I did my part by buying a Kawi ninja 250. Keeps up with highway traffic great and gets 60 mpg regardless of how I drive it. By my calculations I'm saving $.08 per mile over the VW camper I used to use as my DD and probably around $.05 over and average 30mpg car. Before gas broke $3 a gallon out here I was filling up of under $10. I haven't done that since the 80's
I basically needed it here in Colorado cause everything is so spread out, and it kills me that most of the people out here drive big Trucks and SUVs. Who ever said it earlier that it's going to take the well the dry up before American will change is right.
I think $5 a gallon will be the breaking point.
I was living in Puerto Rico last year. Gas was around $2.40 a gallon and tons of people drove scooters, mopeds, and Motorcycles because gas was expensive. The average median income down there is around $23k a year. In the States is around $44k so $5 a gallon should start to wean us off our addiction.

So educate us Obi-Wan.

> Hard to say who is to blame in the high price of gas.
> 1st, producers make profits.
> 2nd, transporters make profits.
> 3rd, refiners make profits,
> 4th, transporters (again) make profits
> Finally, retailler makes profits.

Wrong... The only person to blame is yourself (consumers). If you think the gas is overpriced, then don't buy it. They wouldn't sell it at that price if people we're willing to pay for it.

I'm also in the unpopular camp that is all for higher gas prices. Less traffic, less pollution, eventually smaller more efficient cars on the road - sounds good to me. I just wish the additional tax that could be collected would be put to good use...

-Steve

Random thoughts on what I've read:
We used to hear a lot about an annual "bike or bus" to work day. It's no longer promoted here, maybe it is where you live. Any promotion to encourage conservation on a meaningful level needs national legislative sponsership.
I hear many complain about larger vehicles, but the new turbodiesels are really clean and efficient. Maybe look at incentivizing that combination.
National mass transit will never happen in our childrens lifetimes or longer, if ever. Due to costs and political wrangling you can just forget about it. One system that I personally like is the RUF system. Combining mass transit where the need is with personalized mobility where we want makes sense to me. But again, impossible without national political and economic leadership.
Fuel is a large component of oil usage, but let's not forget about things like plastics! Recycling is a free and easy way to conserve oil.

There is no charge today.

Paul

As others have probably already stated, the only way to reduce the price is reduce consumption. Econ 101 "supply and demand". Yes, there is a 'shortage' of refining capacity. Build new refineries? Sure great, but where do you put it? Everyone bitches about the price, but they bitch even more if you decide to build an oil refinery in their backyard. Nobody wants to live near one of these (just like a nuclear power plant) facilities.

A one-day boycott is perhaps the dumbest suggestion possible. There is a 3-4 month lag between the time the crude is pumped out of the ground and when you put gas in your tank. Maybe if you boycott for 30 days, that might do something for short term but as soon as we burn through that short term surplus the prices will shoot back up. A 30 cent price correction because of a one day boycott is urban legend.

Drill more? Well sure, except not all crude oil is ideal for the production of gasoline. The Saudis are really lucky to sit on massive deposits of "sweet" crude which is best for gasoline. IIRC, the known deposits in US territory are more of the "sour" variety (which can make good diesel except we've legislated diesel cars nearly extinct).

I'm all in favor of nuclear power. It is also misguided to think there is only enough fissile U235/238 to power for a couple decades. Modern reactor designs are not only much safer, but you can configure them into breeders and generate enough fuel for long enough to work on even better solutions (fusion, solar, etc).

BTW - premium around me is $3.40/gal. Sunday was the first time it ever cost more than $40 for me to fill up the tank in my MINI. That sucked, but I don't really have a choice. There is NO public transport available to me. I used to have people I carpooled with, but they have switched jobs and this is no longer an option either. Riding a bicycle isn't an option (too dangerous). A 250cc motorcycle might be worth considering for when the weather is nice....

I brought this up at the local pub last night and after reading all your thoughts and listening to others....as much as I hate these massive price increases and I do believe there is price gouging going on, there is noone making me buy the gas. It looks as though an additional train of thought is in order.

More walking and cycling for me on local errands

I do however still say it is the general public that has the power not the oil companies etc. If enough people are fed up then with some work changes can be had. One day general no gas boycotts will do nothing but a month where only your competition is getting the sales will.

6,5 $/gallon here in France ... And that's not that expensive.

Recent report shows that gas in France is cheaper than in the seventies.

People had to work 8 minutes to pay a liter in 1970 ... now they only have to work 4 minutes ...
At the same time european cars milage has doubled. Now you can find a wide range of cars that have 50 to 60 MPG milage... Gas impact on family budget has decreased on past 35 years.

After reading through some of the comments I have only one thing to add.

You guys really need to READ up on the subject and quit listening to the media hype. This is a complex issue and the media really only wants two things... scare you about it and tell you who is to blame for it.

As for the mid-east.... do you even know where we get the bulk majority of our oil

I'll give you a hint... they aren't in the mideast.

DO YOUR HOMEWORK before going off half cocked people.

I'm guessing Canada and Mexico are the US top 2 imports of crude oil

the only way to TRULY boycot is to use less fuel! This is "ride you r bike to work week"! if 90% of americans car pooled with 3 or more people or used public transportation, or pedaled to work for only one day a week, we would use at least 10% less gasoline! think of it! lets all get off our (some) fat asses and do our part!

It doesn't really matter where the oil comes from. While there are some slight differences in the refining qualities of the various sources, oil is a commodity with a global market. When the price of West Texas Intermediate goes up the price of Brent goes up as well. If terrorists manage to stir up enough trouble in the Middle East to cause the price of Omani Crude to spike, then the price of that barrel pumped in Mexico, Venezuela or Canada will go up as well.

Skip

It was not stated that there was only enough uranium to last 20 yrs. To repeat, it was stated that if we attempted to convert entirely to nuclear power, that there is only enough to last 20 years. Estimates of U238, just as with oil, are rough. But even though the US won't convert entirely to nuclear, the rest of the world will accelerate demand for U238. The point is that the situation with nuclear power isn't any better than that of oil. If you are confident enough that this is "misguided" I would like to hear your expertise and sources.

When gas gets expensive enough, well see some availability of methanol and ethanol.

...and if that doesn't happen we'll just have to get a bunch of folk together and make our own.

Until then I can handle the current prices.

yeah i just pay the price.

take $38 to fill the 914, lasts couple of weeks .....

I waste alot more $ than 40 bucks every week and a half.

What about breeder reactors? They use uranium but produce plutonium.

Yeah, I know, plutonium is nasty, nasty stuff.

Exxon has to raise prices to get back the $2.8M they donated to the Republican Party since 2000. That's why I vote Libertarian.

Isn't Exxon still fighting the fine from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in court? You know, the Alaskan oil spill that occurred back in 1989, nearly two decades ago?

I don't think it's a political issue. It's a money issue and people on both sides of the fence are making plenty of it. It's a matter of America being oil dependent. Most of us didn't choose to be, we were raised to be. Does that mean we can't learn to be more conservative or responsible in our fuel consumption? Of course not. But I'll bet that most of us on this board don't work in the cities we live in - so there's a commute involved. A lot of families have both parents going to work in order to afford inflated mortgages, and that means dropping the kids off at childcare somewhere - there goes carpooling and/or mass transit. We've developed into a society that has not only become dependent on oil, but also personalized transportation. Granted, some of us could tweek our lifestyles to lessen gas consumption, but the reality is that a lot of us are already trying to do that but have reached a limit without having to totally restructure our job/home/school/recreation situation. I'm all for capitalism but not at the expense of the American public having to pick up the tab. Maybe it'd be better if energy was regulated. Heck, California got hosed when we deregulated electricity so there's something to be said about learning from our mistakes.

Yeah, gas prices suck - and they ain't gettin' better any time soon. I'll venture a guess that most of the folks here own a 914 as a secondary vehicle. That means more insurance, registration and lots of extra money for parts and upgrades. Seems to me we're doing pretty good - and I for one am not selling my 914 anytime soon!

I attended a lecture recently where it stated that if the US attempted to covert entirely to nuclear power, we would consume all known supplies of uranium in 20 years.
[/quote]

Sounds like he failed to account for breeder reactors. "Under appropriate operating conditions, the neutrons given off by fission reactions can "breed" more fuel from otherwise non-fissionable isotopes. The most common breeding reaction is that of plutonium-239 from non-fissionable uranium-238. The term "fast breeder" refers to the types of configurations which can actually produce more fissionable fuel than they use, such as the LMFBR. This scenario is possible because the non-fissionable uranium-238 is 140 times more abundant than the fissionable U-235 and can be efficiently converted into Pu-239 by the neutrons from a fission chain reaction."

Sounds like we can make all the fuel we will need for some time to come.

You must realize that 90% (WAG) of college professors stand to the left of center when it comes to politics and use the campus to push there agendas. I would suggest doing some research before blindly following the left.

You know, screw big oil and there obscene profits.

For once I agree with Hillary and the Dem's. We need to take these profits from big oil and regulate how much $ they make.

I'm sure all the pension plans of firemen, policemen, teachers, and civil servants, 401K plans, and individual investors of the oil companies (the owners) will understand why there retirement funds are suddenly lower. Although, with all the new $ the goverment takes from big oil they will be able to take care of us in retirement.

I wouldn't trust the government to do the right thing with that money any more than I trust them now, which is not at all.
The truth is that they (politicians) are all doing what's good for them and their friends, that's what got us into this mess in the first place. They'll keep benefiting themselves, just as they have for a long time, regardless of whether it's Dems or Repubs in office.
We need a good F^@#ing revolution. CLEAN HOUSE! Get rid of all the lawyers that run this country and try to find some honorable people to elect for a change.

To Eric914,

I liked what you had to say till I read your "stupid statement" about you agree with Hillary & the Democrats with the govt. taking care of us in retirement. Did you attend Ohio State??

To all the other's we have some good thinking 914er's out there.

Tom

Amen to that! We ALL can thank the self-serving SOBs that WE ALL put into office for a lot of the problems regarding bureaucratic corruption. They tell us what we want to hear so that we can elect them, and then they do whatever the hell they want for the remainder of their term. And then, when re-election time rolls around, they spew a bunch of "us vs. them" rhetoric to pull off some slight-of-hand bulls--t to make you forget about all of the crap they pulled during their previous terms. Ever heard of the term "Divide and Conquer"? Well the career politicians are doing a wonderful job of turning us against each other. They make me wanna

Clean the slate and start from scratch!

I think a good start would be to abolish political parties.

1. They aren't in the Constitution.
2. They take taxpayer money to fund their conventions, whether you agree with their platform or not you still pay.
3. They have pushed through laws that make it damn near impossible for anyone with a new idea to get on the ballot.

Everyone running for office should have to state his or her own ideas without the backing of a party machine. *cough cough* HillaryDubyatwosidesofthesamefuglycoin *cough cough*

I agree, you can't tell the difference between the current two parties. They are both way too liberal with our money and neither have a real platform. Listen to the debates, neither the Ds or Rs talk about real issues, just BS and mud slinging. The third party candidates, if they are LUCKY enough to get invited to debate, typically are the only ones saying anything tangible.

I've been voting third party for years as I don't see eye to eye at all with current two party clowns.

(Sorry, this doesn't really have anything to do with gas prices anymore, or with 914s per se, however...) I happened to tune into a local public affairs program (World View) on the Chicago NPR affiliate last night. The guest was Ron Paul, one of the minor Republican presidential candidates. He had been a Libertarian. When asked why he switched to the Republican party (he apparently took a lot of heat for that move from Libertarians) he said the system is such that the only way to get your ideas aired is to be in one of the two major parties.

Skip Montanaro

To get back on topic...I think my 914 actually runs better on more expensive gas! LOL Maybe if gas hits $5 per gallon I'll pick up 10-15 hp just by filling my tank!

(It's been a long day)

I stand corrected; I guess I do too much listening and not enough reading.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petrole...ent/import.html

Now if we could only get each of those illegal aliens to bring a barrel of crude with them when they cross the border we'll be in great shape!

The basic problem still is that we are hooked on oil and its going to be very painful on everyone to break the habit (if ever) because we did not have the will to do the right thing years ago because of environmentalists, oil and automotive lobbies and plain old insider politics. Very complex indeed with no easy answer.

that does it. im converting
Click to view attachment

yes, cuz those oil companies are so evil.

the U.S. has plenty of oil. We just can't drill for most of it. So we depend on imported oil.

and if we could drill we can't refine any of it, cuz, we don't have enough refinery capacity to keep up with demand.

Plus, we have allowed all the big oil companies to merge and now we have a good old

oligopoly
NOUN:
pl. ol·i·gop·o·lies
A market condition in which sellers are so few that the actions of any one of them will materially affect price and have a measurable impact on competitors.

we need more refinerys and more competition.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

Now we're talkin! Homebrew!!!!

Sorry but the "bay area" doesn't have a decent mass transit system. San Fransisco is a tiny corner of the bay area - it does have a working mass transit system. The rest of the bay area does not. I live 12 miles from work and it would take over 2 hours to ride the county bus system to work and cost more than what it costs to drive.

I don't really see the big deal of gas going up $0.50 - $1.00 a gallon unless you are one of those fools that drive hundreds of miles a day in a gas hog. I drive the average 10,000 miles a year. For me thats 500 gallons per year or 42 gallons a month, roughly $125 a month for fuel - that's a little over my car insurance premium. I know several people that spend that much on fancy overpriced coffee.

I just wish people would realize what the oil companies are doing. Raise prices during peak demand but then reduce costs before people can get alternative sources lined up. Go electric, go Hybrid, go biodeisel if you want to make a statement.

Capitalism at its finest ladies and gents!

I havent voted and I probably never will, its one of those 'your damned if you do and damned if you dont' things.

Now that's what I'm talkin' about! I try to do my part.

Speaking about lawnmovers, I've probably doubled my lawnmower's fuel economy switching to synthetic! But then again, I'm trying to use up all the old leaded race gas I have in it. It's hell on the plug.

3.49 for 93 oct premium here (Shell). No name is a few cents cheaper.

Anyone noticed,
It will be a long week-end here in Canada and also pike and walleye fishing opening season, and, sure enough gas price went up 7¢ a liter (around $0.18/gal for you US guys) and for no particular reasons except the fact it was cloudy.

Aren`t we getting or not ???

Steph

I'm not so caught up on the US profits and taxation but yes here in Canada we are being gouged to no end it would appear. Price fixing is huge even though so called studies says this isn't so. Trust me they say.........You know what most people think of people that say 'Trust Me'

Gas here in the Lower Mainland goes down 6 cents a litre every evening around 7:30pm after people get home from work.......

Here in the Nation's Capital, the prices go up in the middle of the day sometimes for 3 to 4 hours then go back down to what they were in the morning....
Try to understand, and the govern,ment says everything is normal......