More great news regarding gas prices

hollymaconmovies - 8-25-2005 at 11:02 AM

Tropical Storm Katrina is approaching south east Florida, and is expected to be a hurricane by the time it reaches land.

The obvious first concern is the people that are potentially in harm's way, but in addition:

"With oil prices surging, Katrina's gathering strength is causing concern among energy traders, who fear the storm will slow oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for up to a quarter of U.S. oil output."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/25/tropical.storm/index.h...

BDx13 - 8-25-2005 at 11:07 AM

just two months ago people were shocked that it topped $50 a barrel. now where are we? like $67, right?

CR83 - 8-25-2005 at 12:37 PM

You got that right. It's just so absurd. If I"m not mistaken it was $25 a bareel when Bush took office. One other thing I'm curious about is why all of the Oil Companies get all of the breaks in the latest energy bill?

defstarsteve - 8-25-2005 at 01:12 PM

i can usnderstand the idea behind a tax break for a company to grow it's base....
for an oil company this would be to invest in new refineries and be able to process more oil as it's pumped

there is oil that's not the problem
it refining it into gas that is casuing the prices to go up
or so they say...
my problem is these oil compaines are profiting 25 billion a quarter, and still need tax breaks to buil the refineries...
tell your fucking shareholders to eat shit build some refineries withthe profits and lets get shit done...

and another fucked up thing I leared
gas stations make 1 cent profit per gallon pumped
who is making the other 2.74 a gallon

XHonusWagnerX - 8-25-2005 at 01:37 PM

The tax on gas is like $70 cents or something like that. It wouldnt make the price LOW, but I think that they should make some sort of temporary hault on the gas tax. Even if it was just for a few months at least it would help people a little! I have to work extra hours at work to pay for gas to be able to end up with the same money I need for my bills and stuff.

The gas price is also raising the prices of everything else because transportation costs are so much higher PLUS theres all the thing that are produced with the same materials as gasoline like pretty much anything made out of plastic!

With how many people there are that are pissed at Bush and other polititions in general I really cant belive that more government people arent shot at. Theres a lot of crazy people out there and Im surprised that more havent snapped and took a shot at someone.

Either way, were fucked! Its going to get to the point where people with lower paying jobs will have to figure out if they can afoard to drive to work or if its not worth going.

I want my job to goto 4 10 hour days so that the commute would only be 4 days rather than 5, but they never will. It would make to much sense.

Shane - 8-25-2005 at 08:39 PM

My personal solution: Get rid of my car and move to a bike friendly town. So I am leaving Toledo, OH and moving to Richmond, VA in a month. If I weren't moving, making my car run on vegetable oil was the plan.

KyleOz - 8-25-2005 at 09:07 PM

Has anyone seen those commercials for the hydrogen power?

Apparently lowers the carbon emissions by 90%

I bet you'd have to pay a fortune for a car that runs on it.

Anyone familiar with this?

XHonusWagnerX - 8-25-2005 at 09:32 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by KyleOz
Has anyone seen those commercials for the hydrogen power?

Apparently lowers the carbon emissions by 90%

I bet you'd have to pay a fortune for a car that runs on it.

Anyone familiar with this?

I dont know about that, but I heard a guy on the radio the other day that lives in Washington state and he converted his pickup truck to run by burning wood. He said that the conversion costs like $300

moforn - 8-26-2005 at 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by XHonusWagnerX

I dont know about that, but I heard a guy on the radio the other day that lives in Washington state and he converted his pickup truck to run by burning wood. He said that the conversion costs like $300

I've heard of set-ups like that, I guess the idea is that methanol is distilled from the wood and then used. Ethanol/methanol seems to hold a bit of promise as an alternative fuel and can be used in traditional 4 stroke gas engines with little or no modification (not sure about the modification-maybe higher compression to make it more combustible?) but I guess the problem is that's hard on the engine-premature wear on the cylinder walls and the like.
While I'm as dismayed as anyone with gas prices (over 50 bucks to fill the gti) the fact of the matter is that it's not going to get any cheaper as we use up the supply- it's not so much that gas is now getting expensive it's more that we got used to it being really cheap for the last 50-60 years. There are sound environmental reasons for alternative/hybrid vehicles but I think the reason we're seeing progress as companies are sinking resources into developing them is that they know full well there's a fortune to be made by anyone who can actually come up with an affordable, practical car that doesn't rely on gas (or at least relies on much less).

hollymaconmovies - 8-26-2005 at 12:35 AM

Quote:

From what I've read/understand, they still have quite ways to go before making this a reality for the masses. There are many potential benefits including the fact that the only by product would be water. Also, hydrogen is far more renewable than fossil fuel. But the primary method used for renewal right now (as I understand it) is fossil fuel. They're working on alternative, cleaner and less self defeating methods such as solar & wind power. (Hydrogen is not an energy source, but a carrier)

There are also issues with how much hydrogen can be contained within a vehicle. Basically, they need to find a way to store the hydrogen such that you don't have to constantly refuel. And of course, the storage method has to be safe enough to withstand a crash, as least with the same measure of safety as we currently have.

Conversion is apparently not simple, or cheap as the two technologies work so differently.

Shane - 8-26-2005 at 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by hollymaconmovies

Quote:

Yeah, like hollymaconmovies said, Hydrogen is not very feasible right now. It takes gas to seperate the hydrogen from the oxygen molocules in water as there aren't too many sources of straight up hydrogen.