Are You Upset About High Gas Prices?

icarus - Thank you ... most informative.

Many years ago my agency participated in a solar demonstration project. It was a hot water system in the northeast. It worked even on cold, overcast days ... but the life cycle cost was 35 years .... which the government sponsor paid. I attended a class in New Mexico and was very impressed with the solar potential in an area where the sun shines almost every day. I was certain that solar-voltaic had come a long way, but did not know. Again, thank you.

 

Felt,

You are very welcome! One comment on the hot water system you mention. You comment that the life cycle of the hot water system was 35 years, as if to imply that that was short. I would comment that 35 years is a long time for a mechanical system, especially one involving water. Assuming that this system was designe to heat water for either domestic use or heating space, 35 years would be a long time, and I would posit that few other systems would have that life cycle. Additionally, when you factor in the life cycle energy costs the savings would be significant enough to justify a higher initial cost.

In this country we are too cognizant of first cost, and little cognizant of total life cycle costs. Any rational person understands that energy costs are going to do nothing but go up going forward. In so many cases, biting the bullet now in terms of cost, yields big life cycle savings.

Icarus

 

I look forward to $20 gallon ($5 Liter) fuel that will force us to make better choices.

 

High Gas Prices? It's NOT high ... that's why on a hot day, you
STILL find fat people sitting in their car in front of walmart, idling with the AC on ... rather than walking into the air conditioned store. When the cost per gallon is higher than ONE HALF the national average worker's hourly salary (1/2 being a tad over $10) ... THEN we can call gas prices high. Fact is, at present, they're not. Even so, I'm kinda ambivalent about prices. Then again, let me run through my check list:

Solar Roof - check:



Solar re-charged boat - check:



Solar re-charged car - check:



ambivalent in a smug sorta way ... I DO enjoy cutting off funds to the alqueda flight school


.

 

The viability of photovotaics are relative. Here wa state pays $.54 kwh for wa based systems. That is panels assembled in wa and installed by wa companies.

This makes solar a tough cookie to dispute. Joe an Olympia resident has solar. Charges BOTH his electric cars and still gets money from the power company

So ya. Solar works if u want it too.

Another thing. Theestimated true cost of gas is thought to be 250% greater than what we pay at the pump...

 

lol, you mean because people should ride bikes instead of drive and they should live local to work. But what about the trucks delivering your bike to the shop? You know, the big truck that has to drive 500 miles a day with 40 tons of good - how can that afford to drive doing 8 mpg?

Society would crash at $20 gallon. No more imported good, no more holidays or business flights.

One day it'll propably get to that figure but hopefully we'll have time to adjust our vehicles, but if it happened overnight we'll all be up to our necks in ****.

 

I like what you're doing with the boat and car. You're practicing what you preach and showing it can be done. I'm sure some of your neighbours mocked but perhaps not so much now petrol/gas is more expensive than it was.

A business plan of mine at the moment is to have a similar set up for a small fleet of taxis. I should get there if I can convince a bank it's a viable idea lol.

 

See, you sound like you need lower fuel costs because you actually use trucks to make a living. That is what I don't understand about the truck drivers around here who drive them in to a desk job in the city. Don't they understand that playing cowboy means they are raising the cost of everything else they buy? And also hurting businesses that need a truck for reals? Yeesh.
:der:

 

Ouch. I hope you don't have the liability issues with cabs over there that we do. Each cab is virtually a separate corporate entity so that if there is an accident, victims don't have a large corporation to sue, and liability stops at the single cab owner. Do you have to do something similar?

 

Geez, I guess with a congenital heart murmur and asthma, I could get medicaire to pay for my gas. Plus, that might cover cost of a townhouse in DC, so I wouldn't have far to go to work. Anyway, I already bought a Prius, so that should show some smrts.

 

Yeah, very expensive insurance premiums!

I must insure each vehicle for liability and in my town it's a minimum of £5,000,000 per claim per car because it's an affluent town, thought personally I have £10m coverage at the moment. In some towns it's a minimum of about £500,000 or £1,000,000. You're talking about £2,000 per car with a clean record which ain't bad and then there are other insurances to cover me as a business owner.

So the liability side is not too much of an issue - as such, but my prices are fixed by the town so to get the passengers I'd have to offer additional service - be smart, open the door for passengers, run a 'green' fleet etc. The Prius has proved popular in that regard, hence why I believe a greener fleet might prove a winner, esp as nobody else is doing it - yet

 

Wow to the coverage.

How do Prii perform as cabs? There are plenty in NYC to get your data from. It looks like you already have some data there.

 

Thanks again. No, I fear I did not make myself clear. I thought that 35 years was terribly long ... in fact I commented at the time, that I doubted the "system" would function that long. I suspected the glycol (it was a cold climate) would eventually destroy the metal components in the system. The DOE paid for the installation, and therefore it was "free" to my agency. But, the cost of fuel oil has risen significantly since then so the life cycle cost perhaps has dropped considerably.

The system was working well when I retired in 1994, several years after the installation. It was a professionally engineered system, and worked quite well. I have no idea if maintenance became more burdensome in later years. Glycol circulated through the flat-plate collectors, past a heat exchanger, then returned to the collectors. The tempered water from the heat exchangers was piped to large storage tanks and was then mixed with boiler water for space heating. At that time, it was a viable solution only if someone else made the initial investment.

Thanks again for your interest and comments.

 

Not too many will share your glee for such a forced discipline. Be careful in your enthusiam for forced changes .... unfortunately, to extract ourselves from the petroleum teet is going to take years, and cost astronomical amounts of money. There will be plenty of difficult times along the way.

Just for fun ... how much hard "choices" are we, as a society, willing to make? We could cite any activity, but let's pick one. Professinal and College sports. Athletic teams (and many fans) fly all over the globe (exhibition games in Eurpoe and Asia), back and forth, repeatedly across teh continent each season. The stadiums are illuminated for night games, and indoor stadiums are lit during the day. Fans consume enormous quantities of fuel driving to and from the ballpark (often idling in traffic). Incidentially, I really enjoy sports.

Another hard choice would be to give up A/C .... we did not have A/C when many of us were children. We survived.

Elsewhere I have speculated that in the long term, the only real solution that I can imagine, is tp solve the problems associated with cold fusion. My understanding is fundamental, but as I understand it, in effect, more energy is created than consumed. Therein lies the answer to powering future civilizations. If $20.00 gallon would further research and development of cold fusion, then count me in.

 

I don't think many would be gleeful at 'forced change'. However, it is of our own making.
If steps are (or had been) taken early, they will be fairly easy ones.
If we stomp our feet, throw tantrums, and refuse to make any changes, we will end up needing to take more severe changes when we are forced to

 

My cost for riding the vanpool to work, for the month of May, is $45.73.

That's every work day. I'm driving about 25 miles roundtrip to meet the van, and the van is driving 90 miles roundtrip.

I'm hoping more people look into ride share options.

 

That would be nice. I'm starting to see some more complaints about gas prices on my local news. They always pick the soccer mom with a SUV or a person with a premium fuel car....then they ask their obvious pointed question: "What do you think about these prices???". The usual response is...oh, I don't like it...I'll try to cut down on my driving. It's exactly the same as it was in 2008.

Back then, I had a conventional sedan and my gas bill started getting up to the $40 range. Today was a milestone for me, where I noticed my local QT (the cheapest intown gas station) read 3.99 for regular. Gas will certainly be well above $4.00. I'm really patting myself on the back that I picked the Prius over the Fusion hybrid (I ultimately sided with the Prius for being able to fold the backseats down). But so far, my biggest fuel bill for my car has been around $30:bounce: My relatives in Europe, who endure much higher gas prices and drive diesels, have dropped their jaws as far as how I'm not effected my any *percieved* oil crisis. I suspect that most people will just complain, but still just try to cut other expenditures over conserving oil. Gas is not a luxury in the US...and I think it will take quite a bit more in price hikes before your average American will start demanding alternatives.

 

Watch what happens next week starting Monday morning!

Obama says: "Drill Baby Drill"

 

OK so fuel costs are high. Hmmm, what shall we do? Shall we reduce our consumption with more fuel efficient vehicles (like Europe and Asia) or shall we just drill for more and more of a finite resource?

Great for the short term but one hell of a burst bubble to come.

 

Not wanting to hijack this tread into a discussion on UK insurance coverage I'll quickly add the following. If you were surprised by the coverage on for my business policy you'll be super surprised by the coverage provided by a private or personal car insurance policy here. The liability limit is 'unlimited'! There is no liability limit.

Sure it is unlikely to ever be used but also it could be. There was an accident about ten years ago where a man fell asleep (though he denies it) at the wheel and crashed onto a railway line, where a high speed passenger train (120+ mph) hit his car, derailed and hit a coal train coming the other way.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Heck_rail_crash"]Great Heck rail crash - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

The total claim is still out outstanding but is believed to eventually total around £50m ($80m) and is to be paid by his insurers! eeek.

Cost of crash could be 'tens of millions' | Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-87047/Court-relives-rail-crash-999-call.html