Will someone please give me a logical explination

[summit]

Here are some key points missing from this thread:

WORLD OIL SUPPLY IS ARTIFICIALLY LIMITED.
OPEC is a cartel... they keep supply low to keep the prices and their profits high. 10 years ago I paid $0.73/gal because OPEC was "overproducing." Today, gas is SEVEN times as expensive.

EUROPE'S HIGH GAS PRICES ARE SELF IMPOSED.
They are due to huge taxes imposed. $8/gallon? Yes but $3+ is tax in many places. This affects demand and has encouraged more efficient cars. The fact that Euro's have skinnier streets also forces smaller vehicles.

THE US IS A LOW POPULATION DENSITY DEVELOPED COUNTRY.
This means Euros can have better transit systems. This means that Euro's can tolerate higher gas prices because they have shorter to drive. This means that 'mericans all have longer drives than Euros. Vespas wouldn't work as well on 20 mile commutes. This is just a fact of geography AND poor planning going back 50+ years. When you look at Phillipe's map, you see the highest per-capita users are developed and low density. There is a push for mass transit, but do we see any trend towards revising suburban planning? Thank heavens telecommute jobs are on the rise...

A BIG CAR CAN BE MORE EFFICIENT THAN A SMALL CAR
A single smug person in a 40mpg car has a larger carbon footprint than 3 people in a 15mpg SUV. It depends on your regular use. There is a reason that airlines compute passengermiles/gallon, not simply mpg.

THE US DOES HAVE HUGE UNTAPPED OIL RESERVES
Congress just voted to continue the ban on extraction from Oil Shale. The US has the worlds largest known Oil Shale reserves. We have enough oil to 100% self-supply for 100 years. It's simply a matter of cost and will.

THE MILEAGE KEEPS GOING DOWN
Trucks keep getting bigger... so do cars... why do hybrids today get 40mpg but a 1980s CRX got 35mpg without a hybrid? Today's Tacoma is as big as a Tundra from a few years ago! Find me any 1/2 ton truck? Hell, you have trouble finding any 4-door vehicle that is <=1/2 ton. If the prices are sustained, the market will respond, but we truly need an alternative renewable fuel supply. This will stabilize prices too!

I drive an Accord. I am about to switch to something that uses more gas because I need the capacity. Yech...

[Liberal Genius]

Europe has handled $7-9 gas just fine, and so can we if our car industry and government shape up fast and get a f'in clue. Our mpg standards make me sick when compared to 43mpg and 47mpg averages of Europe & Japan, respectively.

The long term solution isn't better mpg.

We need to go electric NOW. I'm guessing you agree.

[greg]

i think it is funny that every single one of the worlds issues right now comes down to one factor....and that one factor nobody ever wants to talk about, especially here in the US.

OVERPOPULATION!!!!

talking about overpopulation. ok let's talk about overpopulation. for every killed american an rough approximate of 6-7 humans could live. that's for example, 2-3 europeans or 8 pacific asians. in total that would leave room for roughly 2,500,000,000 more people if we would wipe out north america. is that the kind of debate you were thinking of?

[LivinCO]

Here are some key points missing from this thread:

Very well stated. All good points.

If the ban on mining Shale was lifted, Colorado would have another gold rush, specifically the Mesa/Grand Junction area, huge resources under that area...

[Liberal Genius]

talking about overpopulation. ok let's talk about overpopulation. for every killed american an rough approximate of 6-7 humans could live. that's for example, 2-3 europeans or 8 pacific asians. in total that would leave room for roughly 2,500,000,000 more people if we would wipe out north america. is that the kind of debate you were thinking of?

What if we killed all of the idiots like you in Europe? How would that in improve my life here in the USA?

[Gunder]

awww, poor you all, gas is expensive.. go buy even bigger trucks and see if that changes the situation.

Dude it isnt that simple. Having a truck and a sled is a REQUIREMENT for my job.

What really pisses me off is how gas in Bham is ALWAYS 20~30 cents a gallon more than it is in seattle. Bham is the first stop for all of the oil tankers coming from AK, and has most of the PNW oil refineries. It costs less to ship it from Ak to bhm, than to seattle, and it costs less to ship it from the refinery here to the station in town, then it does to ship it too seattl, and you CANT FUCKING TELL ME ITS SUPPLY AND DEMAND when all of the supply for the PNW is in Bham, yet Seattle obviously has a much high demand.

[Lone Star]

greg's seeing dollar signs at the thought of another holocaust. understandable, it profited his people so well the first time around.

edit: some jobs allow you to sleep at night, others don't. excusing waste by professing what your lifestyle "requires" doesn't really contribute any meaningful perspective toward solving the problem.

[hemas]

THE US IS A LOW POPULATION DENSITY DEVELOPED COUNTRY.
This means that we all have longer drives than Euros. This is just a fact of geography AND poor planning going back 50+ years. When you look at Phillipe's map, you see the highest per-capita users are developed and low density. There is a push for mass transit, but do we see any trend towards revising suburban planning? Thank heavens telecommute jobs are on the rise...

Then how come Finland isn't one of the on the top of motor gasoline consumption per capita?

In 2003, we consumed more or less 460 liters per citizen, where as the same figure for US is 1600 liters and then some.
http://earthtrends.wri.org/text/ener...iable-292.html

And don't give me any crap about population density... Finland has about 40 persons per square mile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland Which means that only Oregon, Kansas, Utah, Nebraska, Nevada, Idaho, New Mexico, South and North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming or Alaska have lower population densities. And Oregon plus Kansas ain't that far off. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lation_density

And going by states, none have even close to the consumption of gas in Finland per capita... http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/st...er_capita.html

In fact, gas consumption in in DC is just shy of double the one per capita than in Finland.

A BIG CAR CAN BE MORE EFFICIENT THAN A SMALL CAR
A single smug person in a 40mpg car has a larger carbon footprint than 3 people in a 15mpg SUV. It depends on your regular use. There is a reason that airlines compute passengermiles/gallon, not simply mpg.

That is certainly true... But how often does it happen. From what I've seen and heard, usually there is only one person in the 15 MPG pickup... not 2 and certainly not 3.

[grapedrink]

The long term solution isn't better mpg.

We need to go electric NOW. I'm guessing you agree.

sure, but you still need to generate all that energy to power the electric cars, thats an awful lot of energy. although if you're going to burn oil, its something like two times more efficient to burn it in a powerplant than it is to refine it into gasoline and burn it in a very inefficient internal combustion engine. and then obviously you can always build more nuclear power plants..

[steve]

Call me hopelessly optimistic, but I have to believe that gas prices are going to peak+crash sooner or later, not unlike real estate in the last 2 years.

sorry to all you euros who are used to expensive gas, but we here in the US have set up our economy around cheaper gas. Our public transport systems aren't nearly as well-developed as yours, and our california oranges have to travel 3000 miles by truck or rail to get to our eastern population centers.

besides, you're the extreme. The opposite extreme is that they're still paying a quarter a gallon in venezuala. We were content to be right in the middle.



Yeah, maybe it'll get a couple of SUVs off the road. Otherwise it'll kill us. persistently high gas prices are not a good thing.

-steve

[hemas]

Having a truck and a sled is a REQUIREMENT for my job.

Having a FWD Merc Vito or VW Transporter diesel w/ chains would get you and your gear where you need it 99.5 % of the time... And if you really, really need 4WD for getting into real offroading, well then both are also offered in a 4WD version (naturally with more ground clearance).

[matanuskaski]

The oil companies are trying to milk every last cent out of us while they still can. They know the industry has limited life span, and right now demand has never been higher especially with the continued modernization of the rest of the world. I mean hell we eat and wear oil too.

[Gunder]

edit: some jobs allow you to sleep at night, others don't. excusing waste by professing what your lifestyle "requires" doesn't really contribute any meaningful perspective toward solving the problem.

Dude, its not waste, when there is no other way to lug the gear that is needed to do the job to your jobsite. Plus having a 4 door tundra is only 1mpg less than a 4 door tacoma. So I dont exactly see the "waist" esp when I now average better gas mileage with the truck then i did driving the blazer.


Inflation is here, and its about to skyrocket. bottom line.

[hemas]

The oil companies are trying to milk every last cent out of us while they still can. They know the industry has limited life span, and right now demand has never been higher especially with the continued modernization of the rest of the world. I mean hell we eat and wear oil too.

8 % profit is hardly milkin' is it?

[Gunder]

Having a FWD Merc Vito or VW Transporter diesel w/ chains would get you and your gear where you need it 99.5 % of the time... And if you really, really need 4WD for getting into real offroading, well then both are also offered in a 4WD version (naturally with more ground clearance).

And with Disele being $5 bucks a gallon..... how is that better?

[Pow4Brains]

Europe has handled $7-9 gas just fine, and so can we if our car industry and government shape up fast and get a f'in clue. Our mpg standards make me sick when compared to 43mpg and 47mpg averages of Europe & Japan, respectively.

You're wrong. Most of Eruoland would fit in Nebraska alone. I am all about high speed bullet trains running down the center of our interstate system for people AND freight and masstransit in urban areas, but we just don't have the same population density.

Edit - 4: Summit beat me to it.

[hemas]

And with Disele being $5 bucks a gallon..... how is that better?

Since with the 2.3 or 2.5 liter engine they consume a lot less than your V8 Tundra.

[DougW]

"We (America) need to recognize the problems we have put ourselves in by not allowing drilling of our own oil reserves and not allowing the building of refineries. The last numbers I heard is that it costs $2-4 Billion to build a refinery...and the time to completion (with all the environmental permitting) is about 10 years. Also, an offshore oil well in deep waters used to be in the $1-2 Billion range...who knows where it is now. Oil companies just won't invest like that in America until we (the people) finally change our minds and invite them back. "

Is that really true? Its a world price. If you , the States, opened up a lot of areas and reduced your imports to 50% from 60%. thats a large amount of oil 2 milllion bbl per DAY. Would the world price for oil change that much? Yes abit, slow the rise. And that oil increase is going to last 10 years. It would decrease your trade defeicit for a while. But your not going to get big increases in oil production. You've been looking and pumping for oil for a long time. Canada is running out of conventional oil. most of our production is now heavy oil- dirty oil. All of the major oil ( western)companies are having a problem maintaining the same oil production. The top ten oil producing companies in the world are foreign country owned. XOM is not in top ten. The foreign country companies are having trouble too. They are spending the cash on guns and food. Not investing back in to finding more for the future. The future does not look good. For you that is.

[Gunder]

Since with the 2.3 or 2.5 liter engine they consume a lot less than your V8 Tundra.

Whats the MPG?

Plus, I would rather have RELIABILITY over a pos that constantly breaks down.... ie. the reason for a new vehicle in the first place.

[Bite Me]

Dude, its not waste, when there is no other way to lug the gear that is needed to do the job to your jobsite. Plus having a 4 door tundra is only 1mpg less than a 4 door tacoma. So I dont exactly see the "waist" esp when I now average better gas mileage with the truck then i did driving the blazer.


Inflation is here, and its about to skyrocket. bottom line.

It's not inflation - Toadman did an excellent job of capturing the causes in post #99 -
#1) Major growth in China and India + continued growth in Europe and America.
#2) Finite supply of recoverable oil = expensive to retrieve & find
#3) U.S. fiscal policy = spend and borrow + low interest rates = more dollars + inflation = deflation of U.S. dollar and increased prices.
#4) U.S. congress that nary batted an eye when the likes of ARCO, BP, Concoco, Philips Petroleum, Exxon, Mobile, Shell, Texaco, Chevron et al came a knockin' and wanted to merge. It's better for the consumer they told 'em.
#5) Environmental restrictions on new U.S. refineries + cost of new refineries + see #2 above.
#6) No comprehensive and coherent energy policy since the OPEC embargo of 1973.
#7) Lazy, ignorant Americans who have an entitlement mentality.

And, by the way, if you had a finite capability to produce something (think mideast and oil), and everybody wanted it, would you give it away?

Who'll give half a crap about Saudi, Iraq etc when they again become wastelands? WWMD?

[hemas]

but we just don't have the same population density.

Mebbe you should really look into it more thoroughly, see my earlier reply to Summit.

Eg. Sweden has ~52 persons per square mile, and Norway 31. France is at a bit shy of 300, but then again that is still about the same as in Florida.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France

Yet in France they annual gas consumption per capita is a bit shy of 70 gallons, where as in Florida it is around 496 gallons. (sources in earlier post)... I could go on about it, but simply population density just isn't the main cause.

[grapedrink]

You're wrong. Most of Eruoland would fit in Nebraska alone. I am all about high speed bullet trains running down the center of our interstate system for people AND freight and masstransit in urban areas, but we just don't have the same population density.

Edit - 4: Summit beat me to it.

there's no reason why there can't be high speed rail along major corridors, and there's no reason why cars on average get 40mpg in europe vs 20.4mpg in the united states. there's also no reason why north american cities can't have better public transportation.. yeah it'll never be like european cities because of the urban sprawl and endless suburbia but it can sure as hell be a lot better than it is. thats the problem, people making excuses instead of making changes.

[Lone Star]

hey honey i'm going to go run to the store to go rent a movie.... $1 worth of gas

ohhh we dont have any beer or snacks, let's run over and grab some... $1 worth of gas

I'll drop by your house and leave you that check..... $1 worth of gas.

lifestyle. we're used to just getting in the car and doing anything without thinking about saving trips, we don't really consider riding a bike or walking if it's more than a tenth of a mile away. the convenience and cost factor have shaped the lifestyle and that's why we use so much more gas.


......and working and commuting an hour or two a day..... some people believe in living close to where they work. difficult concept for us, too.

[hemas]

Whats the MPG?

Plus, I would rather have RELIABILITY over a pos that constantly breaks down.... ie. the reason for a new vehicle in the first place.

The VW Transporter 4MOTION (2.5l TDI 128 kW) is about the same reliability as Toyata HiLux diesel. And in city driving it gets 19.9 MPG, for combined (50/50) it gets 25.5 MPG and for road 30.5 MPG. And the smaller power 4MOTIONS get a tad better MPG figures.

[DougW]

WORLD OIL SUPPLY IS ARTIFICIALLY LIMITED.
OPEC is a cartel... they keep supply low to keep the prices and their profits high. 10 years ago I paid $0.73/gal because OPEC was "overproducing." Today, gas is SEVEN times as expensive.

But can OPEC really produce that much more? Before there was cheating at a low price driving it lower. Why no cheating now? Its really not that easy to increase production. Pipelines have limited capacity plus some countries production is dropping. With the higher price that has taken off the pressure. But if the price drops, unlikely, some coutries will be in trouble.

Now the oil shale, don't know that much about it but don't you have to mine it then cook it to get the oil out? If its anything like the oil sands mines not going to get much relief very fast.