Gasoline prices rise throughout the world again…will there ever be a stop?

Goldeneye

It has reached an all record high on the pump station in San Francisco (shell gas station that is) to $4.00 a gallon and europe has it almost as twice as bad. Seriously, look it up if you don't believe me. I"m just curious though, will this ever stop this dependency on gasoline to get us from point A to point B? Cause frankly, i don't want to depend on it, it is so expensive to buy it. I drive and stuff and it sux let me tell yah. when i look at the receipt after i fill the gas tank i scratch my head and say…no way...$30.00? but that's what it is, and theres nothing i can do about it. I live in LA so it's like $3.10 i think, it's definlety not as bad yet as SF but it's going to hit my area soon, and every week it goes up like 2 cents. i think this gas companies are forming a monopoly...but that's just me and my consiparcy theroies.

Well i don't know what to do, is anyone else sick and tired of this?!!!:getlost:

Taleran

well it will eventually stop

when it all runs out….

Cr4zy

It's like 6.00$ in Texas.

Roz

Gas sellers are doing everyone a favor. The worse it gets, the faster people are going to be motivated to find another fuel source, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It'll suck for now, and during the transition, but I think it'll be worthwhile in the end.

Throes

Texas is an Oil state, how the HELL does it have almost twice the price as in Wisconsin?

Pants-eater

Why can't yo go to your local, american deep-fryery and use that oil?

Bounty1Berry

I think what we desperately need is government intervention.

A massive programme which basically picks ONE alternative fuel technology, builds thousands of fueling stations nation wide, and then we can let the market solve the problem.

We've got too many solutions all chasing the same problem, and all hindering each others' success.

Right now, in my city, approx. 3 million people, I think there's ONE place you can fuel an E85 (Ethanol 85%, Gasoline 15%) capable car, outside of possibly some private facilities (i. e. police stations where the whole fleet is alternative fuel)

Ramza

lol gas companies and their collusion XD
XD i wonder if people still buy ford…must suck for them big time!

KamenRiderNeko

Good thing I don't have a car right now then XD Public transportation FTW

Ramza

lol bike FTW XD….........

Cap'n Carter

Despite this I'll looking the hell forward to having a car on campus next year. Getting left behind by a bus gets old really fast.

jadiesama

@pirateneko:

Good thing I don't have a car right now then XD Public transportation FTW

same here. I lo- er…tolerate you MTA. It would be nice if the subway didn't always smell like piss, but it get me where i'm going.

mr_bushido

@Cr4zy:

It's like 6.00$ in Texas.

Not in Houston… I just got gas five minutes ago & it's $2.88 a gallon for unleaded... which is still high as balls!

Refii

@jadiesama:

same here. I lo- er…tolerate you MTA. It would be nice if the subway didn't always smell like piss, but it get me where i'm going.

No, if you've ever gotten the chance to drive into manhattan without traffic and actually found parking you wouldn't say that.

Driving is far better than the MTA 70% of the time, the MTA is a heartless monopoly that doesn't care about NY. Just go to Boston/DC/Spain/France and compare their metro to ours, you'll see a disgusting difference in quality.

Buuhan1

I think it's around $3 a gallon here in Ohio, currently that is. It sometimes boosts to 4.

Mr. Death

@Cr4zy:

It's like 6.00$ in Texas.

Where the hell in texas do you live at, in Dallas its about 2.85.

warp

2.85?! You kidding me? It's like 3.18 here.

mr_bushido

Texas is the shizz, mang!

Mr. Death

@warp:

2.85?! You kidding me? It's like 3.18 here.

Really thats bad.

warp

That's just around here. Up at the airport it was like 3.33 or something like that.

Malintex_Terek

@Goldeneye:

Well i don't know what to do, is anyone else sick and tired of this?!!!:getlost:

Here's how it works.

1. OPEC runs out of oil, Gazprom starts supplying the world and charging double what OPEC used to charge because a) they're the only major supplier of oil and natural gas in the world and b) to get back at the pig-dog Americans for not doing enough to help Russia during the post-Soviet decade of turmoil.

2. Gazprom runs dry, TDP rules the world, petrol goes back to $.50 a gallon. Seriously.

…

Ultimately, there will never really be a need to worry about oil, since we've got an effective unlimited supply. Global warming and living space is a much more salient issue, as is other fuel alternatives to keep pollution at a minimum.

If you've got capital, invest in Gazprom or CWT for big bucks in like fifty years. As in, one would become a billionare with enough of it.

Pants-eater

Pfft. Silly american dollars.

It somewhere around 1.20 to 1.70 near where I live.

Always fluctuating.

FireFistAce 0

Actually, alternative fuel sources are widely available, but the oil companies pay the car companies to make their engines incompatible with them. The Hydro-electric car was invented almost twenty years ago.

FYI, hoard Cooking oil. It can and will power your car. I'm serious. But it's equivalent to the lowest octane grade fuel (87), so if your car takes 93, don't expect it to get the mileage you're used to.

Malintex_Terek

@Fire Fist:

The Hydro-electric car was invented almost twenty years ago.

Yeah, uh, you're talking about those hydrogen-powered cars, right?

The reason those haven't appeared isn't because of some petrol cartel, it's that the electricity to power the cars is astronomical, and there's yet to be a method developed to make the electrical generation efficient enough to manufacture en masse. There's only one hydrogen power station in the whole of California, I think, and that's at UC Davis where the technology was developed. It's only maintained here as a sort of symbolic eco-thumping thing.

FireFistAce 0

@Malintex_Terek:

Yeah, uh, you're talking about those hydrogen-powered cars, right?

The reason those haven't appeared isn't because of some petrol cartel, it's that the electricity to power the cars is astronomical, and there's yet to be a method developed to make the electrical generation efficient enough to manufacture en masse. There's only one hydrogen power station in the whole of California, I think, and that's at UC Davis where the technology was developed. It's only maintained here as a sort of symbolic eco-thumping thing.

No, I was referring to cars that utilize water to turn a turbine that powers the car, a miniaturized form of a hydroelectric generator. Ever see the movie "Wild Wild West"? Though most of the technology there was steampunk, the bike he rode was an actual prototype to the motorcycle that was invented in 1863. It was a motorized Tricycle that was powered by a steam engine. This was almost 30 years before the discovery of the crude oil refinery process, so it utilized no gasoline.

Cr4zy

@Throes:

Texas is an Oil state, how the HELL does it have almost twice the price as in Wisconsin?

@mr_bushido:

Not in Houston… I just got gas five minutes ago & it's $2.88 a gallon for unleaded... which is still high as balls!

@Mr.:

Where the hell in texas do you live at, in Dallas its about 2.85.

Well sorry, I could be wrong. There was a picture which had gas prices of up to 6.00$. It was on TV (some political channel) and some woman said the picture was taken in Texas was asking why were prices so high.

Greg

I fuckin' love trains.

Small Asian island country + EXTENSIVE AND VAST TRAIN NETWORK = win

I don't own a car and visit Tokyo at least twice a month for $200.

Bounty1Berry

@Fire Fist:

No, I was referring to cars that utilize water to turn a turbine that powers the car, a miniaturized form of a hydroelectric generator. Ever see the movie "Wild Wild West"? Though most of the technology there was steampunk, the bike he rode was an actual prototype to the motorcycle that was invented in 1863. It was a motorized Tricycle that was powered by a steam engine. This was almost 30 years before the discovery of the crude oil refinery process, so it utilized no gasoline.

Turbines have a problem: They're only efficient at full speed.

Chrysler tried a turbine-engine car in the 60s, and scrapped it.

Several railroads tried steam turbines between the 1930s and 1960s, often as a last-ditch attempt to make a coal-powered engine which could compete with diesels, as well as gas turbines, and found them economic only under specific narrow conditions. The Union Pacific was most successful, having a fleet of a couple dozen oil-turbine engines, and their success was primarily based on an incredibly cheap fuel source which soon changed.

Mr. All Sunday

Water power for the win.

Meh, gas is around 4 bucks here in Florida; it'll skyrocket once Summer starts, probably in the area of 4.15 or so.

Rixter

It's about $2.89-$3.00 in suburban New Hampshire right now. The car my family just bought gets like 40 miles per gallon though, and since my dad's truck gets about 16, I guess it could be worse…

jadiesama

@Refii:

No, if you've ever gotten the chance to drive into manhattan without traffic and actually found parking you wouldn't say that.

Yeah but where the hell am i going to find parking? And not to mention parking's pretty damn expensive. I think i'd rather take my chances on a $2 subway/bus fare than a $5 an hour parking garage in manhattan and the battle of traffic. i've been on the metro down in washington. it is nice, but the MTA is getting better. It's just taking a while.

Not to mention i don't have a car, nor can i afford one at the moment, be it the gas, the insurance and any other expenses. It's generally not worth it to have a car in New York. I'll keep with public transportation.

Nauykuyr

Water powered cars don't exist. Water isn't the beginning energy source in any turbine engine, except arguably at dams (the water stores no energy itself, but has potential energy from gravity, which was originally powered by the sun). If it's steam driven, then energy to create steam needs to come from fuel burning (coal, gas, etc.) or from electricity. Steam engines were highly utilized previously, but they were heat driven by coals or wood.

If you're hoping to run off of electricity, then the current limit is batteries. You need to store both a large amount of electricity and have it able to release that energy quickly. Fuel cells were suppose to become the preferred method to transport and generate electricity efficiently.

Essentially, the only way to produce a consistent and high volume of relatively "clean" energy is through nuclear reaction.

Bounty1Berry

@Nauykuyr:

If you're hoping to run off of electricity, then the current limit is batteries.

One thought I had was to put caternary wiring over the major highways, as used for many electrically-powered railways, and let the cars use pantographs to collect current.

The fact you can only go 100km on a charge doesn't matter as much if every time you're on a highway it doesn't count towards the 100km

guitaguar

What sucks about these gas prices is we have no say in it. I know we shouldn't have any say in it (that would be communism :) ) but the ones controlling the prices are the owners. They gotta keep the price as high as they can yet still appeal to us or they'll lose us to another competitor with a better price. C'est la vie. :(