So we don't have to turn this into a huge thing, but this whole gas/energy plan thing is really starting to get to me. I do not, in any way, expect that any President will ever unveil any revolutionary plan to help force America to stop relying on foreign oil so much; however, over the past 20+ years I don't think any President has offered any plan that has had much in the way of progressive substance. I don't have much details on previous administrations plans (yet), but let's look at Bush's as an example.
First though, it has to be noted that it isn’t his place per se to totally up heave the market and say “No more gas powered cars in 20 years”, though it would certainly be JFK-like in its impact. But Bush’s plan basically revolves around refining more oil/gas in order to try and reduce gas prices . One way to do this is to open refineries on US military bases. What I haven’t read is if he is saying US or foreign bases. Foreign is a totally horrible idea, only increases the value as a target of those bases, so I think it is safe to assume he means in the US. Where does he presume to put the refineries? They have to be close to the Pacific or Atlantic so transportation costs are low, so we looking at close to coastline bases. But is he expecting to use some of the supposed-to-be closed down bases from the BRAC? This same plan that hasn’t closed any major US bases in its existence? So to me that idea is fairly off the deep end. Though it might be good if there are bases close to the shores that have lots of open territories, I just don’t know of any. And I think using Naval bases is really bad as the risk of an explosion or terrorist activities are really high.
An interesting fact is that while sales for hybrid vehicles was up 81% last year, and there are massively long waiting lists to actually get one, hybrids only accounted for 1% of vehicles sales last year. Bush, as is logical to assume, wants to extend the hybrid tax break. I think he should go the other way totally, don’t give a tax break to those who buy them, put on a new tax on new vehicles purchased that have horrible mpg. Anything under 18 mpg should be taxed. It doesn’t have to be huge, but even a small tax would help “motivate” car manufacturers to ramp up their production capabilities.
Feel free to discuss the above, but I offer that merely as a preface to explain why I bring up the subject. I’d like the below to be what we all focus on.
But I think we should come up with a list of ways we think the US could reduce its reliance on foreign oil. After all, this is one of the more well known ways we could individually fight terrorism (oil sales dollars find their ways into terrorist pockets, not to hard to figure out how/why).
An obvious one: drive less. There are a few places I go during the week after work where I can ride my bike, so I do. And due to traffic it actually saves me time. But it also saves me some gas money.
Keep your car in good shape. A “tuned up” car (wheels in alignment, no leaks, etc) wastes less gas.
Keep your tires inflated. Obvious to those of us who ride bikes, higher pressure means less tire on the ground, means less friction.
Buy narrower tires. Related to #3, its less friction at work.
Accelerate less aggressively. I started doing this about a month ago and have notice a 2 mpg increase with my car. Since I have a 19 gallon tank that is an extra 38 miles per tank, I get over 400 miles per tank, so I’m adding roughly 1/10 of a tank to my car, or about 2 gallons. That saves me $5/tank.
Use your A/C less, it uses gas.
Make your car more aerodynamic. Obvious again to those of us bike riders, the less wind resistance the better. There might be a few mods I could make to my car, but most would cost $200+ so really in the long run it is debatable if they are worth it. While I make fun of people who lower their cars, that is the #1 best way to accomplish this.
Related to #1 is “smart growth”. Too many people live in neighborhoods where it is not feasible to expect the average American to walk anywhere, everything is “just” a 5-10 minute drive. Add up 30 or more of those short little trips a week and that’s a lot of unnecessary driving, and unnecessary traffic congestion that lessens mpg.
Those are my super obvious one’s, though not all are easy to do. Anyone have other suggestions?
Modify North American’s thinking and make them realize that the size of one’s vehicle doesn’t equal size of one’s penis and that amount of stuff one owns has no relation to one’s worth as a human being.
Do that and the oil problem will take care of itself.
Modify North American’s thinking and make them realize that the size of one’s vehicle doesn’t equal size of one’s penis and that amount of stuff one owns has no relation to one’s worth as a human being.
Do that and the oil problem will take care of itself.
Uhhhhh – I ride a big bike!!!
Damn… Maybe I need to put lifters on my bike and get really big wheels…
Alternate fuel, methonal, ethonal, biodiesal. Renewable, to a point not dependant on foreign sources. And can run in current “combustion” engines with few modifications.
Alternate fuel, Hydrogen - A bit tougher requiring better “conversion” like fuel cells, although I suspect you could probably run it in a properly asperated internal combustion engine although not too effeciently. This also runs into the “hydrogen is just a storage unit, the energy has to come from somewhere” arguement. Which means we have to develop other “alternative” sources of energy. Wind, solar, hydro, fission, fusion etc etc.
Also in the quest to lessen “dependency on oil” people often overlook other petroleum products, plastics, etc. Recycling can help as well as coming up with alternative materials.
I know this shows more of my eco-pirate side than I care to admit, but it’d be the neatest thing if the Marines sold off a part of Camp Pendleton to make way for a refinery. I’d drop everything and move down for the work, like, yesterday.
I mean, what are my options now? Houston??? L.A.??? I’d rather sleep in a carbon monoxide tent, thank you very much…
I’ve heard it said a several times that it actually “costs” more to recycle thn it does to make from scratch. However in this context, one of dependancy on foreign oil or oil in general, we are actually talking about looking at methods that may actually cost more but make us less dependant on oil.
If you look at recycling from purely a dollar to dollar value it would not surprise me to find out that recycling costs more than manufacturing from raw material in many cases. However if you look at it from a “broad spectrum”, cost of garbage dumps, cost of environmental pollution, danger of depleting available resources, danger of being dependant on foreign sources of energy etc etc, recyling becomes more “rosey” even imparitive depending on how much weight you give to certain factors.
At this point “alternative fuels” certainly cost more and may indeed may cost more until the price of oil goes up even more, which is bound to happen because it is a finite resource.
Haven’t seen the TNO thread…and I refuse to post under that Nazi regime anyway.
From what little I know about the oil industry it would appear that we are close to or may have even passed the point at which the “easy access” oil has been extracted.
Supply will likely outlast the demand as the price for extration goes thru the roof and the speed at which that supply can be extracted falls dramatically.
Penn and Teller did a great piece about recycling on their show Bulls*it. Basically all recycling except for cans waste more than they save. Why? Because you have to transport recycled goods and in many circumstances it takes more energy, chemicals, waste and not to mention labor to recycle into usable products. For the most part, recycling is just a scam by garbage companies and local governments.
In case you don’t know, garbage doesn’t just dissapear into the thin air once it leaves your house, it gets piled together in places called landfills.
Recycling reduces amount of garbage that goes to landfills, so even if it does cost more to recycle, it’s still beneficial to all of us.
If you argue strictly on a dollar to dollar cost it would not surprise me at all to find out that recycling cost more than manufacturing most products from scratch.
However if you factor in, pollution, landfills…recycling outweighs not recycling depending on how much weight you give those factors.
Of course if you operate on the idea that we have unlimited resources, pollution is not an issue and will never be then it makes no sense to recycle.
the problem with recycling is contamination and volume. if paper mills could get clean paper at constant volumes, it would be much less expensive to use. now they get paper and garbage and everything else mixed in.
the only place it would not be cost effective to recycle is in locations where a mill is not nearby, say within a few hundred miles. weyerhaueser uses 90% recycled paper for most of their products - pre and post consumer. talk to anyone in a paper mill and they’ll tell you that nobody is cutting down trees and making paper from them. all the pulp sources are from secondary and tertiary markets.
