how to live more cheaply.

Cutting back always is the most effective personal strategy, in dealing with any financial difficulty. If everyone did it, especially with regard to energy, it would lower demand, and shift prices. A bit.

Oil is a fungible commodity, priced on the global market. Oil companies don't control the price, but do benefit when it rises. Some. The majors are fully integrated, meaning that they are not focused solely on production. Chevron still earns only about a dollar on every ten dollars of sales. The companies that benefit the most from rising prices are the exploration companies and trusts whose major assets are oil in the ground. Look at this graph, to see how little Chevron's stock has increased, compared to Prudhoe Bay Trust, over the past year of rising oil price:

http://ichart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=CVX&t=1y&q=l&l=on&z=m&c=BPT&a=v&p=s

Current prices are caused by supply not keeping up with demand. Demand from China and India has grown over the past few years, to the point that China is now the second largest energy consumer. The risky situation in the mideast is a secondary factor. If you think prices are high now, wait until Bush attacks Iran.

I encourage everyone to invest some in energy. This might be a bad time, due to the recent run up. Invest on dips. Obviously, all investments are risky. Oil could plunge back to $20/bbl, and stay there for the rest of our lives. But some investment in energy is simply a hedge against your own expenses. If you put $10,000 into an oil trust, that pays $75 a month in dividends, you eseentially have bought a supply of fuel for your car. If the price of oil goes up, your dividend goes up, and your rising expenses are partly covered. If the price goes down, your investment value goes down, but so do your energy expenses. Now may not be the time to do this. Think about it when oil is back at $50/bbl. Or jump in now, if you're certain the price is going only straight up. Don't ask me about that. My powers of prophesy are weak. Like all investment advice, mine is worth about what you paid for it.

:hippie:

[Syncronaut Seven]

21. A 3/12 or 4/10 workweek

4 on 3 off would save 20% in gas and you get an extra day with your family or a day of quiet while the kids are in school.

Sometimes I'm so brilliant it hurts just to look in the mirror. :dunce:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

22. Make the tax cuts permanent, that should fix just about everything

including the elections. </sarcasm>

[Stainless]

25. Surtax on Excess Profits

How about a surtax on Oil Company profits when the price of Crude is more than $50/barrel?

Similar legislation was proposed many years ago as a way to stop oil companies from making too much profit when crude prices were excessively high. The last time this was proposed, crude prices fell before the surtax could be imposed. With crude prices approaching $70/barrel, the extra money raised by this tax could help pay for the war and take some of the sting out of paying so much for gas.

Democrats should be raising hell about oil company profits anyway!

I posted earlier today about this subject but there was so much activity that the post was quickly left behind!

[eallen]

35. Why oil companies rather than any other kind of company?

There are all sorts of companies that experience more than usual profits under various circumstances. For example, the current runup in oil prices has caused ship owners to benefit from high tanker rates. Companies that produce solar cells also are seeing record demand, and making record profits. Should we put a surtax on their profits?

Oil is not the only commodity seeing high demand and high prices. Copper is high. Cement companies are doing well. When oil prices were low, the airlines benefitted, as did the trucking companies. The lo-carb diet fad benefitted the meat and chicken companies.

So I'm a bit curious why Democrats should be raising hell when some business segment benefits from current market circumstance. That seems like pretty normal business to me. Does this also work the other way around? When oil was at $15/bbl, should the Democrats have been screaming to subsidize the oil companies?

[democracyindanger]

28. Carpool. It's not just for commuters anymore.

The only way consumers can put pressure on oil companies is to use less. Since gas follows the "higher demand/higher price" model, assuming lower demand will lower prices is worth a shot. At the very least, you won't have to keep pouring money into their coffers. And get a motorcycle or scooter.

[buddysmellgood]

34. I think it's still pretty inexpensive. Look at what we get for it.

It takes years to realize the payback with the more fuel efficient hybrid. There is going to be pain. It should not get less expensive. It should cost more.

[Spock_is_Skeptical]

36. Keeping our Hyundai Accent

great fuel economy, it's around 37 mpg.

[SW FL Dem]

37. Just checked Gasbuddy- Costco has cheapest gas in my

area - what a surprise :).

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

41. I got rid of my larger car and bought a small old car for $1800

I also bought an engine hoist and repair books on that model car. I plan to do all the maintenance myself to save as much money as possible. I'm also upgrading the car (headers, exhaust, intake manifold, performance air filer) to try to get the most performance out of the car for the amount of gas it burns. I'm not an expert mechanic and in the past I've usually taken my cars to shops for problems, but I plan to become one as far as this car is concerned.