Gas Prices!

[jlprigmore]

I'm lucky enough to have a newer model hearse as my daily driver, so my gas mileage is pretty damn good 22.5 mpg the downside is though I have to run premium and here in pa where i'm working I just dished out 4.47 a gallon the other day. It hurts but I'll be damned if I'm getting rid of her and I'm glad there are so many of you that feel the same way!

[Linnea]

well i am not selling or crushing

look at all this and see what you guys think of the way the people we vote to office so bend us over the tree stump

http://www.americansolutions.com/General/?Page=d4b72449-7edb-493d-88ff-76bfe669e0f2

CONGRESS RECENTLY VOTED TO MAKE IT ILLEGAL TO DEVELOP U.S. OIL SHALE RESOURCES
..........
Congress Congress Congress what a job

Good for them. I'd much rather pay higher prices at the pump than have my state ripped up. You do know that they can't just pump the oil from shale, that they have to strip-mine it, right?

More money needs to go into alternative fuels. Ethanol needs to be produced from non-food crops (because our corn and sugarcane based ethanol system is driving up food prices.) Hell, I know there are scientists working on bioengineering bacteria that will produce hydrocarbons.

But wanting to rip up pristine tracts of land, because people decided to live in the suburbs and commute to work in their gas guzzlers, but don't want to pay the price, is unacceptable.

My hearse is my baby. But I've put less than 1000 miles on her in the 2 years that I've owned her. If we run out of oil, and have to switch to something else, I would re-build the engine to run the new fuel before I would get rid of her. BUT I didn't buy a hearse until I could keep it as my fun car. I can't imagine having to use it as my daily driver.

[jlprigmore]

I bought mine as my daily driver by choice. I don't think I should have to suffer driving some piece of crap hybrid just to make it to work cuz a bunch of suits that a making more in one year than all of us put together in a lifetime isn't enough money for them. There's more oil out there than just the shale oil. We're not running out. Its these stupid speculators and greedy bastards that we are all suffering. Sorry this subject gets me extremely riled up. I drive only when I have to, I'm doing my part to try and "cut back" too but I'll be damned if I have to give up something I love just so someone else can line their pockets even more.

[Riff Raff]

I wouldn't be so pissed, but oil is at an all time high and profits are at an all time high too. Something is wrong there. They take a material that already costs more than it ever did, pummp out more than ever, all the while telling us there is a shortage, and jack the price up even more so they can make more profit than ever, then I hope they get ass-raped by a gay gorrila with aids.
Now Linnea, while I respect your opinion, I don't care if they drill through a polar bear's skull to get oil as long as we get our prices down. Now I really wouldn't go to that extreme, but I would be willing to let them drill offshore, in a forest, or in my backyard. But this will not bring prices down, the oil companies have a strangehold on the supply and they can charge whatever they want for it, they would just have more of it to sell and make even more profit. And they will continue to do so until the demand drops.

Want to do something about it? Get the whole country to stopping buying from say EXXON. Not for one day but altogether. No one buys from EXXON until they drop thier prices to $2.00 a gal. Then we switch to EXXON and everybody ONLY buys from EXXON. Until the other companies drop thier prices too. But this won't work, because once EXXON drops thier price to 10cents lower than eveyone else, americans will rush over to get the bargain. Because people as a whole only see the short term and can never wait it out to get the bigger and better result.

[Linnea]

Part of the problem with boycotting a specific company is explained well on Snopes. Basically, the boycott strategy could backfire.

While drilling here for oil might help in the short term financially, the long term costs of destroying natural resources will cost future generations in the long run.

I know there's not much support for it, but there's a shit ton of oil below the arctic. Right now, its kind of hard to go after it, but with the ice caps melting, it might be more accessible in 15 years. I do know that Russia is trying to claim ownership of much of the area, just to take advantage of this scenario.

And who's to say the oil companies won't decide that since we're so "used" to high gas prices, that they won't keep the prices up, even after supply increased? A lot of what I read says that a BIG part of why the prices are so high is because of speculators and because of a "panic" economy, when there is not yet a reason to legitimately panic.

I know you said you'd support drilling anywhere to lower prices, but why not take the easier route? If everybody drove less (combining trips, carpooling, taking a more fuel efficient car when able,) demand would drop and prices would fall. Would you honestly prefer to do permanent damage to the biosphere so you didn't have to make any lifestyle changes? Because as long as that's true, and people are more willing to bitch and moan about gas prices than they are willing to change their habits, there's no reason for the oil companies to drop their prices - I think its been proven that they have not yet reached the limit of what they can charge, and people will still pay.

A big reason why I support exploring alternatives, is because it would be freaking awesome to still have oil left, but nobody buying it. It would serve OPEC and the oil execs right if they got run out of business.

[jlprigmore]

If demand does drop the prices won't drop but increase. Think about it, they are going to make their money however they can, we use less they'll just charge more to keep their profit margins high. The U.S. has already dropped by I think (don't quote) close to 6% in demand but yet the prices keep rising. The less we use the more they will charge. Can't have an oil exec driving a hyundai now can we? And if by some miracle we get to the point where oil is no longer needed than oil execs will just get into whatever energy source we're using at the time and it will increase.

[tonytheskin]

I have 3 guys at work that are making hyrdogen burners for their cars. Basically, you energize water, that creates hydrogen gas that you then shoot in to your intake and it mixes with the oxygen to create a combustible material......once you get the tweaking done and everything running smooth you see up too a 45% mileage gain.

[JustCadaver]

Ok if oil is not used for gas then what will be used in the vehicles that we currently have? I like my 66 Mustang and Love my 91 Hearse but if we change fuel types how will our beloved vehicles still run with no gas???

I am for alternative fuels but as long as it allows me to keep driving my current vehicles...

[jlprigmore]

Hey tony, so it does work? My brother wants to try it but not sure if it would actually work or not. Thinking about trying out on my astro van if I can get some good feedback on anyone who tries it. And of course if we do it wrong and it blows up oh well. Its a chevy no big loss.

[Psychoholic]

Hey Tony - here is a post I made about that last year too.

http://www.nationalhearse.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1343

[jlprigmore]

Yanno whats really sad, I looked at a truck stop here in carlisle and actually got excited about 4 bucks a gallon for premium after the over 4.50 I paid last week in King of Prussia,Pa. Now everyone else around here is still 4.15 to 4.20 for premium but the truck stop dropped their price to 3.85 for regular unleaded and 4.05 for premium.

[Morella]

Want to do something about it? Get the whole country to stopping buying from say EXXON. Not for one day but altogether. No one buys from EXXON until they drop thier prices to $2.00 a gal. Then we switch to EXXON and everybody ONLY buys from EXXON. Until the other companies drop thier prices too. But this won't work, because once EXXON drops thier price to 10cents lower than eveyone else, americans will rush over to get the bargain. Because people as a whole only see the short term and can never wait it out to get the bigger and better result.

Based on two years' worth of service station experience, I have to disagree with some of this. People start shopping around when the price of gas goes down everywhere. When it stays the same or goes up, they buy it anywhere, perhaps because they feel helpless. I'm just as guilty as anyone...when I see the price going down, I start rubbernecking at the price signs.

The biggest difference is how much you drive, though. Tony just finished a trip through LA that used to take six hours, and he got through it in 30 minutes. When it costs you $1200 to fill up with fuel, that makes quite a difference.

I don't drive much. I've been driving the Marquis lately, painful as it is to steer, it's a "full-sized" car that gets the gas mileage that the little 4-cylinder Datsuns and Toyotas used to. I nearly filled it today for $25, and I received a check from Sunoco for $104, kind of a small one this time, but I have enough left over to fill up the tank with Premium when I get done putting the idler arm in the Chrysler. Then I will have received another check long before that gas runs out. Thanks to the high price of crude oil, it's worthwhile for them to buy it from me. That's why I'm kind of glad that crude oil isn't the source of the high prices. We need to get some refineries built, and then the speculation problem might take care of itself.

We need to end the ethanol program as well. Corn is not only a staple food here and for export, it's food for livestock. It is much more useful for those purposes than it is for trying to make fuel out of.

-denise

[jlprigmore]

My gas bills aren't quite that much but it does hurt the ole pocket book when I drive from okc to new jersey and I count my receipts up to almost 600 bucks in two days. Than drive another 100 miles to another jobsite a week later and than a month later drive another 100 miles to another jobsite and now I'm most likely leaving this jobsite to head to possibly a missouri job which is gonna probably run at least 400 bucks in gas

[Morella]

Good for them. I'd much rather pay higher prices at the pump than have my state ripped up. You do know that they can't just pump the oil from shale, that they have to strip-mine it, right?

You won't find too many greenies around here to sympathize. We need the gas too much. That's how we get coal, and if we didn't, we wouldn't have any electricity. We have copper mining all around here, and I love it. Sometimes I fly my plane down into the mine, just to piss off the miners. I love those big mining machines too...the walking draglines and the big shovels. I'm into tech, and I couldn't give a shit about the beauty of the "amber waves" of shale, or the "purple shale mountain's majesty".

More money needs to go into alternative fuels. Ethanol needs to be produced from non-food crops (because our corn and sugarcane based ethanol system is driving up food prices.) Hell, I know there are scientists working on bioengineering bacteria that will produce hydrocarbons.

Yeah, and my grandmother makes soap out of prop wash. What are these scientists using your tax money to make hydrocarbons out of?

But wanting to rip up pristine tracts of land, because people decided to live in the suburbs and commute to work in their gas guzzlers, but don't want to pay the price, is unacceptable.

The government doesn't give a shit about pristine tracts of land, unless they're inside the beltway and Mexicans are mowing them. How much of your time do you really spend admiring land? Take a long trip by private plane, and you'll see that this country is made up of miles and miles of nothing, with occasional overcrowded population centers, where people vote to preserve the land that most of them have never even seen, much less set foot on.

[jlprigmore]

Preach on sister morella! I live out in the boonies and my commutes are all over the country. I live out in the boonies to get away from city life and enjoy the privacy. But... if I would have to give up my land to get fuel costs down, so be it. Some blankets in the hearse and a pillow and I'm set.