I agree. Especially when we have China and Cuba drilling 60 miles off the coast of FL. We're our own worse enemy by letting the environmentalist ruin our economy.

 

I owned two "land barges". A 1988 and a 1992 and they were far better on mileage than many other cars I've owned, at least 24 to 25 mpg on the road. In town not horrible maybe 16 mph. I can hear you all now saying you wouldn't be caught dead driving an "old mans car". Would you turn down free ones? Both were my dads cars and he gave me the 1988 after winning $25,000 in the Florida pick four in 1991 and I helped him pick out the 1992. I inherited the 92.

The only problem a had driving the "land barges" was that I had this compelling urge all the time to wear a "sports car hat" hike my pants up around my nipples , wear white shoes and and a white belt to match.

In my humble opinion I think oil has been oversold in the investment markets and we will see prices tumble by this fall at the latest. I predict $3.00 to $3.25 per gallon. I hope the hedge fund managers driving this thing up drown in their oil. Saudi Arabia is meeting this week to discuss the problem and they have said that oil is overpriced. All you have to have is for Saudi Arabia to increase production and for the dollar to go up in value along with decreased demand and it will be the perfect storm for the oil market to drop.

In the mean time I would like to see this country start a project on the scope of the "Manhattan Project" during World War 2 to develop the atom bomb, to further develop the hydrgen cell and mass produce hydrogen and get it to the fuel stations.

Good thread guys.

 

Chuck, I have this vision of you with your pants hiked up. LMAO.
Doubt if I can get any work done now.
Good post.

Sadly, $3.25 per gallon looks good to us now! But it brings into perspective the mood of today. The mood in the 70's was of doom and the end of life as we knew it. It wasn't true then, and it is not true today. The market will respond, not just because the Saudi's pump more oil, but because the oil industry will recognize when we, the consumers, have had enough.

I think $5.00 diesel and $280 per ton corn will eventually ripple thru the economy and when enough of us are broke and the refineries aren't running at capacity, the prices will fall.

Meanwhile industry will see the signs and the new technologies will develope. I seriously doubt that hydrogen will be the answer but it is a possibility. More likely electric with hybrids "bridging" the way.


roadster with a stick

BTW My dad's 92 Cadillac sedan got 29 MPG. Not all land barges are guzzlers

 

Now the only way to produce H2 for fuel cells is by electrical separation of water powered buy coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear powered plants. It is more efficient than burning gas, but the best way would be to stop burning fossil fuels all together.
Seems stupid now that during the 70's I was active in fighting new nuclear power plants, now fusion or even old school fission seems the only way forward.

And it is quite comfortable on the Yamaha today at 99 degrees if you go fast enough.

I forgot who asked, but do you actually put your kids in the Crossfire or only the SUV with the multi-zone AC and four DVD players with 8 MPG?

 

Franc

Have to question your quote.

"BTW My dad's 92 Cadillac sedan got 29 MPG. Not all land barges are guzzlers"

Never been in a land yacht that wasn't a guzzler. No way he got 29 MPG on a regular basis, maybe once, unless it was an Allanté, still questionable. The Allanté was the only Cad under 4000 pounds in that year. GM would have been cruising CAFE for many years if were true. My friend has several 1980-2000 Caddys and Lincolns. Half of that MPG is normal if it is running well.

 

Actually, I believe it requires up to 70% more energy to separate H2 and O1 from water and then burn it in an enternal combustion engine. Even if it were and equal swap, you are still burning fuel somewhere. You are just transfering the pollution to another bit of realestate.

Not the answer.

With Nuclear it might be justifiable to throw away 70% of the energy but we would need a lot of nuclear plants to feed the grid for electric powered cars. Where would we put the Nuclear wastes? Just about everywhere is now somebody's back yard.

roadster with a stick
Re my dad,
I went with him to Florida. He got it but you can argue with him if you want. I drove a 91 mini van with a little six and got 22mpg. drove me crazy.

 

Gas in cars is a 80% throw away.

 

From the ever trustworthy Wikipedia:

81 - 89 Town Car weighed 4044.

90 - 97 Town Car weighed 4040.

I couldn't find weights for comparable Cadillacs but I imagine they were similar.

The land barge comment was not from CR but the article did emphasize that cars were getting bigger and heavier right when gas prices were rising sharply and there were concerns over the supply of gas. What's funny is that 4000 lbs is not out of line today considering how much a 300, Charger or Challenger weigh.

I remember a new car owner was suing either the EPA or the car manufacture sometime around 1990 because his estimated city mileage was way off. I think his car was a Town Car and he was getting around 7 MPG in the city even though the EPA had rated his car good for something like 15.

 

In reality, there are at least 2 hydrogen fueling stations in Ca. and a few more spread out through the US. They're using solar electric, on site, to seperate the hydrogen from water, then store it on site and re-fuel fleet cars made by GM for different utilities and local govs' to drive around and show at car shows... They're working fine and can go quite a ways before re-fueling.
This is totally doable and for about 2 months of Georgies war costs we could set up a national infrastructure to make this happen.
Hey, I', not anti-oil.... but it's far more valuable to us for use in other products that we use eveyday than it is for auto fuel when we can use other sources for that.

 

for reference, check out hydrogen fuel cells or Ballard fuel cells

 

I don't think all drivers have to convert to electric or hydrogen cars to ease the gas situation in the immediate future. Maybe if 20% or even 10% of drivers switch then that could drive demand down enough to provide another decade or two of time.

 

......or at least wake up the oil companies!

 

All energy conversion has a waste factor. Look I'm not an engineer in this field. I don't know if you are but I believe Sonoros had some numbers on this.I'm researching and will pm you.

Meantime the science news on this, that I have read, clearly shows there is a net energy loss, not to mention serious and costly technical issues. Hydrogen car technology is possible but not easy and certainly will take more than a few months to put into place.

Cutting the ban on offshore drilling could happen now and whether we actually punch holes in the sea floor, or the fact that we are willing to do so, would cut the commoditiy speculators off at the knees.

Look at Norway. Possibly one of the most ecologically conservative countries in the world. Virtually all their oil comes from the sea floor. And to put a cherry on top, that little nation is the world's third largest exporter of oil.
This according to a recent publication by Newt Gingrich

Trillions of barrels of oil and NG off our coasts and we won't touch it because of a Congressional moratorium. The US is the only country in the world that so dramatically limits the exploration and developement of its offshore oil and gas deposits. You can blame it on President George Bush if you want to, but he is not against it.

Who is? The same people who want you burning corn instead of feeding it to your kids.

And of course, the Oil Cartels


roadster with a stick

 

Room temperature superconductors will solve nearly all of our energy problems. They may just be a pipe dream, however.

 

I agree with you.....they rank right up there with cold fusion

 

What do we do with neculear waste? If we can send a pump to the space station to fix a crapper we can send nuclear waste to the sun on rockets or to the moon. By the time anyone gets around to using the moon all of that nuclear waste may end up being there for whomever needs it. I know, laugh now but stranger things have happened. I'm sure someday we will figure out how to refine nuclear waste just like grades of gasoline.

If you think the price of gas is going to drop significantly and stay there, I have a small piece of a bridge I'd like to sell you.

 

Technicaly we could send nuclear waste into space. Doable with off the shelf tehnology. Try getting it past the tree huggers and the peace activists.
for now, we bury it next to the stuff we bring in from France so that they can be "totally nuclear." I believe in Nevada and Idaho. Boy are those states happy about it.

If we stay on our current course, you are right about the price of gas. And if and when we develope new technologies in electric or hydrogen, cold fusion or Mr Fusion, those products will be priced as high. They only have to compete with the possible future price hikes of oil to be economically viable. Just like Ethanol is today.

Meanwhile, close to 300,000,000 Americans stand at the pump and empty their wallets while leaders contemplate what we "ought to do." Just like they did in the 70's.

I'll pass on the bridge offer. I have to put fuel in my old Dodge one ton I paid 3 grand extra for to get an economical diesel engine.

roadster with a stick

 

If you were fighting nuclear you are partly responsible for the jam everyone is in now. EcoManiacs are being shielded by the press for the moment, but eventually everyone will recognize that they are paying through the nose for gas because of the EPA and the Sierra Club kind of folk. There is no alternative to oil for the next 40 years. Cheap oil is the way this economy works and to change over will take two generations or more. We cannot just stop using oil and because of EcoManiacs we can't even go get more right here at home or build another refinery or build a nuclear plant. The laws of supply and demand are killing us. WE are in a word "screwed" because of the tree huggers. I would keep it a secret that at some time in the past you were helping to kill this economy...people won't be happy about that when they are paying $10.00 a gallon for gas to get to work...

 

You are painfully right on this one. Well said.

roadster with a stick

 

Hey don't be knocking those Dodges... I"m on a one month vacation and I have my 2004 Dodge Cummins who I call RAMBO, pulling my fifth wheel. I just got over 14 miles to the gallon on on tank in Missouri/ Illinois and over 13 in Kentucky. I get 11.5 in Colorado pulling and 22 in town whether I want it or not. It has its purpose and I'm going to use it until I can't go no more. lol

I agree we are stuck paying what ever the market will allow but thats economics... I do believe that as the pressure of the market on houses, food, etc. becomes so extreme the price of gas will begin to stabalize