Analysts saying oil production at peak.

Because we have no options. Why do we have no options? Because gasoline is too cheap to feel the need. Still want the cheap gas?

 

Hydrogen seemed so cool when I first heard about it, but after seeing the Tappet Brothers on Nova or was it Scientific Frontiers and listening to Darell's sermons Ive seen the light. EV seems the way to go.

 

rofl !

 

Ah. The Church of Darell. I like that. Seriously though - don't take my word for ANYTHING that I say. My goal is only to get folks to learn up on this stuff for themselves. Don't be satisfied with the info you're being fed... consider the source, and realize that people PAY for this information to be spread around. Figure out who benefits from what's being said. Hint: It isn't you and me! And there an't NOBODY paying me to preach my sermons!

My crystal ball says that we'll pretty much NEED to move to electric propulsion. What stores the energy is still up for grabs, but right now, we do have batteries that are up to the challenge. What we don't have is the desire to make it happen on the scale that it needs to happen! Supercapacitors are also in the running... but still vaporware at this point (hey, much like H2!)

The Prius is a little, tiny baby step toward the ultimate goal of E propulsion. And you'll notice how excited everybody is about that. Stealth this and stealth that. EV-mode switching... the whole enchilada. What the heck keeps the rest of the population from getting excited about the technology that we SHOULD be using? Ignorance, I'm afraid. Same reason that most of the population is still scared of today's "hybrids."

 

Psst! I think this was humor!

 

The sooner we get to 7 dollars a gallon, the better the whole world will be off.

 

I dont agree with everything you say Darell.

 

We are already at $7/gallon. It is just somewhat hidden. White house accounting, repub style.

 

Because of refining capacity or the lack thereof. A lot of refineries are coming offline for overdue maintenance.

 

tony, is this your way of saying that you are now topping off your fillups??

 

I pray we send the whole cabal to the moon with a one way ticket. We'll fly them back when they find oil and if we find the funds to pay for the return flight.

 

Not that I'm totally gung ho fuel cell, but I'll give it a stab. A fuel cell vehicle can be part of a distributed power grid. It powers the home at night and the office during the day. A fuel cell vehicle doesn't have to run on compressed hydrogen, it could run on methane or ethanol with a reformer.

 

Ah, sorry. I believe that fuel cells have a role to play... but not in automotive transportation.

Yet we already have commercialized, tested, cheaper and more efficient ways to store energy. Hell, it is more cost-effective to pump water up hill at night, and generate it with dams during the day, than to store power as H2!

Besides i think EV only cars will have a limited range. (i could be wrong though)

[/quote]
Well, of couse EVs have limited range. Just not as limited as an H2 car is all. That's why I asked the question about the benefits of an H2 car over an EV. If you think it is range, you'll have to come back and guess again! We have battery cars on the road that will stomp any H2 car for range....and power... and cost... and complexity... and refueling infrastucture. And let's not forget that BEVs have actually been produced and driven by actual retail customers.

 

Excellent! then my work here is done.

 

Begreen -

Bzzzt. Please play again!

A fuel cell vehicle (FCV) would basically SUCK at being part of our power grid. A Batter Electric Vehicle (BEV) would be far superior, and has already been demonstrated in such a capacity for "peak shaving." Batteries are much more efficient at storing and giving up energy than any FC system that we've ever dreamed of (much less what we currently have at our disposal). If you're going to power your home and office, you'll need 4X the amount of energy than if you did the same thing with batteries! And I won't even get into the cost of the product! A Battery car can be charged and discharged through a relatively simple connection at home or work. Trying to make H2 and taking the power back out when needed is quite a bit more challenging, and WAY more lossy. WHY BOTHER?

No, vehicles wouldn't have to run on H2.... yet if you reformed methane or ethanol, you'd be throwing away a significant about of energy in the conversion. We can burn that stuff directly in an ICE MUCH more efficiently, so again.... why bother to convert it to H2 just to throw it away?

I know how H2 can be used... buy why do people think it'll be superior to batteries?

Say am I OT again?

 

I fail to understand how you call gas cheap. When I was 16 it was 28 cents/gal. It only started getting out of line about 2 years ago. At least until that time it was affordable. Now it's getting out of the realm of fair to the working class.

All this so W--ah and his crew can rake in billions more.

 

Actually, the biggest jump was in the 70's with the OPEC oil embargo days. If you remember when gas was .28 a gallon, you also remember that it rose to nearly $1 a gallon in very short order. Nearly tripled, and you had to get gas on odd or even days depending on how your license plate ended. Then it hovered around $1 for quite a while, bumping up to about $1.50. Its only been the last couple of years that it spiked again. I can't find the source now, but I saw a chart that showed what the price of a gallon of gas would be if it followed the rate of inflation instead of staying level for so long. Its actually cheaper today in "real terms" than it was in the 1970s.

 

fshagan already answered, but I'll give it a go as well.

Gas is cheaper today in inflation-adjusted dollars than it was 30 years ago. In fact, it is cheaper today than it was in the early 1900's! Quick quiz - how much did houses cost back when gas was 28c/gallon? How much did it cost to attend a state university when gas was 28c/gallon? How much was a typical paycheck back then? Nothing is as cheap as it was back then. The price of gas has hardly risen at all when you account for inflation.

40 years ago, my mom bought her house for $17,000. Today it is valued at $950,000. One month of my college education cost as much as my mom's entire four years.

$0.28 to $2.50/gallon is nothing compared to the increase of other things that aren't trying to make our lives miserable.

Here in CA, our peak price of 2005 *almost* matched the peak price of inflation-adjusted 1981. It doesn't really matter how you slice it. $2.50 for gas is CHEAP.

The other way I can call gas cheap is because it is keeping us from finding and using alternative sources of energies. Oil is basically a windfall energy. But it is finite, and we should be pricing it as the rare and valuable commodity it is. We should be pricing it to include all the costs it incurs. But we don't - and most people just look at the pump price that think that's the "cost of gasoline."

We're in a heap of trouble here... and lowering the price of gas isn't going to solve *anything* in the long-term. It will just make the long-term adjustment that much more painful.

 

Found one that goes to 2005. The red line is the inflation adjusted cost of gas.

http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/images/...as1918_2005.gif

In fact, read this entire question/answer with a 6th grade student! Especially the last two paragraphs in blue! And a relevant quote: "You can see that gas is actually cheaper now than it was in 1918 when the chart started. "

http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Article...n_6th_Grade.asp

Cheap gas is NOT the answer to any relevant question.