The end of Oil and other resources on planet Earth.

[Ambipotent]

I drink two to three cases of pepsi a week. I don't need water.

[Fixer]

[quote="Ambipotent";p="497592"]I drink two to three cases of pepsi a week. I don't need water. [/quote]
Check the list of ingredients on a bottle of Pepsi... I'm pretty sure there's WATER in there somewhere.

In some form....

[Nekra]

Buying a fuel efficient car with your incredibly cheap fuel costs then would be a VERY VERY good investment, the amount of money you owuld save alone....

Doesn't mineral water cost more per the barral then Petrol now.

[Deacon]

Nekra, that's often not the case. First of all, a car is never an investment. Secondly, it takes a tremendous degree of savings to make up for all the other costs, such as taxes, that go into the purchase of a new car, much less the sticker price itself. And that's taking ONLY fuel economy into consideration and ignoring other things like safety and such.

[Ambipotent]

fixer just broke my last hope for the future.

[Nekra]

a car is an investment in your future travel costs. no matter how you look at it, Transporting yourself around costs you. Either money directly for fuel, boot leather, or simply the energy to move your self and the time to do it. You buy a car to reduce the costs on your time and hopefully if you intend to use it enough your wallet. Reducing your fuel costs is one method to reduce this investment, coz lets be honest is the gas guzzling car really that much safer then fuel conservative one? Do you really need to drive to your shop job in a pick up truck?

Ok so its not an investment as in you buy it now and then sell it later for a profit....but you do buy it to get yourself more spare time and to increase convenience.

[Deacon]

[Prospero]

I thought I'd necro this for two reasons. One - this doesn't need a brand new thread. Second, I'd like to make a quick comment about it.

CNN posted this article earlier today, explaining how global demand and world events are keeping gas prices high.

Also in this article, CNN writes:

Some long-term solutions are the simplest, like conservation and efficient use of energy.

While this is a fine and dandy bit of advice, it hardly makes sense. In fact, conservation from the standpoint of price reduction makes no sense at all.

On average, the United States consumes a little over 20,500,000 barrels of oil on weekly basis. 44.6% of the total consumption is in the form of finished motor gasoline, whereas other forms of use such as jet fuel and propane only account for 8% of the total respectively.

Oil conservation might unintentionally raise oil consumption outside of the United States should individuals use their automobiles more sparingly. Why? A decrease in demand translates into a decrease in the global price per barrel of crude oil, increasing gains in world oil consumption.

So if people were to use less energy, the world will use more. The same amount of energy will be used anyway. There's no easy way around it. And no matter what CNN says, long term solutions are hardly simple. Due to hidden and complex economic and politcal factors, conservation can even be a tricky subject to approach.

In any case, I don't see why we're not utilizing natural gas for automotive use. There is less pollution from natural gas consumption. It's cheaper, more efficient, and there's lots of it. It's not much more dangerous than gasoline, if there are new technologies designed to make refuelling safe.

[adciv]

[quote="Glue";p="648974"]In any case, I don't see why we're not utilizing natural gas for automotive use. There is less pollution from natural gas consumption. It's cheaper, more efficient, and there's lots of it. It's not much more dangerous than gasoline, if there are new technologies designed to make refuelling safe.[/quote]

On LNG:
1) It's not that much cheaper.
2) Radically different engine design.
3) Pumping it into a car would be harder
4) Much more dangerous than gasoline due to it's pressure and that it is flamible in it's natural state at room temperature. Gasoline as a liquid is not flamable. Only when it becomes a gas is it flamable.
5) Contents under Pressure, related to safety.

My personal preference would be to stick with gasoline, but change to a turbine engine-electric system (similar to the diesel electric in trains), until such time as battery/capacitor technology has advanced enough to allow for the elimination of a generator in the vehicle.

[Deacon]

Additionally, IIRC, while gasoline (or diesel) engines will make the same amount of power and perform exactly the same even if there's only a little gas left in the tank, natural gas loses performance as the pressure drops.

[Prospero]

Guess that rules out any possibility of natural gas then.

[adciv]

It also rules out hydrogen for the foreseable future for the same reasons. As much as I would love to see us using it, there is no practical way to deal with it just yet.

[Martin Blank]

[quote="Glue";p="648974"]On average, the United States consumes a little over 20,500,000 barrels of oil on weekly basis.[/quote]
Small correction: That is the usage on a daily basis. The US consumes some 20 million or so barrels of oil per day out of a total worldwide production of about 86 million barrels per day.