When I gassed up this week, I got angry!

Folks, let's just seek our alternative fuel sources and let these oil companies dry up and go out of business. I think we can ween ourselves of this dirty fuel if we will just push the alternatives. And ignore the folks who say it can't be done, and do it anyway.

Troy

I love gassing up... My 250cc 1987 Honda Helix scooter holds a total of 3.2 gallons (1.2 gal. is in the reserve), it gets 70 mpg and will go about 80.

When I need to fill up I look around for a gas station with a big fat SUV filling up and I pull along beside... AND RUB IT IN.... I tell em how expensive it is to fill up today another $6 to Exxon and the like. The other day a guy ahead of me in the check out line paid $70 to fill up his SUV and I told him that was a coinicidence, it cost you $70 to fill up and my scooter gets 70 mpg. He was not amused... I was.

I have no pity... its up to you how you want to spend your money and if you want to blow it on a gas guzzling SUV, go for it but don't complain about what it cost you... It was your own damned foolish choice, after all we've known for a long time this was coming and should have prepared better.... Detroit should have been making fuel efficient cars all along, instead of catering to the bigger is better syndrome.

Ain't nothing dumber than a hummer.
Remember when a hummer was something your girl friend gave you and not some ego boosting road hog.

Originally posted by grover
Remember when a hummer was something your girl friend gave you and not some ego boosting road hog.

Why, dear grover, I thought both were for stroking a man's ego.

Two thoughts...Americans have been told for years that we should be lucky that US gas prices are not as high as in Europe (without being told about their taxes, public transportation, types of vehicles). Now, I'm thinking that if we do end up paying European prices, the increase will be for increasing profit for oil co's, as our tax % is lower. HooHaa on pg1 said something similar.

Part of the American "way of life" has been the myth of the Out West individual. The further one travels from the East Coast, the more reliance on individual vehicles for transportation. Through the same passes through which Mountain Men travelled go thousands of cars daily with one person inside. Forego even carpooling!
Bus lines have had to discontinue routes for lack of ridership. America does not have the mindset for public transportation.
Hmmmm, is the US transportation system our Achilles Heel?

Oh, oh, another thought...grover, 30 years ago (during another oil crisis) I road 240 miles rt on a freeway on a Honda 350. Geez, nowadays I'ld be laughed off the road, as since then we've been convinced we need more power. Guess I'm back to where I started this post...

I don't need either a car or hummer (the vehicle type) to feel like a man. I pity those who need such toys to boost their egos.

As for speed... unless I get on the interstate I have no need for further speed. I want to be a dirty old man when I grow up (and since I am over half way there) so I got to be careful if I am to achieve my goals in life; as a result I don't get on interstates.

I can get wherever I am going in plenty of time, if I give myself the time to do it.

Whats that line from the old Talking Heads song the "big Country"... "I wouldn't live the way that those people do... I wouldn't live like that if you paid me to."

I'll take the mosey approach to living any day... the fast track just gets you used up quicker. I want to saver each and every moment... good and bad.

[edit on 27-5-2007 by grover]

[edit on 27-5-2007 by grover]

What makes me angry is that gas prices should never be over $1 a gallon.

Why is it over $1 a gallon now?

Enviro-whacko restrictions!

No new US refineries in over 30 years. Why? Because whenever a new one is proposed an enviromental group lawsuit is sure to stop it.

Open drilling in Alaska, and off the coasts of Florida, and California. Enviro-whacko groups stop this also.

The enviro-whacko agenda is to make gas prices so high to force alternative fuels.

There is no need for this. There will always be an infinite supply of oil. There is no such thing as a "fossil fuel". Oil is a natural resource that occurs naturally within the Earth.

BTW Don't you know that the Federal Government makes more profits off of the price of gas than the oil companies. Yet there is no talking about lowering or eliminating the gas tax?


[edit on 27-5-2007 by RRconservative]

Originally posted by RRconservative There is no need for this. There will always be an infinite supply of oil. There is no such thing as a "fossil fuel". Oil is a natural resource that occurs naturally within the Earth.

Great! All those Geologist that think differently should probably looking for another career.

You know RR, I'm really gonna need some more info on this no "fossil fuel" deal. To me this sounds as wacky as the "aliens ate my baby" story!!

We've discussed this before and its one of RR's.... ahh.... quirks to believe that the earth makes oil as an on going natural phenomena .... god knows where he got it but its his opinion.

Remember a few years back when California was having brownouts and the price of electricity was thru the roof? Remember what the talking heads on the news were saying? Over and over they repeated the story that no new power stations had been constructed in the last 25 years and that was the reason for the shortage. In the end it turns out the market was being manipulated by Enron and other power sellers to rip off the consumers.

This is the exact same situation, only this time the talking heads on the news are saying that no new refineries have been built in the last 25 years and that is the reason.

In the end it will turn out that the market is simply being manipulated by a greedy few to enrich themselves.

Just my thoughts on it,

RR,

Some of those "enviro-whackos" are actually trying to make sure we have a planet that we can live on. You continue to dirty up, and destroy the planet, I'm sorry to say life may cease to exist here.

Who wins then?

We have cleaner alternatives, we just need to use them.

Troy


[edit on 28-5-2007 by cybertroy]

[edit on 28-5-2007 by cybertroy]

You would be even more angry knowing Peak Oil is Politics and Propaganda.

As another post from this author in ATS states, it is not only the closing of refineries but also the fact of abundant oil as a natural resource that should make people angry and concerned.

This is not free enterprise but cartel operations. The Oil Companies need to realize the unforeseen cross impacts of their operations, whether the devaluation of the currency within their determined context is healthy for their way of doing business in the overall sense.

Ooooh yah ...how angry you must be. And how lucky I must be for not even having a car right now when my wife is disabled in a wheelchair and I have a 4yr old and 10 yr old with medical appointments up the wazzu.

Be gratefull for what you got and stop your whining.

Originally posted by Nicorette
Almost all gas stations -- even it they have a Shell or Arco or Exxon logo -- is just a franchisee. They make a few cents on the gallon selling fuel. That's why it is almost always self-serve, the clerk sits inside behind the donuts, cigarettes, and coffee machines. They eke out an existence as a convenience store. Those ads you are crying about help keep them open and hire people in your neighborhood.

So when people fill up their cars and then drive off without paying, they are not "screwing the evil wealthy oil companies," they are committing petty theft against a local businessman.

More to the point, as previously pointed out, the price of gasoline in the US is in large part state and federal taxes, and in the EU the majority of the price is taxes.

You really think gasoline is expensive at $3.00 a gallon? How much do you pay for a gallon of milk? Milk comes out of a cow, in a farm near you. Sure, there is some distribution and factory farming, but by and large it's a local product without a lot of technical sophistication.

Oil is pumped out of the deserts of Saudi Arabia or out of a hole in the ground thousands of feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, at great risk and technological expense.

It is then shipped halfway around the world, refined into gasoline and other fuelds, distributed in a nationwide system of tanker trucks and fuel stations, and delivered to our off-road trucks so you can drive five miles to buy a carton of milk.

Expensive? I think gasonline is cheap. It's too cheap. It should be $10 a gallon. Twenty.

The absurd and ridiculous cheapness of gasonline has contributed to this whole ignoble project of suburban sprawl which in turn leads to even more gasoline and car dependency, until it has become ingrained in the American's head that cheap gasonline is our bloody birthright.

So woe betide any politicians, "greedy" oil companies, or "dirty" terrorists who get in the way of the Imperial globalization project to deliver gasoline that's cheaper to milk to the Americans waddling down to their F150s and driving bumper to bumper to Wal-Mart, complaining and moaning the whole way about how expensive it is.

You want to complain about the petroleum based global economy and the military being used as a global oil protection force? By all means. But make sure you know what you're complaining about. These topics are far more complicated and nuanced than the easy answers spouted by politicians, media pundits, radio demagogues, and griping consumers.

www.theoildrum.com...
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net...
www.energybulletin.com...

I wonder if your argument here isn't really that milk is too expensive. You can spend paragraph after paragraph justifying a $10 per gallon price on gas, but it really makes little sense. Oil companies can go through all of the steps you mentioned and still market it at $2-$3 gallon and make a respectable profit. I'm thinking the milk companies might want to take a look at how the oil companies do it and get their prices down to a more reasonable level.

Originally posted by grover

We've discussed this before and its one of RR's.... ahh.... quirks to believe that the earth makes oil as an on going natural phenomena .... god knows where he got it but its his opinion.

I've heard this viewpoint discussed several times by scientists and there is actually evidence to support it. Before you decide the guy is a kook, you might want to do a google search for "abiotic theory" and read up on it yourself. There are reports from all around the world of oil wells refilling themselves.

The abiogenic origin of petroleum deposits would explain some phenomena that are not currently understood, such as why petroleum deposits almost always contain biologically inert helium. Based on his theory, Gold persuaded the Swedish State Power Board to drill for oil in a rock that had been fractured by an ancient meteorite. It was a good test of his theory because the rock was not sedimentary and would not contain remains of plant or marine life. The drilling was successful, although not enough oil was found to make the field commercially viable.

See this thread:

www.abovepolitics.com...

It got 0 attention even though I consider it to be rather historical......

I believe we should make the oil barons pay... some how, some way...

Originally posted by timeless test
Most importantly, it is actually remarkably hard to be very specific about what the cost of producing a gallon of petrol is as this is basically one of a whole range of byproducts from crude oil refining and how you spread the cost of exploration, recovery transport and refining etc is a (very) moot point.
[edit on 22-5-2007 by timeless test]

I doubt that. I'm sure the oil companies know to the penny how much it costs to produce a gallon of gas. Like you say, they have shareholders. When they ask how much it costs, are they going to accept a "Gee, we don't really know" answer? Not when they have a couple million tied up in oil stocks.

Well RR is a kook but to be fair to him I will look it up and see what I can find before I totally write him off as deranged. Of course he could be right and still be totally deranged.

Just because you think the world is out to get you doesn't mean it isn't so.

[edit on 28-5-2007 by grover]

I think there is something to be said that "environmentalists" are actually hurting efforts with regards to developing technology. The typical "environmentalist," while being a well intentioned and benevolent soul, is often ignorant and lacks any substantive scientific education or background. They can easily be scared when someone mentions they will be exposed to hazardous sounding things like dyhydrogen monoxide and infrared radiation. The ability to easily scare the typical environmentalist enables entities like oil companies to corale environmentalists and exploit their irrational fears in order to push the entities' agendas.

For example, nuclear power growth has been stunted due to people's irrational fears that nuclear power plants are going to create races of giant mutant creatures that will devour cities. The status quo has been able to capitalize on these fears to suppress nuclear power proliferation. Similarly, environmentalist have been duped into suppressing alternative technologies that could phase out oil. Policies against "pollution" from electric car batteries, toxic elements in solar cells, etc. have been used to protect industry.

how condescending of you and how totally wrong.

Us so-called environmentalist are not so knee jerk and ignorant of science as you claim.... indeed far from it, I have found it usually (not always but usually) the exact opposite.

As for nuclear power.... there is a slight, little issue called nuclear waste and what to do with it and two minor problems called three mile island and chernoble .... they couldn't possibly have anything to do with nuclear power's less than sterling reputation would it?

Originally posted by timeless test
This is a far more complex argument than the tabloid press chooses to ask us to believe for a huge range of reasons. To take your points very briefly in order:

Most oil company profits do not come from charging high prices at the pumps, to quote Lord Browne of BP...

We of course first of all make most of our money in what I think most people would regard as the wholesale market - that is the production of oil and gas - not in the refining and sales of petrol and so forth,"

I am open to the proposal that the majority of their profits are not in fact derived from higher prices at the pumps but i would ask you that you provide something more substantive than their say-so as 'evidence'. I for one do not believe they could so blatantly manipulate the prices at the pump without massive government collusion so i will be the first to tell people to look further than the actions of some oil companies...

The margins made by petrol resellers are generally very low. Most importantly, it is actually remarkably hard to be very specific about what the cost of producing a gallon of petrol is as this is basically one of a whole range of byproducts from crude oil refining and how you spread the cost of exploration, recovery transport and refining etc is a (very) moot point.

Their profits at the pump is also too a large extent regulated by BP/Shell/Total/ so the franchise owners are not raking in the money by and stretch of the imagination. If they were trying harder ( by building new and modern efficient refineries) i might buy the excuse of expensive gasoline but getting the oil out of the ground is not in fact very expensive and one one takes into account the depreciation of the dollar oil is getting cheaper and their simply robbing us more effectively than before.

The blood shed in the pursuit of oil would stop immediately if we as consumers did not demand the oil.

We demand ENERGY and this is never to be confused with our governments choice of where to get that energy from. The US have sufficient oil supplies within their borders for hundreds of years and their pursuit of Iraqi and ME oil is simply a globalist plot to restrict oil supplies and thus humanities energy supplies.

This is a desperately simplistic statement of course, but to ignore the motivation which drives oil companies to practice their trade in more and more unstable areas of the world would only be to stick our heads in the sand. WE are the consumers who demand oil and oil products.

'We' do not care where they get the oil as we are willing to pay them more than it costs; their drive to export violence and devastation so they may import the cheapest oil possible , while charging us what their propaganda has convinced us it costs, is entirely their own business and not something their end clients can or should be held responsible for.

The oil companies sell a product which endangers our ecology because we demand it.

They sell a product because there is a demand for it in the absence of the technologies they are spending so much resources on suppressing. Stop blaming the consumer for wanting to better his life and focus on those who suppress the most efficient means supplying such energy.

There are lots of potential alternatives and they've been around for many years, from hydrogen engines and electric vehicles to a radical change in cultural attitudes to reduce the reliance on domestic car ownership and travel. Unfortunately we have demanded petrol, and latterly diesel, engined cars because they provide the most flexible low cost solution to our desire for unfettered travel. Should we really be surprised that neither the oil companies or motor industry are happy to satisfy our demands?

People use cars because it happens to be the most efficient way to travel in the absence of competitors and basic public transportation networks such as in Europe. If the US defense budget were applied to creating public infrastructure people would ride them as the majority of Americans barely makes ends meet and are always looking for ways to save money on basics they may then use towards housing and entertainment. You have failed to mentioned the fact that these technologies are not in fact very efficient and that the truly efficient alternatives have been completely suppressed by the very same people who tells us that they are simply giving us what 'we' want.

Finally, if the oil companies can make more profits from selling advertising then why the hell shouldn't they?

Because it's mostly lies that are destroying the environment and killing or maiming more than a million Americans every year? Doh?

(Forgetting for a moment that the adverts were probably sold by the petrol station franchisee which may not be part of the oil company itself). Once again, this is no more than a symptom of our consumer culture which is driven by guess who? - US, the consumers.

Blaming the victims seems to be the strategy of those who have something to hide. I find that more often than not supply creates demand and not the other way round. If the US consumers are not allowed to see their options in store windows how on god's Earth are they supposed to choose it?

You cannot escape the fact that advertising works and as long as we, as individuals, can be so easily influenced by advertising people will find ever more imaginative and intrusive ways to use it.

People are NOT easily influenced by advertising hence the abusive persistence and massive expense of it all. Did you know that American corporations spends more than three hundred billion dollars on advertising in any given year with the Japanese following at around 60 billion dollars? Why bother when consumers are such perfect morons that are easily convinced as to what is best for them? It is my distinct impression that it's VERY hard to change people's minds and that you do not manage it without a very well planned long term effort.

If you don't like adverts with your fuel (and I don't think we have them in this manner in the UK yet), the don't use those petrol stations and write to the owner to tell him why you have taken your custom elsewhere.

And when you run out of those five options you have to start with? Your not being serious, right?

However, why, in principle, listening to an advert whilst in a retail environment is somehow worse that being bombarded with tacky commercials when I am trying to listen to the radio I have no idea.

Because you do not need to listen to radio but you must eat and you must consume at least a bit of food and electricity/energy, etc.

I'm not suggesting that there aren't some very unsavoury aspects of big business and the oil companies especially

Well thank god for that as i would hate to be wasting words on someone who consider the practices of big business remotely savoury!

but to pretend that we as consumers are not ultimately responsible for much of the way in which they act is simply to try to evade our responsibility as individuals.

Thanks but i am not going to accept responsibility for people who so rarely bother to act in my remotest interest. If you are at a place where you think yourself deeply enough involved in their criminal behaviour your obviously free to accept however much responsibility as you may choose but leave the rest of us out of it!

Originally posted by timeless test
..because we live in a capitalist economy which practices more or less free market principles.

And not a system of our choosing either but at least we have those free markets that could ignores you into starvation when your services/labour/consumption is no longer required.

Businesses are there to make money for their owners, not to spread a little happiness.

They obviously are but they should start paying taxes like the rest of us and stop asking us for bailouts when they rob each other and themselves into bankruptcy. Socialism, federal bail-outs, for the rich and capitalism and the resulting starvation and mass exploitation for the rest of us. I could imagine better but i suppose some would rather carry the weight of the entire world on their shoulders than consider alternatives.

Stellar

Thank you for proving my point with my post. Whatever impact the grossly mismanaged Chernobyl site had on the envirnoment, it is neglible compared to theimpact dozens of well managed coal burning plants. Nuclear waste can be managed. It can be placed several hundred feet below the earth in an abandoned mine shaft and will never be a worry to anybody again. The only serious environmental draw back to nuclear power is the heat the plants give off can raise the temperature of nearby lakes, rivers, and oceans that are used to cool off the core.

If you are worried about radiation exposure, keep in mind that spent nuclear fuel gives off far less radiation than bananas, the sun (even if the ozone layer is intact), stars, and the computer screen you are reading these words on.