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Just one guy yelling F___ the US goverment, spewing conspiracy stuff, ranting about the politicians and oil companies and the middle east. He was by himself just going off, not even yelling at anyone, just venting. Hate to see what happens when it hits 7 or 10 bucks a gallon around here.
So now it looks like we'll have gas rage and road rage. Anybody else encounter any gas ragers yet?
As for the question posed in this thread, I have not heard of any cases of gas rage (and I don't want to be around anybody who comes down with a case), however, fuel related thefts are way up in my area.
however, fuel related thefts are way up in my area.
lol, I had this picture of emergency rooms filling with people sick from gas ingestion due to sucking on the syphon hose a little too hard. Hey, I've beent there, done that!
I guess the rise in gas prices does have its pros huh? Heck, I know if gas were $7.00+ per gallon here in California, our traffic congestion may not be as bad. Heck, that's an hours wage for some.
Whatever happens, in a couple of centuries from now they'll look back and ask how we could all be so stupid as to use all the oil ever produced, production that took millions of years, and then use it all in just a couple of hundred years.
There will always be oil at least for many centuries to come if not milleneia. What will run out is oil that can be extracted at less than the energy it will produce.
I think that petrol prices should rise still further so that people wasting precious non-renewable sources of hydrocarbons, never mind the global-warming aspects, and will start to conserve, eg by switching to other forms of transport or getting a more efficient vehicle, or moving closer to work or whatever. I've managed it, and I'm sure other people could too.
Overly cheap (ie subsidised) energy leads to waste. Once the oil is gone, if we're not cooked from the GHGs, we're going to find it hard to make plastics and other byproducts for which fossil fuels are fantastic feedstocks.
Anyway, enough ranting. A good site for those slipping towards yoghurt-knitting and singing whalesong by candlelight is treehugger.com, which recently ran a 'what happens when the US pas to pay [nearly as much as Europe] per gallon' piece... (I'm not associated with TH other than to read it.)
Rgds
Damon
Rgds
Damon
[edited by: DamonHD at 7:46 am (utc) on May 15, 2008]
I paid £1.30 for a litre while in NOrfolk recently
Whoa! The most I've ever paid recently is to fill a van at motorway services in Wales - £1.23 for diesel.
All the people hinting at the oil company/government conspiracy
You're right.
The oil companies say there's nothing they can do about the high prices - yet 2 of them just announced record profits of 2Bn+.
The government (in the UK anyway) tax the fuel so much that out of £1, something like 75p goes straight into their pockets. They couldn't afford to give us cheap fuel - they'd lose too much money.
Hydrogen fuel cell technology exists, works, and there are working prototypes in existence. The only problem is these 2 factors are big enough to stop it coming to market until oil actually runs out and they have no choice.
Well, I live in Canada. We have more oil than Saudi Arabia and I am paying more than you.
That may very well be true however it's not "cheap oil". The oil you are talking about requires a lot of energy to be extracted. Instead of gusher that would be typical of a regular oil well it requires X amount of that oil to go back into producing more oil.
I believe they use Natural Gas to extract the oil from the sand, and there is plenty of Gas up there too. And at $125 a barrel it is plenty profitable, if I remember correctly, they need a minimum price of $30 a barrel to turn a profit. It is a gold rush in Northern Alberta right now(has been for more than 5 years). McDonalds offers more than $20 an hour and they can't find employees.
Canada is the number one source of foriegn oil to the USA because of all this oil up in Alberta.
Just using my "street smarts" and thinking out loud here...
What happens when all the oil is gone? What happens to the Earth itself? There's a reason the oil is there to begin with. Maybe for lubrication when those damn plates shift? I don't know, I'm not a Scientist. But, I do tend to think using a little bit of logic every now and then.
I believe the next 10 years are going to see "major shifts" in how we use fuels and energy. We're already seeing it here in California as we are being forced into that situation, its not an option anymore. It will all start at the primary population centers and work its way out from there.
In the mean time, if you pull up next to me in your Turbo Cummins Diesel monster truck and decide to race the engine while at the stop light, I might be a bit enraged! In fact, I may just keep a bag of softballs in the trunk and stuff one or two up that monster 5.0 tailpipe! How's that? Huh? Who's bright idea was it to put that damn 5.0 exhaust right at the window level of a typical passenger vehicle? That's really smart!
Anybody here watch NatGeo or the Discovery Channel
Yeah, I can tell how how some huge things were constructed, and how a lot of major plane crashes were caused.
Not to mention if many urban myths are true or not.
Anybody here watch NatGeo or the Discovery Channel?
I watch alot. Something that amazed me lately was the potential of wind energy farms. I may not be quoting this right but, the show said a windfarm that covered 1/10 of Nevada deserts would be enough energy to power our nation.
There are some amazing technologies out there and they are only getting better. It's going to take time though.
I paid £1.30 for a litre while in NOrfolk recently.
Anyway, he was filling up his tank and the pump shut off at just over $10. He thought something was wrong, but it wouldn't pump any more. He looked again- yes, $10. He looked at the gallons- 25. He looked again at the price- it said $.409 instead of $4.009. He looked at the other pumps, and they all said the same thing- $.409. He looked around and there was another guy filling up his car who also looked confused.
So he went inside and talked to the guy (some teenager who was talking on his cell phone) and told him he needed to check the prices. Typical teenager response: "Yeah, yeah, whatever." and continued talking on his cell.
Apparently it finally sank into his head, because just as he was starting his truck and leaving, the guy comes running out and looking at all the pumps with a look of panic on his face.
He went by later and all the pumps had been changed to $4.009.
I have a feeling this week's unemployment numbers will be increasing by one...
Interesting commentary. I'd love to see someone trace the cost of a barrel of oil from the time it comes out of the ground to the $125.00 selling price to see just where the "value add" comes in to make it come out to $125.00.
I believe they use Natural Gas to extract the oil from the sand, and there is plenty of Gas up there too
That's pretty much the point I was trying to make, as the the fileds deplete they have to resort to other measures to get it out. These steps require more energy to produce energy. In your example they are using gas which it self is source of energy.
I read an article about a scientist that claimed he could get 130 gallons of oil out one ton of coal. That's fine but pretty pointless when your average 1 ton of coal is equal to 180+ gallons of oil if simply burned. His process also invloved baking the coal which itself was energy intensive...
The issue is that many of the cheapest sources are quite old and running out. As they do you have to expend more and more energy to extract it. That's what happened in Texas in the 70's, it was costing them just as much energy as they were getting. Some of those oil wells just recently became viable again because of technology but technology is only going to take you so far.
I'd love to see someone trace the cost of a barrel of oil from the time it comes out of the ground to the $125.00 selling price to see just where the "value add" comes in to make it come out to $125.00.
The cost is going to vary, if it's spurting out of new find very close to a refinery it's very cheap. If it's coming from an oil well where they need to pump water into it, then procees it before shipping, then ship it half way around the world to a refinery the cost is going to be a lot.
a difference clearly caused by market manipulation.
skibum, ignore MarketWatch, it is trading propaganda mostly. Urrghh, aaahhh, bad traders....BS, it is money - real money, not paper like stocks and bonds - running away from stocks into real products for crash protection.
There was no other way - real estate is in a bubble, stocks are hyped so much nobody believes in them anymore, they are phantoms, fake numbers. Commodities - including oil - are the only other REAL assets. Now sit and watch as food prices shoot up 50%-100% in the next year. Or better yet as fiat currencies inflate.
Gas and oil isn't going back
a windfarm that covered 1/10 of Nevada deserts would be enough energy to power our nation.
There's an article in Scientific American with the details on how to bring USA to 0 oil dependency by 2050. Written by scientists. It has some interesting assumptions, and a completely developed solution. Most of the energy is solar.
Can sunshine power the US [sciam.com]
The arcticle in magazine has a lot more information (on the website it's just a brief), and predicts a need of about $500 billion US dollars invested into this grid. Ironically, $500 billion dollars is only a half a year of U.S. defense budget (unofficial numbers, includes "real" budget + hidden expenses).
Now, the real price of the fuel is a very small percentage of the price you pay. Isn't something like 75% of the price you pay, going to the taxman?
If so, how much was the taxman making out of this? I'd guess some 20 to 30 million quid per hour, or more?
We may be reaching the cost you are paying but that money is not going to taxes. It's going into the pockets of the oil companies.
how much was the taxman making out of this? I'd guess some 20 to 30 million quid per hour, or more
Our government give 50m to Europe - per day - so Poland can build a new transit system.
But that's another thread all together.
We pay tax here 5 times!
1. Tax on income.
2. Council tax (if we want to own a house)
3. Car tax (just to be able to use a public road)
4. Fuel tax.
5. Value added tax (on everything we spend what little we have left)
You'd think they'd be making enough now to give us police that reduce crime, fire fighters that didn't go on strike, hospitals that didn't harbour fatal viruses, and schools that can achieve grade C or above in english and maths.
Stealing Gas [11alive.com]
He said he's making only one or two cents per gallon profit as it is, and even a one-cent-a-gallon price hike puts him at a competitive disadvantage.
Gas is at $4.09 per gallon here. $.01 or $.02 profit? Huh?
as it's always been, the actual gas station owner doesn't make much, it's all tax, it's the government, plain and simple
worked in that are for a chunk of time, no one ever believes it but when you run the books, that's how it works out
It's the same way with most end of the line fuel services. I used to deliver coal to homes for heating. I wasn't really making any money on the coal itself but instead on the service. The consumer price to buy in bulk wasn't much less than what I was paying.
Listen to yourselves..In europe you pay twice as much and drive twice as small of vehicles ! And you're trying to tell the USA how to get by ? ! ..that's laughable .
The Oil Companies would love to work less and charge twice as much... They charge MORE for the less you use
The bigger buyer you are the better pricing you get ..duh which is why even at current prices we pay less than Europe
That said in the US at this time driving a smaller vehicle does make economic sense ..but long term (if everyone starts driving smaller vehicles) it simply turns the US into Europe... driving around in sardine cans and paying twice as much
I really don't think you can make a fair comparison between the price of fuel in Europe and the U.S. because its taxed so heavily in Europe.
I'm pondering myself if this is the beginning of the end for oil, OPEC could certainly increase production to stop the spiraling prices. It's not in their best interests for the U.S. economy to tank... maybe they just can't.
Lovejoy
Rgds
Damon
Driving around in Sardine Cans like europe
these sardine cans being mercedes, bmw, audi, porsche, volvo, saab, jaguar, opel (yes, caddillac copied opel a few times), fiat...should I go on? You'd probably choke if I tell ya mercedes is a very common taxi car in europe. That's besides all big japanese makers being present.
But the perversity of human sexual selection
yes, correct, here in US you can't get any, so you pretend that you do and buy overpriced gas guzzlers.
$.01 or $.02 profit?
I second that statement. A gas station owner only makes 1 cent on a gallon of gas. The rest is made by Big Oil + Government Taxes, which then get spent on bombs and are blown up. $1 Trillion dollars a year defense budget gotta be paid out of something. Might as well be every homeowner and every car owner.
