Is it worth it?

Because I deal with people like you once a month on this forum I'm a bit tired of having to explain something you should have already learned. I'll just walk away and assume your a f^C*ing idiot. Do some research before you pop onto a new forum and run your mouth about stuff you are obviously uneducated in.

 

Fossil fuel is a FINITE resource. It only makes sense to try to use less of a finite resource. To me, it's kind of a no-brainer and has nothing to do with political orientation.

 

Your first post defends oil companies' record profits, and your second post is quite insulting. Normally we welcome new members, but you're really not off to a good start, ctsa.

 

I antagonized him with my post after being disgusted with his critical labeling. We should give him the benefit of the doubt and I'll take my lumps for letting such things get to me.

Back on topic:

One thing to consider is the lack or repairs needed over the life of the Prius. The Prius is an ultra reliable vehicle and maintanence requirements are low. For example, he average Prius does not need a brake job for over 125k miles, oil changes can extend over longer intervals, etc.

 

Good luck finding a used Prius. When I looked yesterday on Carmax.com they had two listed for the whole country.

 

Typical answer from a looser academic who knows nothing about the real world. I have always heard that to be an academic you have to be a geek or pervert. It is quite funny to me that as soon as someone calls your bluff on the "uneducated" comments you start cussing and a typical psychological projection argument ensues.

To everyone else, I would take what this guy says with a grain of salt. He has issues. Maybe he wasn't breastfed or maybe he was breastfed until he was 18...we will never know. What we do know is that he has a tendancy to have a psychological bias that is typical in nasty liberals with an agenda. I simply asked that we not bash oil companies for gas prices and he turns it into a lecture of no substance. As soon as you ask for substance he projects. Run away.

 

If you can rent both for a day each, perhaps you would have an easier time deciding. Also depends on how long you are planning to keep the car.

 

Well, it is easy to defend oil companies profits if you are an American. This country was founded on a principle of earning a profit for work you have done. What has happened in the last 50 years is that some people (liberals) don't think it is fair to profit. These people typically want to be paid for doing nothing. For instance, a liberal would say to little Suzie..."Go next door and pick up all the dog poop and the home owner will pay you $5. Then, take that $5 and go down to the homeless shelter and give it to somebody sitting on the street." If little Suzie is a liberal, then this would make sense to her because she would deduct that someone would come along at some point to give her some money for nothing. If little Suzie is a conservative, she will ask why the homeless person doesn't just pick up the dog poop themself for the $5.

So, again, it is easy to defend oil company profits when their margins are small. They are not heavily subsidized like Mr. Wizard says. What I can't defend is anti american rhetoric that blames all of their problems on big this or big that. Big this and big that can function just fine and at the smallest cost to the consumer if big liberals in government would get the hell out of the way.

As for being welcome. I am a diversity member I guess (don't hate big business and/or America). Aren't you people supposed to be the group of diversity?

 

F8L - You blew a very good opportunity to do your usually intelligent approach to environmental education. I was expecting vastly better (where even I can learn something).

ctsa - Welcome, even if you found a hot topic in short order. Let me ask my question: When should we (the USA) decide that the need is not worth the damage of oil extraction?

 

Thank you FL! To answer your question...ASAP. Companies need an incentive to spend money on R&D. Right now, there is no incentive. At the very least the incentive isn't great enough to spend the bucks. In the short term, we need to be bringing our own oil to the surface. Most people think our dependancy on foreign oil is tied to the middle east alone. Wrong! We import more oil from Canada. This has to stop. Long term, we need to put incentives out there for R&D. Cut the red tape and all of the other liberal wacko agendas and maybe something can get done.

 

I'm not so sure the concept of subsidies can be dismissed so easily. There are significant tax breaks involved. And, there's the bigger-picture problem of everyone having to bear the burden of pollution, whether they've contributed to it or not. In economic terms, this is a subsidy. If 'big oil' considered all the costs of using petroleum, and then called it a profit, the 'big liberals' wouldn't be so much in the way.

Personally, I don't find viewing everything in political terms to be helpful in the least. There is a political forum here if that interests you.

 

My rant is over. F8L is full of crap and not the big hero is seems most of you think he is. Just don't blindly blame "Big Oil" for the price of gas because that is what the liberal media and the liberal congress wants you to think while they continue to add to the gas taxes and prohibit any possible price relief in the form of increasing supply at a reasonable cost. That is the bottom line.

I still can't wait for my Prius and I will be a Prius driver just like the rest of you...well at least we will have that in common.

 

Their are no significant tax breaks. Believe you me...'BIG BAD OIL' pays more than their fair share of taxes.

 

I need a little further clarification: R&D for what? What incentive?

 

I agree. We're using so much water and natural gas to extract that tar-sand oil that it really isn't worth it. It's a HUGE polluter, probably one of the largest point-sources in North America. To add insult to injury, the resultant CO2 counts against Canada's per-capita production, even though the oil is exported, and sold for less in those foreign countries than Canadians have to pay. So, stop buying it, OK?

 

i doubt you can expect an 08, last year at this time, the story was not as bad, demand not as and i had to wait til sept for the 08's to get here b4 i got mine

 

Don't be a dumb Texan, educate yourself and stop listening to the GOP, got news for you, the US oil companies drill on US Taxpayer owned land, they get leases at ridiculously low rates, royalty fees are almost a joke, considering the value they get now.

And finally, on to your ignorant ANWR stupidity, you do realize that the oil companies have no allegiance to the US right? They are going to sell to the highest buyer, so drilling in ANWR would just create more oil that gets sold overseas, the only incentive the oil companies would have to sell here, is if they make more money, so even if we drilled all over Alaska, it would make no difference to price, and considering that that oil can only be used on the west coast, due to regulations, the excess, which would be most of it, would be sold to China, Asia or Europe by the oil companies. So what difference would it make to the US to drill more in ANWR, NOTHING.

And a final word, it was your oil companies and your president that increased the price of gas, look it up, something about two offers by Saudi Arabia to keep prices down, one in 2004 and one in 2005, has nothing to do with "liberal" problems.

 

Having our entire economy dependent on fossil fuel is stupid. It means that whoever produces the oil has us by the balls. While extracting more oil and increasing production could ease supply problems, it is not the best or the only solution.

To increase extraction and production so we can go back to a state of ignorant bliss is just a return to idiocy, IMO. Haven't we learned anything?

 

Hi Lecut,

Well, if its personally economically viable for you depends on your driving. If you do 250 miles a week mostly slow rush-hour, but not stop-and-go driving like me, yea, it will be worth it. I went from May through November last year with tanks above 58 mpg in such traffic. Which matches the old EPA combined. My previous standard car (Saturn SL2) was somewhat below the old EPA. In all weather, and better in the summer, the Prius does in excess of 20 MPG than the Saturn in the same real world driving conditions.

But if your commuting 2 or 3 miles to a train station each day, probably not. Best to buy a used car until a full electric is available that will work in your climate.

Yes, the Prius has less wear-out maintenance. The braking is electric down to 7 mph, and so if your regularing braking to a slow speed above 7 mph, well, there wont be any brake wear. Reports of 125 K mile front brake life on a Prius are common. The other two wear-out things on standard cars are starters and alternators. The Prius does not have these. It does have an engine water pump though. So, that still needs repair, probably around 90 to 100 K miles.

 

I realized my error a bit too late and I'm not the type to try and cover the error up. I'd rather accept the fact I screwed up and try to do better next time. Thank you FL_Prius_Driver

Cheap fuel is the barrier to progress in this country, not true conservatives, hippies, environmentalists, liberals, or whatever rediculous label people come up with. As fuel prices rise people and industry will increase their conservation efforts and eventually start looking for alternatives. Alternatives are often expensive at first but as the price of converntional fuels rise to a near equal level, users will often "do the math" and choose the sources that are both economically and socially sensible. For instance I do not doubt that most people if given the choice between a clean, renewable energy source and a conventional dirty, non-renewable energy source that they would choose the clean, renewable source. Now when the price (for clean energy) is out of their budget or they are not aware of the environmental and social impacts of fossil fuels then they usually go for the cheapest source. The more people become aware the more likely they are to try and do the right thing, even if it costs a bit more. Some people just don't care and that is another problem and beyond the scope of this argument. These new developments in technology and consumption level reductions are beneficial to our national security, our independence, social and medical health which translates into a more resilient nation with the ability to better withstand economic and environmental problems that may arise in the future (peak oil, floods, meltdown of the U.S. dollar, tectonic or volcanic events, global warming, "terrorism"/warfare, etc.) We must end the era of "externalized costs" on the public while corporations produce record profits and the highest salaries ever. I'm not against all corporations (as is eveident by my praise of Interface Inc.) but they must be held accountable for their actions.

Oil extraction: Petroleum extraction is not as easy, clean, or as straightforward as most envision it to be. It is not usually a reservoir of liquid in an open cavern or chamber like the name "oil pool" implies. It generally consists of small droplets or a thin film of liquid the permeates spaces between rock kinda like a wet sponge. In most cases there are several layers of rock (strata), gases (natural gas), oil saturated substrate, and water (highly contaminated with toxic metals). To obtain the oil one must first eliminate the overburden (usually sediment but can be anything between you and the product you want). Some companies capture the nature gas and sell it as a fuel source but many remote locations do not have the ability to capture, store, and ship it so they let it burn off as a way of eliminating it so that they may get to the oil which is located below.

Once oil is able to be pumped to the surface we are still faced with local damage due to leakages, spills during transportation (truck, tanker, small truck, pump, end user (like when you spill trying to put gas in the lawnmower or you *gasp* overfill your tank in your Prius). The oil obtained from the oil reservoir usually adds up to about 30%-50% of the actual amount in the round because any more than that and it would prove cost prohibitive, unless you obtain further subsidies in the form of tax breaks (see the fishing industry for more on that load of BS). Some methods of extracting include pumping water into the chamber and forcing the oil upward but this comes at a heavy cost both economically and environmentally because that water is then placed in holding ponds (often unlined and/or subject to flooding) and they are extremely toxic. These toxic substances can be broken down by fungi and bacteria if spills are small but that is generally not the case as spills tend to be quite large and frequent. Once in the waterways the heavy metals contaminate drinking water for locals and water used in industry and thus needs to be treated at huge economic costs (the Catskills watershed restoration is a good example of allowing nature to process water for you and save billions in the process). Example: New York was faced with either:

A: Building a new water treatment facility = $6 billion + $300million annual operating costs.

B: Watershed restoration and land purchases = $1 billion

Now, what are the environmental costs? Waters contaminated with heavy metals and other toxins from oil extraction impact local vegetation, and soil pH which has a negative effect on ecosystems both locally and downstream (no river need be present as aquifers can transport water underground over large distances). When ecosystems suffer so do the services they provide us with such as timber, food, construction materials, water/air purification, nutrient cycling, climate mitigation, precipitation rates, biodiversity, etc.

What are the social costs? Air and water pollution costs both economically and socially (health and asthetics) are VERY well documented and include but are not limited to: reduced growth rates in plants and agricultural yeilds, degradation of industrial surfaces due to acid rain, soil and water pH changes which results in a reduction of ecosystem services when those forests and waterways break down ecologically, (see, it's all connected), costs involved with cleanups and restoration, construction of devices or infrastructure to mimick ecosystems services, loss of productivity (sick people don't work well), degraded asthetics (who wants to live in a waseland like industrial Detroit or a Texas oilfield?), loss of unique cultures (like the Achuar and the rest of the indigenous people who's land contain this oil) and indigenous knowledge (if you are too ethnocentric try to at least think of the pharmaceutical knowledge they posess), a breakdown of developing country's social structure and or government which leads to anarchy, emmigration, continued use of inferior and polluting technologies, and/or recruitment into terrorist regimes (who can blame them if their town or region was destroyed by corporations based in the U.S. or other 1st world countries?).

Honestly the list goes on and on, I'm barely scratching the surface here. What some people just don't seem to get is that many of these problems can be remedied but to do so will take changes in mindset, worldviews, and global cooperation. Everything else like technology is trivial for once we put our minds to it we can change anything.

For those who care about ALL people of the world have a look at the documentary on the Achuar people of Ecuador

Citations:

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/WRCA/pdfs/ccow_Thompson.pdf

http://www.amazon.com/Environmental-Science-Concern-William-Cunningham/dp/0070294267- A Global Concern by William P. Cunningham (text)

Investigative Reporting | NYC Watershed | Riverkeeper

http://www.amazon.com/Biology-Neil-Campbell/dp/080537146X(text)

State of the World 2005, 2006, 2007

Pachamama Alliance

Relevant Classes - Natural Resources Conservation, Current Topics in Biology/Resources, Botany, Biology, Geology, Physical Geography, over 10 field study trips including one to southern Chile, The Environment and the Human Impact, Sierra Nevada Studies,


I'm pretty tired so I apologize for typos, grammar, or, hell I'm going to get something to drink.