Oil crisis in the gulf

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With hurricane katrina tearing up the superdome in new orleans and shutting down oil production in the gulf of mexico, there is talk of gas prices going up another 20-30 cents per gallon here in the US.

Today as I was fumbling around trying to replace a broken belt on my dads riding lawnmower, I had the radio on listening to the great one, Rushford "Rush" Hudson Limbaugh III (please note sarcasm here). He was whining today about other people whining about the gas situation and with his usual gusto, he suggested that people go out and make more money and shut up about oil prices.

Anyways that got me to thinking about oil, and I was thinking if were really going to take a step to fix this growing problem, we need to be proactive rather than reactive.

The root of the problem is based upon the fact, like it or not, that we here in the US have fallen back in love with gas guzzler. I seem to recall a time in the mid 80's when most people drove around in cars with little 2 liter engines, no A/C, and many of them with out even power steering. I think that we would be best to go back to those times.

Now before all the conservatives go screaming that I want to take away your freedom of choice for a vehicle, let me explain.

First there would be no forcing detroit to eliminate vehicle lines. But I would like to see engine sizes on vehicles limited to 3 liters or less.

Second, I would like to see it mandated that on larger vehicles, the engines be turbo charged, or be turbo diesel engines. Turbo charging an engine is a perfect way to create a practicle balance between power and fuel consumption. When people are crusing, they barely have their foot on the gas pedal, this creates little boost from the turbo, and in a four cylinder engine, it would consume fuel like a four cylinder. Step on the gas, and you get the power of a V6 or V8 when the turbo starts pumping air in the engine. My dad drove a turbo charged dodge minivan. On trips to milwaukee and back, the gas gauge would barely budge. When I learned to drive in it. I found that if I floored from a dead stop, I could squeal the tires for at least 50 feet.

Even more adventageous would be a total switch over to diesel fuel. Diesel fuel has so much more avaliable energy per unit than gasoline which means you use less to produce the same amount of energy. On another message board I frequented a few years ago, one of the posters stated she drove a VW Golf and got 40-50 mpg. Not only that, there is the option of bio-diesel in the case of an oil crisis to act as a buffer for against restricted crude oil supplies.

Modern semi tractors with electronic engine management systems can get 10-15mpg hauling a 10 ton trailer. A gas powered hummer gets the same economy and it weighs a mere 8000lbs.

Think of how much less oil we would be using if everybody got that kind of fuel economy.

Proactive instead of reactive is sometimes the best way to deal with a situation.

Lets not worry about ANWR right now. Lets save that for a later time when we really need it.

Tear me apart if you want, this is just my view.

My only thought is that diesel gels when cold. Tractor trailers and trains do their best to very seldom shut off because of the power it takes to start. If they are not constantly running they need to have engin block heaters ran on them when stopped in cold weather. I have usually had diesels so I know this and I loved the diesels so I would not have a problem with this if I could start my car in the dead of winter

yay, scoots!

right behind you on that one.

I have a 4.0 liter engine in my Jeep and I love it!

Here's what I would propose:
1) Repeal all environmental laws restricting oil drilling
2) Encourage the use of turbochargers or superchargers on all cars
3) Let manufacturers put any size engine they want, even if they want to develop a 6.0 liter one, but have some type of system that would allow the driver to reduce performance and conserve fuel- much like the fuel mixture lever in aircraft
4) Encourage the use of diesel engines and Hemi motors for gas engines

I used to have a Dodge that had this feature.

Y

There are some vehicles out there already with V-8's that will shut down 4 or 6 of the engines cylinders when the computer senses it can.



I know that diesels can be a pain in the a$$ in winter. Living in wisconsin, I spent many morings riding to school on a freezing bus.

How much power do block heaters use? And don't that have an anti-jeling additive you can put in the tank?

block heaters use very low power amounts but I really don't know how much. They do have anti-jeling aditives but I often found that they really did not help much. If it gets cold enough it will jell no matter what you do unless the whole tank and engine are kept warm. The big problem I always had is at work I had to park outside and could not plug the heater in so I had to go run the car for 15 minutes every three hours or not go home that night. The issue is the cold air blowing around the car. I know some cars had heaters that could run from the battery but then that can leave you with out power and it takes a lot of battery to even start a diesel.

First off, it has to be understood that the price of oil is not being influenced by fundemental facts but things that are issues that are not understood by economists. This includes weather, refinery issues (which is related to gasoline/other finished products, not oil production itself), and geopolitical matters. In fact, even OPEC is worried that right now they are seeing a bubble. In the meantime however, there are things we can do to help the situation:

1) Encourage companies to promote tele-commuting. In this information world, there is no reason to force someone to go to an office building when they can get their job done at a home office and maybe travel once per week. This would save not only quite a bit of energy but also lost man-hours due to commuting. The obsticles to this are the IRS's restrictive rules on home office deductions (which the Bush admin could relax and at the same time show that they are willing to reduce taxes and help the situation) and manager's outdated idea that they have to be looking over their employees backs rather than letting them get their jobs done.

2) Invest in and promote technologies that encourage the burning of less fossil fuels. This is self-explainitory.

3) Remove some of the regulations to building new refineries. It is not oil production that is hurting but finished product production. The big oil companies of course are saying it is almost impossible to buiild a new refinery and are shutting down old ones without replacing that capacity. Oil refining capacity is the lowest it has been in 20 years and will continue to go down unless the lawmakers act. That would be the best compromise between the oil companies needing refining capacity and the environmentalists who seem to thing that society can run without consuming anything.

As far as using Diesel, I have to agree with yealc. It could help but there may be problems. I still find it funny however that people will continue to purchase and drive Hummer's and then complain about the poor fuel mileage it gets.

My proposal isn't as well thought out as some of yours but hey it's 7 am but here goes.....


First off I think part of the problem is people driving around in these gas guzzling vehicles. I was watching the news yesterday, and this guy was telling the reporter how it now costs $78 dollars to fill up his hummer. I yelled into TV "Why did you buy the damn thing you idiot?" The reason why gas prices are so hi is bcause of supply and demand. It doesn't take an economist to know that when the demand is as extremely high for something such as gas, they can inflate it as high as they want.

One of my proposed solutions is to somehow force these yuppies who decide to run out and by these gas guzzling vehicles such as Hummer and escalades to stop buying them. Another solution would be to have car manufacturers start selling more hybrids. Oh you know what I think over the next year or so car manufacturers should stop selling gas guzzling vehicles all together and start producing more hybrids. This would dramaticallly decrease the demand for gas therefore lowering prices.

Like LJbouchard said telecommuting is another good idea. This would eliminate the need for a vehicle in the first place.

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Last edited by Ante on 09 Nov 2005, 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You didn't mention coal; synthetic petroleum can be obtained from it. As oil prices rise, this will become a viable alternative. The US has vast reserves, and in the UK we also have a fair bit. Of course, coal reserves also have a finite life, but it will fill the gap short-term.

Actually, this is also a very good reason to be building nuclear power stations.

You've got it easy over there. It costs £55 to fill up my 2.0L Ford; that's got to be getting on for $100 USD

I don't know why, but Sean always feels the need to say the complete opposite of what anyone else says, just to annoy everyone.

Perhaps if I started saying things like "lets spread violence all round the world", Sean might actually come up with something sensible like "lets make peace" or "up the reds".

Anyway, best thing is to develop renewables. The only thing that is stopping us is the big oil companies, which all receive vast subsidies and great deals from the governments, whilst we are stuck with no funding, just a poxy little wind generator in the back garden. Renewables deserve better research and need to be subsidised by the authorities in order for them to become viable for the ordinary person.

Robert,

You do have an excellent point. It seems that our government subsidy priorities are messed up. Why is it that you can get a tax right off for purchasing an SUV rather than a Hybrid? Why is is that roads are funded to the hilt and airlines are constently getting government bailouts but AMTRAK is told to survive on it s own? Why is there no investment in altermative fuels but tons of funding to "try" to find new oil fields when we know they do not exist?

It seems that the government of and by the lobbiests are winning the battle against common sense.

In some places you could use geothermal power as well and it works on basically the same principle as nuclear power.

And now, a big oil spill.