High oil prices here to stay

Gas is expensive, and people all over say things along the lines of "walk" or "carpool", and sure, that's great in the city. Heck, you can take the light-rail and all sorts of things in a city. Or, a big city...

Where I'm from, there's at least 10 miles between every city, and most of the people don't live in the cities, but in rural areas on farms. I live 18 miles away from my school and my extra-curricular activities bar me from carpooling with my mother. All of my friends share the same fate as me, though I'm the farthest from town. It's almost impossible to keep going to school and stay in my activities with gas as high as it is. (Almost $3 a gallon here)

SOmething needs to happen. As to what, I couldn't tell you. I'm thinking that we need to become more efficient in producing gasoline or pray for ethynol costs to go down. Either that or pray that electric cars become more feasable quick...

Maybe I can start riding horse to school... *is being totally sarcastic*
 
Naminé said:
According to what Naminé understands about ethanol, isn't it more expensive to rely on ethanol than oil for the meantime? Naminé thinks that although it cost less to produce alcoholic fuel such as ethanol from agriculture like corn (isn't it called biomass or something? Naminé fell asleep in chemistry class so she doesn't remember it too well.), they are only available in the summer season to be produced, and they require a lot of time. Farmers need to grow the crops and then convert it to a usable fuel, while oil requires a much less processing time. There is also the problem to Naminé that farmers may see this alternate fuel as more profitable than traditional agriculture for food production, and that may upset the balance for food and so on~ Perhaps a decade later, the car industry will find some more economic way to produce engines that rely on alcoholic fuel, and maybe a balance can be reached about the processing/food problems for farmers too~
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Right on the button. Ethanol is only compunding the problem, unless we can get artificial compounds. Aha — instead of looking to ethanol, why don't we create our own new fuel in the labs instead of drilling for oil, and solve both our gas problem and the social problems in the Middle East in one go?
 
Easier said than done...HELLO BRAZIL HAS AN OCEAN FULL OF SUGAR CANE...SUGAR CANE ETHONAL...ethonal is good for the enviroment...they have tons of it...which means they could sell it to us for cheap...or at least cheaper than oil...the problem is that most cars can't run on ethonal..it will ruin their cars...some people can't afford cars...which is bad...and the first thing to go will be airplanes...We simply don't have time to instantly make an artifical substance...Oil will run out with in 3-5 years!!! Right now we have ETHONAL...I don't see where we have any choice.
 
Chase Leader said:
Easier said than done...HELLO BRAZIL HAS AN OCEAN FULL OF SUGAR CANE...SUGAR CANE ETHONAL...ethonal is good for the enviroment...they have tons of it...which means they could sell it to us for cheap...or at least cheaper than oil...the problem is that most cars can't run on ethonal..it will ruin their cars...some people can't afford cars...which is bad...and the first thing to go will be airplanes...We simply don't have time to instantly make an artifical substance...Oil will run out with in 3-5 years!!! Right now we have ETHONAL...I don't see where we have any choice.
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Naminé knows why~ Mr. Chase Leader can always throw in ethanol into the car engines and witness how the car engine go all squishy like a mush (or some other way to break down.) Plus, Brazil is probably too busy trying to cut down their rainforest (which they can make 80 dollars per hectar out of from selling fruits/wild herbs) in order to make more cows for McDonald to chew (10 dollars per hectar or something?) It's beyond reason to Naminé why Brazil sells its soul to McDonald's cows and refuse on rainforest-cash or ethanol fuel.

Diesel fuel cannot be replaced by ethanol at the moment too, according to Naminé's little research on wikipedia. However, at the same time, ethanol is about 81% more efficient than gasoline when one inspects the amount of energy needed to produce the fuel as well. Guess that nations got the technology to make the fuel, yet the technology to apply the fuel into use is still relatively problematic at the moment~
 
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Oil's not going to run out in five years. The price is simply caused by the oil companies' personal hunger for wealth, and what we need is price adjustment by the government.
 
There are several reasons why oil price is rising so fast. First of all, growing economies like China and India are slowly moving towards developing into how most modern countries are. However, between these two countries alone there is at least 1/4 of the worlds population, probably more, and as more and more of these people earn enough money to afford cars, the demand for oil is greater.

Second, all the mess over Iraq has messed up the oil production over there, as they struggle to put the infrastructure back together. (They still only have a couple of hours of electricity a day)

Third, the pressure on Iran is making things more difficult. Iran is the fourth largest producer of oil, which makes their influence significant in the oil market, especially with Russia which does a lot of trading with them.

Fourth, oil companies are not investing enough into new sources of oil. Their profits as of late are the highest ever, because of the recent price hikes, and yet they prefer to stick to their current oil fields instead of searching for new ones, especially with the demand increasing as much as it is lately. Actually, the amount of oil isn't actually the problem, it's more about the current lack of refining in the world, especially after Katrina knocked out a lot of the refining plants.

Fifth, because oil is so profitable, and renewable fuels aren't as profitable yet, they will stick with oil because that's where the money is. Simple greed overrides the desire to maintain the planet.

Personally, I'd like to say to the US Government - sign Kyoto or get out of the UN, but that's just me. Supposedly the largest economy in the world, but lacking the political will to try and save it for you and me.

See, I told you I could go on about this.
 
brrr my father and me just came back from my sports training when we decided to fuel our car, we paid 109,6 euros for 80 litres...lol

We were like wtf : )

I am not sure about ethanol since it isnt very popular in germany but I doubt it can fully replace oil. I'll keep my fingers crossed for fuel cell cars though it will take a while until they can be manufactured for the public.

I also agree with toothache, the US government should sign kyoto and stop to pollute OUR environment. Once I read that the US could turn off 4 nuclear powerstations if all people would switch off their computers when they dont need them.. imagine how many overaged coal-fired power station you could turn off therefore.

bye
 
So you say we won't run out of oil in 5 years...lol...sorry to burst your bubble but were gonna run out in a maximum of five years...just so you know fosil fuels are'nt re-newable...and at the rate the U.S. is using oil and gas...we will be screwed...its not like we can magically find oil...and yes we are looking for more oil...its called Antartica...and if we did find some thats gonna run out too...then what?

And enough with War in Iraq crap, thats not why the prices are sky-rocketing...its not our government price gougeing...we are running out ot oil...SUPPLY AND DEMAND...if we continued selling oil at a $1.50 we would run out even faster.

And another note...ethonal only ruins cars that arent flex-fuel, all we have to do is make more economy cars that can run on Ethonal...
 
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Though I do agree that the U.S. should haul right out of the UNited Nations, I would think twice before bowing down to yet another piece of globalism such as Kyoto.
 
Ha the U.N. wouldn't last 5 seconds without the U.S. It seems the only one who cares to put up with the U.S. government is the U.S. citizens...why is that...the American Dream...But now were going off topic...
 
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Oh oh oh, Naminé knows about the UN a bit. She just studied for a test about them, so therefore let Naminé have a rare chance to contribute to the topic at hand with slight sense of intelligence for once. The United States fund about approximately 25% of the entire organization's budget, with Japan paying somewhere between 10% to 15%. The headquarters of most UN buildings are also scattered throughout eastern US. US will always stay in the UN for the meantime as they need the veto power against China, an uprising powerful countries. US can also give some support to her allied country Great Britain through directing the UN's course of action as one of the five permanent member in the security counsel as well. In all sense, US has more benefits by staying in the UN, even if it is only to paralyze the organization like what the old Soviet Union has done with veto power. It might be even plausible for USA to change the UN with some degree of certainty either, as it's not very fair to Naminé to see that one country who basically runs the UN with free-will donation does not have slightly more power for all that USA has contributed.

As for the Kyoto Accord, Naminé doesn't see it as divine method to all environmental solutions from God either. The canadian government is also considering to withdraw from the Kyoto Accord, as it has done little for Canada over the past few years. On the other hand, USA's personal plan to battle environmental problems have done a slightly better job considering how little investments are required. Canada may be switching the program as well.

About oil shortage, it is rather questionable just how much oil does the Arab countries really have... Naminé recalls last year in science, the teacher has taught her that water is running out in 20 years too. The accuracy of these statements is beyond what Naminé knows... Different methods in calculating the same problem produces different answers. What is considered a factor in calculating for how long will oil last may not be a factor in the calculation by another organization.
 
I also heard that oil will run out within 5 years.. As Namine already mentioned, noone knows how much oil can be found in the arab countries, but I believe if anything could prove that oil would run out world wide sciensists would put more efforts in finding a solution.
 
5 years is probably a more accurate estimate, at the current rate of use and expansion of oil, although I'm not completely convinced of that figure. Probably more accurately somewhere between 5 and 15 years, I doubt we can be more specific than that.

Either way, that's not a lot of time left to get rid of oil. Once it's gone, it's gone. Either we start planning for a future without oil, or we fall by the wayside like many other great civilisations.
 
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