$7.00 gallon diesel??

[Sully2]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I was driving in the 60's, and I was not paying $.40 for a gallon of gas. I never saw a price higher than 19.9 (and that was for 101 Octane) until the 70's.

As a kid in H.S. (in the 60's) I pumped gas at a few gas stations. Both I and the gas were "teenagers". )</font>

When I got a part time job to make car payments..etc..in 1968 HERE...hi octane was 38 cents a gallon!

 

[Sully2]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( In light of the current friendly discussion, way back in 1964, when I graduated from High School, my first job was for an oilfield service company doing wellsite maintenance,etc. And at less than .30 a gallon for gasoline, I had to work real hard for half of a day to earn enough money to fill the gas tank on my car. And this was manual labor; the only "power tool" we had on the crew was a jackhammer that we used to dig holes in the ground when it was frozen. Today, I earn an average daily wage of about $285, and don't work very hard to do that.So, even at $7.00 a gallon, I still haven't caught up with the same price that I was paying back in "64. And today all I have to do is sit and hold a steering wheel that has in excess of 400 horsepower helping to turn it!!!
Just remember--- Neither Your money, nor your property is safe as long as congress and legislature is in session. )</font>

BUT..what MOST overlook is the rise in cost of EVERYTHING...not just "fuel". My first NEW car was in 1969...$3200 total. You can barely buy a JUNKER for that now...food...housing..TAXES...you name it..the "actual price" has risen..where the "real"..( adjusted price) MAY have gone down.

INCOME..total..creates an "X" ( sum total)..and simple logic says that when each and everything you require in life..removes "10% of "X" ( hypothetically)..it aint long before "X" is totally depleated!

I can remember back in the 60's...my mom paid 17 CENTS a gallon for #2 fuel oil. My fillup here last september set me back $3.42 a GALLON!!! And wheras its true my "wages" ( before retirement) rose 10 times...fuel oil in this case..has risen TWENTY times.

Remember bread from the store at 2 loaves for 69 cents...I can!!

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="blue"> way back in 1964, when I graduated from High School
===== </font>
I graduated in 1959 & got married in 1964 .
Like you My wife's sisters husband graduated in 1964.
Back then gas was a lot less than $2.44 per gallon.
~~~~~~~~~
MY FIRST CAR http://chevy.tocmp.com/chevyscrapbook/files/kamp50.jpg
OUR FIRST CAR http://www.hubcapcafe.com/ocs/pages01/chev6003.htm
~~~~~~~~~~

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="green"> My first NEW car was in 1969...$3200 total. </font>
=====
<font color="purple"> My first new car was a 1965 VW bug $1900.Second new car 1971 Chevelle Convertable $3300.</font>
~~~~~~~~~
<font color="brown"> MY FIRST CAR </font> http://chevy.tocmp.com/chevyscrapbook/files/kamp50.jpg
<font color="orange">OUR FIRST CAR </font> http://www.hubcapcafe.com/ocs/pages01/chev6003.htm
~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Hydraman]

Another aspect that I look at is this. When I look back at MY history, the higher fuel prices have been compared to other things. the more work I have had. In other words, as fuel costs have risen, the busier I have been; and when fuel costs have dropped, I have been less busy. 2005 was the very BEST year ever for me, and probably 1981 would be the second after adjusting everything accordingly. After the mid 1980's domestic oil industry crash, I nearly starved to death.
No, I don't like having to pay more for my fuel than anyone else, but I do like being busy making a good living. I also know that there are probably people out there that THEIR history is just the opposite of mine.
The given number of gallons of water in the world is constant. When someone is in a drought, someone else is getting excess rain.
Also, neccessity is the mother of invention, when the real need for a new form of energy truly arrises, I do believe it WILL happen, and not because the politicians of either party want to use this as their personal vote getter.

 

[RFB]

"The given number of gallons of water in the world is constant."

The same could be said for all natural resources. So, with that as a given, does it cost more to crack petro into gas or diesel here as opposed to other locales. In a certain sense, yes, but a lot of these are arbitrary costs imposed by regulations (e.g. environmental and other government imposed restrictions).

Why does gas/diesel cost so much more in Europe where average wages are considerably lower than the U.S.? This flies in the face of the higher wage equals higher cost theory. And it is not because the technology to crack or deliver petro is different there.

Does anyone really believe that Somalians, Afghanis, Nigerians, Tibetans, etc are paying $7.00 per gallon fuel costs, when that $7.00 may represent a week's or more wage? And if they are not paying that price, and the refining/delivery technology is the same, the easiest deduction shows government regulation (or lack thereof) as one of the greatest price modifiers.

If:

1. wide open oil exploration and drilling were allowed in all U.S. land holdings (including off-shore)

2. Refineries were built absent the majority of tree-hugger/ NIMBY regulations. (More and more dangerous junk is put into the air from coal fired electrical gen plants.)

3. Government was told by the electorate "hands-off" oil production

4. Multiple nuke electricity gen plants were built in all States. (More people died at Chappaquidic than at 3 Mile Island.)

Oil prices would be a non-issue and the Saudi's would be begging us to buy oil.

But as I said before, this will not happen. The U.S electorate is too lazy to hold their elected representatives accountable, and the politicians know it.

 

[Bates]

We need to be more realistic about our energy consumption.

We are around 2% of the world's population, yet we are the world's biggest polluter. The United States contributes 25 percent of the world's total carbon dioxide emissions -- more than China, Japan and India combined -- and consumes 26 percent of the world's oil, 25 percent of the coal and 27 percent of natural gas.

We are arrogant and feel that we are simply entitled to be wasteful. We drive 300 horsepower vehicles where a 50 horsepower vehicle will do. We live in huge houses where a smaller house would do just fine.

We have some hard lessons to learn and it's going to get painful.

 

[Builder]

RFB,

well put. We need a new energy policy that includes a 10 fold increase in nuclear power, but I still think we should look to biodiesel as a way to rid ourselves of the dirty politics involved in dealing with the middle east.

The savings in terms of the money and human life lost to keep the oil flowing can't really be described in just dollars & cents.

 

[Bates]

Ethanol and biodiesel are great fuels, but they take more energy to produce than the energy yielded. You have to till the fields, fertilize the soil, plant the seeds, irrigate the crops, harvest them, transport them, process them etc, etc, etc. Energy is used every step of the way.

You need 1.2 gallons of SOME fuel to make 1 gallon of biodiesel.

Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.

Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.

Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.

Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced (Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn).

Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.

(Algae holds the best promise for biodiesel fuel. It takes less tending to grow than soybeans and corn.)

 

[Hydraman]

The basic laws of supply and demand can never be ruled out, although the politico's want us to think that they are in control of them. As more and more people on this planet want more and more energy, the cost is going to go up. If something catastrophic happens, it will disrupt the whole system. Just look at Katrina. How we react to these things is far more critical than anything else. Are we going to get our private enterprize brains together and come up with a solution, or sit on our sorry !##!# and wait for the government to do for us?
The more we wait for the gov't to do for us, the better the politico's like it. This also gives all the alphabet soup 24 hr news media (NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, CNBC, MSNBC any one of them is no better than another) something to keep their incessant yaps going. I'm outa here, have a nice day. Don