Do you think gas shortages are coming?

[kelpdiver 2]

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[ I can't believe these people won't let us drill our own reserves!@??&^%$

If we drill them, they cease to be RESERVES.

With our brilliantly short sighted planning on oil, we need to preserve as much of our own oil as possible to help soften the fall, whenever it may occur.

[skydiver30960 0]

Running WAY off topic, sorry...

The problem with US auto manufacturers is that until a couple months ago nobody (except maybe Billvon) in the US wanted a fuel efficient car. Plants all over the US are tooled up to produce big honkin' SUVs. Now that we realize that this change in gas prices is a change that isn't going to go away, everybody wants a gas sipper but the manufacturers need literally YEARS to make such a significant change in direction.

So, they'll scramble to make the change, hopefully not go bankrupt, and spend billions of dollars on SuperBowl ads for SUVs in an effort to convince us to buy a vehicle we don't really want anymore...

Elvisio "glad I got out of manufacturing" Rodriguez

[billvon 3,120]

>So, they'll scramble to make the change

Well, the smart ones will. The others will make more SUV's, and rely on better commercials and image enhancements. From the LA Times:

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GM ready to rev up rollouts despite SUV sales slowdown

By John O’Dell
Los Angeles Times


When General Motors Corp. was laying plans a few years ago to redo its profitable line of big sport utility vehicles, gasoline seemed inexpensive, Americans were in love with the hulking SUVs, and it looked like all green lights and open highways.

No more – and the timing couldn’t be worse for GM.

The company sells more big SUVs than all other automakers combined. But through August of this year, sales of the truck-based vehicles were down 9.7 percent in the United States after a 6.7 percent decline in 2004.These slumping sales are one reason the automaker lost nearly $1.4 billion in the first six months of this year.

Come January, GM will start rolling out a redesigned lineup of all its full-size SUVs and pickups. The automaker is counting on these 2006 models to help stem its losses.

But with gasoline prices at near-record highs, consumers seem to have lost some of their appetite for the company’s Chevrolet Suburban, GMC Yukon, Hummer H2, Cadillac Escalade and other big SUVs. These vehicles weigh 2 1/2 tons, get 13 to 15 miles per gallon in town and cost $35,000 to $70,000, and analysts aren’t excited about the prospects for GM’s new model lineup.

. . .

But the vehicles are so vital to U.S. automakers that GM has no choice. It sells more than 500,000 large SUVs a year, plus about 1 million full-size pickups, accounting for nearly one-third of its passenger vehicle sales.

“The backdrop is not ideal,” said Paul Ballew, GM’s chief economist, “but we have to accentuate the positive.” The SUVs, he said, “are important to our profits, our volume and our image.”

[mr2mk1g 10]

hehe, I can't believe there are people on this board who think the world will never run short on oil.

It's a finite resource. We can't *make* oil. It takes millions of years. If we keep using it; it will run out some day. That day may not be for centuries. Some say it may happen much sooner. But it will happen, one day. Unless we stop using oil.

Here's an easy scenario:
Hannibal gives B.A. a glass of milk. B.A. likes milk so he drinks from the glass. Face pours more milk into the glass. B.A. can keep drinking. Face stops pouring more milk into the glass and goes off with a girl. B.A. runs out of milk and calls Murdock a "crazy fool".

Thus we learn that if we want to prevent B.A. from getting angry, we have to stop him drinking milk. We can't get face to pour more milk into the glass – he's off with a girl and won't be back for a while. Maybe if we get Murdock to slip something into B.A.'s milk that would slow down his consumption?

[rehmwa 2]

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>So, they'll scramble to make the change

Well, the smart ones will.

Exactly, and these are the ones that will survive. Unless the government bails out the stupid ones again. Keep the gov out of it. Just like "oil" companies need to act to change their paradigm and start thinking of themselves as "energy" companies.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[rwieder 0]

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If we drill them, they cease to be RESERVES

It's this mindset that got us where we are now. This is the reason we went to the middle east in the 40's to begin with. Then they figured, well now we have their equipment, and a little bit of knowledge we'll nationalize our oil fields.They did and told us to go home. Dependence on foriegn oil, who's fault was that? Our own.

Something else to consider is the placement (location) of our SOR's It doesn't take an Einstein to figure out how to bring America to it's knees.

-Richard-
"You're Holding The Rope And I'm Taking The Fall"

[Anvilbrother 0]

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It takes millions of years

Well the earth started making oil Millions of years ago. Has the earth "stopped" making oil? Do we know where 100% of the oil is, and how much the earth is making every year?

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[billvon 3,120]

>Has the earth "stopped" making oil? Do we know where 100% of the
>oil is . . .

Nope, but we know where most of the cheap-to-recover oil is.

>and how much the earth is making every year?

About 1000 barrels a year, assuming that oil has been made continuously since life began. The US alone uses 1000 barrels every 4 seconds. So all we have to do is cut back our usage by, say, 99.9999492% and we'd be set - as long as the rest of the world doesn't use any, that is.

[mr2mk1g 10]

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Has the earth "stopped" making oil?

In all practical terms yes. In order for oil to be made massive movements of rock have to take place within the earth's crust. Have these movements stopped? No. Cool, how fast are they moving? Couple of mm per year. Hmm... me thinks ya'll gonna be waiting a while if you're hoping the earth's gonna have an annual "crop" of oil you can harvest. What little oil is "made" per year is a pathetic drop in the ocean of what we use.

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Do we know where 100% of the oil is

No - this is why opinions vary on how long what we have is going to last. What we do know is we're steadily running out of places to look... sooner or later we're just gonna be left with down the back of the sofa.

[Anvilbrother 0]

1000 is nothing. I watched the D.C. channel that said we have plenty of oil left to last for as long as they can see. The only thing was that we have already extracted the easy to get to oil. The only problem now is getting to the unpressurized oil supplies by filling them with saltwater. There was also a article in popular science that talked about the rising Co2 in the air, and ways to stop global warming. One solution was to install scrubbers that extracted it from the air. They said that is the easy part, and it could be built on a big enough scale to stop the warming of the earth, and clean the air as fast as we pollute it. The probelm with this was what to do with all the collected co2. A cost effective and viable solution was to use it to pressurize oil fields with it to get the oil out. This would allow us to get the oil out, and have a place to put the co2.

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[billvon 3,120]

>One solution was to install scrubbers that extracted it from the air.

Only in the US would we consider spending trillions of dollars on massive scrubbers instead of spending billions on more efficient houses, cars and power plants.

[Anvilbrother 0]

That was discussed. They said if every vehicle in the world today instantly turned into a hybrid vehicle we would be back into the same boat we are in within 5-6 years.

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[billvon 3,120]

>They said if every vehicle in the world today instantly turned into a
> hybrid vehicle we would be back into the same boat we are in within
> 5-6 years.

Why stop there? Go to flex-fuel hybrids, then start in with biodiesel (carbon neutral) alcohol (carbon neutral) and natural gas (much lower CO2 emissions than gasoline.) Go to griddable hybrids; that could easily cut our vehicular fuel usage by 2/3. Nuclear power will reduce emissions from coal fired power plants, which is still our primary source of CO2.

[Anvilbrother 0]

When I was in the netherlands they used fuel cell powered buses. The NEMO in amsterdam had a model of how it works, and the only emission was water vapor. In order to get the hydrogen you have passing electricity through water. My question was how much electricity was needed v.s. the ammount of "fuel" that resulted. I mean it kina sounds stupid to have a coal or natural gas powered plant pump out the power to the hydrogen plant so the buses can have fuel, and in the process shoot out as much or more pollutants than if we just would have ran something though the bus.

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[billvon 3,120]

>When I was in the netherlands they used fuel cell powered buses.

Fuel cells are a non-solution, for the reasons you mentioned. You're much better off using the electrical power you have to charge up a griddable hybrid.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Course... if you get your electricity from solar, hydro wind and nuclear sources it doesn't matter a great deal how much electricity you use to power up your buses.

[tso-d_chris 0]

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When I was in the netherlands they used fuel cell powered buses. The NEMO in amsterdam had a model of how it works, and the only emission was water vapor. In order to get the hydrogen you have passing electricity through water. My question was how much electricity was needed v.s. the ammount of "fuel" that resulted. I mean it kina sounds stupid to have a coal or natural gas powered plant pump out the power to the hydrogen plant so the buses can have fuel, and in the process shoot out as much or more pollutants than if we just would have ran something though the bus.

Harvesting the hydrogen from water does indeed require more energy than can be obtained from the hydrogen. However, if a free energy source such as wind or solar power is used to obtain the hydrogen, it is still a beneficial move from the standpoint of both cost and pollution.

[Anvilbrother 0]

I like nuclear power. We just need to keep it safe, which is probaly the main draw back. As far as spent fuel goes I say when we get the giant space elevator up and running we just lift it into space, and then fire the spent fuel into the sun.

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[RMURRAY 1]

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Nothing a good war to knock the Chinese and Indians back to the stone age wont cure.

there must be a reasonable shortage, i just saw G.W. reluctantly ask the U.S. to cut down on gas consumption.

maybe if the U.S. automibile industry could have actually built a fuel efficient car then this (forseen) problem wouldn't have arisen. also the mindset behind driving 6litre 4wd pieces of shit to drop the kids off a few blocks to school just to look cool/wealthy is a contributing attribute.

well said...

[Anvilbrother 0]

I agree with the soccer mom taking the yukon out to grab a pack of smokes, or just to drive around complaint, but there are alot of people that work out of big vehicles that cannot have some of the characteristics that fuel efficent vehicles offer at the moment. I mean can you see a hybrid car pulling a 25foot enclosed trailer full of cabinets for a house, or see one hauling a horse trailer, farm equipment? It might just be where I live, but alot of the vehicles people in my area own they need.

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[billvon 3,120]

>I mean can you see a hybrid car pulling a 25foot enclosed trailer full
> of cabinets for a house, or see one hauling a horse trailer, farm
>equipment?

Absolutely. A hybrid diesel truck will do a much better job of pulling that trailer than the same truck without a hybrid system; more power available.

[Channman 2]

The cost of such vehicles, is it something many americans can afford. Do these vehicles provide adequate room for there families?

Currently there is no incentive for manufactures to build these vehicles not to mention the billions needed to tool up and make design / engineering changes because the american consumer is not interested in that type of car. Corp. are profit motivated to stay in business and make a return on investment capital.

Once again the requirements from state to state on different blends needs to stop, set a national standard.

[billvon 3,120]

>The cost of such vehicles, is it something many americans can
>afford.

The primary cost right now are the batteries and controllers. Controllers are made of silicon, and things made of silicon (i.e. computers) tend to come down in price very rapidly. Batteries will be problem for a while, but once we spool up on them, the raw materials are cheap (nickel, alumimum, potassium.)

In the 70's there was a huge outcry over new emissions requirements. "What? You're going to require a COMPUTER in every car? And a catalyst that has PLATINUM? What, are you nuts? No one will be able to afford it!" Yet today platinum catalysts and computer controlled fuel injectors are standard on all US cars - and more people than ever own cars.

>Do these vehicles provide adequate room for there families?

You can make a hybrid motorcycle and you can make a hybrid Greyhound bus. There's no size restriction.

>Currently there is no incentive for manufactures to build these
>vehicles . .. .

High gas prices are a good incentive. Demand for hybrids is huge in the US now; Toyota measures the amount of hybrid inventory in the US in hours, not days.

>Corp. are profit motivated to stay in business and make a return on
> investment capital.

The ones that can respond to new consumer demands will do well. The dinosaurs that cannot change (which GM is looking like) will go out of business. It's capitalism in action.

>Once again the requirements from state to state on different blends
>needs to stop, set a national standard.

OK by me.

[kelpdiver 2]

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If we drill them, they cease to be RESERVES

It's this mindset that got us where we are now.

No, it's the mindset that buses are for poor people and that fuel economy is for hippies that got us to here and now. And communities that have developed since WWII have been built around individual car ownership. California as it exists today can't get away from cars. I suspect this is also true of Texas and other southern states that have been growing the past decades.

The oil we have in reserves will only increase in value. Look back to Japan before WWII. Do you want us to be in their situation, where attacking Pearl Harbor was a gamble, but the only viable option available?

Put bluntly, if you think we're in a crisis situation that dictates drilling our reserves now, then we're in a crisis situation that dictates upping the CAFE standards into the 40s, and banning overbuilt minivans that get 10mpg.

[justinb138 0]

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If we drill them, they cease to be RESERVES

It's this mindset that got us where we are now.

No, it's the mindset that buses are for poor people and that fuel economy is for hippies that got us to here and now. And communities that have developed since WWII have been built around individual car ownership. California as it exists today can't get away from cars. I suspect this is also true of Texas and other southern states that have been growing the past decades.

The oil we have in reserves will only increase in value. Look back to Japan before WWII. Do you want us to be in their situation, where attacking Pearl Harbor was a gamble, but the only viable option available?

Put bluntly, if you think we're in a crisis situation that dictates drilling our reserves now, then we're in a crisis situation that dictates upping the CAFE standards into the 40s, and banning overbuilt minivans that get 10mpg.

How about just getting rid of every current car made by Dodge?

I can't think of a car they have that doesn't have a hemi in it or get more than 20mpg...