Gas Prices Jump; California Hardest Hit 402
New submitter jefery23 writes with this excerpt from an Associated Press article (as carried by the Denver Post): "Californians woke up to a shock Friday as overnight gasoline prices jumped by as much as 20 cents a gallon in some areas, ending a week of soaring costs that saw some stations close and others charge record prices." Friday's jump followed another big one just a day earlier, too. Texas gas prices have gone up, but not quite so dramatically ($3.59 at the station nearest to me); how are they in your neck of the woods? Those Bloom boxes and charging stations can't arrive too soon.
That isn't very much, really (Score:2)
Re:That isn't very much, really (Score:5, Informative)
Wednesday morning, I noticed some gas stations near me (silicon valley, ca) had raised their prices by $0.40 or more since the previous day. By Thursday, all the local gas stations had caught up. That is approximately a 9% jump. If prices went up again yesterday (which I haven't noticed...) then the overall increase this past week is more like 15%.
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For crying out loud, this is a typical day-to-day change out here surrounded Chicago. It's been jumping up and down from 10 to 30 cents a day all damn year and rarely stays below $3.99 for long.
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Your northern neighbours in Canada have been paying $1.30/litre for close to a year, that's just over $5/gallon.
Americans keep bitching about gas prices while they routinely have the cheapest gas in the world. Even compared to other countries on the same continent they're getting much cheaper rates.
Supply and Demand (Score:4, Insightful)
An improving economy demands more gasoline.
Since supplies are already so tight that we are increasingly using extreme sources of oil like very deep sea drilling and oil sands, we should expect to pay more for gasoline.
I hope you've all been buying fuel efficient cars...
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Don't you mean China's improving economy? We've already lost half our middle class. I don't see the improvement unless you count new walmarts progress.
Who controls the oil? (Score:2, Insightful)
The largest contributers to the republican party represent "Big Oil" and "Big Coal". Could this be a ploy to weaken the economy and increase the chances of their candidate being elected?
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Why should I buy an econobox? I ain't no tree hugger! Go drill everywhere, and things will be fine. This peak oil thing is just a bunch of hippies got their panties in a twist.
(The first person to answer with "I know you're being sarcastic, but..." is our official lamer of the day.)
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Well, crude futures dipped the past week due to the economy, so it wouldn't be accurate to conclude that pump price increase is indicative of an "improving economy". Remember there's a lag of a month or so between the two, and if you look at this year's historical data, you'd see that crude was trading at its lowest in June, which translated to July having the lowest pump price this year. Likewise, we saw the trading price increase in August followed by a jump up to $100 in September, which is likely why we
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This isn't a supply verses increased demand- supply problem.
Getting oil into California is not the problem with this jump in price that is largely isolated to California. The problem is that California requires a specific formulation in their gas that is more stringent then the rest of the country and only a few refineries bother producing it. One of the refineries are down for scheduled maintenance and another is hit with unscheduled maintenance creating a unique shortage condition for California.
In my are
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No new refineries in the US, and yet refinery capacity is nearly at an all-time high [eia.gov].
It's about quality, not quantity. There are no new refineries being built because we've been improving the existing ones so much. We have the capacity to refine more fuels now than at any point in the past 30 years.
Try again, Mr. Coward.
=Smidge=
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When this first happened I watched and noticed no difference in prices. I guess it finally caught up with us.
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No new refineries in the US, and yet refinery capacity is nearly at an all-time high.
It's about quality, not quantity.
"Capacity" is inherently about quantity.
There are no new refineries being built because we've been improving the existing ones so much.
I wonder who else really believes that? When one actually looks at refineries built in the past 45 years [eia.gov], it is remarkable how little has been done. There's a simple explanation. Regulation has driven up the cost of building a new plant so much that it is cheaper to expand an existing plant than to build a new plant of the same capacity.
Consider this, there's apparently only one refinery in North Dakota at Mandan, ND. That refinery processes almost 60,000 barrels [tsocorp.com]
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Would be rather nice if California could at least import their gas from out of state, yay for special regulations.
BTW we aren't switching to the winter blend yet, we can't switch off the special summer blend until the end of October.
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You say I'm getting robbed, yet I drive a nice car. I live in a nice home, in a nice city. I'm about to buy a beautiful house.
Far from feeling robbed, I feel lucky.
The United States left the gold standard during the great depression, because it provided too little flexibility for the country to get out of recessions. Inflation may have been low on the gold standard, but without a job, a high currency value doesn't really get you far.
A little inflation is a small price to pay for a good, or at least improvin
It's our own fault. (Score:2)
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We've been closing down refineries for many, many years in the US due to low profit margins.
Hardly.
Much industry in the USA is seen as dirty, dangerous, and bad for the environment.
Refineries aren't built usually because the people through the democratic process refuse to allow them to be built.
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Oh, but there is. There are countries, such as Nigeria, with crude basically as good as the US, and we could work with the nigerian government to pay more and make the situation better, but instead we have this US first philosophy, in which we ship expensive canadian oil across the US and risk the US environment for fake crude that costs
Rigged, because of the presidential debate (Score:2, Insightful)
The prices have been artificially raised, because of the presidential debate. Just like the unemployment rate has fallen or not fallen.
Now, I can't figure out which candidate thinks he benefits from higher gas prices.
So maybe just like the unemployment rate has fallen or not fallen, maybe the gas prices haven't jumped . . . or jumped.
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sigh
Spoiled americans (Score:4, Insightful)
It is beyond me how americans can complain about gas prices. In Sweden people pay more than twice as much, and everyone seems to be fine with it. On top of that, americans have even more money to spend than do swedes. So, are americans cheap, or just spoiled?
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Google maps would seem to disagree with you
Re:Spoiled americans (Score:5, Insightful)
It is beyond me how americans can complain about gas prices. In Sweden people pay more than twice as much, and everyone seems to be fine with it. On top of that, americans have even more money to spend than do swedes. So, are americans cheap, or just spoiled?
Neither. We're just a terribly spread-out and need lots of fuel.
Your fuel consumption has nothing to do with the size of your country. It is caused simply by a lack of (willingness to introduce) any form of requirements for providing commercial facilities alongside new residential developments, combined with the general mindset that you need a car to get anywhere that this has produced.
My Czech friend's parents marveled constantly while here about how distant everything was from everything else. "You need to drive just to get a loaf of bread?" Yep.
This is where you have a point: the combination of urban sprawl and lack of (use of) public transit means you need to do many short trips. But that doesn't mean I agree with grandparent ... obviously the price of anything increasing that much over such a short period of time is painful.
I don't think Europeans understand just how large the USA relative to Europe and how less populated it is (perhaps a result of seeing Mercator projection maps that exaggerate Europe's size).
I don't think you understand that Europe is a fairly large group of sovereign nations, of wildly different geographical size and layout. Sweden has a population density of 20.6/km2, yet is larger than California (population density 93.3/km2). Certainly people commute comparable distances around Stockholm to what people do around Silicon Valley.
Consider this: the distance from San Diego, California, USA to Bangor, Maine, USA is greater than the distance from Stockholm, Sweden to Delhi, India.
And how many times per year do you usually drive from San Diego to Bangor? Yes, the US is a huge country, but that is unrelated. People in the US tend to fly instead.
Also cars that consume twice as much (Score:3)
It's interesting in the context of the fuel economy demands for the year 2025 (2020? I forget) that have been debated in the US. I checked what the situation in the EU is, and cars sold here actually would be close to these limits already. I suspect most of the difference is due to American consumers simply wanting larger cars and more powerful engines.
Re:Spoiled americans (Score:4, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with being spread out, either. It comes down to urban planning. Why do people have to live so far from the things they need on a daily basis? We need to do better.
Cry me a river... (Score:5, Interesting)
On this side of the pond, we're paying a bit under $8/gallon...
Re:Cry me a river... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're paying for taxes, for your government, you're not paying that much for the gas itself.
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Europe decided to tax petroleum to fund public transport and their social programs. We saw prices quadruple in 11 years.
Re:Cry me a river... (Score:5, Insightful)
high gas prices, but you have a social system that won't let people die on the streets.
we have low gas prices, but you better hope that you never run into bad luck.
which is the better system? I think we both know the answer to that.
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high gas prices, but you have a social system that won't let people die on the streets
More than a couple of countries have a social system that's unsustainable. We'll see how much that system helps when the economy collapses under the burden.
Like the U.S?
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Well one reason for the gas taxes here is that we can manipulate them to evade sudden spikes such as this. The market is good at adapting to high prices when they change smooth enough.
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Not quite as bad but like Europe and the UK this isn't something new. Come winter I'm sure we'll see prices spike to $1.50/L. Diesel is a premium over regular gas/petrol (US deals with that as well, but not to the same degree).
The funny thing is we're an oil producing country. We just don't refine or use any of the oil lo
Chicken and egg (Score:5, Insightful)
Learn to take the bus.
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Learn to take the bus.
not always (or even frequently) a solution in much of the US.
the infrastructure was NEVER designed for mass transit. the 'american dream' was, since personal transport was available, the horse and buggy and then the car. public trans is an afterthought and not one that ever gets serious consideration. that would require that we think long-term about ourselves and, well, we just CAN'T. see, there are more wars to be fought and more 'defense' spending for various buddies. we can't a
Re:Chicken and egg (Score:5, Informative)
Learn to take the bus.
not always (or even frequently) a solution in much of the US. the infrastructure was NEVER designed for mass transit .
Yes it was!
Most major cities had extensive streetcar and interurban lines. It might surprise you that Los Angeles was once a model city for mass transit in the U.S. A massive network of electric trams began running in 1887 and continued on through 1961. The late 50s / early 60s marked the auto boom and death of comprehensive public transit in LA (and many other cities, as well) leaving only some bus routes behind. That began a period of planning designed to focus exclusively on the automobile.
The funny thing is that the whole "People will never stop using X! This city was built for it!" argument against mass transit that you hear today was used against cars 40 years ago - after nearly 80 years of mass transit shaping the city and lifestyle.
Now, LA has become the site of a transit renaissance [metro.net]. The period of time between the end of the Red Car's 74 year run and the completion of the last segment of the Red Line subway was 39 years.
Car-centric planning was a blip. Don't believe the hype that claims otherwise.
Re:Chicken and egg (Score:5, Interesting)
While it's true LA has spent a fortune on "transit" in the last few decades, it still hasn't take it seriously. A "renaissance"? Not even close.
Take the 405 freeway. One of the most congested roadways on the entire planet, with both very densely populated residential areas and very densely packed businesses. It's an absurdly ideal case for commuter rail, just build an elevated track down the center from the north SF Valley down to Orange County and you'd make the single largest impact on transportation any city on the planet has ever made. ANY other effort is nothing but a distraction until and unless that is done, period.
What do we do instead? We spend massive amounts on rail projects that come and go from anywhere except where people live, work, or the bulk of our congestion happens. We setup multiple rail lines that you need to switch mid-trip to complete your commute, but make you do that switch outside...in the worst, gang-ridden neighborhoods we have, in locations far out of the way of the actual transit path. The result is that it's actually faster to take a bus much of the time then to take rail...and that's including the fact the buses have to use the heavily congested freeways. And that's if you're willing to take the personal risk...there's no way any sane white woman would commute on that rape-magnet of a train line. Why? Taxi unions...they were afraid people might take rail from LAX rather then a taxi if the rail option didn't completely suck balls.
Oh, and the 405? Yah...we're currently spending insane amounts of money to tear down and rebuild multiple bridges stretching across it, literally move mountains, not for a useful rail line... But to add one more lane each way. Like all the other lanes we've added, it'll have ZERO impact on actual traffic. -It may likely even make it worse as it has in the past as expanding freeways encourages longer commutes, resulting in more miles on the road per driver and more then offsetting the added capacity.
A "transit renaissance" my ass. Los Angeles is a shining example of how NOT to ever build a transit system. It's a rolling calamity that most likely won't ever be solved. Frankly we'll see Google self-driving cars in every garage long before we get a sane transit system. Ironically...they'll work best on our existing freeway-centric systems...eliminating the advantage of any form of mass transit. Yay?
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I remember when there were fuel protests in the UK (I think when prices hit £1.20/litre, which is about 7.33USD a gallon), people started blocking the refineries and protesting for a cut in fuel tax.
The governments solution? Brought in emergency powers, got the army to "assist" in breaking through the protests and got fuel to where it was needed.
I mean, at that point, what should you do? Start armed resistance? For most people, once the army got involved that was the end of the protest, and they fi
California is paying the price (Score:5, Informative)
I live in California. We are paying the price for years of anti-business policies and nimbyism. We have no spare refinery capacity, and we have fewer gas stations per-capita than most states, and few new stations are being built.
I don't expect things to get any better. Pro-business people are leaving the state, shifting us even further to the left, and the car-culture is thriving. My son's elementary school has 800 students, and despite perfect weather almost every day, exactly two (2) of them bike to school: my son and a kindergarten girl from our neighborhood. Every morning we pedal past a long line of moms in idling SUVs waiting to drop of their kid.
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OPEC kept prices artificially low for a long time. They didn't think anyone would pony up $100 a barrel. Now that they realize people will, that's their price point. Energy will never cost as little as it did a decade ago, but more options open up as the prices go higher. Hybrids become viable despite the extra cost for batteries. Automakers innovate for fuel efficiency instead of performance. Electric becomes a possible option.
If someone came up with a good i
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What do you mean by artificially low? If OPEC had been charging below cost, they couldn't have kept it up for all these years. I can imagine a cartel keeping prices artificially high, but not artificially low.
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I t
EV charging as you drive (Score:5, Interesting)
If someone came up with a good in-road delivery system for electricity for cars, they could probably successfully pitch wiring all our roads for electricity
There are already good proposals for doing this that do not require wiring the roads. These proposals assume that in the future cars will be capable of driving in "platoons", separated by only a few inches to reduce drag and increase road capacity.
Option 1: inductive coupling. Cars contain coils in their bumpers that can transmit and receive energy from cars immediately in front or behind them. If you are on a long drive, the computer in your car negotiates with the computer in the other cars and buys power from them. If you are on a short commute, and have spare power, you sell the power to other cars as you drive and make a small profit.
Option 2: magnetic coupling. This is similar, but the bumpers contain electro-magnets that pull or push leading or trailing cars. So if you are on a long trip, you get on a freeway, join a platoon, automatically negotiate to buy power, and then coast to your destination without consuming any of your own battery power. You could even use your engine to recharge your battery as you siphon power from the rest of the platoon.
Both of these proposals assume that cars on short trips are more common than cars on long drives. That is mostly true. But on long stretches of highway it is possible that dedicated vehicles with big batteries (or CNG generators on board) will be used to convoy platoons of regular cars.
Re:California is paying the price (Score:5, Informative)
I live in California. We are paying the price for years of anti-business policies and nimbyism.
No, you're paying the price for turning the state into one big freeway. Gas in CA is more expensive because it uses a special formula, without which air in the state would be unbreathable.
I work from home ....so I don't care (as much) (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm a work-from-home computer programmer with two full time jobs doing this.
Taking the vehicle out of the equation makes the problem less relevant. Sure, the cost of food goes up because the cost of transporting it went up. But seriously: I only drive on friday once a month when I need to resupply a month's worth of beer and food.
A year ago I was bankrupt and now its looking like I could buy a house next year. Just commit to it and stick with it and these gas prices don't hurt at all.
Hurry up (Score:2)
all of a sudden... (Score:3)
Plugin cars [plugincars.com] are making a lot more sense.
Lots of critics argue plugins don't make economic sense. But looking at the long game ( next few decades ), getting plugins to the point where economies of scale reduces their price is one of the best solutions to this energy problem.
Thank the Fed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Thank the Fed (Score:5, Informative)
The US dollar is actually a little higher from this time last year.http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy
Crack spread (Score:2)
Look it up...
Gasoline is an Imported Commodity (Score:3, Insightful)
The price of Gas is not reacting to a Supply vs Demand price rise. 2005 remains the peak of oil consumption in the U.S.
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTUPUS2&f=M [eia.gov]
On the other hand, we are producing more oil. Why hasn't the price fallen?
We have embarked on QE3 (after QE2 and QE1). We are printing money and injecting it into the Financial Institutions on Wall Street. Obviously countries who have been producing products for the United States (like oil) for decades and decades know that the value of the dollar is going to slide. Not saying crash necessarily, but there isn't any doubt in the world it is going to slide.
What do you do if you are such a country? You raise your prices. Because the dollar isn't going to be worth as much going forward.
This is the stated goal of Paul Krugman. Get Inflation up to 5 percent or 6 percent even. That is going to increase (he claims) employment. But prices lag the actual inflation, and wages lag the actual inflation even more.
So the result is going to be higher prices and lower real wages, less ability to buy goods (because we increasingly uses foreign components and raw materials even in domestic goods).
We are proudly following Japan into 20 years of dragging economic activity. And I think that is the up side.
But on the bright side (Score:2)
Re:Gasoline is an Imported Commodity (Score:5, Informative)
Wow. You manage to bring in one thing to explain this thing and get it spectacularly wrong. As someone else pointed out, the Columbus Day weekend is the traditional ramp down time for refineries in the U.S. as they rejigger their formulation for fall (You didn't know refineries changed formulas for the season?). Also, several major supply routes got messed up:
From California gasoline prices soar amid refinery and pipeline shutdowns By The Associated Press [denverpost.com]:
As for Krugman and this being all the fault of QEx: there's a reason gas is not part of the core measure of inflation. Last I checked, we aren't in an inflation cycle yet [calculatedriskblog.com]. Gas is a volatile price (no-pun intended) that jumps way up and down responding to things like, you know, refineries having fires and pipeline shut downs. It's left out of most inflation conversations among economists.
Anyway, thanks for playing! Here's a home version of the game "The Eeeevil Fed Is Coming For Your Savings!!"
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I'd say a 97% debasement of the dollar since 1972 would tend to cut into one's savings, if it were all in cash.
Now before you start bashing people who save money in cash, remember that for about 150 years or so it was abnormal for people to buy stocks and other "risky" investments. Most people held cash, bonds and CDs. Stock brokers were generally put in the same category as casino operators when it came to investing. It's only been in the last 30-40 years that high risk investing was considered acceptable
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This is the stated goal of Paul Krugman. Get Inflation up to 5 percent or 6 percent even. That is going to increase (he claims) employment. But prices lag the actual inflation, and wages lag the actual inflation even more.
In other words, Paul Krugman says you're making too much money. Since you're so expensive, you're taking jobs away from the poor unemployed souls who desperately want jobs instead of food stamps. And then your employer pumps up your productivity with the latest labor saving machinery (made
Re:Gasoline is an Imported Commodity (Score:4, Informative)
The price of Gas is not reacting to a Supply vs Demand price rise. 2005 remains the peak of oil consumption in the U.S.
This is a nice thought, but it's the wrong question. The market doesn't consist solely of the US, you need to measure global supply and global demand.
Global demand has continued to go up.
Re:Gasoline is an Imported Commodity (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that 2005 was the peak of oil consumption in the US is irrelevant. Oil prices are set on the global market so what you need to consider is how much oil is being consumed globally and it has almost consistently been higher every year.
http://www.indexmundi.com/energy.aspx
Bloom Boxes? (Score:3)
What do they have to do with the price of oil? They provide electricity, which currently comes from other fossil fuels (mostly). This is an issue onto itself (assuming you're not just in denial about carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide) but the only cost issue here is that coal is too fucking cheap for the amount of damage it causes.
N2S: Don't go to Slashdot for Gasoline Advice (Score:2)
Its a nightmare (Score:2)
Free Market Speculation (Score:2)
The energy market's derivatives market (itself larger than most entire industries) is not only the most profitable, but also produces the most efficient pricing to the demand.
Wait - it's actually only the most profitable. But don't worry, it's only the market far most essential to all our other economics. Wait - you should worry.
Here in RI (Score:2)
Debeers Diamonds type scam limiting supply. (Score:2)
There is no demand increase or shortage of crude oil.
The tightness in supply of gasoline is due to limited refinery capacity.
Why is there limited refinery capacity? Because the oil companies have been closing refineries.
Why are they doing that? So there can artificially limit supply and drive up price.
http://www.hydrocarbonprocessing.com/Article/3021014/Valero-CEO-believes-refining-capacity-still-too-much-in-US-western-Europe.html [hydrocarbo...essing.com]
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Why are they doing that [closing refineries that aren't economic to run] ? So there can artificially limit supply and drive up price.
Congratulations - that's free-market capitalism for you.
The simple answer is to pile into oil and petrochemical stocks and take your share of the bonanza.
Maybe (Score:2)
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Economy of scale.
It's probably seen as more efficient to have a single large power generator burn the fuel and turn it into electricity that gets converted to mechanical energy; then hundreds of thousands of smaller less efficient generators burn it and turn it into mechanical energy.
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That's not really it. It depends on where your generating capacity is coming from. If it's coming from coal plants, you shouldn't buy an electric car—gas is cleaner. If it's coming from wind, you should definitely buy an electric car if it makes economic sense to you personally. The Chevy Volt is a nice compromise if you have a sub-30-mile commute. It would be nice if generation source information were readily available, but of course nobody has any incentive to publish it—electric car
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(It looks like the NY Times' data source was the Union of Concerned Scientists; unfortunately, their map is also static.)
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This means that gas companies basically caused this on purpose (something they have been doing for quite some time).
Where the fuck is the outrage and the call for regulations or penalties?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah because everyone knows you can't use solar and wind to charge your car. I mean, this guy does it: http://www.rowetel.com/blog/?p=78 but that's a stupid idea up there with the solar (charged) flashlight! All that crap about hydroelectric dams, tidal power, geothermal and other green energy is just made up by liberals.. those things don't exist either and never will.
As we all know, if it involves change, or it's harder than flipping a switch then it's just plain not worth doing. That's the exact attitude
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All that crap about hydroelectric dams, tidal power, geothermal and other green energy is just made up by liberals.. those things don't exist either and never will.
I'd love (love) to see your charge your electric car from solar where I live. You might be able to make it down the street a few weeks a year. Snow, clouds, rain, and the simple fact that there is only ~8 hours of sunlight during the winter means it is almost impossible to use that here. Wind is never reliable, almost anywhere, even at the best of times. Hydroelectric? There is some, but that takes a massive amount of land, and is rather dangerous, if the dam breaks (in one instance killing 100,000+ people,
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There is this neat electric grid thing we have where you can get power produced elsewhere delivered to you.
Also, the Banqiao dam wasn't only for electric generation, it was also for flood control (which it obviously failed catastrophically at during a bad typhoon). It probably would have existed, and subsequently still failed, even if it hadn't been used for hydroelectric. It's also hard to determine exactly which deaths would and would not have been caused by the typhoon if the dam hadn't been built.
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I'd love (love) to see your charge your electric car from solar where I live. You might be able to make it down the street a few weeks a year. Snow, clouds, rain, and the simple fact that there is only ~8 hours of sunlight during the winter means it is almost impossible to use that here. Wind is never reliable, almost anywhere, even at the best of times. Hydroelectric? There is some, but that takes a massive amount of land, and is rather dangerous, if the dam breaks (in one instance killing 100,000+ people, but that is nearly worst case). Also, expensive. Tidal? The nearest ocean is ~1,000 miles away, good luck with that. Geothermal? Yeah, can't do that either. So unless you expect to pipe the power thousands of miles (expensive, wasteful, and difficult to maintain), none of that is going to work for me, or large sections of the world's population.
Nuclear? Works fantastic! Probably powering this computer as I speak. Other than that, it's pretty much all fossil fuels and a little bit of hydro (which is pretty limited in it's expansion options).
But you know, you don't have to personally have the solar panels. They could be located in a central area and have power sent to your location.
So unless you expect to pipe the power thousands of miles (expensive, wasteful, and difficult to maintain), none of that is going to work for me, or large sections of the world's population.
but but but mommy! It's too HAARD! :(
Man up. What do you think coal, oil, natural gas etc power plants do now? Do you even remember the massive power outage that affected a large portion of the United States a few years ago? Enough solar energy hits the earth in an hour to fill all our electrical requirements for a year. The only problem would be getting that energy to where people need it. Stop your wh
Re:Charging Stations? (Score:4, Insightful)
Man up. What do you think coal, oil, natural gas etc power plants do now? Do you even remember the massive power outage that affected a large portion of the United States a few years ago? Enough solar energy hits the earth in an hour to fill all our electrical requirements for a year. The only problem would be getting that energy to where people need it. Stop your whining about how hard things are. People could setup individual panels at their homes to reduce load on the grid, and plants can be setup in various locations as well. If one location is cloudy, guess what? Another one probably isn't!
Guess what? That means you need to build twice as many panels/wind generators as you nominally need (at least). That increases the cost 2x, plus of course the cost of a robust power grid to transmit the power. Again, not quite so easy in a part of the world near tornado alley, where power loss is already moderately common... and where loosing power in the winter means people can start dying.
If everyone starts using electric cars, that represents a massive increase in demand. According to this [need.org] [PDF WARNING] report, ~28% of US energy demand is in transportation, which means our demand for electrical power will go up significantly (30-40% is probably a decent estimation). If you double production costs and increase demand, combined with the vastly increased cost of electric cars (themselves hardly environmentally friendly to make. Side note: the Prius is supposedly worse for the environment than a normal gas-powered car because of the costs of building the batteries and motors) and suddenly you are looking at transport costs 2-3 times greater than they are now. Good luck getting that to happen, considering people already complain about the high costs of gas (which already has significant economical impact).
My point with hydroelectrical was it doesn't scale. If you try to make it scale, you run out of land for people to live and farm, and your entire cost of living goes up considerably. My entire point is that while green energy sounds nice, it is nowhere near practical yet, and won't be for years yet. Electric generation and storage is simply not good enough yet, and that is ignoring the fact that green power sources rarely are as green as they seem (like the Prius mentioned earlier: they always have environmental costs people don't like to talk about). Such as, for example, the fact that magnets used in electric motors requires rare earths, which have massive pollution by-products. I'm speaking realistically here when I say the only green technology we have, right now, that could fill our electric needs not only practically but cost-efficiently is nuclear.
Doesn't matter how much energy is hitting the planet from the sun, we simply cannot collect it effectively. Even an efficient solar panel is only 15% or so efficient. And expensive. And unreliable.
Re: (Score:3)
$5.22 equivalent ($1.389/L) on Vancouver Island, and here it would get it's power from Hydroelectric, possibly a small amount from wind and industrial CHP.
Re:Charging Stations? (Score:5, Informative)
Washington State Electrical Power (2011) [wa.gov] (PDF)
73% Hydroelectric
14% Coal
8% Natural Gas
3% Nuclear
1.12% Wind
0.49% Biomass
0.37% Waste
0.08% Petroleum
0.05% Landfill gasses
0.02% Geothermal
0.03% Other
When you have to lie to make a point, you should realize that your point is not worth making.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
Food for thought: If you add demand for charging 10,000 electric cars, which of those categories would be used to accommodate the demand? I'd presume that of the top 5, the only ones that aren't maxed out already are coal and natural gas. Maybe over time there would be more renewable energy generation and as someone else mentioned, econ
Re:Charging Stations? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not hard to actually dig up the data. You don't have to presume or guess anything.
Where would the power for 10,000 EVs come from? all sources. It's not as if they run Hydro at 100% until they max it out, then run up Coal until that's maxed out, etc... If anything, they run coal flat out all the time because that's the most economical way to operate it. Coal and other thermal cycle powerplants are slow to respond to changes, Hydro is not. So I'd actually posit that the lion's share of power for 10,000 EVs would be from untapped Hydro power.
Scraping Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], Washington State has over 27,000 MW of potential hydro power installed. Obviously not all of that will be usable year-round or necessarily all at once, but even if we cut that in half (say 13,000 MW) that's 113,880,000 MWh of electricity per year. In 2011 they used 59,576,028 or 52% of that. 52% of half their installed capacity. There's plenty of headroom there.
To put that into perspective, 10,000 vehicles driving the national average of 15,000 mi/yr with a very conservative 3 mi/kWh would need an extra 50,000 MWh of electricity... a 0.05% increase over the 91,106,272 MWh they already use. Drop in the bucket. If everyone in the entire state bought an EV - even the ones who don't currently own or are even eligible to own a car - power consumption would rise about 37%. You're still well within the state's installed hydroelectric generating capacity.
So no, I don't think the coal plants will burn any hotter at all.
For what reasons they don't use 100% hydro I cannot say - probably a mix of political, economic, engineering and practical reasons along with selling power outside the state.
=Smidge=
Re:why california? (Score:5, Informative)
What's special about CA that made them have a higher increase than the rest of us?
California has different gasoline formulation standards than the rest of the country, so gasoline cannot be brought in from other states. At this time of year, they are switching from the state-mandated "summer formulation" to "winter formulation", so inventories are low. Then, there was a refinery fire in August, which shut down some of the state's gasoline production. Combine those factors and you have all the necessary conditions for shortages.
EVERY STATE (Score:2)
Every state requires its own special gasoline blend which is the most asinine concept ever developed. If California runs out of California blend they cannot buy blends designed for other states. If Nevada runs out of gas, tough shit they have to wait for the refinery to make more. What makes these two states require different gas? All the cars are made the same, a car sold in Alaska can run just fine with gas from Arizona so what is the problem here? Don't get me started on how no new refineries have been b
Re: (Score:3)
Not every state.. The nation is divided into zones regulated by the EPA based around climate and population and most states will fall into one of these zones and have a default formulation. California decided it was going to make its own more stringent requirements because it wouldn't hurt anything and save the environment. Some other states have followed but I'm not sure which ones.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/fuels/gasolinefuels/index.htm [epa.gov]
Will give some information on the federal requirements and maps.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A local refinery lost power and shut down for a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Other countries tend to have higher gas prices than the USA because of taxes levied to support various social programs. Our high prices go to fill corporate coffers.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Funny)
We hear that all the time, about how high European prices are.
However, across the pond, people there live far closer together, and have a lot more options than a car. You have trains, trams, streetcars, buses, teleport pads out of Larry Niven books, and roads that are in good repair. In Europe, people can live in a city core and not get a 9mm round to the cranium because some 15 year old is needing to take a video of gunning down a tourist for their "blood in" ritual.
In the US, to live within walking distance of a job, you have to be pretty rich. Bicycling distance is different, but if you don't get run over (hit and runs are extremely common, and the local PD doesn't bother with the case unless someone has something obvious like video of it), you are an easy moving target for gangbangers. As soon as you park and lock your bike up, there is a good chance that it either will be completely missing or not all there (wheels, forks, seats, etc.) Buses? It can take 3-4 hours to get just a few miles due to bad routes, and usually homeless people tend to set up their bedrooms, bathrooms, and soliciting centers in them. Of course, people can mention motorcycles, and they are fast, thrifty on gas, and don't take up much space. However, every rider I know has some sort of permanent injury they got from riding, usually courtesy of a car desiring the space the motorcycle was currently taking up.
So, for most Americans who can't afford to live in the high zoot residential townhomes, a car is a necessity. Yes, it sucks, but that is how life is. You won't find any help from the government anytime soon thanks to all the dollars being poured in to prop up political candidates with the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" meme which is turning the country into some Ayn Randish circle of Hell [1].
[1]: It cracks me up when people call themselves Christian, and then talk about Ayn Rand's philosophy. They are mutually exclusive, and anyone who doesn't see this either hasn't read the Bible or Atlas Shrugged, or is just plain ignorant.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:4, Insightful)
We hear that all the time, about how high European prices are.
However, across the pond, people there live far closer together, and have a lot more options than a car. You have trains, trams, streetcars, buses, teleport pads out of Larry Niven books, and roads that are in good repair. In Europe, people can live in a city core and not get a 9mm round to the cranium because some 15 year old is needing to take a video of gunning down a tourist for their "blood in" ritual.
In the US, to live within walking distance of a job, you have to be pretty rich. Bicycling distance is different, but if you don't get run over (hit and runs are extremely common, and the local PD doesn't bother with the case unless someone has something obvious like video of it), you are an easy moving target for gangbangers. As soon as you park and lock your bike up, there is a good chance that it either will be completely missing or not all there (wheels, forks, seats, etc.) Buses? It can take 3-4 hours to get just a few miles due to bad routes, and usually homeless people tend to set up their bedrooms, bathrooms, and soliciting centers in them. Of course, people can mention motorcycles, and they are fast, thrifty on gas, and don't take up much space. However, every rider I know has some sort of permanent injury they got from riding, usually courtesy of a car desiring the space the motorcycle was currently taking up.
So, for most Americans who can't afford to live in the high zoot residential townhomes, a car is a necessity. Yes, it sucks, but that is how life is. You won't find any help from the government anytime soon thanks to all the dollars being poured in to prop up political candidates with the "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" meme which is turning the country into some Ayn Randish circle of Hell [1].
You live in the wrong city - why would you continue to live in a city where you are constantly in fear of your life and the local police won't help you?
There are lots of nice cities and towns throughout the USA where you can live relatively close to work (or near a usable transit system) without being afraid of getting shot in the head when you go to work.
Some cities that come to mind include San Francisco, Portland OR, Seattle, Santa Cruz.
You may have to adjust your standard of living - instead of a large suburban house, you may be in a small city apartment (which you can do even with kids, you may not have a yard, but will have a park + large playground a short walk away), but that's a tradeoff that millions of people are happy to make.
If you want to save gas, but think a motorcycle is too dangerous, look into a small hybrid car Back when i commuted on an FJ1200, my gas milage was in the low 30's (a new FJR1300 is rated at 39mpg). A Prius will give you over 40mpg. If you don't want a hybrid, a Volkswagon TDI diesel will also give you over 40mpg. Or if you want a more conventional gas powered car, look at Honda Fit (mpg in the 30's), or Mazda3 skyactive (up to 40mpg highway).
I have a 12 mile bike commute, which is close to the upper bound of how far many people are willing to bike (an hour each way is a little farther than many people are wiling to ride), but it lets me live affordably close to SF without paying exhorbitant apartment rates. I live within an easy walk to a train station, so I can choose between commuting by bike or by train. I have a car, but put around 6000 miles/year on it, mostly for out of town trips. I don't even drive to the grocery store since I live within a 2 minute walk to the store.
I'm not wealthy, I just chose where to live based on having a non-car commute.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:4, Insightful)
But how do you deal with all that smug?
By not whining about how I have no choice to drive my car no matter how expensive gas is?
It takes some lifestyle changes (and maybe relocation) to avoid a car-centric lifestyle, but it's not hard to do.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Record profits for oil companies while roads crumble is the America Way (trademarked, copyrighted, guaranteed Communist free, known to cause cancer in California, all rights reserved). Jesus loves profits, hates poor people and drives a big ass Hummer so he doesn't feel the potholes.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, quite.
You're the victim of an enormous charade.
Do yourself a favor, and look at the current electoral map, then compare it, state by state, region by region (the red and blue) with a gas price temperature map. Draw your own conclusions. Except for a few states with very small contributions to the electoral college, prices are UP in "blue states".
Enjoy.
Re: (Score:3)
You didn't look at NY, CA.
Texas isn't in trouble: red state. What color by comparison. Look at the electoral map, then look at the electoral votes, then compare again. It maps almost perfectly save NM (3votes), and so forth.
Where are the prices higher? Where the opposition could gain electoral votes-- not quite perfectly in a visual sense, but the correlation is too close to ignore. I watched it in 2008; go look in the history in 2010, too. You'll see the pattern. Change votes by applying economic pressure,
Re: (Score:3)
Ok. Let's try it a different way.
First go here: http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx [gasbuddy.com]
Note the following states which have plentiful electoral votes: CA, WA, NY, MA, IL, MI, IN, all states that if flopping over to the Red side of this map: http://www.270towin.com/ [270towin.com] helps demonstrate the effect.
Red states that aren't in question (mostly the US South and central Midwest from TX to ND), are enjoying inexpensive fuel today. It will continue to be the case for the next four weeks. Inflicted pain will h
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Except Europeans like their health care and don't seem to view sociopathy as a positive character trait.
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Insightful)
A currency crisis is causing bankruptcy. The welfare state is a useful target for those wishing to remove credit and market excesses from blame.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that's what happens when you let your politicians gouge the living hell out of you with taxes. We don't have any VAR taxes bleeding us dry either, but that doesn't mean we are just gonna sit back and let them start piling taxes on. Maybe its time that you in the EU made your own TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party and let the politicians know you're tired of their hands in your wallet?
You (and many others I'm sure) might find it instructive to actually find out what percentage of the average European's income goes to taxes, vs. what percentage of the average American's income does (hint: it's *much* closer than you think, and do keep in mind that most taxes Americans pay are both hidden and regressive). Then ponder the services Europeans get for giving up all that money, vs. the services Americans get (hint: not even close).
Unlike those socialist Europeans who get things like free medica
Re: (Score:3)
Why do you need a V6 that
Re:Yeah but... (Score:5, Informative)
"Maybe its time that you in the EU made your own TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party and let the politicians know you're tired of their hands in your wallet?"
Why? we get something for it.
Where I live the minimum wage is 2347$ for everybody of 18 years of age without any qualification, health benefits for everyone, guaranteed minimum income even if you can't/won't work, minimum pensions for everyone, survivor pensions for everyone allied to a person having worked at least 12 months, disability pensions if you get hurt or sick, a year and a half of unemployment benefits, months of vacation for mom and dad when a kid comes to the family, no matter which way, perfect roads, free schools, University costs a couple of hundred bucks a year and for 5 bucks you can use all the public transports for 24 hours throughout the country, 50 bucks for a month.
And doctors make housecalls for less than 10 bucks of contribution.
I pay 38% for that and I'm glad to do it.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyone who votes for Romney is an ignorant cunt.
Anyone who thinks Obama and Romney are actually different is an ignorant cunt. I think that's what you meant.