Scary article in NY Times about petroleum supply. Very, very scary.

I bet it(the cost of gas)goes down at the next presidential election

 

A clue the story is crap...

Most 1980's cars get terrible milage. I had a buddy with an '85 Charger 2.2 that was basically brand new when he got it in 1991 with 3600 miles on it. Now by then a Charger was just an Omni with a 2-door body on it. He got 22 MPG tops. I think it replaced an '80 Cutlass that got more like 10-12 with an Olds 350 in it. The '60 Pontiac I got in '94 would get 20 highway if I was easy on it and more like 18 if I romped on it. Which I did a lot. Hell, the '87 Pontiac wagon I got after so I could haul junk wasn't even that good - 15 in town, 17 highway. That with a 200R4 overdrive and maybe 55K on the motor and trans. I did some research too and found most cars of the 1957-1963 period can get 18-22 mpg (check the Mobil Fuel Economy run results).


There's a reason for it. Until actual new designed cars came out, they thought the idea to get them to use less gas was to make the motors smaller and put all these pollution controls on them. Between the added weight and everything else, it did not help much of anything. Meanwhile you look at my heavy Pontiac and it has an efficient, powerful motor with lots of torque to get it going, and geared so it would go down the highway 1800 rpm or so.

Now the '88 T-bird I got from my folks and drove until a trailing arm tore off the body from all the rot, would get around 30 MPG on the highway. But it had an EFI V6 and I dont know what the rear gear was. But that was just the 5th year of retooling on a design that had come out in '83 and was freshened up in 87.

As for gas, wth could I buy it for $0.90 a gallon in 1994 and it's three times that now? A lot of it is lack of refining capacity and the arab oil dependency, but it can't all be. The price of a quart of oil has only gone up a quarter or so. I was hoping that once this Iraq war shit got pretty well wrapped up, the gas prices would get cheaper for a while again.

Before long it will be cheaper to use synthetic gasoline, if they can figure out a way to make that the same as synthetic motor oil.


One thing is for sure. The oil companies will probably not let the price drop much. If the price of oil went back to $30 a barrel overnight and they marked the gas back to $1.25 a gallon they'd lose a lot of money on the existing gas already out there, with no way to gain the money back.

 

It's good to read thru this string and see that plenty of ya actually *think* about this shit rather than just bein' spoon fed. The truth is out there somewhere but we'll sure as hell never have all of it no matta how hard we look for it.

Just to put redundant perspective on the economy of mills...

My last tank in my '62 Olds 98 gave me 22 mpg. That's with a 394 2 barrel runnin' short trips in town and short jaunts on the freeway. Usually barely has time to warm up. Plus it's a 43 yo mill and I'm sure isn't up to peak efficiency. I'm curious to see what the '64 gives me. Only real difference with that is dual exhaust...and some extra weight. My "normal car" (as the lil' neighbor girl calls it) is a *cough cough* 98 lexus es300 (man almost embarassed to say that here lol) and it get's almost exactly the same as my '62.

Which one do you think I drive more?

Olson

 

My 1926 Ford roadster gets 24 MPG, my 1940 Chysler Royal gets 24 MPG, my 1960 Plymouth Fury gets 24 MPG, (I don't have one, but) a 2006 Chrysler 300 gets 24 MPG.

I rate the New York Times somewhere between Weekly World News and Bazooka Joe as a reliable news source.

Mike Zenor, your replies to this thread will make me sleep better tonight. I'm with you on this one. We may never have $.99/gal gas again, but I agree that the gas prices and doomsday theories are based alot more on bullshit than science.

 

I read an article that talked about Jenna Jamison being an entrepenuer. No really I did........

 

I heard the NY times was just bought by the National Inquirer. I read and believe the stories in both the same amount. ZERO!

 

That money savvy slut! (I read one too, she is pretty shrewd)

 

Brand new 2005 Dodge Dakota 6cyl work truck says it gets between 16-26mpg. My little peabrain figured about 20 for me during a normal day of about 200miles of stop and goooooooooooooo driving.

 

Yup she is, she lives in Scottsdale which is part of the Phoenix Metropolitan area. She owns a Sushi bar here and just bought Babes Cabaret. A thirty year old establishment and not a bad place I might tell you. She wants to remodel the place as a palace for lovers and couples.

But as you guessed it, the neighborhood is dead set against it and wants to shut it down. Scottsdale passed new ordinances in the last few years restricting these types of businesses in an attempt to clean up the South Scottsdale image. Fat chance suckers, Babes got grandfathered in and change of ownership has nothing to do with it.

 

Snottsdale will probably be difficult to deal with if she needs permits for any remodel work done to the building

 

68' plymouth GTX 440 4 speed 3.91 gears , 750 Holley vaccum secondary.....beaten to death every time it is driven...14-16 mpg....2001 dodge ram 360 auto, 32 years newer....... electronic fuel injection daily driver 8-12 MPG.... you guys figure it out, I think were being BULLSHITTED........LUKESTER

 

Sorry to get off topic, but Lukester, is that GTX orange with a black interior with a Dana 60/coilovers? I had one in high school (1998) and I'm wondering if that's the one. Sold it to a guy from Brillion who sold it real cheap.

 

AMEN! Just like the ozone hole the french guys discovered in the late '70s & have been crying "chicken little" about ever since.

The ozone hole is a naturally ocurring season phenomenon discovered in 1952! Its size and shape varies with many things.

Yes, CFCs bond readily with ozone, as do many other gases such as chlorine and methane - both naturally ocurring in larger quantities than any man-made CFCs.

When I got my SAE license for refrigerants waaaay back when they mailed you a booklet with the answers to the test in the back for $15 so you could buy Freon - back in '93-94 or so - it stated that all of the man-made CFCs to date back then added up to something like 29-million tons. That's ALL CFCs from the early 1900s to the early 1990s.

As stated, many other gases bond readily with Ozone - some sources of these gases:

• Several studies have shown that cows release nearly 7-million tons of methane gas ANNUALLY. No shit! (ok, it may smell like shit... )
• When salt water evaporates, chlorine is released in a gaseous state under certain conditions a very small percentage of the time (<5%), yet because of the sheer quantity of ocean, this adds up to about 5-8-million tons of chlorine released into the atmosphere ANNUALLY.
• Volcano eruptions release tremendous amounts of methane, chlorine, & other noxious gasses that readily bond with ozone. Worse, these are projected into the upper atmosphere where they more readily bond with ozone. In 1992, Mt. Pinatubo alone is estimated to have released approximately 24-million tons of these types of gases.

So it's all a load of crap meant to push a political agenda.

The Montreal Protocol of 1980 that effectively banned R-12 is only enforced in the first world. You can still readily by inexpensive R-12 in S.America, Africa, & Asia. Only the western civilizations were bound by it.

Yes, we need to take care of our planet & not pass off our transgressions to our ancestors, but let's not overstate the case basd on political agendas & junk science...


I need to go lie down now....

 

Just for the record, I think it needs to be stated. Freon breaks the bonds of O3, and doesn't just bond to it. Chlorine, methane and the such are not necessarily destructive to ozone in the same manner. Also though volcanoes eruption release vast amounts of those gases, intense heat plasmalizes them altering their reactive abilities, and as well volcanic process replenishes the ozone layer, due to plasmalized elements and rapid expulsion.

BUT I still am suspect of the findings on the ozone layer and cause/effect theory. Usually these studies take into account NO geological history prior to the last 200 years, and chemical analysis is usually done under stable laboratory conditions. Are we polluting the atmosphere, quite obviously. Are the definitive results portrayed accurate, I am suspect.

 

my two cents...

if you think theres a shortage you might be right. shortage of gasoline anyways.

it's the typical excuse to gouge us as usual, but we are also in direct competition with the new major league, china. put a billion red chinese in a two cycle saab knock-off and see how much pollution you can generate as well as drive the cost of fuel. think about that the next time you want to buy a harbor freight shop press.

no one of late has said theres an oil shortage, just a fuel shortage from the bottleneck at the refineries. a large part of the reason we dont have refineries springing up everywhere is the usual, we can do it cheaper overseas. its pretty much the same reason why texas is still floating on oil, and hardly anyone is drilling. if corporate america can increase its profitibilty buy doing it somewhere else, you bet they will.

why do you think there is so much sabre-rattling going towards venezuela now? they have boucoups of refineries there, always have. nowadays though, they have a leader who doesnt play well with others, namely big oil intrests.
Chavez is actually crazy enough to demand that his country be treated with respect and made into a full-blown partner in world affairs, not just america's lacky. usually such behavior isnt good for ones health in the long run though.

the real alternative is hydrogen fuel cells. were just a hair away from figuring the puzzle of how to bottle it into a feasible package too. nuke subs have been making hydrogen gas from water for years through electrolosys, they usually dumped the hydrogen though and saved the oxygen for breathing purposes. the drawback is though, it will never be a municipal work, to where the price is fixed, set, and controlled by a considerate and mindful body representing the peoples (aka the government). it instead will just run amuck with investors and brokers, lawyers, and guys that sold used cars til just a week before. then it will be back in our hearts disdain along with medical costs, insurance that isnt worth paying for, and pop music wonderkids.

 

I never knew there were so many bloody experts on oil on the HAMB!?!


Some of you guys are in serious denial.

 

plasmalize? I been all over the world & parts of Georgia & I ain't never heard of no shit like that!

I assume (and you always know what that means! ) you mean it's hot enough to turn things into plasma, or perhaps "liquid hot magma"? (said in my best Dr. Evil voice)

Volcanos are hot, I'll give you that, but I'm not quite convinced they reach the temperatures necessary to "plasmalize" anything - molten rock at somewhere around 1500*C is a far cry from plasma - which, if my nuclear fusion theory is correct, is something on the order of 100-million degrees C. So I don't think we'll be changing the energy state of the chemicals spewed from a volcano anytime soon....

 

There are plenty of studies that relate CO2 levels to global temperature change. Many of these studies go way back (thousands of years), utilizing ice core samples and other methods. (There is a dramatic increase starting at the turn of the century due to the industrial revolution).

IMHO, global warming is real, and we need to cut down on burning fossil fuels or the ice caps will melt and everyone in Kansas City will have beach front property. Cutting gasoline with ethanol and biodiesel are some of my favored approaches.

As for oil running out...eventually it will. While we are around, probably not, maybe our kids. Someone commented about the Alberta tar sands (bitumen) in Canada. There is an absolute shit-ton of oil up there, but some of it is a bitch to get to. The bitumen industry has been on the up-and-up for a number of years, and it's only going to get better for them.

-Duck

 

These are extrapolated results though...

Global warming is real - and natural - are we speeding it up? Perhaps. But after an Ice Age, you have to warm up to "exit" the Ice Age, we're not quite "halfway" to the next Ice Age, so expect continued heating... ...although we do still set record lows every year - just like record highs.

Agreed. Tar sands have a lot of hard-to-get oil locked up in them. If the price of oil continues to go up, at some point it becomes very economically feasible to extract it!

 

I like your sense of humor.

That was indeed close to what I was getting at. I was using it as figurative term (and a kinda made up word) And though the "mag-ma" (with Dr. Evil finger quotes) is approx. 1500 degrees, gas jets expelled through the "magma" can exceed 3000. Which given the pressure inside a flow, can exhibit some rather unique molecular properties (which was what I was trying to portray. Or so theory surmises, I've always been fascinated by the volcanic process).

And Duck, I know CO2 contributes to hot housing the old motherball. My beef is the knee jerk reaction that many scientists and environmetalists have with truly unsubstantiated theories backing them. When their theories falter, they promise to discredit any reliable future input that can make a real difference. And I'm saying this from a swinger on the environmentalist rope (yes trees are my friends) point of view.

 

Not so much. Rocks, ice and sediment cores, as well as stable isotope ratios give a pretty clear picture on what the environment and temperature were like.

Agreed, and people will keep arguing over if we have contributed to it or not (on internet message boards perhaps?).

It is already becoming feasible (read: big money for Canadian petroleum companies). As the world's reserves if light, "sweet" crudes diminishes, we are seeing a shift to the heavier "opportunity" crudes and bitumens. The processing problems with these, however, is an entirely different story.

I'm just going to go buy a bicycle and paint it flat black and put red rims on it, that way I won't have to pay to fill up my car...

Simply put, the world still depends on fossil fuels, and the people who control them are just going to keep getting richer, because they sure as hell aren't going to give it away...

 

You said it Ponchoman !! Take a guess who owns/runs/dictates the medias agendas ?

Rat

 

I used to get angry when I read about rising gas prices, industry lobbyists, and record oil company profits.

I used to wonder if breathing the thick, brownish haze that blots out the hills where I live is bad for my health.

I used to speculate that dumping mass amounts of pollution into the atmosphere might have some negative long-term effects.

I used to believe that increased demand for a finite resource coupled with less efficient use of that resource might eventually result in shortages or perpetually rising prices.

But now that I've read this post I realize that there's nothing to worry about. All of these ungrounded concerns can be chalked up to sloppy scientific research, knee-jerk reactions, suspect political agendas, and irresponsible journalism. Any negatives are imagined and not real.

I feel much better now.

 

Glad we could help!

 

I have never owned a car that got better than 10 m.p.g. till I got the wagon. it gets 11 or 12 on the when I stay on the primary 2 barrel. the wave of the future,folks is A TRI POWER!

Seriously,though...how is this any different than last summer?

 

1st you have to look at what paper the article was in .

2nd you have to realize we do have enviroment problems on our hands

3rd people need to stop driving these big SUVs and PU trucks to drive daily because they think it looks cool. The bed never get used, they have no kids,It's known they're not safer and they need 4 wheel drive for some reason.

4th people need to realize they're being bull$@%!ed somewhat,Not to get into politics but How come the oil companies say the high prices are from the high crude and refining costs,Well I ask why are they all having record profits then?

Anyway I'll shut up now.

 

I will keep driving my 2000 chevy 3500 series crew cab...alone,or if i get lonely,i`ll take my dog.If the day comes that i can`t get fuel...i`ll park it and walk.I heard there is something called a bus! Keep on truck`in

 

uh, you dug this post up from last summer.

 

I might be wrong, but doesn't plastic come from petroleum, if so , ask for paper bags at the store. Save the petro for our rods.

 

We aren't allocating our precious low-cost resources at all at the moment. The only way I see to do it is to tax the shit out of it, and give exemptions to relatively few people (and punish people who try to work around it severely).

It makes me puke to see all my tax money going to widening roads that become clogged the minute they are done. They have spent half a Billion dollars on two interchanges in Albuquerque in the last 8 yrs, just for the commuter traffic. They could have put in light rail or free bus service for life for that!

What are airplanes going to do -- run on solar power?

Aside from my '52 (which gets prettty shitty mileage, 14 maybe, but driven little), I own a 93 Saturn that gives me 30 -32 overall, 40 on the highway, and have a motorcycle that gives me 43 in town with a lot more fun. I can walk to 90% of the places I need to go (bank, drug store, food store, etc) in 5 minutes. I'm ready for $6/gal - bring it on!