WTF gas here in asheville NC is up to 5.10 a gallon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Something must be done
914's get good mileage we are tryin here!!!

no more of this for me

how did it come to this?

Drill, drill, drill. If we had a pipe line from Alaska we wouldn't have the spike when Hurricanes hit the gulf.

That's easy. A bazillion people in this country drive SUV's and huge trucks creating a huge demand for gas. When the market gets tight prices go up. When gas prices went sky high Americans started cutting back and the fuel prices dropped in a short period. Reduce consumption and the prices will continue to drop. When demand increases the prices will rise. A surplus means prices drop, it's an easy concept.

I'm sure I'll get flamed but we are the biggest abusers of energy in the world and we have this coming and we deserve it. Nobody learned from the 70's......and I admit I am as bad as the rest (except I do drive a Prius)

It's like telling people there is a water shortage. They turn on the tap and say there is plenty of water. They won't conserve until no water comes out of the tap ......and the same will be for gas. Americans won't conserve on their own because it is the right thing to do. They will only conserve when the price gets too high or there is none left..........sorry to speak the truth

Travel to other countries. In many it is illegal to run their home heater during certain times of the year. Are we spoiled or are they over regulated?

I blame the government... and taxes... and alcohol... and the rich.

It's a simple enough concept- each American citizen pays income tax to pay our civil employees and public servants. OK, that's fair enough. But the mistake was made years and years ago, back at end of the Revolutionary War.

Our fore fathers waged war against the British. Why? Because of taxes. Yeah, there was a lot more to it than that, but taxes were the main issue. But the American Revolution left our country in a great debt; so what did Washington, Jefferson, and their buddies decide to do to eliminate that debt? Taxes. On distilled spirits to be more specific. Since then it's just been a vicious cycle of continued taxes into our generation. Anybody that regularly watches the History channel can tell you this.

And when you consider that, in this country, the more money you make and the bigger your company gets, the better the taxes work to your advantage. So since the big oil giants are making billions of dollars a year in this day and age, they get more and more tax breaks.

Because of this, the average joe like you and me have to suffer for it. I believe that George Carlin said it best...

"The rich pay none of the taxes, do none of the work.
The middle class pay all of the taxes, do all of the work.
The poor are there... just to scare the shit out of the middle class."

Just my $.02

I was just as bad as the rest until this last year. I have a monster commute (100 miles a day) and I kept driving my 96 jeep grand cherokee regardless because it was paid for.

This year I started car pooling and then even bought a '09 VW tdi a couple of weeks ago. My fuel cost has dropped from 700 a month to about 65 bucks a month!!!

It is funny how when the realizations start hitting you how you start to conserve in other aspects of your life. I have allowed our grass to turn a yellowish color trying to conserve water but draw the line at our fruit trees. I figure we eat the fruit and the water would be used to grow it elsewhere anyway.

I am a strong believer that if we all turned in our SUV's and conserved that the trade deficit would shrink to almost zip almost over night. Just think if we could completely cut our dependency on foriegn oil!!! 237 million a day in Iraq comes to mind.... I will stop here before I start to rant.

Screw that, I own a lot of stock in Exxon so I have no clue what you're complaining about. What problem?

By the way, Anwar has 5 billion barrels of "proved" reserves. The U.S. consumes 20-25 million barrels a day. Do the math, that's exactly one year of our consumption. So after a year, then what? There's no escape. I'm telling you, buy Exxon stock.

Um, Hurricanes

Just watched the news tonight saying about all the oil rigs shut down because of the Hurricanes.

Oh, and something I forgot to add into my previous post...

The technology to get extremely good gas mileage exists... or so I hear. I can't think of his exact name, but Charles somethingorother (I wanna say his last name starts with an H) developed a carburetor decades ago that was proven to get twenty five miles to the pint... which, if you do the math, works out to about 200 miles per gallon. I'll say that again- TWO HUNDRED, miles per gallon.

I can't remember the specifics but it had something to do with how the gas was vaporized in the carburetor that made it so efficient. The inventor never allowed experts to personally inspect the carburetor, but did allow them to drive the car he installed it in, after which they confirmed that the car did get 200/gallon.

...Okay, I just did a Yahoo search on this. The inventor's name was Charles Pogue, and it was invented in 1935. But the story goes that when lead was introduced into gasoline for lubrication, the carburetor wouldn't work.

Well... here we are today with unleaded gasoline, so what could possibly be stopping car company's from using this technology? My personal thought is, by whatever means you can imagine, the oil companies are paying the car companies not to use it.

However, the original patent for this carb is still on file w/ the Patent Office. So, I call unto you, 914 owners. With all the creative minds we have on these boards, myself excluded, I urge you to pool your resources and build this carburetor again, and we shall see if the story is true...

Oh, I'd also like to note that I completely agree Americans are hardly the conservative type. For that, I blame prostitutes... not that I'm saying their company is all that bad....

...and yet the State of Colorado is going to try to pass a law to prevent us from drilling for a minumum of three months a year here in the Western Colorado Piceance Basin.

I have not been in the industry too long, but I can tell you one thing. Oil companies are not going to pay for their rigs to sit without making money.

Politics....quite a double edged sword.

Rick, we have never gotten oil from Alaska, and there is no guarantee that we will if they drill in anwar....all the oil that has ever come from the north shelf has gone straight to Japan....I think T. Boone Pickens has it right. Use air to make electricity and lp gas for cars...we have plenty of both...starting with the government....

FYI- we get about 80% of our oil from Canada and Mexico.

I filled up today at 3.49.9

get used to guys - it is simply a matter of supply and demand. This spike is nothing but gouging pure and simple. Any excuse to make a quick buck. But we are running out and that means the price will go up and up and up.

'Experts' differ about when we will hit the point where we will the half way point in the worlds accessible oil reserves. Some say 10 some say 20. Point is they all agree that it is finite and within the life time of most people alive today. We have used up the first half in what - just over a hundred years? And the rate in the first 50 years was just a trickle.

Now we have at least a third of the worlds population who have been locked in a peasant society - China, and India mainly - who are emerging into a western like era of cars and industry. There is no way we are going to squeeze another 100 years out of the reserves.

Drill and pipe to your hearts content - all you are doing is hastening the end game. If you want to criticize government find out why they are not treating this as a crisis and diverting cash and research to solving the problem of what we are going to do without oil.

I think we all realize thats the cause, but 99% of the time its all just speculation. The U.S gets less than 2% of its oil from Louisiana and probably not alot more from texas

Right now it's the refineries that are shut down on the Gulf coast of Texas. 25% of our refinery capacity is there. And anticipation of the shortage that will result.

capitalism is federally managed in an odd way to me.

imho, we missed the boat during the '70's oil crisis. we had a choice between managing energy with business relationships or infrastructure. we chose the relationships and allowed the business leaders to exert more and more influence over legislation. the result was continued reliance on foreign oil and the marketing of bigger and less efficient vehicles (for example).

we *should* have begun a concerted effort to level the field with advancements in alternatives (as some wanted to) then. that being said, it's not too late, but you see what the priority of the federal government is based on the attention paid to iraq over the last 5 years or so.

no one should have to give up their large vehicles, but they should have been marketed with clean diesel and other alternatives long ago, because most would choose the efficiency if offered on par with petro... even in the fat '90's, assuming the leadership maintaining the commitment to stave off our dependancy to the middle east.

2 things could help:

1- don't buy inefficient petro burning vehicles. tell leaders you insist on alternatives.
2- invest in american engineering and manufacturing, and elect officials who will do the same. america's ability to sustain itself has been gutted in the last 20 years, and no self respecting economist could expect the current model to end in anything but disaster.

that's my take.

paul

Amen to that paul!

What country is this?
Richest in the world
Largest Military
Center of the world business and Finance
Strongest education system
World center of inovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value

What was the reason given for developing the Department of Energy during the Carter administration?
We have spent multi billions of dollars in support of this agency and I am willing to bet not one person who reads this will remember the reason given. It was very simple:

THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY WAS INSTITUTED TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

NOTE: IN 2008 THE BUDGET FOR THIS DEPARTMENT IS NOW AT 24.2 BILLION A YEAR. THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES.

its up to us to cut down, and up to building the infrastructure to support better means and use of energy.

Carter gave a speech outlining the hard choices we as a country needed to make. It was nicknamed his "malaise" speech because the subject depressed most Americans, who then voted for Ronald Reagan, whose message was basically 'Don't worry, We're American, Be happy'. Reagan won in a landslide, and no President since then has had the balls to be honest and tell people the way it really is. If you re-read Carter's speech you'll be startled to see how correct he turned out to be.

I'm telling you, buy Exxon stock and all this won't be so depressing. The country may go broke, but you won't care, you'll be rich and can retire in Monaco, or Texas, or some other place that doesn't have personal income taxes, and live a life of ease.

I see alot of long answers but with the profits the oil companys have made lately I think one word will do..."GREED"

My .02

maybe if there was some conviction and inspiration attached to it people my have embraced it, but that's not enough. the federalists would have needed to create a very different ideology based on america as a country "first" as opposed to the unregulated, sometimes hyper-criminal capitalism that emerged from those times and has become the very essence of our economic model today.

it's what my grandmother did (a lot). now my mother after inheriting them is selling them off on the advice of her financial planner.

anyone?
bueller?

This thread should probably be in the sandbox because of it's political content. The following article sums up how I feel about little Jimmy Carter.
Carter's Oil Crisis
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, June 01, 2007 4:20 PM PT

Leadership: Of all the errors Jimmy Carter committed, none has earned him more well-justified scorn than his handling of the 1970s energy crisis. True enough, he didn't cause it. But he did make it much, much worse.

It might come as a surprise, but we agree with those who say it's unfair to tar former President Carter with having caused the 1970s oil crisis. He didn't.

The crisis in fact began in October of 1973, after the first Arab oil embargo, and continued for years as first President Nixon and then President Ford failed to get a grip on things.

The resulting four-fold jump in oil prices wasn't Carter's fault.

But let's be clear: OPEC ended its embargo in 1974. Despite that, government-imposed price controls on output and prices remained in place. They weren't fully removed until 1981. And that is Carter's fault.

When Carter came into office in January 1977, the price of a barrel of oil was about $14. When he left a mere four years later, oil — the lifeblood of the U.S. and world economy — stood at more than $35 a barrel, a 154% rise.

The resulting double-digit inflation and surging interest rates cut into Americans' real incomes. Rosy predictions that higher inflation would at least boost employment — a mainstay at the time of Keynesian economic thought — proved disastrously false. Unemployment rose, and the resulting "stagflation" became entrenched.

Worse, the rate of productivity growth, the engine for future growth in standards of living, plunged by nearly two thirds from its postwar average of nearly 3% a year.

Pressure on oil prices built early in Carter's term in office as OPEC jacked up prices. But oil really took off in 1979, after the Shah of Iran was toppled by fundamentalist Islamic revolutionaries led by Ayatollah Khomeini. President Carter's weak and vacillating support for the Shah of Iran encouraged the rebellion.

Things went from bad to worse.

With oil prices rising out of control, Carter in June 1979 canceled his vacation and gathered dozens of mostly Democratic leaders at Camp David to discuss what to do. The address to Americans that resulted, made in July 1979, became known as the "malaise" speech.

In it, Carter suggested high oil prices weren't the problem; just Americans' tendency "to worship self-indulgence and consumption." Further, he said Americans suffered a "crisis of confidence."

He began, conspicuously, to wear a cardigan sweater. He put solar panels on the White House. He turned down the thermostat, and started burning wood in the fireplace.

None of the high-handed symbology worked, however. Later in 1979, Carter's weak response to Iran's radical regime taking 52 Americans hostage sent oil prices soaring again. Carter cut off oil imports from Iran and the mullahs imposed an oil embargo, leading to a global market panic and a surge in prices — the second oil shock of the decade.

Within weeks, gas lines formed in cities across the U.S., with cars snaking up and down streets and around city blocks. Americans left idling in gas queues felt both angry and helpless, as they watched prices soar and shortages emerge — and saw a government unable or unwilling to fix the problem.

And what was Carter's response? Mostly symbolic stuff. He had a number of chances to correct the situation. He didn't.

In his malaise speech, Carter had laid out six proposals to end the energy crisis. They included simply telling people to stop using so much energy, the creation of the Synthetic Fuels Corp. and a handful of other costly alternative energy schemes, and the formation of the Energy Department. Despite billions spent, none did the job.

Unfortunately, he waited far too long to do what he really needed to do: Namely, completely end price controls on domestic oil, kill off oil import quotas, and veto the Windfall Profits Tax Act.

All of those policy moves had, taken together, sharply curtailed U.S. oil output, boosting our dependence on foreign oil and giving OPEC's unelected potentates a virtual stranglehold over the world economy.

As a result, by the end of his term in office, Carter was less popular than Richard Nixon was during the depths of the Watergate scandal, with an approval rating of just 25%. Remember, Nixon had to resign or face impeachment proceedings.

It's pretty clear today that, absent any other policy changes, Carter could have prevented the second oil shock if he had only stood by the Shah — who had been a staunch U.S. ally in a sea of hostile Mideast governments for 25 years.

Instead, his weakness led to the upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism across the Mideast that continues today.

Worse, Carter erred in thinking the government — and not a healthy, functioning market with realistic price signals — could end the oil crisis. It couldn't in the 1970s, and it can't today.

It's disheartening on some levels to hear many of the same proposals for our energy ills emerging from the Democrats in Congress. Have they learned nothing? Or are they just counting on average people having forgotten the misery of the Carter years?

Regardless, we know there's a way out. President Reagan, in a few bold moves within weeks of entering office, totally decontrolled oil prices. Prices peaked, the amount of oil on the market surged, and inflation's back was broken.

nuff said...

Yes, sandbox for sure.

Was that article an op-ed piece? It has a definite partisan feel to it that sounds pretty silly in retrospect, but it is always interesting how people can see the same thing and have totally different interpretations.

In any case the article doesn't contradict what I said. Carter stated that we Americans are addicted to oil and we needed to make fundamental changes. That's a fact. Folks didn't like that idea, they preferred "don't worry, be happy" and "don't think, buy!" consumerism. No question about that. So that's the road we've gone down, nothing really changed, and the country's energy independence has deteriorated a bit more in every subsequent administration. Another fact.

To illustrate the "don't worry, be happy" aspect, do you know a real irony? Remember the Bush-Gore debates in 2000? One of the questions was how the candidates were going to deal with the huge ongoing budget surpluses. Seriously, a trillion dollars of surplus by 2010. And in the last eight years instead of a surplus we've added two trillion dollars to the national debt. Like falling off a log. So those surpluses didn't end up being such a big problem after all, did they?

It is what it is, so learn to love it. Or do something about it.

Sandbox, please.

Ya, there's no guarentee If we don't start doing something about it. NG? First, we have no infastructure, We have no companies converting, We have no manufacturers building cars, and if they are they are not pushing them because there's no place to fill the tank....

Can you convert your 914? and if you did could you get NG in the tank if you decided to travel cross country?

Until big business puts stations in place and the manufactures start mass production of NG cars and trucks, we need gas.

Iffen you don't start drillin we'll never get this country going.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for NG. But fossil fuel runs this country and we need to live in the here and now.

We have always needed to off set the 4000 drilling rigs we have in the gulf with our own oil resource from another part of the country. We have never had balance. We have never been able to move to other fuels.

NG is a pretty good alternative. There are conversion kits and you can buy a reasonbly priced home fueling station. I looked into the civic cng car. There are many levels of fueling stations that you can buy for your house. The one that makes the most sense is "phil" it slowly fills the car over night and costs about 900 bucks. The othere are very pricey.

I agree, NG is abundent. I looked into this also. Phil is a good home system. The problem is what happens when you leave home? There's no infastructure. Until we get big money behind this it's smoke and mirrors.

We need more of our own fossil. We needed to start drilling 15 years ago. But I guess if we wait another 15 years to do something maybe we'll all be dead or broke by then.

It it a PITA but it can be done. All PGE locations have fueling stations and you can fill up where busses fill up. I agree that long road trips would suck.

This is going to be fun:

What country is this?

The USA

Richest in the world

Not per capita. We actually rank 6th:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...PPP)_per_capita

Strongest education system

Finnland is considered to have the best actually. We rank near the bottom.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/26/...ain530872.shtml

Largest Military

We're number 2. China's is a lot bigger though:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...f_active_troops

Center of the world business and Finance

Maybe...

World center of inovation and invention

This used to be true, but I think the rest of the world has caught up.

Currency the world standard of value

For the time being...

This isn't the 1960s. Things have a changed a lot in the last four decades. I'm glad the rest of the world is doing better, but I hope we as a country can continue to be competitive in the new global arena.

As Ed McMan once said..."You are correct sir!"

BTW, If all the liberal restrictions were removed, we would have a chance at exploring and discovering enough oil to fuel the planet for another 1000 years. Tree huggers get out of the way!

If you are getting your natural gas from wells, it is still a fossil fuel. If you are producing (capturing) it from landfills, then it isn't.

One of the reasons for President Carter's lack of support for the Shah was that Carter thought human rights should be one of the things that the United States of America stands for.

1 ?. why is this in the garage? admin cleanup asap.

k

Yeah, sorry I put this in the garage! I thought it was going into the sand box! I'm not always all here or there!

ok. but to keep it at the top...if they were to green light production and start building line in the ANWR TODAY, i doubt i would ever pump a drop of fuel produced from it in the rest of my lifetime. there should be a stipulation that not one molecule of crude or product there of, be destined anywhere other than domestic consumption. the leases should be priced competitively and any environmental fines astronomical. rules broken, forfit the lease.

you're getting gouged on fuel. the wife filled up with premium for $3.95 a g. don't ever frequent the the gas station again. not even for a slim jim. tell your friends. call your local state representative. whatever it takes. MAKE NOISE AND MAKE IT LOUD!!

drilling more does not solve the problem
it only postpones it...

all of the oil (anwar, off shore) is going to run out eventually
conserving helps deal with that problem, and helps push the development of new technologies

drilling, postpones the problem so that all of your children can inherit it..
(I don't have children)

the politician's pushing for (drill/drill/drill) are lying to you so they can have your power now and avoid dealing with the actual problem.

brant

This.

This, this, this.

Drilling now, without a concurrent commitment to development of alternative fuels now, only serves to shift the current problem out 20 years or so. And when that oil is gone, if we have not committed to alternative energy, we will have a real full blown energy crisis.

Glad someone bit on that one.
Those words were used to describe England at the turn of the 20th century.
England is still a strong country but the US superceded it in almost all those categories. So the question is will the same fate befall North America?

Shift happens.

btw - take this with a grain of salt.

the best option isn't natural gas. It is electricity. The infastructure for it is already available. It's cheap, easy to make and doesn't require fossil fuels. We could then go the clean nuclear route to produce our baseline supply and incorporate new technology of clean renewable energy as it comes online. Costs for solar panels would go down and eventually you can produce a good portion of your yearly energy. Biomass can be used to produce power, etc. The key will be either better battery technology/cheaper prices or advances in capacitor technology. The only oil we would then need would be for chemical processes and industrial uses along with transportation with large commercial vehicles.

advantages of electric:
1. electricity is cheap cost per mile is much lower than gas
2. power plants are much more efficient than your ICE engine and with it centralized emissions of the plant can be controlled. 80% efficiency for coal plants vs 40 something % efficiency for ice engines
3. you can incorporate renewable energy
4. distribution network is easily available adding new "stations" is as simple as putting in a new 220 volt/110 volt outlet
5. simplifies the design of vehicles considerably. Replace alternator, engine cooling system, engine. The electric motor is good for pretty much ever with only a few minor maintenance things needed.
6. equal or better performance from the electric motor to a standard ice engine
7. we have enough coal and nuclear grade uranium to power our country for hundreds of years even if we do not incorporate renewable energy.
8. I've heard but am not sure if it is true, that our baseline load at night could handle every current car that is Ice converted to electric without needing new power plants. We waste a huge amount of power at night due to needing to maintain the baseline load because most power plants can't be turned off and on.

disadvantages:
1. still need advances in charge technology to get charges down to 10 min or less
2. battery packs wear out after about a decade (Lithium). nano-scale capacitors appear to be the best option but are still in development
3. diesel and gas would still need to be used for trucks and heavy equipment for now
4. cost. Decent lithium battery packs that can provide 200 miles of range on a charge are in the $15K range and these packs last for 10 years or less. Lead acid packs wear out after 3 or 4 years at best these batteries can only provide about 40 miles of range on average. The cost of lithium type battery packs will drop in the next few years and just like lcd tvs if demand goes way up the cost will start going down due to advances in production.

the other problem with electric is that it doesn't go vrooom vrooom. Can you imagine a car race where the cars just kinda humm by you

I agree that these ultra capacitors hold out an awful lot of promise. So why aren't we going at the R&D like our lives depend on it? Can you spell Oil Lobby boys and girls?

Tesla motors has built an engine sound into their cars. I don't see why this can't be standard. Doesn't seem hard to do to me. I think the biggest reason for this is for blind people there have already been several accidents because the blind can't hear the car coming.