News item - its expensive to fill up a hummer

Saw a curmudgeon on TV news the other night complaining about gas prices ... 'We got the oil right here (in America), we should drill for it :|" ....

Pretty sad to only care about gas prices, what it costs them and think nothing of the 21 lbs breathable oxygen inhaled by their car, per gallon burned and 20 lbs CO2 spewed out.

 

I have to agree with the article - this is not an American situation; it's a GLOBAL situation. Europe, China, and everyone else in the world is paying these high prices. This guy in the hummer needs to look up from the "American News" section and start reading the "World News" section.

Earth is round. It's a closed system. Oil is finite. Trade your hummer in for a Prius and stop spending your paycheck on "fossil" fuel before you become a fossil yourself.

 

What is clear is that they are SURE it is someone else's fault.

 

now jim...

 

Sadly, most people don't realize that back in the 70s, we were running into this same problem back then that we are feeling now. The cut back in oil was what Carter was trying to go for alternative fuel sources back then.

Unfortunately, other groups have their own agenda when it comes to what they want. And often times, it has been more short term than it is long term.

 

One of the 536 people in the US who can set energy policy prefers to pretend he can't.

435 + 100 + 1

It is easier to whine than do his job?

 

Clearly the problem is that the US allows too big a fuel tank on cars and trucks. If we limit fuel tank sizes to 12 gallons, then he would only need to put $35 to $40 to fill up. That is a lot more palatable.

 

people that buy SUV,s should not be elected to office

 

It's not necessarily the size of the tank that is causing the problem though... It's the engine design. A lot of the V6 or better engines just suck up a lot of fuel, hence the need for a larger tank. The thing is, a large tank != bad fuel economy. Technically, you COULD put a weaker, more efficient engine in a hummer. The problem though, is the hummer's acceleration is going to suck big time because the engine itself is trying to push the weight of the car that is not sufficient to do the job.

 

gas prices went up under bush as well. evan said not to make this political.

 

The saddest commentary on the article is (of all things) the commentary ... people writing in and blaming the politicians (both sides) for the problem ... stating as fact that, "everyone knows there are HUGE stockpiles of fuel" and that the system is withholding it, just to drive the prices up. Never mind the fact that if one looks at a graph of new oil field discovery, that those new field discoveries began their spiral downward over FORTY years ago. I don't know what's more sad ... the dumb politicians who fear loosing their jobs if they force the U.S. to bite the bullet by enacting painful legislation ... or the dumb comments about the article that show how clueless our nation is, or folks who believe that through the bakken shale and/or tar sands, we can easily go back to status quo good'ol days.

.

 

it's not the size of the tank or the engine size, it's the size and weight of the vehicle.

 

my 90 year old mother in law thinks it's a 'sin' that gas prices go up. just shows you how many people think like 90 year olds.

 

Rather than the govt trying to legislate mpg, it should restrict the maximum size of the fuel tanks in vehicles to say, 12 gallons. I suspect there won't be many buyers for vehicles that travel just 120 miles per tank, so the only answer will be toward the purchase of smaller more efficient cars. It might just get those for whom the price of gas is not a consideration to give serious thought towards buying cars that are able to drive past fueling stations without the need to stop. It's a back door solution, but our laws are filled with back door solutions to seemingly unsolvable problems.

 

Well, you are talking about Florida, land of the public education system designed to provide service employment at Disney. In any case, populism in politics has never been based on facts or logic. The only thing that strikes me as odd in this story is this politician specifying he drives a Hummer. Even among his truck driving, republican constituency he must be rolling in ridicule.

 

And have people jerry-rig extra tanks, or carry fuel in the back seat ? No thanks.

Just remove the oil subsidies, and transparently tax the externalities.

 

maybe he's just looking for a congressional raise.

 

Actually, it is the size of the engine that matters too, as the size of the engine dictates the amount of fuel it burns for the power people want, not just the size and weight of the vehicle.

There are people who are buying cars that come in both v4 and v6 engines, and people go with the v6 engine for 'more power'. Also, note I stated you could put a 4-cyl engine into a hummer, the problem is, it lacks the reasonable power to push the car as well as a v6 or v8 engine.

The problem is simply the fact that in the 90+ years of cars, the focus has been about 'power', no concern about natural resources until the last 40 years. When you also look at how the global world also handles things, we have Nascar, racing, demolition derbies, GX Racing and the like and we STILL encourage it, ignoring the fact that those frivolous things are draining said limited resources is part of our problem, not counting the fact that this is what is also necessary for normal consumers.

The problem is less about 'who is to blame' politically, because the problem is not a presidential thing, but something we should have been considering since our last worry about oil crisis and how we had similar ones since the 70s that should have prompted us to focus more on alternative fuel or alternative energies. While we can continue to harp 'let's drill more for oil'... Discounting the oil spilling disasters, we can only 'produce' so much before those are depleted. The last thing people also fail to understand is that the stockpiling of oil reserves are also used by the military in the case of war. Fuel rationing was done back then and will happen should we go to war due to the likely chance of not getting oil if supply lines get cut off. And this is something people fail to understand that even our military might RELIES on having fuel as well.