Are You Upset About High Gas Prices?

bac - Thank you for the chart. This easily illustrates why government is not going to miss out of revenue when EV's become more plentiful.

 

Sorry - not my chart. I was actually mocking it.

-Brad

 

Your right. sorry but remember you're not the only one reading or participating in this thread.

Have a nice day! :thumb:

If you don't believe me how about Professor Matthew Jones USC?

Myth- The President controls the US budget? Myths About Presidential Power (Political Myths Debunked)

 

Perhaps if you had a graph on how much taxes they PAID, rather than we paid, against profits, you might have something, but it's like comparing apples to oranges.

Taxes on gas go to maintain roads and such. How would you propose we tax the people who drive on roads, tolls? Perhaps we should just privatize all the roads, so that there would be tolls on them, they would have their own private police to enforce speed limits, and different signage when going from one owner's road to another?

 

Funny Note: I remember a toll operator alerted the police car stationed at a Florida toll booth that they had a runner. It turned out to be a guy on a bicycle. He asked the police where it was written that bicyclists had to pay tolls. The police officer really did not know (good guy!). A very long call to the station resulted in confusion, so the bicyclist was allowed to go while the official policy was determined. In Florida, it turns out it had to be a "motor vehicle". This resulted in a fun newspaper article. Any bicyclists that paid the toll was just donating to the toll collection, but would not get any refunds. In the meantime, the toll booth operators were instructed that they should not be yelling at any bicyclist to pay the tolls anymore.

So the answer to your question is Donations!

 

In a seriously mangled quote structure, Trebuchet says:

Huh Are we speaking the same language?

I read "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives" as meaning only that -- the bill must be a House Bill, not a Senate Bill. 'but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.' i.e. once this HBxxxx reaches the Senate, the Senate has the same power to propose amendments and force the bill into conference for negotiation as it has with all other bills from the other House.

How could you miss mention of the President in the very first sentence of the next paragraph that you pasted in? And even discuss below?

You ignore the middle of the President's three options, which we have since labeled the Veto: "If he approve ..., but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House ..."

Were any of these Revenue bills?

Deliberate political maneuver, as I mentioned earlier. If he wanted to veto them, he would have.

 

I love it when one side in a debate or argument starts criticizing grammar, spelling or some other aspect that's not related to the point being made, it's like admitting defeat and/or withdrawal from the field of battle. :nod:

 

That's an ad hominem fallacy that people use often. But in this case I don't think it counts since there was more than just a single line on your mangled quote structure.

AND IT IS MANGLED!!!

Please use the "[/quote]" and "

 

" and "

And another one bites the dust! :thumb:

Please tell me how, in vBulletin forum software, to quote a quote inside a quote? In my limited experience it doesn't work well. I supposed I could have indented the Article but what I did, noting that Article 1 Section 7 was being posted, setting it inside my quote box, and formatting in a different font is, IMHO, sufficient FYI, I would much rather discuss the issue than rehash English 101 or trade barbs so . . . Do you have anything to say about the actual discussion? If not then I'll just say this . . .

I love it when one side in a debate or argument starts criticizing grammar, spelling or some other aspect that's not related to the point being made, it's like admitting defeat and/or withdrawal from the field of battle.​

Have a good day.

 

:nod:

 

Well....no...because they were criticizing Congress, not the President for not allowing us to increase drilling in deep water and opening up ANWR. But it was very much an issue - that's when the "Drill, baby, drill" mantra became popular.

Agree 100%
We can reduce our foreign trade imbalance (of which 55% is petroleum) in the short term only by aggressively promoting natural gas-powered vehicles. These are common in other countries, a known technology, and sorry to say, but much more economical than battery-electric vehicles. BEVs have a limited role, and will likely have a limited role well into the future. But NGVs can be used readily for general transportation and is cleaner than oil and we don't support unstable and unfriendly countries with that.

We'll spend a lot of time griping and complaining and pointing fingers at speculators and the other political party first.

 

the natural gas conversion for transportation thought was already presented and found to not be viable as natural gas is a finite resource and our "abundant" easy to get supply would be exhausted in 15 years. simply too short a time span to "put all our eggs" into this basket.

granted a limited conversion is fine, but it would never cover a significant portion of our needs

solar is also a finite supply. scientists usually agree that we have less than 2 billion years of "friendly" solar left. i believe that is enough time for an acceptable ROI

 

I believe you're right about the 2 billion years, but unfortunately we're liable to get disrupted by some other solar radiation some time before then as another galaxy passes through ours.

I'll settle for a target of using resources efficiently enough to last 1 billion years.

Natural gas is actually renewable, since it is produced by decaying matter. Its just the quantity that's a problem.

Without other technological improvements a conversion of larger vehicles to NG would become a necessity.

 

I am not being argumentative .... but help me understand more about photovoltaic.

I have had some experience with very large hot water solar arrays, but none with photovoltaic. Isn't solar basically viable and reliable, only in the southwestern US? I have seen very large solar "tracking arrays" in the SW wastelands, but I have no idea how much electricity is produced. I know the entire roof of a Prius only produces enough power to operate a small fan. I assume there is little hope that a vehicle could realistically generate sufficient power to propel itself from solar alone? With further development, is it likely that photovoltaic can be made to produce more electricity?

OK, I admit it, I am skeptical about a viable solar solution for our transportation needs. I do not want to be, but I am. As I said elsewhere:

Gasoline evolved as the fuel of choice in the past because it was inexpensive, easily created from a plentiful crude oil that was also used as a lubricant, in the manufacture of plastics, and so many other bi-products. Gasoline is easily stored, easily transported, and easily dispensed from an inexpensive pump.

Electricity, OTOH, requires expensive transmission lines and transformers to convert into useful voltages, and to deliver it's energy from the point of generation to the point of consumption.

 

Solar Voltaic: (PV) is very viable, mature technology, whose track record is good, and whose installed price continues to go down. Current installed price for grid tie PV is ~$5/watt, before any tax considerations or utility rebates.

Life expectancy of the hardware is greater than 20 years (warranted) and is likely much longer. PV panels have no moving parts, and very few points of failure. Homeowner scale inverters are very reliable as well.

PV is very competitive with peak grid power prices, and contrary to popular notion is very viable in most parts of North America. Even in the grey Pacific NW it can pay, but it pays better in Eastern WA and OR as opposed to the western parts of the state. Additionally, PV is more efficient as the temps get colder, due to the nature of the way PV works, so while you get more sun in AZ for example, you might get more harvest in Calgary on an annual basis.

Just for example, we live off grid in Northern Canada and get 95% of our power from PV. (Battery based off grid systems cost about twice as much as grid tie, with about half the efficiency.) With 400 watts of PV (a very small system) we routinely generate ~ 1 kwh of power per day, all year on average. On a perfect day in the winter we can harvest in excess of 2 KWH. An average US household uses ~ 30 kwh/day for comparison.

A typical residential install in the US might be 2-5 kw. Just using a PV watts calc, and choosing Minneapolis at random, a 5 KW array will produce ~600 kwh/month, or ~ 6500 kwh/year. PVWATTS: Minnesota - Minneapolis

At todays energy prices that is ~ $500 worth of electricity at retail. If you have time of day metering it is more valuable. The install cost of that 5 kw system might run $25k, but rebates and tax credits can reduce that to ~ $12,000.

So, if you assume that energy prices are going to go up, (a safe assumption I think!) the longer it is in place the better the payoff is. One may complain about the subsidies for solar, but if we were to pay the environmental costs of our other energy choices, the price would likely be double by most estimations.

Going forward, solar will continue to get cheaper, and as we see peak oil, perhaps finally get smart about carbon and the effect of coal on the environment, it will only get more viable.

As a transportation solution, solar fits quite well. Counterintuitively, vehicles will put a demand on the grid, but EVs and PEVs provide a great advantage. We produce ~ 16 million cars per year, if 10% of them were EVs, in ten years we would have 16 million disagregatted batteries plugged in 23/7. By doing so, they not only can buy power from the grid, but they can also sell power to the grid at times of peak demand, reducing the idle spinning capacity of the grid system, the single most wasteful energy out there. So these cars provide the long awaited "battery bank" that would allow solar to be "used" after the sun goes down. The technology to do this exists to day with inverters and time of day metering. A car could simply be programmed to buy power at times of low demand (night) but sell it back at time of peak demand (at a higher price, much like time of use metering works today in some places with solar. All the while, the car can simply be programmed to make sure it has enough battery capacity to go where it needs to go when it needs to go there.

As a Prius owner, you probably know that the HV battery is only used in a small portion of it's charge range, ~45-70% so battery management systems are very good at making sure the batteries are not damage by over charging or over discharging. Like I said, the technology is already here, it is not pie in the sky, over the horizon, it is now!

Icarus

 

First your example does not distinguish source any better, in fact it's worse than my attempt. Second, I have laid out the facts, you object to those facts but instead of answering with a sincere counter point you choose to run away. That's not so bad, in fact it's expected from your ilk. What disgusts me is that you choose, to hold up a special class of people for ridicule in order to take a last mocking shot at someone whose POV is different. Remove that photo please it's not a bit funny or appropriate.

 

Interesting UK article on why Americans are so upset about the 'high' cost of gas, yet it is still the cheapest anywhere in the world (other than where it is subsidized) and half what it is here in Europe (though ours is mostly tax).

BBC News - Why are Americans so angry about petrol prices?

I do like the guy they interviewed who is complaining he spends $200 a month on gas and can't afford to drive, yet is driving a 4.0 litre Jaguar! ha ha. I guarantee he'd cut his gas costs in half if he bought a smaller engined economy car or a Prius.

 

Thing that bugs me is the people that complain about gas prices but fail to do the simplest of things to cut their consumption.
I wonder how many of the people that complain check their tire pressure?

 

Felt- Your logic above is correct, I have been trying to say this also. Political incorrectness aside, it is fundamentally difficult to come up with anything better, cheaper, cleaner than gasoline Today. Tomorrow not sure. We need alternates due to limited supplies. Here on Prius Chat there is a little battle for the hearts and minds as far as future energy strategy.

 

Oh, how I love this . . .

1.499 per litre, converted to US gallons and Can $ to US $ at today's exchange rate.

5.95 per gallon TODAY !!!

May 11th 2011
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eep: all that BS about using public transit if gas goes higher than X value
eep: have car? will travel with it, no matter how much it costs

Proof : traffic around Montreal is getter worse, not better, over time.
Yet, the total number of active car owners is supposed to be on the decline, because of the baby boomers no longer working 8-5 jobs.

Reality? Cars are too cheap to own, and public transit is lousy, except for well trodden corridors.
Work off the beaten path? How about a 2hr transit instead of 30 mins.
​

eep: North Americans are far too lazy to do otherwise, Myself Included


So high gas prices makes me feel :high5: since I can just shrug off the extra monthly costs by saying, bah, just one less lunch time restaurant for me in my budget.

When gas does hit 5$ per gal in the US - guess what? Nothing will change. It's up to the manufacturers to offer full sized cars with better fuel economy.

Though what pisses me off is that those manufacturers skimp on PZEV exhaust systems whenever possible. Current new cars pollute way more than necessary.

// end rant

Today is gorgeous outside! I'll drive a circuitous route home today...