Gas Prices CAN be re-duced!!!

[Billfred]

I'm starting to feel better now...our gas is only (only?) $1.859.

Of course, diesel is about a buck and a half, AND it goes further. I'm envious.

Maybe I should get an old Geo Metro, rip out the interior (except for the driver's seat) and drive that around. All the safety of a car, all the performance of a moped! :lol:

[Justin]

Hi All,

I thought perhaps I might try to throw a few constructive ideas out in terms of how we can lower gas prices, or better yet make high ones irrelevant. May of us here are engineers or at least have some interest in innovation, science, etc. So what about alternative fuels?? This is something I've been researching over the last few days and in away it is like a real live FIRST with the goal of the game being "to eliminate dependence on foreign oil." Imagine a world where we wake up tomorrow and there is no oil it is simply gone. The world would stop period, the global economy would be in ruins. So to me it seems like it would be quite constructive to put our collective engineering capacity into such noble goals as increasing the presence of Biodiesel as one example, or hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Both of which are extremely clean as well as renewable. If we moved to renewable energy sources it would render the need for oil mute and it wouldn't matter if gas prices were so high. This is something that needs attention because sooner or later we will run out of oil and it is pretty arrogant to just write that concern off to the next generation.

*Don't nationalize Iraq's oil. Right now we are turn Iraq into a Scandinavian Liberal Socialist state, which is absolutely silly. Privatize the Iraqi oil industry and let companies like Shell and Exxon come and pump that country dry! Think about it guys, we control more oil right now than any other country in the world (Iraq has second largest reserves, we have large reserves ourselves) and we are paying 2 bucks a gallon for gas? We should be paying seventy cents!

Pump the country dry? This is exactly the kind of egocentric attitude that makes countries around the world hate Americans. Thankfully I do not believe that you speak for most of America. What you saying in effect is that it is okay if we waltz into a sovereign nation, topple their government, occupy that nation, allow thousands of their people and hundreds of our troops to be killed all in the name of you paying 70 cents for gasoline. Sadly there seem to be those in this world who have no problem with that concept. America is numero uno, no one can touch us, and we should do whatever we want in our on interest first and foremost. What would you say to the families of the troops who have died in the name of your oil? Did they have to die? Probably not. I fear it is this kind of arrogance and ignorance that will lead to the unraveling of this great republic. I firmly believe in an America that works together with the world to build consensus and act in accordance with international law, and above all respects it's neighbors.

You claim to be from the greatest country on earth however we did not become the greatest country on earth by bullying everyone else. We became the greatest country on earth because we stood up for what we believed in and through the power of persuasion and by setting an example we were able to show the world that we had created something truly special in democracy. As part of that great democracy you have the right to proclaim your views and I have the right to disagree with them. Think however before you bandy about with 1000's of lives and proclaim that Iraq exists to provide you with oil.

-Justin

[Greg McCoy]

Here's an interesting statistic from my AP Environmental Science textbook, for what it's worth:

"Improving fuel efficiency is a much faster, cheaper, cleaner, and more secure way to save far more oil. For example, refining the projected peak oil output from ANWR would provide enough gasoline to run only 2% of American cars and light trucks-an amount that could be supplied much more quickly and cheaply from improving the fuel efficiency of these vehicles by only 0.4 miles per gallon. In addition, requiring new SUVs and light trucks used in the United States to have the same average fuel efficiency as new cars would save more oil in 10 years than would ever be produced from the ANWR."

(G. Tyler Miller, Living in the Environment, 13th edition, p. 360)

I'm not really a big environmentalist (My family has a 1998 Chevrolet Tahoe that doesn't do so hot on the fuel mileage), but taking this class has made me much more aware of some of these problems. I highly recommend taking it, if it's available at your school. Developing machines that run on better fuels more efficiently and output nearly no emmissions sounds like an exciting engineering challenge to me, and I'd love to be a part of it. Just some interesting thoughts...

<off-topic>I thought this was interesting too, although totally unrelated: "The total cost of the (Chernobyl) accient will reach at least $358 billion, many times more than the value of all the nuclear electricity ever generated in the former Soviet Union."</off-topic>

[Pierson]

Looking at a theory from any economics book "Supply and Demand" when the supply of gas becomes too expensive, people will demand either more efficient cars, demand vehicles powered by a different energy source, or change their lifestyles radically, like go back to the horse and buggy.

However, I see none of those things happening soon. We are a society of consumers. Companies sell what the consumer is willing to buy. If the government steps in and tells companies what to make we are reverting to a command style economy. This would make the US economy very similar to what was in Soviet Russia or what is currently in Communist Cuba.

While SUV’s may be inefficient in using gas, one must examine the stories of people like a few friends of mine. Half of their family was driving down the freeway in a very small vehicle. They hit a storm and a large pileup ensued, unfortunately, the semi behind them pancaked their car. They all died. The mother of the family then went out and purchased a large SUV which if hit would crumple but not be pancaked. So, we need to look at the price of gas, but we also need to look at the value of life.

Is this an extreme situation? Sure. But does it drive home a point? Yes.

And for the record, I didn’t buy gas (but that’s cause I didn’t need to)

[Ryan Dognaux]

Something that would really start to help our situation is the purchasing of hybrid cars. However, those who make hybrid cars often make them look really bad because they know Americans will buy these giant honkin SUV's that get 3 miles to the gallon. I'd like to have a hybrid someday because they get anywhere from 50 to 60 miles to the gallon, and these aren't small cars we're talking about either. The suprising thing I've found is that they're not priced really any higher than any other new cars - Toyota's are around or under 20,000 dollars. Realistically I think this is the way most cars need to go because cars could be much more fuel efficient at this point.

[Eugenia Gabrielov]

2 out of 3 family cars are hybrids (I believe) *edit* in my family (that's what I meant, just came out sounding off)*edit* so that sort of gas guzzling isn't exactly a worry. However, this subject came up in class the other day, math more or less, and the basic gist of the discussion was this. It wouldn't hurt the gas companies to have their fuel sitting in the tanks for one day, because the entire population that didn't have fuel on wednesday would go and buy it later anyway and do all the stuff that they couldn't do without fuel and end up spending just as much as they would have. The bottom line is we'd still buy gas, no matter the protest. I personally bike almost every where (I can't drive legally yet) but I still think if we actually put Environmental science into example (go greg mccoy...^^) and/or protest buying gas for a large period of time, i.e. a month or 2 months or half a year or something, then results would occur.

[Elgin Clock]

I have gotten this same e-mail message every year for about 5 years now.
Remember when gas hit the $1.50 mark and every one was upset.. Ahh, those were the days huh?

Ok, so the second wave of e-mails I get every year which make a little more sense is this: Don't buy gas ever from Exxon/Mobil (the biggest gas supplier in the world). They merged and are now just one big company. Make the smaller (HA) gas suppliers reap the benefits, and put the big dog out of business (like that will ever happen).

But, then on the opther side of the coin, I see that Gas stations are mostly chains, but do not operate on the chain mantra of one product is the same price at all of the chains?

When was the last time you went to 3 McDonald's anywhere and paid 3 different amounts for a BigMac, coke and fries. The answer is never.
Although, Other more fancy chains are allowed to do this as I found out this year (Applebees in Times Square in NYC was on average $5 more on all meals than the local one here in CT) But, I would expect that for a high class restaurant in the middle of NYC.

Originally Posted by HHSJosh

Drilling ANWR would be the simple, yet ineffective solution. IT would only provide temporary relief and would destroy priceless wilderness.

I have to agree with Cory that renewable energy sources are the way to go.

And BTW, I didn't buy an gas yesterday either!

I agree with both of you that alternate forms of energy need to be found, but the research for those has been going on for years and is still very expensive...numerous government funding has gone towards the research of hydrogen powered engines or whatnot, but all we can do is sit and wait for them to hit some discovery (unless someone here wants to jump in and toss their 2 cents into the research )

I read something yesterday that gas prices right now are high for 2 reasons.

OPEC
OPEC is charging by the demand of oil compared to their possible supply....(simple supply and demand...we all know that). Whereas the U.S. hasn't increased their demand for oil, 2 of OPEC's other countries they supply to are buying record ammounts of gasoline (China & India) which is driving up our costs....there is really nothing we can do about that. If we quit recieving oil from outside countries, the United States roughly has enough oil (at current production rates) to last around 2 months and then we're in trouble.

The fact that the U.S. hasn't built new refinery capacity in a few decades... This doesnt have as much effect as OPEC, but still...the U.S. Refineries are running at around 95% capacity to keep gas prices down with our own supply. The problem that could happen, if one of these refineres were to dry out and or break, we're going to need more oil from OPEC, which would cause the price of gasoline to probably break over $3.00 a gallon! as the National Average

The long and the short of it, the way to reduce gas prices is to build more refineries and open a limited portion of the ANWR (which would have almost no effect on the wildlife up there....do your research and don't trust those media scum)

That would lower how much oil we would have to get from OPEC and would drive down our costs (hopefully) and eventually once OPEC gets overstocked and lowers their cost, you could slow production in the ANWR and use it just for emergencies or in case of shortages or high prices that most middle class americans can barely afford to pay. Your 2nd option is pretty much give up on gas by switching to an alternate fuel source....and since we're still probably years from that happening, you have 2 realistic choices...build refineries and go to the ANWR or you can continue to pay your 2.199 a gallon. Honestly I dont want to open the ANWR, but we don't have many choices.

I know it gets more complex then this, but I tried to keep it simple since Id rather not get into many of the details, partially because I really don't care to and most of you don't either.


NOTE: This post takes no sides politically and is just straight facts from my independant research. For the record, Bush and Kerry both support the opening of the ANWR...


Edit:
Wow, I spent nearly 40 minutes putting together that post probably a record for me