Gasoline prices pose problems for Obama

[Kruelgor]

The higher gasoline prices get, the better off we'll all be. I hope it gets over $10 per gallon.

The cleaner alternative technology is there and has been there for a very long time. Electricity, Ethenol, Natural Gas, and even Hydrogen fueled cars can be mass produced at any time, whenever we humans are ready.

 

[bhsup]

Why in hell do people love ethanol? It has less power than gasoline and it uses (in the USA) a freaking FOOD SOURCE to produce,

 

[Kruelgor]

Why in hell do people love ethanol? It has less power than gasoline and it uses (in the USA) a freaking FOOD SOURCE to produce,

Americans, and even humans for that matter, consume a very small percentage of the food they grow. The vast majority of it is consumed by their livestock. In America, there are tens of thousands of square miles of free available land for growing more food.

 

[NickyJ]

Why in hell do people love ethanol? It has less power than gasoline and it uses (in the USA) a freaking FOOD SOURCE to produce,

Exactly. Not to mention that the proposed amount being put in gasoline would kill every motor that was made before 2007.

Americans, and even humans for that matter, consume a very small percentage of the food they grow. The vast majority of it is consumed by their livestock. In America, there are tens of thousands of square miles of free available land for growing more food.

And then that space gets used for growing crops that will go tom more fuel. The farmers know that selling it for fuel would produce more income than selling it for food.

 

[Cutlass]

Why in hell do people love ethanol? It has less power than gasoline and it uses (in the USA) a freaking FOOD SOURCE to produce,

I think we have to accept at this point that corn ethanol is a failed experiment. But it was still worth trying.

 

[El_Machinae]

Corn ethanol was always conceived of as a bridge. The corn ethanol allows the creation of ethanol infrastructure. Alternate sources of ethanol are to be brought online, now that there is a market demand for ethanol. The subsidy to corn ethanol is slated to decrease (and expire, so write your congressman regarding the intent), and other sources phase in.

Now, I'm not a terrible fan of ethanol, but I think it has its place.

Keep in mind that the goal is to harvest more fuel calories in corn ethanol than were required of fossil fuel calories. This has happened (but barely, however I don't know if additional benefits are being calculated, e.g., corn silage to feed to cows). And getting one calorie out for every calorie in is pretty good, considering food calories currently cost between 8-13 fossil fuel calories.

True madness is feeding the world using fossil fuels to create food calories, getting the population artificially high, and ignoring the transitory nature of the fossil fuel boom. A gallon of gasoline produces roughly enough food to feed a Westerner for one day. That's a crazy thing to acclimate to.

I'm all for using fossil fuels to create a bridge to the future, but let's at least recognise that's what we need to do.

 

[NBAfan]

I have commuted to school and work that is 13 kilometers from home for many years by bicycle. During rush hour it is actually faster than by car. In Stockholm only 30% of the population commutes by car. The USA needs structural change. Take away some of the roads, build bicycle paths, trams and subway lines.

That is impossible. You would have to have a total transformation of the whole country.

Lucy's completely right. I say this as someone driving a 14mpg Jeep, living in a place where gas is more than US$5 / gallon: we need to move on from oil, and if it takes higher fuel taxes, then so be it.

How does making people pay more for gas make new technology?

 

[JollyRoger]

But do you have the rotten economy we have? Do you have the job insecurity we have? Do you have the unemployment we have?

The vast majority of Americans that want to work have a job. If you are struggling here, perhaps you would feel more comfortable in a country that better coddles its unsuccessful.

 

[Ajidica]

How does making people pay more for gas make new technology?

Incentives.

 

[GinandTonic]

That is impossible. You would have to have a total transformation of the whole country.

You have to start somewhere. Transforming the whole country is simply changing each areas redevelopment one by one. Giving up and doing nothing isnt really an option.

 

[LucyDuke]

The higher gasoline prices get, the better off we'll all be. I hope it gets over $10 per gallon.

The cleaner alternative technology is there and has been there for a very long time. Electricity, Ethenol, Natural Gas, and even Hydrogen fueled cars can be mass produced at any time, whenever we humans are ready.

Hydrogen is kind of a joke. And cars are not gonna last.

Americans, and even humans for that matter, consume a very small percentage of the food they grow. The vast majority of it is consumed by their livestock. In America, there are tens of thousands of square miles of free available land for growing more food.

We eat our cows.

How does making people pay more for gas make new technology?

It drives innovation.

 

[Rashiminos]

Ah, thanks.


It helps to know what the currency is worth, though.

Perhaps you should ask some sort of forex market.

 

[Xanikk999]

It drives innovation.

Only if the company selling the gas is spending those increase revenues towards R&D for new technologies. Not all oil companies are giving the same effort in that regard.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

That is impossible. You would have to have a total transformation of the whole country.

You are starting to get there.



Ethanol is a dead end. We would need to destroy incredible amounts of nature to create giant food industries to create ethanol. It is not sustainable and it is not environmental. Busses that run on biogas and trains are the only viable options.

 

[LucyDuke]

Sorry, I somehow missed this page.

Nobody but you has said anything about oil being around forever. I'm saying that we should drill so that we don't go bankrupt now, then, once we have some lower prices, work on using other fuels. But saying that people going bankrupt over transportation is good and that we should leave things the way they are is, to be frank, complete and utter stupidity.

We should use drill to postpone the inevitable which, in turn, would buy us some time to work on finding other fuel sources. What's so hard to understand about that?

I don't think people going bankrupt over transportation is good, or that we should leave things the way they are. I think we should change things so that people don't go bankrupt over transportation. Nobody wants to hear it.

As others have said, drilling is not going to significantly lower prices or postpone the inevitable. Even if we could reduce prices by 10% and increase our supply in time by 10% purely by drilling, which I would but won't argue that we can't, the biggest effect would be that people would sleep a bit later.

I also would but won't argue that finding other fuel sources isn't going to cut it. We need to slash our energy use dramatically.

Only if the company selling the gas is spending those increase revenues towards R&D for new technologies. Not all oil companies are giving the same effort in that regard.

Actually, folks that have to pay a lot of money for oil are going to try to figure out ways to do what they need to do without buying that expensive oil.

 

[Mercenary82]

A lot of things can be done in the time being to get the prices of gas down while we search for alternatives. We could stop interfering in Libya so that they can finish their civil war and get their oil back on the market. Speculating on oil also causes a lot of the high prices, we should ban buying oil unless you are going to physically take possesion of the oil, no more buying it on paper and bidding the price up.

 

[classical_hero]

Hydrogen is kind of a joke. And cars are not gonna last.

It drives innovation.

The irony is delicious in this one post. YOu claim that we need higher fuel prices to drive innovation and yet one of the best examples of innovation going, you knocked down.

 

[LucyDuke]

The irony is delicious in this one post. YOu claim that we need higher fuel prices to drive innovation and yet one of the best examples of innovation going, you knocked down.

I didn't say we need higher fuel prices, I said higher fuel prices drive innovation.

Hydrogen is a nice example of innovation, I guess, but it's not a very good example of promising technology. There's actually a lot more to knock down in that post, I just like to pick on hydrogen.

 

[classical_hero]

Well if there is going to be innovation, what do you see as the most likely one to replace gasoline for the power source of cars? The thing you need to remember is that it needs to be a source that is similar to the way we run cars, since an electric car means you need to have it for a down time, which is why it is not really a viable replacement, which is why I am favouring Hydrogen as the best choice to take over, but getting the hydrogen is not going to be easy, even though it is the most abundant element around, it is attached to other elements, making it hard to get it by itself.

 

[LucyDuke]

You pretty much answered why it won't be hydrogen. Hydrogen isn't an energy source, you have to make it. As far as "source" goes I don't see any meaningful difference between hydrogen cars and electric cars. Regarding the downtime, the best answer I've heard to that is to swap out spent for fresh batteries at stations.

Hydrogen cars, electric cars, whatever, I don't believe we're going to long continue driving cars the way we do today.