Full disclosure: I work for Big Oil so some of you might feel I'm just trying to stir up fear to line my own pockets. Hopefully most of you know me well enough to realize I'm trying to help.

The price of oil shot up almost $4 per barrel today due to the massive rioting on Egypt. Violence is spreading along the Egyption side of the Suez canal, through which a fair amount of oil still passes. The citizens of other Middle Eastern countries are also starting up against their governments. So far the House of Saud in Saudi Arabia hasn't come under attack, but civil unrest/outright rebellion has been brewing there for a long time, too. If things go hot in Saudi then oil prices will skyrocket.

US workers are already being brought home from certain M.E. countries for safety/security reasons. I seriously hope this all blows over fast but if it doesn't all hell is going to break loose in the oil market.

-Blast

Thanks Blast, my thoughts exactly.

Just what we were talking about at dinner. Price paid today was $3.28 / gal Daytona Beach.

Paid $7.80 USD (@ current exchange rates) for 1 US Gallon of Unleaded Petrol here today or $9.29 for a Gallon (Imperial). Talk is that the cost of a US Gallon this summer is predicted to go to $10.66 USD. (that is still with a stable political situation in the middle east). The UK All party parliament group on peak oil has also recently been talking about future petrol rationing.

http://www.appgopo.org.uk/

If a tank of gas lasts you several months, go ahead and panic and go fill it up tonight. But if you are more typical in your gas consumption, you're only putting off the inevitable for a week or so, so not really worth it.

How dare you panic buy and hoard gas from those that need it
My wife gets gas about every 1.5 months, we live in a small neighborhood that fills in a gap between offices and shopping so everything we need is within walking distance if there would have been sidewalks and crosswalks.

Thanks Blast.

Gas here is hovering around $1.22 per L (%5.50 gallon) Cheapest I seen it about 100 miles northeast of here today was $1.09 per L ($4.96 gallon) so I filled the car and topped up the 5 gallon jerry can in the trunk.

I'll be watching the pump prices closely now.

Gas here in WA is about $3.30/gal, a bit cheaper in Seattle.

The price will probably go up... Although how much is due to ME frictions, and how much to the manipulations of the speculators could be argued.

Sue

Hey Blast,Thanx for the Info! It's $3.55 a Gallon in some places Here in L.A.,Tonight Presently!

I'm in complete agreement with your assessment. Other factors will come into play possibly as well, compounding a bad situation into a worse situation!!!

There may be some run-up in price, the oil companies and speculators have never been shy about using any excuse to either raise the price or claim the price was going up, prices can be pulled as well as pushed, but I don't see a major reason for any major increase. Yes, there will be a certain amount of concern/hedge/panic buying, this post will tend to feed that, not that ETS is a major feed and market leader, but neither Egypt nor Tunisia are major oil producers. Fact being that it is, off the top of my head, hard to figure two middle east countries less important to oil.

There may be worry about the 'Arab streets' and the novelty of Tunisia being the first Arab nation to have a popular uprising with the people booting out their long standing rulers. But Tunisia and Egypt have always had the least firm control over their populations. Only Yemen comes to mind as less stable for states not actively in a war. Granted you can rip a telephone book in half by starting at the thin edge but these two nation are markedly different from Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.

Of course the Saudis and Kuwaitis will reflexively follow the usual course, a two part, carrot and stick, approach. They simultaneously lavish their populations with benefits and blandishments while vigorously working the secret police and familial and tribal connections to rein in dissidents. They are not above outright assassinations if all else fails but they are old hands at persuasion and smoothing things out through inside pressure and lashings of cash.

I suspect that prices will like edge up in the short turn just because people aren't sure what will happen. Uncertainty always cause increases. But these things tend to stabilize in a few days/ weeks.

Without any way to store more than a few weeks of gas at most, I suppose we have no choice but to adjust to the new prices. Moped anyone? And due to the primary reasons behind the protests, high unemployment, poor economy, food inflation, gov. oppression and corruption, etc. I imagine we'll be seeing quite a few uprisings in the years to come. Remember, a sizeable percentage of Egyptians live on less than $2 a day. How many other countries around the world are in a similar situation? Quite a few I believe. That moped doesn't look so bad after all.

What! Ride a gas guzzling moped?? I'll stick with my bicycle commute. It gets me there and it gets me my aerobic exercise, all in one act. It's nice that the workplace has a shower and isn't too far away....

Still worth filling up IMHO, if the price increases then a few $ have been saved, no big deal but better than not saving a few $.
If actual shortages result, then entering a period of shortage with a full tank is assuredly better than starting with a near empty one, even if it does not last long.
I doubt that actual shortages will result, but it is allways well to remember that events might escalate.

Preparedness keeps my fuel tank full. Topped off before the snow and haven't moved the car since. I walk to work and have a couple bicycles and bike trailers so am less dependent on the car than most.

I'm more worried about our overall economy that's already weak and limping along.

Pity we can't exult in an oppressive regime's toppling, for fear an even more oppressive, anti-American regime will take its place and our oil imports will be threatened. This is quite a different reaction in western countries compared to the Berlin Wall's crashing down in 1989.

The fellow in Tunisia who ignited this wave of Middle East unrest by igniting himself is no less a symbol than the brave student who stood in the path of a tank in China's Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Best wishes to the Middle Eastern people whose ambitions do not revolve around the Caliphate. And God, Allah or whoever, help the Egyptian women who may face a future under the rule of Islamic fundamentalists.

Let's hope U.S. officials are up to the task of navigating this situation to our best near and long-term interests.

Six words: Suez canal and the Sumed pipeline.
More info HERE.
-Blast

Black coffee is selling at $21.33 a gallon at Starbucks and no one complains :-)

Gasoline supplies will only become more limited as demand increases. It is already priced artificially low (so is ethanol), and sooner or later, we will have to wean off or adjust to a much higher cost. I am burning alcohol on my cross-country travels now in my Flex-Fuel Chevy. I filled up at $2.28 a gallon twice this week. Gasoline was selling at $3.19. There is a slight difference in mileage, but on the highway, it is only about 10%-15% less, where as the cost of E-85 is 25% less in most places I go.

I'm not under any illusion that the production and use of E-85 alcohol is significantly better for the environment than petroleum, but I would rather give my 'gas money' to a Minnesota farm family. No riots down there.

The closure of the Red Sea and Suez Canal and Egyptian major Egyptian pipelines, events none of the parties have threatened or mentioned, wouldn't change much how three main players, US, China, Japan get their oil. All three have open routes by way of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea and East. This avoids Egypt entirely.

It also has to be noted that this leave western Europe in a bit of a bind but here again they get a good part of their oil from Russia and pipelines well north of the area concerned. There are also several pipelines that skirt the area entirely but the specifics or capacity, design, and international relations make estimating how useful they may be beyond my kin.

http://www.theodora.com/pipelines/middle_east_oil_gas_products_pipelines_map.html

Click on the maps for larger versions.

There will be, as recent vituperation makes clear, some fraying and fretting around the edges, worse case they reroute around the horn, but it isn't the cataclysmic event the usual hair-on-fire sources, the same ones who have been so very wrong so often, are claiming.

If it makes you feel better go ahead and fill your tanks now. I think the savings are going to wash out in the mid-term no matter what you do, this would be different if you could say ... invest in a tanker load of oil, but unless you have facilities to lay in a huge supply, and the means to store it and get it into the market smoothly, your savings are going to be minimal.

90 some miles long and 1/4 mile wide. The question is will the Egyptian military side with the regime or the populace. Tunisia's military sided with the people and it looks like Egypt's military is following suit.

However, the Army allowing protests to continue is one thing, maintaining security on the Suez Canal may see a different reaction from the military. Time will tell, but my bet is on the canal staying open.

Cool! As a employee of Big Oil it's very reassuring to see the idea of even higher gas prices doesn't concern people.

-Blast, looking forward to next year's Christmas bonus!!

Seeing as that "Big Oil" profits go up when people panic, and bid up the price, I'd say you failure to cause alarm may represent a failure to support the business paradigm. The maintenance guys are on the way to reduce the size of your cubicle and move your parking spot another half mile from the office.

"The closure of the Red Sea and Suez Canal and Egyptian major Egyptian pipelines ... wouldn't change much how three main players, US, China, Japan get their oil."

I don't think that is even close to being the point. It is the FEAR that raises the gas prices, not the facts.

Sue

Some interesting things have happened. The Egyptian government was able to shut down internet access and most cell phone services. (I'm sure governments around the world are studying this carefully) Mubarak also withdrew all police which has led to some looting. (Its rumored he did this as payback to ordinary Egyptians) Whats interesting is that in many areas, ordinary citizens are forming their own security to guard homes and business' against potential looters with nothing more than sticks for protection. There were also reports of citizens organizing to protect the national museum until some military forces arrived. I applaud their courage. But I suppose the moral of the story is, if all hell breaks loose, you're on your own. Another good example of why knowing your neighbors and having a sense of community is very important. Too bad we tend to lose sight of that in our all too busy lives. What would you do if similar disruptions occured in your city?

From what I've been told, the U.S. is already set up for this as well. A friend of mine that was an ATF agent had a card issued with her credentials that listed a number she was to dial if the phone lines get shut down and she needs to get through.

Along the same lines, I remember during 9/11 none of our cell phones worked. Not sure if the system was just over loaded, or shut down, or what....but phones essentially became useless bricks. With that in mind, I've pretty much made the determination that I can't rely on domestic public utilities at all during a widescale emergency. This includes, phones, the internet, television, and even GPS satellites. If they work, great, if not..I should be prepared for it.

The one thing I haven't done yet though, that I want to, is go for my Amateur radio license. It seems to be the way to go when it comes to emergency communication.

There doesn't have to be anything especially sinister about this. In the Northridge quake of 1994, we lost power throughout our )for at least 24 hours. No computers, electronically involved telephones, and definitely no cell phones. One could see the transformers on the power poles pop as the shock wave rolled through...

In our office we had exactly one POTS (plain old telephone service) device that connected us with the rest of the world. Overloading the cell phone system seems to be a regular occurrence in every emergency of any size.

With Egypt, the government owns and controls the country's ISP service and this why they were able to take the country offline.

This technical article suggests that the USA government would not be able to bring down the net that easily...if at all.

I think you are right but it is interesting that so many people slide toward fear without reference to facts and context. We have been through far worse situations.

There is an entire cottage industry centered around fear-mongering and carefully cultivating, farming, fear, hysteria, outrage, and hate. Hard to make clear headed and rational decisions when a good part of the citizenry is perpetually punch drunk, and addicted to being punch drunk, from an endless series of stories, carefully crafted to cause maximum alarm, that come down to 'the sky is falling' without a whole lot of facts, backing, or context.

There are a lot of reasons people might want to spread alarm. Speculators can make huge profits off a run up in price even if it is not reality based. And when the price drops they are all over the short selling because a good speculator can make money on both sides.

There are also profits to be made becoming a fear-mongering outlet. In the present situation there seems to be no down side to spreading baseless fears. There are people who do it repeatedly and they never seem to lose any audience when the story is shown to be baseless. People seem drawn to such outlets like they are drawn to gossip and seeing the worse in people.

Evidently "just saying" and mumbled references to "the precautionary principle" are excuse enough. And on to the next dose of fear, hate, worry, and doom.

Fear and calamity are also used to groom the society and push agendas. I highly recommend "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein:

http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine

I also think people might benefit from the short piece:

http://www.raptitude.com/2011/01/how-to-make-trillions-of-dollars/

Welcome to a world where societies and attitudes aren't allowed to just happen. A place where how societies think, and think of themselves, are engineered, groomed, massaged and steered by keeping people paranoid, afraid, overstimulated, uncertain. But don't worry. They will sell you a tool, or a toy, or status symbol, or a pill that will almost make you feel good about it. LOL.

How TV ruined your Life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxQuHocBmxw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXzMDlVcF54&NR

IF ... Pens got Hot ... an unexpected increase in pen temperature ... Disaster strikes in mid-afternoon as peoples voices start to get hot ... keyboards too ... soon there will be no way for humans to communicate at all ...

*sigh*

-Blast

True. Climate change hysteria is a perfect example.
-Blast

LOL.

Exactly the opposite.

We have had political unrest before without irrecoverable disruptions to the energy supplies. But a rise of 5C would blow most of the assumptions about weather, growing food, and where better than a billion people presently on low lying land live, out of the water. There are Malthusian limits on what we can do and how we can do it. There are real issues that get swept under the rug as we are told to pay attention to people doing the two-step in Egypt. Anthropogenic global warming, something we have known about for fifty years, is just one of them.

UK Government Global Warming Facts Leaflet TV advert.

Oh dear gawd, let's not get into this climate change mess.

The true believers and true deniers are just about equally guilty of tunnel vision IMHO. Meanwhile, the rest of us are just trying to walk the razor's edge, finding the ethical and practical path through an issue that has no pure solution.

-Doug, who spends many paid hours building technical training for major oil companies ... and spends countless unpaid hours, toiling to grow his own food and generate his own energy, planting trees and recycling bloody everything (including composting cat poop -- I kid you not)

It overloaded.

As for shutting things down... Can you throw one switch and kill the web in the US? No. I know there have been attempted to legislate such a thing into being, I don't think they ever passed, and the technical issues would make it hard at best.

Now, can there be a court order served by federal agents ordering ISPs to shut down? Sure. And that would probably work- refuse a court order, the just have the power company turn off your power. The only folks that might not work for are Hughsnet and WildBlue users, but they are statistically insignificant due to their market share (high prices, suck service, low bandwidth- no one uses them who has another option).

Shutting down the internet would be the same as shutting down the roads. Even if you shutdown all the major highways there are still many many side roads, traffic will get through just a bit slower.

Reports are coming out that food and bottled water are running low. Many stores in the major cities are either looted, low on inventory, or people are afraid to venture out. I imagine getting money out could be problem too since the banks were closed and working ATM's would empty out pretty quickly. US citizens were given the option of taking a charter flight supplied by the state dept. But you must pay for the flight and arrange your return home from wherever they drop you and are limited to ONE piece of luggage. This got me thinking. I usually travel with a backpack and one checked bag. In this situation I think I would take my backpack and ask the hotel if they could mail the rest of my luggage when possible. What bag would you take and what would you put in it? How would you get to the airport?

Maybe a whole lot slower. This just came out in PC Magazine.



So if its unlikely, and it won't do any good anyway, why has the bill been re-introduced?

Politicians can introduced bills saying anything they want, that doesn't mean the outcome is possible or enforceable.

Not everyone agrees with that unproven theory, and the fraud exposed recently at East Anglia underscores the debate. What's important is to personally prepare for climate change, and not cowtow to opportunistic and manipulative politicians who seek only money and power.

http://www.nolanchart.com/article805.html

Well it depends by what you mean by a kill switch. In the UK there have been instances where large parts of the UK have been without Internet services simply due to theft (some router cards being stolen in Docklands in London) and accidental fire (one in Manchester in an old BT tunnel linking some nuclear shelter bunkers for the secret 'Manchester Guardian' telephone exchange). Superusers can remotely kill the Internet connections for millions of users in the UK by logging on here;

www.btwholesale.com

The US ISPs won't be any different.

The easiest way to cut off millions of customers is just to gain access to the ISP customers billing database.

The fat pipes of any fibre network can be disconnected rather easily with a leatherman tool.

Taking down the internet is actually rather easy.

I would take a carry on size backpack, which is preferred mode, even in non-emergencies. In it I would have a change of clothes, an appropriate garment for inclement weather, toiletries, a small versatile FAK, some food and snacks (no cooking), any unique/irreplaceable items, knife (normally Leatherman Wave) and matches if possible, and a filled canteen. As much as possible would be worn on my person or in my vest and coat. This would include EDC items like a small flashlight, whistle, keys. When travelling I usually wear a money belt and cash stashed in various locations. Don't forget the passport.

From the news reports, it is a major hassle getting to the Cairo airport. I would seek guidance from the embassy or trusted friends.

"We'll always have Paris"....

Perhaps one of the best and most concise summaries of this issue is that issued by the Royal Society:
http://royalsociety.org/climate-change-summary-of-science/

Frankly, it is by far a more boring read than your nolanchart-article. That, on the other hand, is a well written collection of myths, wrongs and misunderstandings, things taken totally out of context and deliberately flawed.




Several independent investigations, including media, have gone through all the material of the "climategate" of East Anglia. The result is very boring:

- Some of the conversations (this is private emails being hacked and brought out to the public) show a reluctance toward openly disclosing all available data and a not too flattering way of name-calling people who disagree with you. Not good. Shame on them.

- But those Climategate-emails fails to document or even hint of any scientific fraud. Don't you think the media would be all over it they could find any such evidence or even the slightest hint of it?



A good point. One could also argue the ideal to make optimum use of the political instruments at hand to push the world in the direction you want it to move.

Unfortunately, our political instruments available seems sorely inadequate to deal with issues such as anthropogenic global warming. But to further elaborate on that quickly becomes all to political for this forum, I think...

That was certainly my read on it; that the fundamental data was correct.

A scientist who participates on another board I follow said this on the subject of climate change and I paraphrase, "climates do indeed change over millennia from hotter to colder but it's the rate of change that we're experiencing that's not normal and has serious implications".

Take my further silence on the subject as not caring enough to continue rather than not having the ammo to argue.

-Blast

Lifting a glass to Blast, ever the voice of reason! It started off as a great disussion....

Noticed today some gas stations here set the prices up .03 cents per L today. That does not seem like much but it is roughly 13 cents per gallon...

The state dept. should have let you send out the travel alert, lol. From CNN today. Emphasis mine. Another good reason to always have some extra bottled water and non-perishable snacks in your hotel room.



Thats if they can make there. And many photos released today show tourists walking to the airport, wheeled luggage in tow. Easy to spot because of the bright colors. Another reason neutral colors are a good idea, you don't stand out like a sore thumb. In this situation I'd toss some clothes and fill the wheeled luggage with a few gallons of water. Makeshift cart.

The issues more relevant to what's happening in the Middle East: the U.S. Fed's quantitative easing and ethanol. Food inflation is presently running at a 17% clip in Egypt. Poorer people spend a lot higher percentage of income on food. Hungry people get angry and bold.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/41317235/Egypt_Unrest_Was_Sparked_by_Food_Inflation


Egypt's situation was compounded when Russia banned wheat exports:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b4e0e53c-b453-11df-8208-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1CiabyJC4


If the U.S. starts experiencing food inflation on this scale, Americans are going to get a heck of a lot more cranky than in the past two years. And Americans spend only about 10% of income per capita on food.

Fill up your freezer.

Food has long been heavily subsidized in Egypt. Recently the government has allowed the real cost to peek through. This may have been poorly timed because there are presently a lot of factors driving up these prices.

Canada had a poor wheat crop. Russia had a poor year, so much so that they have restricted export. The US ethanol program has a lot of farmers putting effort into producing fuel instead of food. And a similar program, the European bio-diesel programs, are having a similar effect.

Generally the rest of the world spends close to a third of their household budgets on food. US consumers enjoy low prices because our food is heavily subsidized. Mainly this is through various farm programs, tax breaks, and incentive programs for processors. The US effort keeps wheat, corn, soybeans, sugar, meat and milk products artificially low. Which, paradoxically, keeps fruits, vegetables and non-subsidized food, the stuff you ought to be eating if you want to stay healthy, artificially high.

So...how about those gas prices?

-Blast

. . . $3.85 in SOCAL . . .

Looking at past expense receipts I have on hand at the moment.

Jan 16th: $1.16 per litre ($5.19 per gallon)

Jan 29th: $1.20 per litre ($5.46 per gallon)

Feb 27th: $1.27 per litre ($5.78 per gallon)

Today's pump price: $1.31 per litre ($5.96 per gallon)

Price increase per gallon in 6 weeks: .77 cents.

Costco has Regular for $3.83 at present, in Marina del Rey!I've seen it as high as $4.05 at the Shadier Stations thru out L.A.!

Currently $8.80 per US Gallon in some of the remoter parts of Scotland.

I am planning for $12-14 per US Gallon in the UK within the next 6 months.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/...lt-2232928.html

With another Western financial crisis again on the cards and with some commentators speculating the end of the US dollar as the Worlds reserve currency status over night (50% devaluation on the cards) then I could also see $8-10 per US gallon in the USA (possibly even higher if the Ghawar field output radically drops output i.e. Peak Oil wrong slide of the slope) by the middle of 2012.

Even North Sea oil and gas output has dropped production output by around 1/3 capacity in the space of 2-3 years.

$3.39 per gallon on the north side of Houston, higher downtown.
-Blast, adjusting accordingly

Lucky you. $3.65 last night to fill up on Long Island.

Anyone want to buy a minivan?

$3.69 here in W. WA, going up daily.

Gas station owner said he's looking for $5.50 by midsummer.

And did anyone here think Blast was off the mark when he first posted?

And coming on the heels of the gas prices going up almost daily is a possibly interesting view from the Huffington Post. Yeah, they can be iffy, but my memory isn't so bad that I don't remember the 2008-2009 'crash' coinciding with gas hitting $4.50 a gallon.

Everything is connected to everything else. We shall see.

Sue

So the Saudis claim they can immediately boost production from 9 million to 12 million barrels a day to make up spare capacity if necessary. But apparently thats never happened before. And their stated reserves are being seriously questioned. And someone tell me why they still don't allow more diesels from Toyota, Honada, Ford, GM in the US? If I'm gonna pay $5+ for a gallon of fuel I wanna get my moneys worth.

Last night; Regular gas $3.49, Ethanol $2.69.

$3.20.9 at the stations near my house this morning for regular unleaded.

Of course I sold the 32 mpg on regular gas car about six months ago and now get 20 mpg on premium. :\

I knew I could make gas prices go up by getting rid of that car.

i'm not laughing. i've got a 4 door Honda Civic. (My 7 year old has big plans to convert it to an off-roader someday.)

When we were moving a couple years ago a nice, not so big house, was available right across the street from work. My commute to work is .5 miles. Wife stays at home with the kids and works part time in the evenings, her commute is about 1 mile. When its nice out I just walk to work.

I was talking to a guy who recently bought a slightly used Jeep Grand Cherokee. He said it sucks up premium gas like a drunk locked in a liquor store, not getting much more than 12 mpg.

When my local station owner said to look for $5.50/gal this summer, that was for regular. How much will premium be?

Many Americans are apparently willing to pay ANY price for gas, if they buy a gas guzzler that requires premium at today's prices. And the oil companies know that.

SUCKERS!!!

Sue

The problem is the emissions. Diesel engines have difficulty meeting our emissions requirements, because our emissions regulation were tailored around gas engines. They can do it, but it typically requires significant amount of emissions control equipment. This stuff is complicated, it hurts fuel economy, and it's very expensive. Combine that with the typically greater price on diesel vs. regular gas, and it starts to make less and less sense to buy a U.S. spec diesel.

That's not to say we wont start seeing some options. Chevy, for example, is bringing out a diesel version of their Cruze compact car. Being it has such a small engine it doesn't have as much difficulty meeting emissions requirements, therefore it might actually be worth purchasing. We wont really know for sure until we can get some verified fuel economy numbers.



That's a jeep srt-8, a buddy of mine has one. Jeep basically took the biggest and most powerful V8 Chrysler makes and stuck it in a grand cherokee, then modified the suspension and sold them in limited numbers (really for collectors and enthusiasts more-so than average joe's). Amazing vehicle, in the winter you can blast through the snow with ease, in the summer you can out-run sports cars at the track. The poor fuel economy is a worthy trade-off if you're into the performance aspect. Especially when you consider it can still go a lot of places your average sports car can't.

This is so frustrating. The Skoda Octavia, for example, by all reports a fine car (concur, I've ridden in them), has a diesel model that is clocking close to 50 mpg. Yet, cars in the U.S. are struggling to break 40 mpg, and they brag if they make it into the 30s. As I recall, a 1964 era VW bug got low 30s mpg back then. . .

I need to go shopping tomorrow. It will cost me about $68.00 just for the round trip. Not counting buying anything.

Living in a remote part of the desert is wonderful....most of the time. The drive is about 120 miles each way. Most of it through an indian reservation. Great scenery.


Hmmmm going to Mexico next thurs. I will try to check prices there.

I have two vehicles. One is a suzuki XL7, a sort of small SUV. Gets about 22mpg.

Second is a 1 ton, dodge crew cab, long bed 4x4 truck. It gets about 25mpg empty. Guess which one is a diesel?

Actually the diesel truck gets 19mpg carrying our lance camper. When we go to the big city (tucson) we take the dodge/camper.

That way we can stay for several days, do our shopping slowly and then drive back into the desert. Looks like we will have to start buying for a longer time period. Can't take too many trips to the city at $68 each.

I hear my wallet moaning....

Nomad

I agree that it's frustrating. I've been trying to buy a replacement to my 1995 diesel GMC Suburban for years now, but one simply doesn't exist. GM made a concept version Suburban HD, which averaged over 20mpg and could still tow over 9,000lbs. However, they decided not to produce it when they figured the option cost for the 4.5L diesel engine would be around $5,000.

Sure, most people aren't willing to pay that up front.....but I'd be happy to, considering the gas version of the same truck averages 12mpg with similar HP and lot less torque.

Now, there are some options out there if you're looking for smaller vehicles. VW, BMW, Audi, and Mercedes are all offering diesels right now. For example:

Audi has their diesel A3 hatchback that gets 30 city/42 highway. By comparison, the gasoline version gets 22 city/28 highway on premium. The difference is staggering. If they offered an AWD version I would own one.

Nomad -- What year Dodge Ram are you driving? I hear the older models got better mileage.

i concur i also work for big oil i cant determine if its a wait and see but the 4.00 dollar gas has been bumped up to spring and 5.00 to summer hopefully not.... we will see

"Combine that with the typically greater price on diesel vs. regular gas, and it starts to make less and less sense to buy a U.S. spec diesel."

Diesel costs less to produce and was always cheaper than gasoline, until BigOil realized it had the truckers by the throat. Outright theft, and nothing else but.

When the gas hits $5.50 or more per gallon, I wonder how often the performance cars will get out of the garage?

Sue

Not only am I NOT associated with Ford, I have a bone to pick with them. That said, it looks as if Ford did something right. Their new EcoBoost engine seems promising. Of course the jury is still deliberating.

Jeanette Isabelle

Diesel DID cost less to refine up until the requirement for low-sulfur diesel appeared. That required a lot of re-plumbing of the refineries and more labor and energy input overall to produce. Your theft hypothesis is wrong.

-Blast

It's not quite as simple as that.

First, Diesel and gasoline are both produced from the same refining process. Essentially, you only get so much of each from a single barrel of oil. Currently, there are two main types of refining processes used (fluid catalytic cracking and hydrocracking), which each result in a different proportion. The one used by most U.S. based refineries (fluid catalytic cracking) allows for a greater ratio of gasoline to diesel. Most European refineries use a process(hydrocracking) which creates more diesel and less gasoline.

Now, Diesel fuels used in over-the-road vehicles go through a further process for the reduction of sulfur. Recently we switched from using LSD (Low sulfur Diesel....not the narcotic) to using ULSD (Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel). This change made it possible to better our vehicle emissions significantly. Unfortunately, this increased the price of diesel fuel on average. To further increase prices, diesel fuel used in over-the-road vehicles is also taxed; typically more-so than gasoline. (average national fuel tax is 48.1 cents for gasoline vs. 53.1 cents for diesel)

Now you might ask yourself....why was diesel fuel traditionally always cheaper than gasoline? Reason was, it was basically an unwanted fuel. Our refining process was dedicated to gasoline production and most of our vehicles were designed around gasoline (which also meant gasoline was traditionally taxed more). Otherwise, we would just sell whatever diesel we weren't using to Europe or whoever else wants it.

Nowadays, diesel fuel is in much greater demand, especially since Europe and many other parts of the world are willing to buy just about every drop we produce. Therefore, our diesel prices are heavily reliant on the value of our currency vs. European currencies. In a world market, we're essentially in competition with Europe to buy the diesel we produce. Add to that an increase in overall cost from the additional sulfur reduction processes and an average 5 cent greater cost from taxes....it's easy to see why we're now paying so much more for diesel.

This is why there is such a big push towards plug in electric vehicles...we can produce our own electricity without being involved in such heavy worldwide competition for fuel. Unfortunately, what we need for this to happen on a wide scale isn't really here yet. Battery technology is lacking and our electric infrastructure is heavily outdated. Slowly this is improving, but we just aren't there yet.

Ah, the insanity of the electric car future, didn't work out first time around, won't work out the second time around.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Dundee/...-royce-car.html

If they can't keep the lights on in Houston during a one or two day cold spell then the electric car future is patently obviously a non starter.

A simple calculation should confirm the hypothesis.

Take the number of cars during the Houston Rush Hour and multiply by the average power consumption of an average vehicle used during the rush hour then add the total GWhr to the installed Electric Grid capacity that flow into Houston.

Multiple that by the number of cities around the world and then work out how many 1250 MW Nuclear power stations would be required to take care of the 90 Mbpd per day that is currently extracted. To put things into perspective you probably wouldn't have enough copper available to transmit all that electrical power to all those electrical vehicles.

1 bpd = 1.7 MWhrs

90 Million bpd = 152,000 GWhrs

over 24hrs = 6,375 GWdays

6,375/1.250 = 5,100 Nuclear Power Station operating at full load every 24hrs 365 days of the year to take up the energy load requirements for todays peak oil.

As the US consumes around 20-25% of that peak oil load this would require around 1000 Torness sized Nuclear power stations to be built. To take care of the duty cycle and peaks, 2000 nuclear power stations would be more realistic.

And we even haven't started on the battery technology



This is a more realistic future than the electric Rolls despite what even Dr Michio Kaku has to say on the subject. Gotta love his optimism on the subject though...

2003 with over 230,000 hard miles on it.

It's impossible to convert barrels of oil into raw energy content and then use that number to draw a determination on how much electricity would be used for electric automobile transportation. There are differences in the efficiency of each technology.

For example, Nissan's leaf uses 32kwh to travel an average of 100 miles. A gallon of gas is the rough equivalent to 36kwh....and we know that a gallon of gas in a typical car will only get about 25 miles in combined driving. With that being the case, a leaf gets about 4 times the fuel economy of a typical 25mpg combined car. This is why it gets a 99mpg combined fuel economy rating.

Now, in the United States we use around 142 billion gallons of gasoline a year (2004 statistic). At 36kwh a gallon equivalent this is the equivalent to 5112 billion kwh. Now, since a leaf is around 4x more efficient than the average car, we have to divide that number by 4. Therefore, it would take 1278 billion kwh of electricity a year to completely replace our average 25mpg combined gas cars with 99mpg equivalent leafs.

A typical nuclear power plant averages 12.4 billion kwh a year. That means, if we were just using nuclear power plants, we would need to build just over 100 to completely replace the gasoline that we use (which, we don't even need to do if all we're trying to do is heavily reduce our oil consumption). That doesn't take into consideration any alternate electricity sources (the good), nor does it take into consideration power transmission losses in our grid (the bad).

All in all, it's completely possible to use electric cars to significantly reduce the amount of oil we use. The biggest hurdle is updating our power grid, which is severely out dated and bleeding power at a ridiculous rate. The second big hurdle is battery performance. We need batteries that can charge faster and allow for a greater range before the average person would even consider buying a plug-in electric car. Both of these are slowly being improved (as is the efficiency of regular gasoline vehicles), but it's going to take a while to get there (especially since our government is presently lacking the money to really fund a lot of these projects).

The Nissan leaf (@99mpg equivalent) is a small car equivalent roughly in size to the Fiat Panda Eco (@56.5 mpg). The Nissan Leaf energy spec will be at the battery @ 32kwhr and doesn't take into consideration the transmission and the battery loses with respect to the generation of the source electricity (Lithium Ion has 80% efficiency so you can easily knock 20-30 mpg of that 99mpg headline figure when taking these losses into account) so the differences aren't to great when everything is taken into consideration especially when you take into account the real world combined driving figure as a combination of motorway, urban and city driving. So the reality on the number of nuclear power stations would in reality be nearer 400. The other problem is of course would be the peak loading issues for the electrical grid as everyone tops of their car batteries just before the rush hours. To take the peak loading problem into account you could easily double or triple that 400 number. The discrepancy between the first figure (2000 nukes) I ball parked is due to the fact that only 25-30% of oil consumption is actually used for vehicle transportation energy consuption requirements for the US.

The other major problem of course is replacing millions of those cheap toxic $9000 Li-ion battery packs every 3-5 years or so in the rather small and very compact Nissan Leaf.

The other major issue is the actual problem of the distribution of the required electricity, i.e. around 20 Nuclear Power stations to cater for the peak electricity loading for a city the size of Houston for its rush hour.

Its not the kind of a world I would want to live in. I'll take the horses any day.

Sorry Am_Fear_Liath_Mor but your analysis is quite poor. You clearly need more reliable sources of information.

You get the energy content of a barrel of oil about right at 1 bpd = 1.7 MWhrs. What you missed is that you use it assuming that the vehicles are 100% efficient. Simple fact is that a gasoline engine has a theoretical maximum efficiency of roughly 20%. And it is all downhill from there. Bearings aren't perfect. Out of millions of cars how many are perfectly maintained. Then apply that to an engine in a vehicle which spends time idling, using gasoline and returning nothing (efficiency of 0% for energy expended), poor driving habits, etcetera, and there is no bottom end of how inefficient a car can be. A fair working estimate might be that in actual use gasoline powered vehicles actually only use 5% of the energy stored in gasoline actually moving people and products. Already your estimate is twenty times higher than it should be.

Second, electrical systems are not actually overloaded when you consider a typical 24 hour period. Fact is most power plants dump power through resister banks just to keep capacity available. Power plants are set up to run at near full power and throttling them back is problematic. Typically power is shared and entire generation units are put on or off line. There is typically a large rise in electricity used in the morning which tapers off rapidly mid morning and then a large spike in the afternoon which tapers off as night comes on and people start to go to bed.

The key here is that the entire system is designed for maximum load. A maximum load which is easily accommodated. Your need to find a time it was not, Houston during a single rare event, highlights that the vast majority of the time the power is on and working quite well. The reason the situation in Houston was shocking was because electrical generation has become so reliable that its short term failure is a novelty.

The grid is designed for the maximum load and the power plants are designed to run most efficiently at near maximum load. Typically 80%. Most modern electrical plants are getting real world efficiency of better than 30% from the coal or gas used. Nuclear power plants are actually less efficient.

What your missing here is that the charging load for vehicles can be shifted to normal low-load times. This was done in the 40s for electric water heaters. In effect we get a certain amount of power for free because there is less need to start up and shut down units. The end result is an overall increase in the efficiency of electrical power generation because there would be less need to throttle back the generation plants or dump power.

In effect there will be little need to build new electrical power plants because what we have doesn't run at designed output much of the time.

The final point is that major power lines do not use copper. They use conductors composed of a combination of aluminum and steel. But here again, there is not going to be any great need to string more power lines because the lines we have are not running anywhere near capacity most of the time. There are a few isolated choke points where lines are near capacity most of the time but these choke points are a result of commercial advantage and land use issues, not a lack of resources.

Bottom line here is that electric vehicles are entirely practical with the only real issues being the battery capacity and available charging stations. The later point being a non-issue if the vehicles are set up to simply plug into a standard 15/20A receptacle. The trade-off is between more specialized charging stations that will recharge a battery bank quickly, an hour or two, or a standard plug that will do the same thing more slowly, four to eight hours. The Israeli model of simply exchanging a standard modular battery bank works around many of these issues.

In many ways the shift over a few decades to majority of vehicles being electric will be less traumatic than what happened in the 70s when the blow dryer suddenly, in a matter of a couple of months, became a fixture and daily use item in US homes. In effect fifty million people got up one morning and plugged in a 1000 watt space heater for ten minutes. Farah Fawcett and Peter Frampton, with their blowdried hairstyles, had a profound effect on the US power system.

Electric cars, which will take over the market over the next couple of decades, aren't going to be a huge problem for the power systems we have now. Even less so if we get rid of the structure and engineering that is a throwback to technology of the 40s. Which is made possible by oil we aren't paying full freight for and coal which is dirt-cheap.

My pickup gets 16 mpg in town and my Corvette gets 24 mpg on the same drive. So now i have a good excuse to drive the performance car everyday

$3.45 in southeast PA.

Actually, that number does take into account charging losses. The 'at the battery' number is 24kwh. Also, the 99mpg figure is for combined driving (typical 55% city/45% highway). Pure city driving is at 106, while highway is at 92.



The current charging systems are designed to charge over night (which takes advantage of off-peak electricity usage). When used in this manner, there is no need to charge right before rush hour.



After 10 years the batteries are expected to maintain 70-80% of their charging capacity. However, it comes with an 8 year/100,000 mile battery warranty. The battery itself is also about 85% recyclable.

$3.47 at the station I go to. Metro Portland.

The Nissan leaf is certainly an impressive piece of design automotive engineering using cutting edge technology such as the longer life even more expensive Lithium Titanate Battery (compared to other cell technologies). The 56.5 mpg for the Fiat Panda Eco was also a combined fuel economy figure but the realities of these fuel efficiencies rarely are met. The Nissan Leaf is about as good as it gets for an electrically powered vehicle using cutting edge battery technology.

Even the Nissan Leaf is range limited to around 73 miles (EPA five-cycle tests) on a combined driving cycle and using a conventional power plug overnight drawing 1.4 KW setup will take many hours to recharge i.e. approx 22+hrs (not really a problem since the Leaf and will only get you around 1 hr 16 min use on a 55 mph highway drive anyway)

Compared this to the Panda which costs around 4 times less to purchase initially, which has a range of around 435 miles and can be refueled in around 5 minutes.


When everyone is recharging their electric car it won't be off peak anymore. Even the fast charge for the Nissan Leaf is around 30 min using a 60KW (?) charging station (certainly not a current domestic arrangement), although to gain acceptance for general use (even if the range constraints can be lived with by the end user) this might become a requirement i.e. a seriously heavy duty copper wire circuit in every home.

Again at the end of the day if petroleum fuel is replaced by electrical power in the US for automotive use (with the same milage and luxury i.e. same car vehicle sizes and weights that today's driver expect today using gasoline powered cars. Some folks will want the Electric Rolls Royce and not the vehicle for the proletariat) then the equivalent number of nuclear power stations required to be built in the US would be in the hundreds if not the thousands if no oil (all other uses including vehicle transportation) was used within the US economy.

Then there would be the problem of Uranium fuel shortages unless fast breeder designs were constructed, which then leads to the problem of plutonium proliferation throughout the world.

So I understand diesels pollute a bit more. But doesn't the fact that diesels get almost twice the mileage offset much of the difference?

I can't pretend to understand all the math on the Leaf, but I understand time. I am not going to buy a car that takes 30 minutes or more to 'fill up' at a charging station or 8 hours at home for the privilege of driving between 60-90 miles per full charge. What am I supposed to do at these stations, read a book, watch a movie? Not mention have to wait for the person in front of me get done.

You could indeed watch a movie whilst charging an EV, if charging points were installed outside movie theatres, as has been proposed.
Or you could go shopping, if charging points were provided in the parking lots of stores.
Or if your employer provided the facility you could charge at work.
Here in London there are a number of public charging points for EVs, quite well used whilst people are shopping or visiting the theatre etc.

That's just it. With a typical gasoline or diesel car, you have to go to a gas station to refill your car. You don't have any other options.

With an electric vehicle, the plan is to essentially have the gas station come to you. Charging stations in homes, in parking lots, in parking meters....with the right infrastructure most people would have no need to ever visit a gas station. There are also induction charging methods being developed that can charge the vehicle without a physical connection (just like those charging mats for phones, ipods, ect). Because of this, we aren't that far off from even being able to charge the car while it's driving.

As I've said, the technology and infrastructure isn't totally here as of 2011. We're in the infancy of it, just like we were with internal combustion engine cars back in 1911.

There's that infrastructure thingy raising its head again. . .

Here is an old photo of a Victorian charging station (around 1890) near the centre of Dundee.




And here is the same scene today.

It will be interesting in the next 20-40 years to find out which technology wins out, millions of tonnes of horse manure or millions of tonnes of radioactive waste.

I prefer using the solar panel on the roof recharge method....a lot less waste to deal with....plus the power company sends me a check for the power I generate back into the grid.

I'm surprised natural gas hasn't come into this discussion. Places that have a natural gas infrastructure already have a second "grid" to supply a lot of additional energy.

The challenge is for somebody to stop fooling around with gasoline/diesel/battery variants and design cars around NG, which need to accommodate a large tank to be practical. Emissions drop by 3/4 per mile, and cost per mile goes way down. Why we don't have this already is a mystery to me, but maybe this next price spike will wake people up.

My ideal world has a small NG co-gen unit beside my house, which supplies heat, hot water, and light to my dwelling; and supplies NG and/or electricity to my vehicle. Efficient, clean, and cost-effective.

My $0.02

Ford sells a lot of natural gas vehicles, the new Transit Connect, for example, is offered with a natural gas conversion from the factory.

The issue with natural gas though, is that you can't just run a pipe from your home line to your vehicle. The natural gas needs to be compressed to a high pressure to work with a typical tank and vehicle.

The pumps required to do this are quite expensive (and quite large). They also require a lot of maintenance to keep them safe. Therefore, the only people that tend to use natural gas conversions are fleets; especially fleets where their driving is contained to a relatively small area. Colleges, for example, are big on natural gas vehicles.

It's good technology that we're able to effectively employ right now. However, like gasoline, natural gas is a finite resource that requires a lot of work to obtain. Switching from gasoline to natural gas wouldn't really help us all that much in the long run.

Good points, Paul. I think a NG focus would require a shift in thinking that hasn't happened yet.

But there's a lot of NG around. More than we know what to do with. The problem is transportation. There are massive proven reserves in the Arctic that haven't been tapped because it's not worth the cost of shipping (pipelines aren't cheap). The private sector doesn't see a good chance of a return on that multi-billion dollar investment. In Alberta, we are (IMO) using NG (which is worth very little) to fuel the oilsands business (which creates a value-added product for export). Kind of a convoluted path, I suppose, but that's the market.

But on the home front, if memory serves, I could have a natural gas filling station installed for about $3500. A vehicle conversion would only be practical for a pickup truck, but if I was a contractor hauling a trailer for a known distance it would pay off pretty quickly. And IIRC you can switch to gasoline if you need extra range.

BTW, wasn't it T. Boone Pickens of Texas that was pushing NG for long-haul transport?

Here is a very good article on the how/why of gasoline prices.

-Blast

Electric cars do not require nuclear power. Nuclear power, if you track the complete life-cycle costs, isn't very efficient. There is also a small problem with a small supply of commercially viable uranium. Double the number of nuclear plants and uranium becomes the next oil, something to fight over and speculate in.

The existing coal, oil and natural gas power plants will work quite well. There is going to be increasing pressure, both domestic and internationally, to shift away from carbon-rich energy sources. This is going to gradually force a shift from fossil fuels to any combination of wind, hydro, solar, nuclear, etcetera. But all this is independent of the shift to elelctric cars. A shift that might take fifty years or more. The gasoline infrastructure, a matrix of fuel suppliers, outlets, car manufacturers, and mechanics, part houses, highways, and all the rest. This matrix took decades to get a foot in the door and the basic structure is roughly one hundred years old.

Electric cars get a leg up because much of the infrastructure, roads, repair shops, hotels can be used. The energy allocation and distribution systems will change but much of this can ride on existing systems. The poor load diversity of our present system, requiring the system to be designed around the maximum load, is, in this case, something of a virtue.

Electric vehicles are gradually going to be phased in. It is going to take decades and the initial offerings will be marginal. As with gasoline fueled vehicles they will improve with time.

Even todays best EVs with state of the art technology including battery, composite and energy management electronic control and electrical motor design technology can barely exceed the performance of a Model T Ford. A Model T-Ford has greater range than the Nissan Leaf, doesn't take 22hrs to refuel (to get 65-70 miles capability) and yet the Model T-Ford still has a typical fuel consumption rivaling contemporary vehicles sold today (@20 mpg). Basically the Nissan Leaf EV is as good as it gets and will be as good as it gets for the next 50 years. You can't simply get around the fundamental laws of energy physics with more elegant refined design or materials selection simply because todays EV manufacturers are already approaching these limits especially when a production vehicle is required which is available at an acceptable cost. Even with the Nissan Leaf battery there is disbelief by many observers at the quoted cost for the Lithium Titanate battery, with many questioning whether a loss leader has been implemented so that Nissan is at the forefront of commercial EV sales.

BTW there have been 100mpg internal combustion capable vehicles designed such as the experiment British Leyland ECV3 car way back in the 1980s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQuzHU3JVWU



No they don't, to replace the energy requirements provided by the liquid fuels to power todays vehicles in the USA would require another 2 or 3 duplicate electrical power supply grid generation systems currently installed in the USA. The idea that everyone plugging in their EV overnight will take up the current grid electricity generation slack in generation capacity is incorrect.

Edison and Ford were probably having the same debate 100 years ago.

Aptera might be an improvement (if they ever get it into production).

If you have the cash, Tesla Motors has something interesting. Their Roadster gets up to 295 pounds of torque, 288 horsepower and can drive 245 miles per charge.

Jeanette Isabelle

One thing to keep in mind is that battery technology is slowly improving and will continue to improve, as we rely on batteries more and more in our daily lives. The Leaf doesn't even use the best technology we currently have available, never mind what will be available in 50 years.

I mean, look at the batteries we were using just 20 years ago vs. what we're using today. The first battery powered drill I bought I got so frustrated with the lack of power and need of constant charging that I ended up running over it with a D6 bulldozer on purpose. Now, I've got Lithium-ion powered drills that have lighter and smaller batteries, which are much more powerful and last longer between charges....and that's in a $250 drill, never mind a $25,000+ car.


If you look into the research on battery and ultra-capacitor technology, it's quite promising.

It might be worthwhile looking at the chart for rechargeable battery technology and comparing the Edison technology for his EV (i.e. using NiFe) and the Nissan Leaf (100 years on in battery technology) compared the the Lithium Titanate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rechargeable_battery

The differences are not all that striking.

For example energy density per kg (Wh/kg) only sees 80% improvement.

NiFe - 50 Wh/Kg
Li titanate - 90Wh/kg

When you take into the account the cost and lifetime factors between the 2 battery technologies then Edison's 110 year old NiFe technology actually has some marginal benefits especially when you realise that the mass of the vehicle occupants over the same time has probably increased by the same 80%



This technology certainly has some promising technological advantages i.e it improves on the charge time for the vehicle but once again it is only a electron storage device and the quicker you charge the vehicle the fatter the copper pipe has to be to transfer the charge energy.

i.e. If Ultra capacitors are used with the same capacity as the Nissan Leaf (24kWhrs) and can be charged in the space of say 2 minutes (the same as filling up a normal vehicle tank with petrol) then you are going to need a charging station/cable which has to handle around 1 MegaWatt of electrical power, which at say 200V needs a cable which can handle 5000 Amps. There are going to be some long queues at those charging stations. And the electronics within the vehicle to handle the 5000 Amp charge will end up weighing more than the charge storage device itself.

The Edison Car 1912

The 2010 Nissan Leaf

If they take that long to recharge, the answer is to make batteries cheap enough that you can have a couple charging while out driving. Get home, just put the discharged battery on your charging rack and install a fresh one in the car. A small pipe for the electrons but much more time.

Really though, series hybrids seem to be a much better idea. All electric drive with a very efficient generator to keep the battery charged. The generator itself can be gas, diesel, CNG, whatever the fuel of choice happens to be . . .

Here is an interesting film called 'Who killed the Electric Car'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39K36Rw7LYc

Although this link might put things into perspective

http://www.allcarselectric.com/blog/1049744_thomas-edisons-1912-electric-car-gets-a-chance-to-shine



Vehicles like the Chevy Volt and the Toyota Prius (Hybrid vehicles) although they do improve overall efficiency in the combined driving cycle mainly due to lack of engine idling when driving in city environments still cannot square the petroleum circle.

Reprocess the fuel rods... Current reactors do not utilize ('burn') all the uranium in the rods. Closest analogy I can think of would be burning wood to the point of charcoal, then putting the fire out and storing the charcoal...

Yes, there are political issues with reprocessing, but there is no technical reason for claiming a limited supply of fuel for reactors.

The main problem with electric cars is they use electric. We either burn fuel in our cars or burn fuel to make the electricity while people argue over which one is slightly more efficient than the other.
I was able to find a place next to my work so I don't have to burn fuel to get to work. I'm close enough to everything else that if the city would build sidewalks, crosswalks and lower the speed limit a little it would actually be safe to. Right now a 45mph two lane road with no sidewalks, stop lights or crosswalks is dangerous enough to drive on, people pulling right out in front of you from all the side streets ( in their defense they have to, too much traffic to ever get an opening), let along walking.

The actual gains from such a change in operation wouldn't gain you very much extra energy.

If you wanted to run nuclear power long term you, IMHO, really need to get into breeder reactors but even there the raw material needed is lowered per unit energy output but it isn't eliminated. And it does nothing to change the basic fact that there are limited supplies of raw materials, few mines, and they tend to be in unstable parts of the world.

Breeder reactors are a proven technology for extending the available fuel supply but it is not a complete solution. Even as a partial solution they have issues because they produce weapons-grade materials. Weapons-grade materials open up a whole kettle of fish in terms of politics, international relations, security, NIMBY, and potential danger. Light-water energy generation plants really can't blow up, as in a mushroom cloud. They may melt and leak, making a huge mess, but they generally don't explode like a nuclear weapon. Breeder reactors are working with and produce materials which can go up like a weapon. Thorium-cycle reactors make some sense but they remain on the drawing board.

I really suspect that natural gas fuel cell units are more promising as a generation system than nuclear as it is done presently. Fuel cell units are practical, adaptable (they can be turned off and on to handle peak loads), and scalable. They are becoming commonplace as backup, or uninterruptable power, for large data/server systems.

As I pointed out there isn't any real need to build any more power generation to accommodate electric cars in the next ten years. All-electric vehicles are not expected to be the majority for decades and the early adopters will naturally be in and around urban areas where daily mileage is low. For most commuters the electrical load and cost is on par with running a standard electric heater, about $1.25 a night. A bit less than what they spend on gasoline now.

A good percentage of the 'electric' market in vehicles is gas/electric hybrids that use no energy from the electrical grid at all. They use gasoline, just like regular cars, just a little more efficiently by storing the excess power from the gasoline engine to charge a battery bank.

Europe has shifted from gasoline to small diesel engines.

There is a quiet revolution coming but because it is going to take decades to play there are few large shocks to the system. There will be shocks, but these are being manufactured. Saudi-Arabia has committed to making up any difference in amounts of oil pumped to keep the supply stable. The present run-up in gasoline prices is a result of speculation and gouging, not anything going on in Egypt, Libya.

A good example of gouging was spotted near Tampa where Shell gas stations near the interstates and airports are charging over $5 a gallon and simply not posting the price. People have got into the habit of assuming that all gas stations sell at the same price plus or minus a few cents. People don't often check the price on the pump. So they assume it is $3+, whatever the going price, and they pump a tank full. When they go to pay, assuming they don't just shove the card in without looking, ... surprise!!.

I currently walk the 7 mile round trip everyday to work, using old railway tracks long since long gone (one of the worlds first passenger train routes), through park land, past city garden allotments, quiet residential streets and past some old Victorian era industrial buildings (some being derelict). The more you walk through parkland listening to birdsong in the morning the more you begin to start to hate the internal combustion engine. I got sick and tired of the half dozen sets of traffic lights with the space of mile and the cost of parking the damned thing once in the city centre using car transport. In 1982 we didn't even have any traffic lights in Dundee. Walking is a lot less stressful and there are no delays and takes about 45 minutes either way. I actually enjoy the walk.

This google Street view is one of the most dangerous road crossing points on my route.

For those of you who have lost track about what is happening in the Middle East, here is a handy guide about who is fighting about what and what effects it may have on the globe. The cheerful title belays some rather grim possibilities.
Handy Guide to Middle East Revolts

Oh, after reading that guide THIS bit of news is cause for some concern. It seems Friday's day of rage in Saudi Arabia has resulted in Saudi police opening fire on protesters.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, fuel prices are going to get ugly(ier).

-Blast

Yep, so much for the Saudi's picking up the slack in the oil supply.

Regular-$3.85 per gal.Today at Costco in Marina del rey!

I tried to fill up but only had $50; gas at $3.7999.

Hey, American friends. I know you think your gas is expensive but in reality, compared to the rest of the world - its CHEAP! I pay about a $1 more per gallon north of the border and in Europe it much much higher. Part of this is the psychology of seeing a commodity rise so quickly and not the actual affect that it has on ones pocketbook. Even so, I am sharing a picture with a bit of humour to it... my sister passed it on to me. It's from a gas station near a native reserve outside Hazelton, BC.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/60607054@N03/5527681789/

True, but the economy here is vitally dependent on access to cheap fuel. Everything from the way homes are built, the layout of cities and suburbs, to job availability is directly related to the cost of fuel. In other words, out entire way of life as we know it for the last 60+ years. Don't forget most of us drive cars/trucks that get less than 20MPG and there's no rail system to speak of. Sustained $5 a gallon gas would have drastic and unpredictable results here IMO. Oh, and for those hoping massive spending on infrastructure and rail projects would save our economy, did I mention we're 15+ trillion in debt with a jumpy bond market? Can we transition? Sure, but it ain't gonna be pretty.

We are the Larger Customer in terms of Quantity,We should get our fuel Cheaper,We buy more of it,Than Anyone else!

One thing to keep in mind is that, in the U.S., the average tax on a gallon of gasoline is less than 50 cents.

Whereas, in the U.K. for example, the duty rate on fuel is £2.20 per U.S. gallon. Then there is also a Value Added Tax of 20%.

Basically, someone from the U.K. pays more in taxes alone than people from the U.S. pay for their entire gallon of fuel (including our taxes).



Now, if neither of us had fuel taxes, our cost for a gallon of gasoline would be a lot closer. IIRC, the U.K. would only pay around 30 cents more per gallon on average. Not too bad, considering they've only got ~25 million cars on the road to our ~250 million.

-----------------------

It's also worth mentioning that, the best selling vehicle in the U.S. is the Ford F-150. A vehicle that struggles to get 20mpg on the highway. Whereas, in Europe, the most popular vehicle is the VW Golf, a little hatchback that easily gets 20mpg in city driving for the least efficient gas engined trim (whereas diesel versions are seeing 30+mpg city). Plus, unlike Europe, throughout much of the U.S. a public transportation system is virtually non-existent.

Basically, as a country, we really aren't in the best of shape to deal with rising fuel prices. Making things even more difficult is our increasingly strict emissions and safety standards that prevent us from getting a lot of the (more fuel efficient) vehicles that are available elsewhere in the world.

Actually, the best way to get cheaper oil (among other benefits) is force everyone to use your currency to buy it. Having the military might to enforce that system doesn't hurt either. Winning! (My God, I just did a Charlie Sheen--just shoot me now...)

1. Now there is a valid argument. To you it is a higher % increase than it would be for other countries; ie. a 40% increase in the raw product means close to a similar increase in the pump price whereas in Europe the % increase may only be 10%. Add in the stressed American economic state and the race to devalue the currency means a big impact on the personal finances. LED's argument that the economy in the US is vitally dependent on access to cheap fuel. That is a good point, one I hadn't considered. Whereas other countries have had some time to adapt their economies to the high gas taxes the same can't be said if the US has a 40-100% increase in a relatively short period.

2. California and New York are more strict emissions/safety than other states but not necessarily more strict than other jurisdictions in the world.

3. I would argue that the US actually DOES have access to more fuel efficient vehicles; the big difference is in the choice not to buy and use smaller efficient vehicles. Consider the difference between the US and Canada which are much more comparable than the US vs Europe. With access to the same exact vehicles, Canadians purchase smaller vehicles because a) gas is a bit more expensive but not drastically different, b) greater concern with environmental concerns, c) drive greater distances per person than any other country even more so than the US because we have an even less efficient public transit system. It is about making choices.

Nonetheless, I hope you guys realize that people in other countries ENVY the cheap price you pay at the pump.

I'm going to drop this topic for now as there may be a tendency to slide into politics instead of keeping this a purely economic argument and I'd rather not go there.

It kind of goes on a case by case basis, but overall we are severely lacking when it comes to certain vehicle classes and options.

One good example of this is the 70 Series Land Cruiser. Everywhere else in the world got/gets this vehicle (including Canada), and they were legendary in their capability. The U.S.? Nope, never got it. It didn't pass our safety and emissions regulations. Instead, if I want a vehicle with similar capability, I would be stuck buying a 3/4 ton pickup. Not exactly the best when it comes to fuel economy.

We're starting to get better, but certain things just boggle my mind. I mean, we finally get a good compact work van again in the global Ford Transit Connect (which is selling pretty well here). But instead of getting the 30mpg+ diesel/5-spd version that Europe gets, we get a version with a 2.0L gas engine/4-spd that gets 23mpg combined....worse fuel economy than the 4-cyl Ranger that they haven't updated in 13 years. (and are now dropping out of the compact truck market completely). They say it doesn't make sense to bring over the diesel version because the engine doesn't meet our emissions regulations. Getting it to meet the regulations would require adding a lot of extra equipment; which would add to the cost, increase the weight, and the decrease the fuel economy...making it not worth it financially.

Not for nothing, but the best selling delivery vehicle for years and years has been full size vans with V8 engines. I can buy them all day long with large displacement naturally aspirated gas engines, but when I want to buy a small van with a 35mpg 1.8L diesel it's too bad for the environment to be imported....seriously?