The Last Homely House
General => Council of Cobra => Topic started by: Gil-Estel on May 28, 2008, 01:09:55 PM
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Where are we heading for? The price is rising, people are speculating on oil which means that the price rises even more. Is OPEC just messing with us, or is the end really near? What are the alternatives? And just wondering, what is gas doing per litre in your country/region? Netherlands €1,65 per litre, which means 2 usd at least :-\
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I read in the news a while back that President Bush visitid king Abdullah in Saudi Arabia, asking him to produce more oil, but he refuses. Real great for our economy...and environmentalists prevent us from tapping all that oil up in Alaska, which is obviously much more helpful. :-\
I've posted similar things to this as before, but here's a link that shows a video on how salt water could be used as a fuel:
The man's last name behind this all is Kanzius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKtKSEQBeI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kKtKSEQBeI)
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Usually try to stay out of topics like this, but.... :roll:
Friggin' environazis. I'm a HUGE supporter of protecting the environment (especially for a Republican :P)...my first degree choice in college was going to be Forestry (with the goal of being a park ranger or something) before I was basically talked out of it by my advisor.
Anyway, all that being said...we NEED to start drilling into our own oil sources. Relying on OPEC for our oil needs is insane. Half the countries in that group think we're all infidels that don't deserve to live, for crying out loud! ???
What's driving the sudden spike more than anything is China and India. Nothing against them personally, but their growing economies are sucking up TONS of available oil supplies, and it's not going to slow down anytime soon. I think eventually OPEC will have enough of an outcry on their hands that they'll have to increase production, but how far the prices go before then is anyone's guess.
It's getting brutal, but truth be told, we Americans have been getting it much better than most of the world for years. It's been well above $4, $5, or even $6 dollars in many parts of the world for a while now, and we've been real lucky to not be hit hard until now.
Doesn't mean I like it, though. Considering I drive a minimum of 75 miles a day (to and from work), it's REALLY hurting right now. :'(
Again, we have GOT to tap into oil in Alaska, off the coast of Africa, and anywhere else we know the oil is hiding. The environment can take it. It adapts a heck of a lot better than we do. Friggin' environazis.... :evil:
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I didn't start this topic on environmental grounds. Just to see what we're dealing with. And to see what everyone is paying for their gas. What do you have to pay for a litre of unleaded fuel?.....So I can figure out whether I am being screwed ;) (or is that very bad language?)
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Environazis. ;D
They complain to an extreme degree drilling in alaska will do damage to the wildlife, but found that Elk and other wild animals stood around the oil pipelines keeping themselves warm. That's the other side of the coin.
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Check out this site (http://autos.msn.com/everyday/GasStations.aspx?m=1&l=1&zip=20705&x=15&y=-2). There are probably better "gas calculators" out there, but this one's quick and easy. It brings up my area by default...sorry about that, but I'm not sure how else to post a working link.
I'm "lucky" in that the "cheap" (HA!) gas on that list is right near my house. Heck, I could walk there. But then again, why would I walk to get gas...?
Uh, let that all be stricken from the record. End of workday rambling. :P Just...uh...go to the link. Yeah. Move along.... :roll:
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WHAT?!!! That means my gas is twice your price?! Dain, stop whining like a baby, or I'll smite thee!!!!!
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Smite him, smite him! ;D lol, just kidding, don't smite me! :cpunch:
The price for petrol here is averaging about £1.14 per litre (when I take the kids up to the Highlands for holidays in the summer, that price will drastically go up, petrol is always more expensive in the Highlands). Consider that the pound is worth roughly twice as much as the dollar, and that there are roughly 3.7 litres in a gallon, and that puts the price of gas at around $8.42 a gallon here. :P
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Shieldmaiden, my heart takes a leap just seeing your name here again!!
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Thank you! (where's the blushing smilie?) I've been away for a while. But now I'm back! ;D
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Yeah good to see you again matey.
Yeah i filled my 50 litre tank up in my car last week and it cost me over $100 for all you yanks out there. You think you have problems! At least all our cars arent driven by ridiculously uneconimcal automatic 5 litre v8s! Crazy.
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You see, you europeans can afford it because you have shiny new cars that get 60+ mpg.
We've got rusty old pickup trucks that get 8 mpg if we're lucky.
Even our average cars only get about 20 mpg.
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I get 25-30mpg but i drive a sports car to be fair, a lot of englands cars will return more than that but NEVER 60, good diesel engines get 55, best petrols maybe 40 mpg. And it still doesnt mean we can afford it. The roads here are jammed contsantly, our population is ridiculously dense and getting worse with crap immigration control, so you spend half your life sitting in queues wasting fuel!
But thats my point if all ur cars werent stupidly large engined and wholly un-econimical youd realise how lucky you are for the price you pay. Even the some of the fastest cars on our roads like the mitsubishi lancer evo X fq 400 can produce the same economy your car can NB!
And a side point you dont even get a decent power output out of your cars with giant engines! I was talking to NK and his 3.2 or 3.5 litre V6 produces less brakehorsepower than my 1.8 4 cylinder 190bhp toyota celica. HOW??? How do you manage to squeeze such lame power out of such potentially awesome engines. a 3.2 v6 over here would have around 250bhp and yours are struggling to push out 200, ever!
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AS I recall, the US actually gets most of our oil from Canada and Mexico these days. I think the Saudis are number 3 now. Probably part of the reason our costs are lower than everyone else's.
Heh. I remember a few years ago, some people in my debate league were advocating a 50c gas tax: "If the price is $2.50 a gallon, nobody will buy it!"
ROFL.
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Shieldmaiden, my heart takes a leap just seeing your name here again!!
holy crap!!! what a freak.
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Not really. I missed her too. ;)
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Shieldmaiden, my heart takes a leap just seeing your name here again!!
holy crap!!! what a freak.
There are people that think I'm cool....watch the topic ;)
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We could be almost self sufficient on oil, but the duty on fuel in the UK is outrageous. Two of the largest oil producers, BP and Shell, are British companies and we still get the shaft!
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lem0n, it was a joke. lol?
Actually, we have some cars like the Ford Focus that can get 35-40 mpg, but we have to go foreign to get better mpg than that, like VW. 50 mpg diesel.
Here in KS, we had some FFVs running ethanol. Ethanol came from just across the state line, amd was government subsidized, so it was cheap, but it was an alcohol and thus cleaned out your gas tank and dumped the sludge into your engine, so the specialization necessary to make it work made it quite unpopular.
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ethanol from corn was a terrible idea.
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It would have worked had there been vehicles ready to use it. But there weren't.
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We could be almost self sufficient on oil, but the duty on fuel in the UK is outrageous. Two of the largest oil producers, BP and Shell, are British companies and we still get the shaft!
Shell is part Dutch....but they do not make us proud.....
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I don't know the details, but I hear they've found a way to squeeze usable oil out of some type of seaweed or algae. Let's hope it goes somewhere...and that the oil companies don't try to shoot it down.
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Doesn't Brazil use sugarcane for their ethanol? I understand that the stuff works a ton better than corn. As it is, the corn ethanol is wreaking havoc with the food market, and the Mexicans aren't too happy that we're driving up the price of corn....
Oh, well. Maybe I can get a raise out of it (I work for a hybrid crops company in the corn hybrids...)
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Funny, we ran this CP about corn ethanol and illegal immigration.
Ethanol is wrecking Mexico's economy! That leaves all of Mexico's economy reliant on remittances! If we crack down on illegal immigration, we cause people to starve to death in Mexico, which forces them to illegally immigrate to the US! And we simultaneously wreck our economy! So any strategy for getting rid of illegal immigrants actually increases illegal immigration.
The solution: Cut corn subsidies, use money to provide foreign aid to Mexico.
Sorry, just got done debating Illegal Immigration this year in NCFCA. :D
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ethanol from corn was a terrible idea.
Old topic, but I just got around to reading it. Check out this article from Time on corn ethanol (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html). Very informative.
Myself? I drive a 1994 Geo Metro that I got for less than $1,000 last summer that gets a minimum of 50mpg. My average is around 55mpg or so and my best tank was 62mpg. Of course, they are scarce in the US now... very high in demand. How is it that the EPA rating on an old Geo beats hybrids like the Prius? Or the "new, amazing" Smart cars?
The vehicle is designed to achieve 40 city/45 highway mpg according to 2007 EPA standards and 33 city/41 highway mpg according to 2008 EPA standards.
EDIT: I should note that the European Smart cars fare much better than their emissions-controlled American counterparts.
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I wanna mo-ped.
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I want a mop head.
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You already have one.
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:cpunch: