How to Lower Gas $'s

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
Efficiency is the only answer.

FYI - We use natural gas to produce fertilizer.

Care to guess how much energy that takes.

Corn ethanol is a losing proposition.[/quote]

Then you want nuclear power. It is the most efficient source, period. Especially if you utilize re-enriching technologies.
The idea isn’t to move to an all ethanol economy. It is to use ethanol, nuclear and a wide variety of other energy sources so that we can be independant of foreign oil. Then we can tell them to take thier oil and bathe in it, shove it up thier asses, sell it to China, or whatever they want.
The added side effect is that these other energy sources are cleaner burning so it’s a win-win. Even if oil is $2 a barrel, we still need to get rid of the trade with people who hate us.

62

[quote]pat36 wrote:
Then you want nuclear power. It is the most efficient source, period. Especially if you utilize re-enriching technologies.
The idea isn’t to move to an all ethanol economy. It is to use ethanol, nuclear and a wide variety of other energy sources so that we can be independant of foreign oil. Then we can tell them to take thier oil and bathe in it, shove it up thier asses, sell it to China, or whatever they want.
The added side effect is that these other energy sources are cleaner burning so it’s a win-win. Even if oil is $2 a barrel, we still need to get rid of the trade with people who hate us.
[/quote]

DING DING DING DING DING!

Our utter dependence on foreign sources of energy is a major problem. If the oil producing countries of the world decided to jack up the price for Americans, we’d be screwed. The only solution is to adopt a wide variety of alternative energy sources, INCLUDING (but not limited to) nuclear power and ethanol. We also need to take massive steps towards living more efficiently - educating the youth of our nation on the importance of environmental consciousness, efficiency, and obviously teaching them to Reduce Reuse and Recycle, is a key part of that.

63

[quote]pat36 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Ethanol fuel from corn faulted as ‘unsustainable subsidized food burning’ in analysis by Cornell scientist

The flaw in the theory is that ethenol has to be made from corn. You can distill chicken shit and make ethanol. If it has sugar in it, ethanol can be made out of it.

[/quote]

But ADM doesn’t get huge subsidies for making chickenshit into corn.

Ethanol is a viable fuel. Making enough of it efficiently is the trick and we have not mastered it yet.

I fear using corn to make ethanol is the wrong method.

64

[quote]knewsom wrote:
pat36 wrote:
Then you want nuclear power. It is the most efficient source, period. Especially if you utilize re-enriching technologies.
The idea isn’t to move to an all ethanol economy. It is to use ethanol, nuclear and a wide variety of other energy sources so that we can be independant of foreign oil. Then we can tell them to take thier oil and bathe in it, shove it up thier asses, sell it to China, or whatever they want.
The added side effect is that these other energy sources are cleaner burning so it’s a win-win. Even if oil is $2 a barrel, we still need to get rid of the trade with people who hate us.

DING DING DING DING DING!

Our utter dependence on foreign sources of energy is a major problem. If the oil producing countries of the world decided to jack up the price for Americans, we’d be screwed. …[/quote]

This is not a real concern. We would jusy buy it through a middleman and get gouged. In fact I suspect that is happening now.

65

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
knewsom wrote:
pat36 wrote:
Then you want nuclear power. It is the most efficient source, period. Especially if you utilize re-enriching technologies.
The idea isn’t to move to an all ethanol economy. It is to use ethanol, nuclear and a wide variety of other energy sources so that we can be independant of foreign oil. Then we can tell them to take thier oil and bathe in it, shove it up thier asses, sell it to China, or whatever they want.
The added side effect is that these other energy sources are cleaner burning so it’s a win-win. Even if oil is $2 a barrel, we still need to get rid of the trade with people who hate us.

DING DING DING DING DING!

Our utter dependence on foreign sources of energy is a major problem. If the oil producing countries of the world decided to jack up the price for Americans, we’d be screwed. …

This is not a real concern. We would jusy buy it through a middleman and get gouged. In fact I suspect that is happening now.[/quote]

what - so we get gouged either way? the problem remains, despite symantics - furthermore, the cost of PRODUCING oil is only going to continue to increase.

66

More BTUs of fossil fuel (NG, coal, and/or oil) go into the production of ethanol from corn.

Ethanol will not be an alternative fuel for the worlds largest consumer until this fact changes.

67

[quote]knewsom wrote:
…
what - so we get gouged either way? the problem remains, despite symantics - furthermore, the cost of PRODUCING oil is only going to continue to increase.[/quote]

No doubt. I was out pointing out that the likeleyhood of some mid east tyrant cutting off the US oil supply is minimal.

68

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Instead of the 9 cents/gallon the oil companies make on gas, how about cutting the 50 cent/gallon tax the Feds put on it?

It would be better in the long run to simply fire most Federal employees except law enforcement, judicial, and military, sell off everything else, eliminate most taxes and let the market take over. All these regs and taxes are killing us!![/quote]

The federal gasoline tax is $0.185/gal.

State taxes range from $0.075/gal to $0.321/gal.

You might want to consider writing your state legislators first, particularly given the fact that your state gasoline tax exceedes the federal tax by almost 50% and is due to increase in the space of three months or so.

69

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Ethanol is a viable fuel. Making enough of it efficiently is the trick and we have not mastered it yet.[/quote]

Absolutely.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I fear using corn to make ethanol is the wrong method.[/quote]

Hence my point that we need to do extensive R&D on it. Past experience tells us that large scale efficiency improvements can be made in any process, and this should be no exception.

The thing about corn is that we have plenty of it, and no real better use. We both know that high-fructose corn syrup is definitely NOT a better use for the countless tons of corn we produce.

70

[quote]BigPaul wrote:
The federal gasoline tax is $0.185/gal.

State taxes range from $0.075/gal to $0.321/gal.

You might want to consider writing your state legislators first, particularly given the fact that your state gasoline tax exceedes the federal tax by almost 50% and is due to increase in the space of three months or so.[/quote]

Actually, the other day I saw a reporter mentioning that in The Netherlands gas costs close to $6 a gallon (most expensive in the OECD), mostly because of tax. That is very true.

I lived there for a while, and, seriously, I had no problems paying that much tax. Why? The freeway system there is so amazingly good that it was worth it. Best pavement anywhere (completely smooth in most places – almost zero road noise), zero potholes, zero hydroplaning even under heavy rain (Permeable paving), and no tolls. The tax went to keeping the roads that way (and building more) and it was worth every cent.

In order to avoid too much of a burden on small business owners that depend on transport (and road warriors), Diesel fuel pays a lot less tax, of course, which, coupled with the fact that Diesel cars have better mileage and that the Diesel fuels they use are fairly pure (low emissions, contrary to our formulations) allowed cab drivers (with their Diesel Mercedes E350s), for example, to be able to get a cost per mile quite similar to us here. The result is that there is a huge installed based of Diesel cars, making the transition to Biodiesel extremely easy.

The roads are actually one of the four things I miss about The Netherlands.

Now compare this to 101 or I-5… I’d be more than happy to pay $1 a gallon or more in State Tax if that meant 101 would be completely repaved – preferably with permeable paving, considering that Northern California recently became the Rain Capital of the US.

71

[quote]hspder wrote:
BigPaul wrote:
The federal gasoline tax is $0.185/gal.

State taxes range from $0.075/gal to $0.321/gal.

You might want to consider writing your state legislators first, particularly given the fact that your state gasoline tax exceedes the federal tax by almost 50% and is due to increase in the space of three months or so.

Actually, the other day I saw a reporter mentioning that in The Netherlands gas costs close to $6 a gallon (most expensive in the OECD), mostly because of tax. That is very true.

I lived there for a while, and, seriously, I had no problems paying that much tax. Why? The freeway system there is so amazingly good that it was worth it. Best pavement anywhere (completely smooth in most places – almost zero road noise), zero potholes, zero hydroplaning even under heavy rain (Permeable paving), and no tolls. The tax went to keeping the roads that way (and building more) and it was worth every cent.

In order to avoid too much of a burden on small business owners that depend on transport (and road warriors), Diesel fuel pays a lot less tax, of course, which, coupled with the fact that Diesel cars have better mileage and that the Diesel fuels they use are fairly pure (low emissions, contrary to our formulations) allowed cab drivers (with their Diesel Mercedes E350s), for example, to be able to get a cost per mile quite similar to us here. The result is that there is a huge installed based of Diesel cars, making the transition to Biodiesel extremely easy.

The roads are actually one of the four things I miss about The Netherlands.

Now compare this to 101 or I-5… I’d be more than happy to pay $1 a gallon or more in State Tax if that meant 101 would be completely repaved – preferably with permeable paving, considering that Northern California recently became the Rain Capital of the US.
[/quote]

Mr. Ivory Tower,

What about all of us working stiffs who don’t make a six-figure income teaching at Stanford? Maybe you could pay this additional tax burden for us.

Man, I don’t know if you’re a ‘limosine liberal’ but you sure have the message down.

Most of us don’t live in an ‘abstract’ fantasyland, where an extra buck or two is chump change. (And you say I’M disconnected from reality! LMAO!)

72

Annie nails it!!

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi

73

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Most of us don’t live in an ‘abstract’ fantasyland, where an extra buck or two is chump change. (And you say I’M disconnected from reality! LMAO!)[/quote]

A fantasyland is where people think everybody can drive their cars to work and public transit is not an option. That’s the fantasyland we tried creating and is now crumbling.

Gas must no longer be seen as an essential need. Driving cannot be seen as a right. It’s a privilege, one that needs to have a price assigned that is proportional to its cost. Building and maintaining roads is a huge cost, and our current gas tax structure is not paying for it.

The thing is that the current car-driven US does not scale. Part of the solution for this whole problem has to reside in restructuring whole regions around public transit. Public transit can no longer be an afterthought.

74

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Ethanol is a viable fuel. Making enough of it efficiently is the trick and we have not mastered it yet.

Absolutely.

Zap Branigan wrote:
I fear using corn to make ethanol is the wrong method.

Hence my point that we need to do extensive R&D on it. Past experience tells us that large scale efficiency improvements can be made in any process, and this should be no exception.

The thing about corn is that we have plenty of it, and no real better use. We both know that high-fructose corn syrup is definitely NOT a better use for the countless tons of corn we produce.
[/quote]

I agree with the R&D. Unfortunately it appears the corn lobby has hijacked the effort hence my skepticism.

75

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Annie nails it!!

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi[/quote]

Yeah, it’s all the Dems fault. If we could only get that 3 day supply of oil out of Alaska it would solve all our problems and never have to ever hear that nasty word “conservation” again.

Ann is such a cunt.

76

Zap, this is AMERICA - there will ALWAYS BE a special interest lobby, there will always be industries that make strike deals with the government in exchange for campaign contributions - we’ve essentially LEGALIZED corruption.

…are you trying to tell me that the Corn lobby is more dangerous than the Oil lobby? Come ON. This PALES on comparison. Of COURSE the Corn lobby is all over ethanol! It’s in their best interests. I’ll be surprised if the oil lobby doesn’t prevent R&D monies from ever REACHING ethanol producers unless they’re subsidiaries of Exxon, Shell, BP, or Chevron.

If you REALLY want impartial research done into the production of ethanol, write letters to your reps asking for national grants to be given to Universities doing Ethanol production research. Perhaps there’s a kind of grass that can yeild more ethanol per acre far more efficiently than corn and is nitrogen sparing. I doubt it, but one never knows.

77

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
"David Winston, a GOP pollster, said the size of the retirement package of former Exxon Mobil chief executive Lee R. Raymond has added to public outrage over rising gasoline prices. Winston said the multimillion-dollar package made people doubt oil companies’ assertions that market forces and not their drive for profits stood behind the run-up in gasoline prices.

Raymond received $48.5 million in salary, bonus and incentive payments last year; he got a $98.5 million lump-sum retirement package in January, when he left the company; and he had accumulated by the end of 2005 $183 million in Exxon shares and unexercised stock options with a net worth of $69 million."

But Republicans are for the workingman…

Oil companies are fucking us. They will not stop until the government steps in.

[/quote]

Why don’t you look up what the CEO of FedEx is making?

78

[quote]hspder wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
Most of us don’t live in an ‘abstract’ fantasyland, where an extra buck or two is chump change. (And you say I’M disconnected from reality! LMAO!)

A fantasyland is where people think everybody can drive their cars to work and public transit is not an option. That’s the fantasyland we tried creating and is now crumbling.

Gas must no longer be seen as an essential need. Driving cannot be seen as a right. It’s a privilege, one that needs to have a price assigned that is proportional to its cost. Building and maintaining roads is a huge cost, and our current gas tax structure is not paying for it.

The thing is that the current car-driven US does not scale. Part of the solution for this whole problem has to reside in restructuring whole regions around public transit. Public transit can no longer be an afterthought.
[/quote]

Did you think of this while jetting to the Netherlands for a conference?

Amazing how all the limosine liberals want us ignorant oafs to sit on a stinking bus or subway car while they ride around in their new Escalades.

You libs are forgetting one crucial element in all your grandiose plans: what if I, and others like me, don’t want to be ‘planned’ or ‘restructered’? I suppose that’s when the ‘gloves come off’ of liberalism and we see what it really is.

A planned economy MUST eventually become fascist, simply because individuals don’t want to be ‘planned’. Ever hear of chaos theory? (Seems to me I’ve heard that around here lately.)

79

Conservation is the only answer.

Public transportation is a viable step in the conservation equation.

80

[quote]TheBige wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
"David Winston, a GOP pollster, said the size of the retirement package of former Exxon Mobil chief executive Lee R. Raymond has added to public outrage over rising gasoline prices. Winston said the multimillion-dollar package made people doubt oil companies’ assertions that market forces and not their drive for profits stood behind the run-up in gasoline prices.

Raymond received $48.5 million in salary, bonus and incentive payments last year; he got a $98.5 million lump-sum retirement package in January, when he left the company; and he had accumulated by the end of 2005 $183 million in Exxon shares and unexercised stock options with a net worth of $69 million."

But Republicans are for the workingman…

Oil companies are fucking us. They will not stop until the government steps in.

Why don’t you look up what the CEO of FedEx is making? [/quote]

FedEx is not a necessity; gas is.

FedEx’s prices have remained steady for years; gas’ hasn’t.

FedEx does a reliable job that doesn’t adversely affect out national security by making us do business with lunatics; gas…well, you get the picture.