Oil Spill, a slippery slope

[alex grams]

This topic may be a slippery slope, so I hope we can keep it on track. This may become a political discussion, but that is not my intent.

My question is what is the public's view of the Gulf Oil Industry and the future of drilling?

Before I give MY opinion, I have to qualify it with my background. I ask this because I live and work in Houston as a Marine Engineer, and the thought of gulf drilling getting shut down in a frightening thought. For anyone who has been in Houston or Louisiana, Alabama or Mississippi, they can attest that a protracted moratorium on drilling is probably the only thing that could do more damage than the spill itself.

I personally feel that the oil industry is a safe practice, and BP has made themselves an exception from the norm. The industry as a whole is steps ahead of the regulators. Honestly, why work for Uncle Sam for 80k when you can work for an oil company for 150k-200k? I do vessel and platform Dynamic Positioning sytem testing and trials for approval. When I go out to conduct trials, the Classification Inspector usually asks 1-2 questions then reads a book for a few days. The most stringent standards of design are self imposed, by the industry saying that things need to be run better and making up their own guidelines and rules. I don't think new rules will fix what happened, but I do conclude that more stringent application of current rules and better oversight of adherance are the best solution.

I won't go too much into it, but I've seen the aftermath of some of BP's darker moments. I felt the shock wave of the 2005 explosion from 6 miles away. I've done work for most of the majors. I feel the level of national misinformation is staggering, from both parties. Some say drilling should stop alltogether, some say it is fine the way it is, but the reality is that the best solution is going to be in the middle ground. I just have serious doubts that politicians can come to a reasonable, practical and realistic solution that does more good than harm.

My 2.... well, 10 cents...

[Myk Rian]

I just have serious doubts that politicians can come to a reasonable, practical and realistic solution that does more good than harm.
Agreed.

I think this whole scenario should be the impetus for us to move to other methods of energy use. In 20 years, the "easy to get to oil" will be gone. We need to start changing our ways, now.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Agreed.

We need to start changing our ways, now.

Agreed. ...you first.

The days of oil-based transportation are drawing to a close. Eventually, rationing will save the last of the 'good stuff' for industry and trucking, rail, farming, etc. - and there will be blood in the streets when THAT happens. If we don't do something now, even those service needs will not be met for very long after we're gone. At about the time the human population hits 9 or 10 billion we'll reach the bottom of the barrel. Then what? Solar-powered farm tractors?

There are vast areas of the country that can't be traveled in an electric car and you can forget the family vacation in the mini-van. The convenience of stopping for a 5 minute fill-up will be missed.

Heck, even electric cars are charged via fossil-fueled power plants.

Hydrogen is a manufactured product and not a power source, it only carries some of the power that is used to create it (about 25% recovery to the end user), so that isn't the answer.

Nuclear power is about the only thing I can see that will come close to filling the void.

What they'll do to make plastics or it's successors, I dunno.
.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Alex, I think the issue isn't one of how safe are the other players, it's one of is the risk worth it?

I think we waste too much fossil fuel in North America, and the only impetus for conservation seems to be when it hurts our wallet.

I'm not against oil or oil drilling, however much of the oil is wasted due to personal choices. Do we really need a mini van or pick up truck to drive to work alone?

The big risk of course is the inability to clean up the ocean after a spill, coupled with the difficulty of stopping a major leak in the ocean.

If we used less fuel, would we be drilling in the ocean at present or would our safer sources be adequate?

Perhaps doubling the price of fossil fuels, with the extra money used to reduce our usage and develop other energy alternatives would be a prudent move at this point.

Regards, Rod.

[Tom Winship]

Alex, I almost hate to comment on this thread, having made my living from the oil industry prior to retirement 3 1/2 years ago.

As far as the moratorium, I think it is ridiculous to shut down all drilling in waters over 500 feet deep. Obviously they don't have all the answers for what to do when everything goes wrong in 5000' of water. As has been mentioned stopping all drilling is like grounding all airplanes when one crashes, although admittedly the environmental toll is less, even though the human toll is greater. I also disagree with BP being made to pay for the unemployment of all 34 rigs shut down by the moratorium. But they need to pay every red cent required to clean up the gulf.

As far as long range energy sources, I see nuclear as the only sustainable one. It too has it's drawbacks, but, as someone mentioned, the world is not getting any less populated.

We will see what happens. I do agree with some of your comments about the majors and regulators.

One thing I do know for certain. BP will not pay for this in the long haul. You and I and our granchildren will.

[Bill Cunningham]

Things have to change, and they will.. Why? Because they have just discovered what might be the largest deposits of Lithium in the world .. Where? Why in Afghanistan of course.. Lithium the the 'Oil' of the future..

The 'next' resource worth fighting for

[Greg Peterson]

First, the moratorium only applies to 33 of the over 4,100 rigs in the gulf. The 33 rigs that are affected at doing the same exact thing the Deep Horizon was doing, exploratory drilling. The oil companies have a pretty good idea where the oil is, but until they actually drill into the pocket they can't be 100% sure.

I think it is completely reasonable and logical to halt any drilling platform engaged in the same operations as the Deep Horizon. We know something went wrong, but we don't know precisely.

As for the "no one could have imagined something like this", the same thing happened in the gulf back in 1979 - 1980. It gushed for almost a year. The various things BP has tried to do to stop this leak are the same thing that was attempted in 1979. With the same results.

BP essentially outsourced the spill technology. BP spokesman Robert Wine says BP does not conduct oil spill response research themselves, but rather they support oil spill response organizations such as nonprofit Marine Spill Response Corp. The rub however is that the Marine Spill Response Corp. has zero dollars in their budget for spill response research. According to Marine Spill Response Corp. they are an operational company, not a research company.

BP doesn't do their own spill response research and the company they tell us that does this for them, doesn't do spill response research.

In the past three years BP has generated $58.5 billion in NET profits. In the same period BP spent $29 million on ways to more safely drill for oil. In three years zero dollars were spent on oil spill response.

The spill technology being used today is 30 years old. While they've found new ways of finding and extracting oil, not one red cent has been invested in preparing to cleanup the inevitable mess.

Reckless and irresponsible doesn't even begin do describe what BP has done.

[Pat Germain]

I think shutting down drilling of any kind makes no sense. The economy is already hurting and employment is already way too high. The solution is to follow existing safety regulations and to be prepared if there's an accident. (BP failed on both counts.)

As for the near future of energy, it's petroleum and natural gas. All the hyperpole of late is nonsense. There's still a whole lot of oil on this planet. (Shoot, there's still a lot of it Oklahoma and Texas. It's just not cost effective to pump right now.) I'm all for using less. And I'm all for alternate energy sources. But none of them are ready for prime time. I could spend a $100,000 on solar-electric panels and they wouldn't power my toaster most of the time. Now, hot water solar panels could heat a lot of my water. But they'd still be awfully expensive.

Electric cars will become more common and more practical eventually. It will take decades to get there. Then, we'll commute more in trains. We'll drive electric cars more. I think most will be powered by fuel cells from hydrogen or whatever else is available. And we'll still roll out the classic Mustang on the weekends and have fun on the open road.

[Joe Chritz]

This still isn't the largest spill ever. Nature is very resistant and resilient.

We will get alternative fuels when it is economically feasible to do so. Anyone want to take a year or two and pay $6+ a gallon for gas and over half that for propane or natural gas?

It is a very complex problem with very complex answers. However, as with most things, the market will take care of it when it is ready to do so.

Joe

[Mitchell Andrus]

There's still a whole lot of oil on this planet. (Shoot, there's still a lot of it Oklahoma and Texas. It's just not cost effective to pump right now.) I'm all for using less. And I'm all for alternate energy sources.

World-wide consumption is rising at a rate of 3% to 6% per year. In the event even modest projections for use and population growth and industrialization are true, present consumption will look tame by comparison in just 15 years.

Double today's use in 15 years - let's say 20 years, triple a decade after that. Saying there's a whole lot of oil on this planet is like saying there's a whole lot of food in the pantry. Sooner or later, we just won't be able to say that anymore, especially if we double the size of the family.

A perfect model is the water shortages in southern CA.

Fact is... oil's going to run out. The question is...... will we use it all up in 40 years, or can we make it last for the really important uses for 150 years. What we do now will make the difference.

Running my lawn mower is a REALLY important use. I want my share of the oil, you can all raise goats for all I care.
.

[Pat Germain]

All good points, Mitchell. But those figures won't stay the same. As more countries become more developed, population growth will slow. (Shoot, in some parts of Europe, population growth is negative.) Cars that burn gasoline and diesel will become more efficient. Alternative fuels and electric transport will become more common. Thus, growth in consumption will slow and then even go down.

All the while, new technologies will make more oil more easily accessible and more available.

Honda makes a very practical fuel cell car. It runs great and emits only water. The only problem with it now is the cost. Fuel cells are very pricey. But they will eventually come down. The result will be evolutionary, but just on the verge of a revolutionary, change.

That's my outlook, anyway.

[Greg Peterson]

It takes more than a gallon of gasoline to produce a gallon of gasoline. Fuel cell costs may come down, but they still require more energy than they produce.

We don't know if this is the largest spill in history. BP has been caught cooking the numbers a time or two already. When does BP's behavior and integrity get questioned?

Saying this isn't the worst oil spill is like the son bringing the car home with the passenger side crushed in and then saying that at least it isn't a total. And BP has not acted much different than a teenage boy.

Current estimates are around 60,000 barrels a day but could 100,000 barrels a day. This spill is 'probably' the second worst in history. And we still have 4 to 6 weeks before the relief well is finished. At that point, it will be easily the second largest spill in history.

Every system has limit. Do we really want take a chance that the other 33 rigs in the gulf are being operated safely and that the technology being used is flawless? We certainly know what the capability of resolving a catastrophic failure is.

[Scott Shepherd]

Just to give some information on energy, there's a cool real time meter running on this (http://www.worldometers.info/) website. Scroll down to the energy section.

[David Weaver]

Perhaps doubling the price of fossil fuels, with the extra money used to reduce our usage and develop other energy alternatives would be a prudent move at this point.

Regards, Rod.

This is only a reasonable strategy if two things are true:
1) the reduction in consumption happens at a global level
2) the price of energy is only increased for personal motor fuel use

If you start talking about increasing it for everything, and then you cut out coal and natural gas power usage (because it could be generated otherwise), you create a situation where everything becomes more expensive, and not just the cost to drive a minivan.

Sooner or later, the fact that everyone else in the world wants to use it because it makes a good portable motor fuel will erase any gains you have made. If supply does that on its own, you have a better chance, and less chance for corrupt schemes and political payoffs.

The NTSB is my biggest obstacle to cheap transportation. I can ride a motorcycle on two wheels with no helmet, but as soon as I say I'd like to have a small one-person four-wheel cheap vehicle, that would be safer than a motorcycle, somehow that's not allowed. I mean something like a go-kart with a fairing over it - something that would easily get 80 miles a gallon. It's "not safe", so I have to drive around in something that weighs 3000 pounds instead and waste my money on all of the material that goes into it. However, if I take two wheels off of it, somehow it's OK. :confused:

[David Hostetler]

A moratorium on drilling isn't going to help a darned thing... It is sort of like trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle...

Living and working in Houston, I understand there is a LARGE amount of resistance to alternative energy sources among the petrochemical companies, and that is exactly the problem. They see themselves as PETRO chemical companies, and NOT as energy / fuel producers. A radical shift in philosophy is absolutely necessary among the management and executives of these companies, with forward thinking beyond just the end of the current quarter, or even the current year, to 5, 10 or even 20 years out... How on earth can they keep up with demand?

Stopping drilling, or reducing the supply will do nothing for the environment, but it will have radical negative impacts on the worldwide economy just at the point when things are showing signs of a turn around.

I would like to see current production kept up, that stupid spill fixed, and an aggressive program for developing sustainable drop in replacements for Gasoline, Diesel, and other petro fuels such as Kerosene, and jet fuel...

This is something that should probably be done by the petrochemical industry, auto industry, aviation, train manufacturers, trucks etc... and lastly, government... They all should be looking to the future. Not only for environment sake but for the well being of their businesses...

[Mitchell Andrus]

Fuel cell costs may come down, but they still require more energy than they produce.



For this to be otherwise we would have stumbled upon a perpetual motion scheme. Imagine a fuel cell that makes so much electricity that it makes more energy than it consumes. ....Can't happen of course.

This doesn't mean it shouldn't be pursued, but if we haven't gotten past 30-35% efficiency in the last 160 years of trying, perhaps it's time to look elsewhere. The hydrogen fuel cell was invented in 1839 by Sir William Grove.

Bottom line is... all of the 'new' schemes so far rely on inefficient and slow chemical conversion to store and release energy, as in a battery. Electricity no matter how it's stored doesn't put the energy source (oil, nuclear, hydro...) close enough to the work to be as efficient as burning fuels in an engine.

Paradoxically, as engines and cars become more efficient, any other method of powering them becomes even less attractive. So boosting efficiency of all forms of power/storage just keeps all of this the same. Til we run out of oil that is.
.

[Pat Germain]

Fuel cell costs may come down, but they still require more energy than they produce.

A fuel cell can use many different fuels to produce electricity. Hydrogen is a good start. It's the second most common element in the universe (after stupidity). Of course, it takes energy to isolate it, store it and distribute it. But considering it's readily available and the only by-product is water, I think hydrogen powered fuel cells are the way to go.

Cars like the Chevy Volt are just feel-good concepts. I would like to see those cars embraced and become popular. But the range is so limited, I can't see a Volt working for more than a tiny few, inner-city people. But maybe it will get things going for extremely fuel-efficient and petroleum-alternative vehicles.

[Scott Shepherd]

Okay, let's go electric. Electric cars use what? Batteries. Last time I checked, batteries were full of very very toxic materials and not easy to dispose of by any means.

You fix one thing, but cause another environmental disaster 40 years from now when some kids grew up playing next to the dump they used to dispose of all the batteries all end up with some fatal disease.

I would venture to guess batteries are as bad for the planet as petroleum in the long run.

[Jim Koepke]

We will start seeing alternative fuel cars take off when we have electric cars running an Indy 500 or stock car races.

These are the events that lead to the innovations that will be needed to develop alternative fuels for safe and reliable use for the public at large.

One of the main problems that is causing the move to moratorium is the whole regulatory agency that should be the watch dog has become the lap dog of the industry. Wasn't it just a few years ago there were reports of the regulators and industry people being in bed, literally, with each other? Some were even found to be involved in the use of illegal drugs together?

It seems there needs to be a little house cleaning before we can return to business. It seems there were a lot of warning signs on the Deep Horizon that were ignored in the name of time or profit. Too many lives are effected by such actions to allow such a preventable disaster to happen. If it is preventable, shouldn't appropriate measures be taken before even one life is allowed to be lost?

One of my questions is why do these rigs not have to pass American safety inspections if they are flagged in a foreign port? Isn't this just asking for trouble?

jim

[David Weaver]

Okay, let's go electric. Electric cars use what? Batteries. Last time I checked, batteries were full of very very toxic materials and not easy to dispose of by any means.

You fix one thing, but cause another environmental disaster 40 years from now when some kids grew up playing next to the dump they used to dispose of all the batteries all end up with some fatal disease.

I would venture to guess batteries are as bad for the planet as petroleum in the long run.

I agree with this. Lithium ion batteries and nimh are fairly harmless IIRC, but they are not cheap, and they probably never will be.

I have a feeling the real solution in the future isn't going to be quite so simple, given lots of things seem like a good idea in a 100,000 unit per year kind of thing, but not so great in 10 million units a month worldwide.

[alex grams]

A good conversation.

Fuel cells, in terms of pure hydrogen as a fuel, do require more energy to break down hydrogen than they produce. However, fuel cells can also be run on natural gases. Part of the challenge of fuel cells is also they require some expensive materials for construction, namely platinum for a catalyst. Of course there are other designs for fuel cells, but the mainstream PEM fuel cell requires the platinum.

Some food for thought for layoffs:
Offshore Layoffs (http://www.houmatoday.com/article/20100604/FEATURES12/100609622)

While shallow water permits may still be allowing shallow water drilling, the future of offshore oil is deepwater deposits. Most easily accessible shallow water oil has been exploited, so companies go where the oil is, deeper water. The death of the deepwater oil industry in the gulf is effectively the death of the entire oil industry in the gulf. If you want to stay out of the deep water, you better open up some more shallow water sites for exploration to maintain our current influx of crude from offshore.

While I agree alternatives and more efficient use of current fuels is the future, if you are going to transplant the heart of our energy society, you better have another heart just as strong ready next to you on the table to put back in.

Something I have wanted to be able to see is a straight up comparison of the data from an electric car vs gasoline powered car in terms of overall fuel efficiency and pollution. Assuming the car is provided electricity to charge from a power plant burning fossil fuels, how much fuel at the plant, and how much pollution is produced at the plant compared to a straight combustion engine on a car. I have to think with the transmission losses of the power grid, the loss of storage of electricity in a battery system, that the differences can't be THAT drastic.

[Jim Koepke]

A good conversation.

[snip]

Something I have wanted to be able to see is a straight up comparison of the data from an electric car vs gasoline powered car in terms of overall fuel efficiency and pollution. Assuming the car is provided electricity to charge from a power plant burning fossil fuels, how much fuel at the plant, and how much pollution is produced at the plant compared to a straight combustion engine on a car. I have to think with the transmission losses of the power grid, the loss of storage of electricity in a battery system, that the differences can't be THAT drastic.

It is good that such a charged subject can stay civil. :D

This is good for us and may just show that we are more mature here than what can be seen on so many other forums. Let us strive to keep it this way.

As to the comparisons, there are different factors to the formula across the nation. Here in the Pacific Norhtwest, a lot of our electricity is hydro-electric. As long as it rains and snows, it is renewable with little pollution.

Hopefully with advances in nuclear waste reprocessing and other changes in technology a lot of our needs for energy will be met by nuclear power.

My earlier comment about the formation of an electric NASCAR in my opinion is an important factor in the development of electric cars. This would require development of either a fast charging system or quickly replaceable battery packs. Maybe even a road bed implanted system of power transmission to the battery pack to charge in motion.

All of this does step on the toes of the current infrastructure. Just like a century ago when the first automobiles came on the scene to replace the horse and buggy.

jim

[Pat Germain]

My earlier comment about the formation of an electric NASCAR in my opinion is an important factor in the development of electric cars. This would require development of either a fast charging system or quickly replaceable battery packs. Maybe even a road bed implanted system of power transmission to the battery pack to charge in motion.

I agree some kind of electric racing would be great for the technology. It's a given that people will race anything that moves. Maybe as the Tesla becomes more common, people will start racing those cars. Until a quick-charge system was practical, I guess they'd have to do a quick change of the battery packs in the pits.

[Heather Thompson]

Until a quick-charge system was practical, I guess they'd have to do a quick change of the battery packs in the pits.

Pat,

There was a PBS show last fall that talked of the electric car program in Denmark, very interesting 23 minutes, from what I read today they have secured funding for the car charging network and should be fully functional by mid 2011. http://video.pbs.org/video/1317004630/

Heather

[Pat Germain]

^^ Hey, that was a very interesting report, Heather. Thanks for sharing it. I watched the whole thing. Did you notice a Tesla was prominently featured? The company is going public soon. Maybe I should buy some Tesla stock.

I've been to Denmark. Spent a week in Copenhagen. I like it a lot. As pointed out in the video, it's a small country with a small population. And there's no way Americans would stand for those kinds of taxes. :eek: But we sure could use more time on bicycles. I'd like to ride my bike more. But the typical American suburb is downright dangerous for bicycles. More so than for motorcycles.

As for guy who pushes "carbon offsets", yawn. It's a global Ponzi scheme, in my opinion.

[Karl Brogger]

You want to solve the energy issues, and dependency on petroleum? Its simple, just wait for the next plague to come through and wipe out 75% of the population. Sooner or later some virus will pop up, and decimate the human population. Or, if you are of the impatient variety, maybe you can get together with some bad people somewhere and do a movie style heist on some movie style government lab and set it free. I've seen Zombieland, I know the rules.:D

If you want a more subdued approach, start petitioning and acting to have a few thousand percent tax put on all things that involve petroleum. Then we can all live in a utopia free of oil. Don't come crying to me when you freeze to death, or your murdered because someone else thinks you have, (or worse yet thinks you are), food.

Dependent? Sure. Oil is the cornerstone of our society and infrastructure. Essentially every single thing you have touched today has been made from, moved by, warmed up, lit up, or grown thanks to petroleum. Most things have been involved many times over. Will we run out? If things continue with rampant over population you bet we will. Do I care? Not one bit. I'll be dead long before its actual issue. Without it you'd be old and knocking on Death's door at the age of fifty. Technology, medical or otherwise, owes a great deal of debt to easily accessed energy. Granted diet, and sanitation play enormous role in life expectancy. Basically we'd be turning the clock back at least 200 years, but now with the added issue of trying to feed seven plus billion people on the planet. After a few generations nobody would know any different anyhow. Everybody living at the end will be mighty upset though.

Our cushy way of life would come to a screeching halt. The upside to my way of thinking is that is would re-arrange peoples priorities to something more realistic, like do we have enough food to get through the winter, dry season, week, etc.

Buy a hybrid, I need the gas.;) and please stop cluttering my horizon with those hideous wind turbines. (where's the vomiting smilie?)

[Jim Koepke]

You want to solve the energy issues, and dependency on petroleum? Its simple, just wait for the next plague to come through and wipe out 75% of the population.
...

Do I care? Not one bit.

...

Buy a hybrid, I need the gas.;) and please stop cluttering my horizon with those hideous wind turbines. (where's the vomiting smilie?)

Anyone see Keanu Reeves in The Day the Earth Stood Still?

Maybe the human race is doomed to extinction.

jim

[Mitchell Andrus]

You want to solve the energy issues, and dependency on petroleum? Its simple, just wait for the next plague to come through and wipe out 75% of the population. Sooner or later some virus will pop up, and decimate the human population.

Karl, if you go first, can I have your shoes?

We cured Polio. What a dumb thing to do. I'm betting on a meteor strike.
.

[Karl Brogger]

Maybe the human race is doomed to extinction.

All life is doomed to extinction. Sometimes its from a rock slamming into the earth, or a giant volcano, a virus/germ, and sometimes you just get out bred and extinction happens through an evolutionary process.



Curing polio wasn't dumb, nor was any of the other diseases that have kept the numbers in check. But we haven't cured a lot of things that could put the population back under a million world wide. The various strains of Ebola come to mind. It has a better than 80% mortality rate, it disables and kills its host in such a short amount of time that the chances of it spreading very far isn't all that great. Some new strain that has a longer incubation period very well could spell trouble.

My point isn't that we use too much as individuals, its just that there are far too many individuals using. At some point we won't be able to grow enough food. When is that? Technology keeps bailing that one out too, but at some point we will hit critical mass and our numbers will become unsustainable.

[Chuck Wintle]

I blame the current Obama administration for the problem in the gulf today. BP was a major contributor to the Obama campaign and the Dems do not want to bite the hand that feeds them. When the current joker gets booted from office the USA will be far better of.

[Jim Koepke]

All life is doomed to extinction. Sometimes its from a rock slamming into the earth, or a giant volcano, a virus/germ, and sometimes you just get out bred and extinction happens through an evolutionary process.



Curing polio wasn't dumb, nor was any of the other diseases that have kept the numbers in check. But we haven't cured a lot of things that could put the population back under a million world wide. The various strains of Ebola come to mind. It has a better than 80% mortality rate, it disables and kills its host in such a short amount of time that the chances of it spreading very far isn't all that great. Some new strain that has a longer incubation period very well could spell trouble.

My point isn't that we use too much as individuals, its just that there are far too many individuals using. At some point we won't be able to grow enough food. When is that? Technology keeps bailing that one out too, but at some point we will hit critical mass and our numbers will become unsustainable.

If you wish to accept a defeatist attitude that is certainly your right.

My preference is to take side with those who feel our technology can not only lead us out of our fossil fuel dependence, but lead us into a society that is more caring for the earth and each other as opposed to promoting constant conflict. My choice of hoping for a better future may never come to be. My feeling is that it suits my demeanor better than expecting and accepting the worst for the future of Mankind.

jim

[Pat Germain]

Maybe the human race is doomed to extinction.

jim

That would indeed solve many problems.

[Greg Peterson]

If you wish to accept a defeatist attitude that is certainly your right.


Well stated Jim. I too feel there is tremendous upside (and very little, ir any downside) in finding ways of breaking our dependence on external sources to maintain our standard of living.

The global appetite for energy continues to grow while the supply has been largely limited to 19th century thinking. Other than 'That is the way it's always been done' mentality, there is no reason for one person to use a V8 SUV to commute twenty miles each day. If anything, we lack a terrible lack of imagination in addressing the myriad ways in which we can harness energy.

Matching the source to the application is critical, but the default attitude has always been more power.

[Jim Koepke]

Karl, if you go first, can I have your shoes?


.

You may not want them, they could be full of some terrible virus.

jim

[Greg Peterson]

Karl, if you go first, can I have your shoes?



So you are saying you would want to walk a mile in those shoes?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Greg,

He's just looking for another pair of shoes.....he has no pride....and he will accept used.....:rolleyes:

[Mitchell Andrus]

Greg,

He's just looking for another pair of shoes.....he has no pride....and he will accept used.....:rolleyes:

Two great end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it movies:

Road and Book of Eli.

In each, shoes were highly prized. I'm thinking that by calling 'dibs' now, I'm ahead of the curve.

I'm also collecting goats.
.

[Jim Koepke]

Two great end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it movies:

Road and Book of Eli.

In each, shoes were highly prized. I'm thinking that by calling 'dibs' now, I'm ahead of the curve.

I'm also collecting goats.
.

I will be rich. Before retirement my employer would buy workers a new pair of safety shoes once a year. Now there are about 10 pairs of steel toed shoes in my closet. Just what is needed in one of those end of the world need to kick something situations.

Size 13 for anyone who wants to line up for when I'm gone.

Can't be sure my kids won't grab them first to build their fortunes.

jim

[alex grams]

I have about 4-5 pair of steel toe boots also Jim. When I can get the company help pay for a pair of redwings every year, I am ALL over it.

I even once convinced the company shell over 250$ for a pair of these one time:
http://www.shoeline.com/asp/dcpItem.asp?style=B350-602494

http://www.shoeline.com/images/image.asp?pixels=300&brand=Cove&stock=602494

[Greg Peterson]

...BP was a major contributor to the Obama campaign ...

No contributions were excepted from any corporately funded PAC. He did accept $71K from the BP Employee PAC which was funded by individuals working for BP and family members of the employees.

Just clarifying the misperception. :D

[Chuck Wintle]

No contributions were excepted from any corporately funded PAC. He did accept $71K from the BP Employee PAC which was funded by individuals working for BP and family members of the employees.

Just clarifying the misperception. :D
of course BP would NEVER contribute money under the guise of an employee pac. ;)

[Greg Peterson]

of course BP would NEVER contribute money under the guise of an employee pac. ;)

What evidence can you present that they did? The BP Employee PAC accounted for less than 1/10th of one percent of contributions. Hardly an influential amount.

[Brian Elfert]

What America really needs is another Race to the Moon type program devoted to alternative energy sources. It is unlikely any source of energy will ever be as inexpensive as fossil fuels, but fossil fuels will run out some day and the price will sky rocket as supplies become scare. Some day gasoline prices will be so high that everyone will be lusting for 2008 prices of only $4 a gallon.

Some American pasttimes such as RVing may go by the wayside in the future. There is no way I could afford to replace my motorhome with a newer one that used an alternative fuel source. If they could replace diesel with a synthetic fuel that used the same engine I could maybe still afford to drive it.

The American way of life is a lot different than many European and Asian countries. Europeans and Asians tend to live in very dense housing developments such that mass transit works well. The distance between cities is also a lot less. I can drive for many miles in the Western USA without encountering a large city.

[Kent E. Matthew]

Without fossil fuel most of us would not be here. Oil if what fueled man kinds greatest achievement. Modern agriculture. In 1900 it took 78 percent of the population to grow and distribute the food. Today it takes just 2 percent. Today the population is much higher, and growing much higher in the future, and food production is much higher. The United States leads the world in food exportation. Most everything we do is enabled by fuel and limited by material science. People die without energy and the ability to use it. They die because they lack shelter, food, pharmaceuticals processed from petroleum, transportation to get supplies to where they need to be, or power a military to keep us safe. All of this is based on energy. Have you noticed that the wealthy nations are cleaner because they have the resources/money to reduce pollution. They can afford smoke stack scrubbers, toilets, advanced sewer systems, water treatment plants, catalytic converters, etc. Our wealth and population have been made possible by fossil fuel. The incredible economical energy has given us much. So, what does that mean for the future. Let's look back to the past. Man's first energy. Fire from wood. When we discovered coal was it because we ran out of wood? No. Coal was better and ushered a more powerful and productive steam engine. When gasoline prevailed did we run out of coal? No. Gasoline ushered in the more powerful and better internal combustion engine. What is next will come through the free market and will replace oil when something better and economically advantageous to switch The BP oil spill is indeed a tragedy. But, balance that against the total good fossil fuels have provided man kind I think our path is clear. A glimpse into the future? Not from me, but the Navy sure did solve their propulsion problem.

[Jim Koepke]

When I can get the company help pay for a pair of redwings every year, I am ALL over it.

Some of the RedWing stores also have an outlet for discontinued and factory seconds. They are usually about half price. I have been told some of the stores will actually write a receipt for one pair at regular price and let you take the second pair free.

jim

[Scott Shepherd]

Now there are about 10 pairs of steel toed shoes in my closet.

So it's not okay to use a SUV to get to the store, but it's okay to hoard shoes made from petroleum products in your closet because someone else paid for them? Just curious :)

Seriously, does anyone out there think that this problem hasn't already been solved? I believe it has. You can't tell me that we can invent the most complex of anything out there today, but we can't solve this. I'm a firm believer that the solution to efficient transportation has already been invented. But it doesn't see the light of day because of big industry that it will cripple. Do you remember the 1948 Tucker Sedan? What happened to it? Shut down by the big 3 at the time because it was such a threat.

We can put tiny robots inside a person on the operating table and have a person control it 1000's of miles away, but we can't have cars that get 100mpg? I don't believe it. We can send men and women into space, into an atmosphere where there is no life, and they live, study, and return back into our atmosphere safely (most of the time), and we can't figure out how to make things efficient? I don't believe it.

I have a 2 wheel drive ford truck. I don't pull 3000 lb boats with it, I don't pull camping trailers, I just drive the truck daily and haul things like a sheet of plywood. Yet, it's geared to pull a boat. Why? How many truck owners own boats? 50% of them? I doubt it. Maybe 5% of them? Gearing it that way means I end up getting very poor mileage. Why not change the standard gearing in all trucks and force people into buying trucks that have a "towing package" if they want a truck able to pull a house down? Why can't the average truck get 35 mpg? Instead, most get less than 20 and many, closer to 15. Just doesn't make sense. It's treating the market like everyone is the exception, not the rule, when, in fact, the opposite would make us much more efficient. Just look around you on your daily commutes and see how many pick up trucks are hauling anything. It's rare to see a occasion where most of those people couldn't be driving a truck with the gearing that would provide very high mileage in town and on the interstate.

Just my opinion.

[Belinda Barfield]

I'm also collecting goats..

I knew it was just a matter of time before goats were introduced into the discussion. :D Hold onto those goats, Mitchell, we may all be riding in goat carts and when the time comes you will be poised to make your fortune.

Late to the topic, but one question. Let's say it is necessary to shut down all deep water rigs pending inspection. Why a six month moratorium? Shut them all down, start inspections, and bring a rig back online if it passes, as soon as it passes. If a rig doesn't pass, fix what needs to be fixed, re-inspect, etc.

Regarding fossil fuel usage in the U.S., does anyone have statistics regarding how much fossil fuel is used in farming operations versus personal transportation? I can't imagine we will ever have a battery powered corn combine.

[Greg Peterson]

Belinda -

The moratorium only applies to 33 rigs. But to hear it told, it applied to all 4,100+ rigs in the gulf. Poor reporting and plenty of vested interests not providing this insight.

While the AG industry relies on petro for fuel and fertilizers, there are larger enterprises reliant upon petro. UPS comes to mind. Airlines, taxi fleets, mass transit....

Scott -

I agree that trucks could/should be configured to match the needs of the majority of consumers. While one is certainly entitled to commute via a Ford Excursion, I am entitled to the opinion that it is little more than a display of excess.

[Scott Shepherd]

While one is certainly entitled to commute via a Ford Excursion, I am entitled to the opinion that it is little more than a display of excess.

And that's my point. You wouldn't consider it a "display of excess" if it got 50 MPG.

I stand by my comments, I cannot believe in todays world, technology does not exist that can get us to no less than 50 mpg on almost all cars and trucks, with possible exceptions for those that need massive power or torque to perform their duties.

Why does my truck show 2,500 RPM at 65mph? I believe technology should have us cruising along at less than 1,000 RPM at highway speeds.

Just my opinion.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Why does my truck show 2,500 RPM at 65mph? I believe technology should have us cruising along at less than 1,000 RPM at highway speeds.



That's a valid question. I wondered the same thing a few years ago.

Your engine likely performs at it's best at 2,500 rpm. Gearing it down to 1,000 wouldn't require less gas. It's the power stored in the fuel, not the engine's rpm's that moves the car down the road, no matter the gearing. Half the rpm's=twice the gas to do the same work. Simple physics. Also, spent gasses move out of the combustion chamber more efficiently at higher rpm's making for a more efficient use of the space above the piston. There's a reason race cars rev to 10,000 rpm's and diesel truck's engines run at lower rpm's than gas engines. Efficiency. Ethanol burns faster and can be shoved out of a race car's engine faster than gasoline. Diesel burns slower and needs to burn in the chamber longer.

More on power and torque:
http://www.carkeys.co.uk/features/technical/636.asp

"Physicists define power as "work done", and a good analogy here would be to imagine hammering a tent peg into the ground. If you gave the peg one almighty wallop and then walked away, the peg might not be fully secure, so although you had done the equivalent of applying a lot of torque, you wouldn't have done it for long enough and the total amount of work done would not be very impressive.


If, on the other hand, you tapped the peg gently for half an hour, you would eventually get the job finished, but it still wouldn't be a work rate to be proud of. Hammering the peg strongly a few times would make it secure far more quickly than the other two methods. In engine terms, this would equate to producing decent amounts of torque at a suitable number of revs."

.

[Scott Shepherd]

While just making my RPM's come down to 1000 surely wouldn't solve the math problem, it wasn't meant as a solution, but rather an example.

You cannot deny that a car that has 411 gears in the rear gets worse gas mileage than a car with 273 gears at 65 miles per hour.

My point was that most all SUV's and trucks today are built to a specification to HAUL heavy objects, not to carry people. If they treated 95% of those vehicles in that manner, we could be getting 35 mpg in our trucks today, not 10 years from now.

It doesn't take any more power to push my SUV down the road than it does a car that weighs the same thing, without a small margin of error.

[Jim Koepke]

So it's not okay to use a SUV to get to the store, but it's okay to hoard shoes made from petroleum products in your closet because someone else paid for them? Just curious :)

Just for the record, I do not believe I have made either claim. Besides, I rotate the shoes daily just as I did before I retired. Unless a change of shoes is needed, only one pair gets worn in a day. After all, only one pair can be worn at a time.


Seriously, does anyone out there think that this problem hasn't already been solved? I believe it has. You can't tell me that we can invent the most complex of anything out there today, but we can't solve this. I'm a firm believer that the solution to efficient transportation has already been invented. But it doesn't see the light of day because of big industry that it will cripple. Do you remember the 1948 Tucker Sedan? What happened to it? Shut down by the big 3 at the time because it was such a threat.

We can put tiny robots inside a person on the operating table and have a person control it 1000's of miles away, but we can't have cars that get 100mpg? I don't believe it. We can send men and women into space, into an atmosphere where there is no life, and they live, study, and return back into our atmosphere safely (most of the time), and we can't figure out how to make things efficient? I don't believe it.

I have a 2 wheel drive ford truck. I don't pull 3000 lb boats with it, I don't pull camping trailers, I just drive the truck daily and haul things like a sheet of plywood. Yet, it's geared to pull a boat. Why? How many truck owners own boats? 50% of them? I doubt it. Maybe 5% of them? Gearing it that way means I end up getting very poor mileage. Why not change the standard gearing in all trucks and force people into buying trucks that have a "towing package" if they want a truck able to pull a house down? Why can't the average truck get 35 mpg? Instead, most get less than 20 and many, closer to 15. Just doesn't make sense. It's treating the market like everyone is the exception, not the rule, when, in fact, the opposite would make us much more efficient. Just look around you on your daily commutes and see how many pick up trucks are hauling anything. It's rare to see a occasion where most of those people couldn't be driving a truck with the gearing that would provide very high mileage in town and on the interstate.

Just my opinion.

And good opinions they are.

One of our problems is the nature of Mankind.

Our advertising convinces us we need to have the newest/biggest/shiniest status symbol.

Our corporation$ are driven by little el$e than profit$, the bigger the better.

This means if SUVs are more profitable than economy cars, guess where the advertising money is going to be spent.

Everyone seems to understand that we would all be better off if we drove gas sipping vehicles in a transition to alternate fuel technology. But there is no enforcement of what is best. Besides the little inconvenience being that most likely the majority of us would turn to revolution before allowing such to take over our lives.

At one point in my adult life, a bicycle was my only form of transportation. Our infrastructure is not really set up to accommodate bicycles as a mass transportation solution. It can be out right dangerous in some areas to ride a bicycle.

The whole ball of wax seems to come down the the need to change in order to sustain human life on this planet. The inertia of many seems to be saying that change is too difficult so let us just have a good time before the end.

[Neal Clayton]

i'd be much happier with seizing BP's leases and forcing them to get rid of their refineries than a moratorium on all deep water drilling.

this isn't an oil problem, it's a BP problem. BP consistently and regularly violates safety/maintenance standards at all of their facilities, and their punishment should be, in short, sell your sh#! and get out.

i have friends and family working out there, and it's always gonna be somewhat dangerous work. but there are acceptable minimums and maximums as far as reward and risk go. and BP has obviously forsaken those along with any care for the safety of their workers in exchange for the cost of the menial fines from OSHA and other departments.

so the solution is simple, get rid of BP. not that that will ever happen...

[Greg Peterson]

The inertia of many seems to be saying that change is too difficult so let us just have a good time before the end.

That and the fact that a few Doubting Thomas', with much to gain by maintaining the status quo, are able to disrupt any dialog that seeks to address ways of making our future better than today.

Changing attitudes is likely a greater challenge than augmenting our sources of energy.

[Bob Turkovich]

Seriously, does anyone out there think that this problem hasn't already been solved? I believe it has. You can't tell me that we can invent the most complex of anything out there today, but we can't solve this. I'm a firm believer that the solution to efficient transportation has already been invented. But it doesn't see the light of day because of big industry that it will cripple. Do you remember the 1948 Tucker Sedan? What happened to it? Shut down by the big 3 at the time because it was such a threat.

We can put tiny robots inside a person on the operating table and have a person control it 1000's of miles away, but we can't have cars that get 100mpg? I don't believe it. We can send men and women into space, into an atmosphere where there is no life, and they live, study, and return back into our atmosphere safely (most of the time), and we can't figure out how to make things efficient? I don't believe it.

I have a 2 wheel drive ford truck. I don't pull 3000 lb boats with it, I don't pull camping trailers, I just drive the truck daily and haul things like a sheet of plywood. Yet, it's geared to pull a boat. Why? How many truck owners own boats? 50% of them? I doubt it. Maybe 5% of them? Gearing it that way means I end up getting very poor mileage. Why not change the standard gearing in all trucks and force people into buying trucks that have a "towing package" if they want a truck able to pull a house down? Why can't the average truck get 35 mpg? Instead, most get less than 20 and many, closer to 15. Just doesn't make sense. It's treating the market like everyone is the exception, not the rule, when, in fact, the opposite would make us much more efficient. Just look around you on your daily commutes and see how many pick up trucks are hauling anything. It's rare to see a occasion where most of those people couldn't be driving a truck with the gearing that would provide very high mileage in town and on the interstate.

.
Scott,

Are you suggesting that the automakers are in collusion with the petrochemicals to keep MPG down and therefore, use more oil? As a recent powertrain retiree from one of the Big 3, I believe no such collusion takes place (certainly during my career of 30+ years) and I was in a position to have known.

As far as technology for a 50+ MPG vehicle existing, if you're looking for something to take you to and from work and that's it, it's close to being out there BUT you won't be able to take your wife and kids with you anywhere and you wouldn't stand a chance in an accident with any of the commercial vehicles out there. Speaking as a recent victim of a 65mph (pre-braking) incident with a near stationary F550 dump truck that I walked away from...and I was driving a mid-size crossover vehicle (totalled), I wouldn't want my loved ones taking a chance on the road with that kind of vehicle.

If my peers and I could create a 50+MPG vehicle with the attributes most Americans want, I could have retired earlier with a larger, better equipped wood shop........:D

As far as your gear ratio issue, complexity reduction was a major issue in recent years within the auto industry. The cost of building/storing multiple options has become prohibitive and has resulted in "packaged options". Most dealerships are privately owned and cannot afford to carry stock inventory allowing one to pick a "custom built" vehicle anymore. That being said, axle ratio option is one that most companies (including the one I worked for) still offer in their trucks (I do not know about Ford....). Perhaps you insisted on some other option that didn't come packaged with an axle ratio change.

And for what it's worth, I don't see the logic in the Excursion-type vehicles either and my son's new Dodge Challenger R/T turns 1100 rpm @65 mph in 6th gear.;)

[Caspar Hauser]

so the solution is simple, get rid of BP.

Well, that was easy!

and just for jollies http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1995029,00.html

[Neal Clayton]

Well, that was easy!

and just for jollies http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1995029,00.html

yeah, that's what they really mean every time there's a US industrialist on CNBC crying about 'over regulation'.

if only they could spew toxins into the ground/air/water at will like they do in india and china, everything would be better.

cause when un-regulated, people just do so well over there...

[Christopher Pine]

Well, that was easy!

and just for jollies http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1995029,00.html

Well its kinda like drugs. If there wa sno morket for them the dealers would just go away! So stop buying and using gasoline!

[Brian Elfert]

Many of the so-called 1/2 ton pickups have relatively high gearing. 3/4 and 1 ton pickups usually have lower gearing as they are intended for heavy towing and hauling.

Torque is really what moves vehicles. There is always a torque peak and for gasoline engines the torque peaks at a fairly high RPM. Diesel engines the torque peaks at lower RPM. The Series 60 engine in my motorhome has peak torque at under 1,500 RPM. Heck, max RPM is around 2,200. Lowering RPM with overdrives can only do so much to improve MPG.

Finally, I doubt oil companies are paying off car manufacturers. Can you imagine how many more vehicles they would sell if the same vehicles with just a different engine got double the mileage? SUV sales would probably go way up again if they got the same MPG as today's compact cars. There are also government mandates to improve MPG greatly.

[Karl Brogger]

Another factoid that most don't understand is that every time the emissions laws are messed with for automobiles, it has an impact on the mileage that those vehicles get.

I have two vehicles, a 2wd, crew cab, GMC Canyon with a 4cyl that I do most of my running and measuring with, and an old 4wd Dodge 3/4ton with a diesel. The diesel used to routinely get over 20mpg, now with the new ULSD fuel I'm lucky to get 19. The Canyon weighs less than half, (2700#s vs 7400#'s), yet can only get a measly overall average of about 25mpg. Its also a gutless turd of a vehicle, while the diesel puts to the ground probably 300hp/650ft/lbs of tourque. The diesel has lower gearing, (3.73's), the gasser has I think something incredibly high like 3.08 gearing. Its a load of crap is what it is. I bought the Canyon with the intent of swapping a 4 cylinder diesel into it, I'll have twice the power, and hopefully 25% better fuel economy.

In order for the automakers to get the emissions as low as they are, the engines must use more fuel. The combustion has to get hot enough to burn off all of the nasties. There is only so much energy per volume in any fuel, if we were genuinely concerned about mileage we would dump the current hybrid philosophy and adopt what the rail companies have been doing for a very long time and not bother with transferring power to the ground via mechanical means. I believe the majority of rail locomotives use a 2 stroke, turbo charged, super charged, diesel with valves. They wouldn't be using them if it didn't impact the bottom line. Heck I used to get a 17-18mpg driving a 1971 four door Buick Skylark with a 455 around. My last gas pickup with a 454 couldn't even do that even though it was made 25 years later.

There is a lot of things that people just aren't willing to pay for, or deal with. One thing that would greatly change the landscape would be running a valve system like Formula One cars use. There's no cam shafts. The intake and exhaust valves are driven pneumatically. Its probably a wash in mechanical losses, but where the potential gains come from is the basically infinite amount of changes to duration and timing that can take place. But they howl, are more complicated and there for more expensive.

Turbo charged engines should be used more often as well. All that wasted energy going out the tail pipe for nothing, when it can be partially harnessed and used to improve performance in all aspects. There's even a modest gain in turbo charged engines while idling as the compression ratio's can be lower so less energy has to be smashed out of a drop of fuel to keep it running.

[Pat Germain]

One thing that would greatly change the landscape would be running a valve system like Formula One cars use. There's no cam shafts. The intake and exhaust valves are driven pneumatically.

They really are pneumatic now? Awhile back I knew they were using gas charged cylinders instead of valve springs. A local company patented a diesel engine with no camshafts. The valves are hydraulic. I wasn't aware that air could also be used. I would have assumed it would compress and not be exact enough. But leave it to the F-1 guys.

[Neal Clayton]

Another factoid that most don't understand is that every time the emissions laws are messed with for automobiles, it has an impact on the mileage that those vehicles get.

I have two vehicles, a 2wd, crew cab, GMC Canyon with a 4cyl that I do most of my running and measuring with, and an old 4wd Dodge 3/4ton with a diesel. The diesel used to routinely get over 20mpg, now with the new ULSD fuel I'm lucky to get 19. The Canyon weighs less than half, (2700#s vs 7400#'s), yet can only get a measly overall average of about 25mpg. Its also a gutless turd of a vehicle, while the diesel puts to the ground probably 300hp/650ft/lbs of tourque. The diesel has lower gearing, (3.73's), the gasser has I think something incredibly high like 3.08 gearing. Its a load of crap is what it is. I bought the Canyon with the intent of swapping a 4 cylinder diesel into it, I'll have twice the power, and hopefully 25% better fuel economy.

In order for the automakers to get the emissions as low as they are, the engines must use more fuel. The combustion has to get hot enough to burn off all of the nasties. There is only so much energy per volume in any fuel, if we were genuinely concerned about mileage we would dump the current hybrid philosophy and adopt what the rail companies have been doing for a very long time and not bother with transferring power to the ground via mechanical means. I believe the majority of rail locomotives use a 2 stroke, turbo charged, super charged, diesel with valves. They wouldn't be using them if it didn't impact the bottom line. Heck I used to get a 17-18mpg driving a 1971 four door Buick Skylark with a 455 around. My last gas pickup with a 454 couldn't even do that even though it was made 25 years later.

There is a lot of things that people just aren't willing to pay for, or deal with. One thing that would greatly change the landscape would be running a valve system like Formula One cars use. There's no cam shafts. The intake and exhaust valves are driven pneumatically. Its probably a wash in mechanical losses, but where the potential gains come from is the basically infinite amount of changes to duration and timing that can take place. But they howl, are more complicated and there for more expensive.

Turbo charged engines should be used more often as well. All that wasted energy going out the tail pipe for nothing, when it can be partially harnessed and used to improve performance in all aspects. There's even a modest gain in turbo charged engines while idling as the compression ratio's can be lower so less energy has to be smashed out of a drop of fuel to keep it running.

agree with all of the above. i have the car size version of the diesel scenario. a merc e320. it gets about 37 on the highway. for 20% more fuel cost you get 30% better mileage, and a more durable engine to boot. can't argue with that.

turbos are used more often. by the japanese, and the germans. but i'm sure people people will ignore all that and want GM 350 V8s again soon.....any day now....hello.....guys?

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Hydrogen is a manufactured product and not a power source, it only carries some of the power that is used to create it (about 25% recovery to the end user), so that isn't the answer.

Actually hydrogen is the answer. More specifically deuterium and tritium, which are isotopes of hydrogen, when fused together. It's how the sun works. However, creating fusion power here on earth is a very, very difficult task.

Fusion research has been going on for almost 60 years. Unfortunately, there appears to be more international interest in fusion research these days while the US interest has been declining.

On the positive side, the first full scale fusion demo reactor is in the early design phase and is planned to be constructed in France. It's called ITER. Six countries, including the US, are participating in its development which costs over $20 billion and requires about 10 years (minimum) to construct. If it works, it will be the first fusion device to produce more energy than it takes to operate. However, it will only operate in 1 hour pulses. It will be like having the power of the stars here on earth with an inexhaustible fuel supply and no nuclear weapon development or reactor run away threat.

But, it's a very, very difficult task.

-Jeff :)

[Pat Germain]

But, it's a very, very difficult task.

I dunno. Maybe I'll get out the pressure cooker and give it a go.

[Scott Shepherd]

Scott,

Are you suggesting that the automakers are in collusion with the petrochemicals to keep MPG down and therefore, use more oil? As a recent powertrain retiree from one of the Big 3, I believe no such collusion takes place (certainly during my career of 30+ years) and I was in a position to have known.

I don't know who's in bed with who, but I do know this. In 1983-84 I had my first job while in high school. I washed cars at a Honda dealer when I was 15. At that time there was a CRX that came out that got 50mpg. It sold moderately well. So fast forward 26 years now and tell me how many cars get 50mpg. Not many.

So you're telling me that in 26 years time, we haven't been able to push the ball forward more than 5 mpg? I don't believe it. We put a man on the moon in the 1960's. We invent stealth planes that by the time we find out about them, they are at the end of their life cycle. We invent things that cannot even be imagined by most. However, as a world society, there's not a single person or company smart enough to give us 100mpg with power as well?

Sorry, I just don't believe it. We can smash atoms, split atoms, travel into space, but we can't solve this? I don't believe it.

Let's say solar is the answer (I have no idea if it is or not). Do you really think if solar is the answer, that the oil companies are going to just "let that happen"? No way. They are a business and they'll do everything they can do stop anything that threatens their core business. I'm not against oil companies by any means, but I do think they have a vested interest in not seeing things come to market.

[Brian Elfert]

The single biggest killers of mileage have been CARB and the EPA. Cars don't pollute so much, but they burn more fuel.

Early results from 2010 diesel pickups seem to indicate they get better mileage than those with 2007 emissions. That is a plus at least.

[Gordon Harner]

As you alluded to in your post, BP has not had a good safety/environmental record. Their refinery explosion and OSHA repeat and willful violations are proof ( just do an establishment search under enforcement on OSHA's website). This calamity should not halt the offshore oil drilling. But, and I think the industry is painfully awareof this fact now, managers, even those maximizing profits, better do a better job preventing these occurences from happening. The technology does exist. Unreasonable acceptence of risk and penny pinching is the cause of this fiasco.

I absolutely believe that we need to spend the effort on alternative energy sources, but, we need the time to do the research. If energy is not economical the world economy will be tremendously disrupted. I don't think I want to be around to experience that kind of upheaval.

[Bob Turkovich]

I don't know who's in bed with who, but I do know this. In 1983-84 I had my first job while in high school. I washed cars at a Honda dealer when I was 15. At that time there was a CRX that came out that got 50mpg. It sold moderately well. So fast forward 26 years now and tell me how many cars get 50mpg. Not many.

So you're telling me that in 26 years time, we haven't been able to push the ball forward more than 5 mpg? I don't believe it. We put a man on the moon in the 1960's. We invent stealth planes that by the time we find out about them, they are at the end of their life cycle. We invent things that cannot even be imagined by most. However, as a world society, there's not a single person or company smart enough to give us 100mpg with power as well?

Sorry, I just don't believe it. We can smash atoms, split atoms, travel into space, but we can't solve this? I don't believe it.

Let's say solar is the answer (I have no idea if it is or not). Do you really think if solar is the answer, that the oil companies are going to just "let that happen"? No way. They are a business and they'll do everything they can do stop anything that threatens their core business. I'm not against oil companies by any means, but I do think they have a vested interest in not seeing things come to market.


That Honda CRX had a manual 5-speed transmission. It weighed 1/2 of the current Civic. It had a 0-60 time of over 12 seconds. It did not have A/C, power locks, power seats or power windows.

It did not have a driver/passenger air bags, side air bags, robust side door beams, anti lock brakes, clutch interlock system or a stability control system. It would not pass today's front, rear, side or rollover impact standards.

It did not come with DVD, GPS, entertainment systems or a sunroof.

It would not come close to meeting today's emissions standards. It was introduced when the maximum federal speed limit was 55 mph.

If you put that 1985 CRX through today's EPA test procedure (last revised in 2008), it probably wouldn't get 45 mpg.

The last 15 years of my career were spent in Powertrain Engineering management. My annual performance review was partially based on fuel economy improvements. To think that the auto companies are sitting on fuel economy improvements is ill-advised.

As I mentioned earlier, we can make a 50 mpg vehicle. It just won't meet the customers needs and wants.

The oil companies can affect the price at the pump. They can affect what the driving public wants. That is the only way - albeit indirect - that they influence the auto companies. If there was a safe, cost-efficient non-hydrocarbon propulsion method, the auto companies would be after it in a heartbeat.

Your logic re: atom splitting, space travel, etc. can be applied to resolving many of the world's ills (disease, pestilence.) In this case, there is still need for further invention.

[Joe Chritz]

We can very well produce vehicles that obtain well over 50 MPG, especially small vehicles. I imagine it would be short order time (1-2 years) to get a larger vehicle or pickup with similar mileage.

There is an upper limit since any gallon of fuel only has x amount of power available.

I seriously doubt that anyone is willing to pay the costs involved with the research, development and production of such an animal at this time.

Plus a big factor lots of people forget is that gasoline/diesel production is only a part of where crude oil goes. I don't have stats handy for an amount but I can't imagine it is over 50%. As a round number 19-20 gallons of gasoline comes from a 42 gallon barrel of oil. All that other stuff goes to other things. Lots and lots of other things.

I have said this before and will again. It is a complicated problem with complicated solutions. When alternative fuels are available with similar properties and can use the same infrastructure (tankers, stations and pumps, etc) it will take off and be used.

Ethanol from non-corn sources has some promise but time will tell.

Joe

[Pat Germain]

We can very well produce vehicles that obtain well over 50 MPG, especially small vehicles.

Such vehicles are already on the road in Europe. But, as Bob pointed out, they don't meet US emissions standards.

[Scott Shepherd]

Bob, you completely missed my point. My point wasn't that the CRX was a model to the future, but rather we haven't moved the ball forward more than a couple of MPG in over 25 years which I think is a huge disappointment.

I'm not accusing you of designing poor quality products by any means. But you can't honestly tell me that you believe we can't produce cars that average 50mpg with todays technology. Obviously there are some obstacles in the way that are preventing it from happening. From what you say, it appears much of it is regulatory. How can that be? How can the emission standards hamper gas mileage? Wouldn't that be counter productive to what they are trying to accomplish? If a car gets 50mpg with no emission control and has relatively low emissions, and you strap emission controls on it and it now gets 35mpg, doesn't that in itself cause the user to consume more product? That would mean that more damage is being done by the "emission friendly" car than the non-friendly car. If emission standards cause gas mileage to plummet, that's a frightening revelation I don't think the general public is aware of.

Say what you will, I don't believe it. I believe the technology exists today to do it. Henry Ford used to give the people everything they wanted to. You could have black, black, or if you didn't like that, you could have black. It's not always about giving the public what they are whining for, but rather setting the course and being a leader and pulling the public through it.

I think comparing fixing cars technology to curing cancer is missing the point. We don't know what causes cancer, but we do have the technology today to create cars that get 100 mpg and are safe. Engineering students have shown they can get 2000 mpg out of a design, but it's not a design for a family car. It's hard to believe we go from 2000 mpg all the way back down to 18-20mpg for so many vehicles today.

[Mitchell Andrus]

So you're telling me that in 26 years time, we haven't been able to push the ball forward more than 5 mpg? I don't believe it. We put a man on the moon in the 1960's....

Scott, you're right. We can make cars that get better mileage.

When you burn a candle and you get a certain amount of heat out of it (whether a little at a time or burning 20 wicks all in one big fireball) the power stored and released is finite. The wax burns, BTU's are delivered. That's it. 1,000 BTU's stored, 1,000 BTU's delivered. Same with a gallon of gas. BTU's stored = BTU's delivered.

The magic carburetor theory (and others) is a myth. To think otherwise would be to believe that every basement tinkerer, every scientist, every college student, every university on the PLANET is in big oil's pocket for the past 60 years.

This isn't a man-on-the-moon or we-cured-polio thing. It's a the-candle-got-burned-up thing. When you burn something, it gives up only the energy that's stored. What we do with the BTU's as they are released is the tricky part.

We can make and do have vehicles that get 60 - 70 miles to the gallon. They look like golf carts. You can find them on golf courses and in India working as rickshaw-style taxis. Add power steering, crumple zones, padded dash, shatter proof windshield, loose 7 mpg. Add doors (with side impact bars), loose 6 mpg. Add heat and A/C, loose 2 mpg. Add a catalytic converter and all the trimmings, loose 5 mpg. Add highway speed capability, loose 3mpg. You've now got a car that I'll let my child drive. It's a Honda Civic, 40-45 mpg. More weight = more power needed to move it - Fairly simple H.S. physics.

Add weight, kill mpg. It's a trade-off we have signed onto. There are yearly 100+mpg gas sipper competitions where the driver is the smallest person at the school driving where there are no hills, potholes, stop signs, airport loads of luggage, snow drifts, A/C, radio, power in reserve nor seats to haul 5 adults, tires that last 15,000 miles, shocks, windows, crumple zones, 100,000 mile warranties, ..... Yea, we can do it. Of course we can. You can build one in your garage. Strip down a pick-up to Model T weight and double it's mileage. Remove all of the last 60 years' of safety and comfort improvements, remove the pollution stuff and we're there. --- That car won't sell, we stopped buying that car in the 1930's. With a modern Honda engine a Model T will get 70 mpg if you're light on the pedal. It can be done.

Go drive that 70 mpg Model T down the road if you want to... It will move you along, just don't hit anything with a child on board, you'll make the papers. Maimed and dead family members caused us to demand cars that got heavy and safer...

I'll give up 10-15 mpg to drive a minivan that allows me to drive in the snow, haul plywood and walk away from a head-on collision. Air bags, loose 1 mpg. Cargo capacity, loose 2 mpg. I'm OK with that, and I'm not part of the conspiracy. I've just gotten real about my expectations and the fact that stuff that burns only does so much work.
.

[Scott Shepherd]

Mitchell, I never put the limitation of making it happen on a technology or single fuel. You're painting us into a corner demanding it's all gasoline. I'm not. I don't care what the solution is, it could be 10 things making it happen.

I stick by my comments. We build some of the most sophisticated fighter planes in the world. You can't tell me if we can figure all that out, we can't figure out how to make a "safe" fuel efficient car. You may believe it, but I don't.

[Mitchell Andrus]

t If a car gets 50mpg with no emission control and has relatively low emissions, and you strap emission controls on it and it now gets 35mpg, doesn't that in itself cause the user to consume more product?

A quick look at the air over LA disproves this notion. Less, more polluted air isn't better than more, less polluted air.

More cars are being driven that ever before, but the air is cleaner. A trade-off that works for this narrow target at least.
.

[Mitchell Andrus]

Mitchell, I never put the limitation of making it happen on a technology or single fuel. You're painting us into a corner demanding it's all gasoline. I'm not. I don't care what the solution is, it could be 10 things making it happen.

I stick by my comments. We build some of the most sophisticated fighter planes in the world. You can't tell me if we can figure all that out, we can't figure out how to make a "safe" fuel efficient car. You may believe it, but I don't.

Define "efficient". Maybe we're there now, you just don't see it for what it is.
.

[Scott Shepherd]

Define "efficient". Maybe we're there now, you just don't see it for what it is.
.

I did define it. 100mpg and safe. However, safe according to some people needs to be 4000lbs in weight, front air bags, side airbags, air curtains,roll cages, crumble zones, 6 point racing harnesses, etc., etc., etc.

I drove a 1973 F150 when I was a kid. Seemed safe to me. I've driven a lot of cars since them and I don't feel any safer today than I did back then. In fact, I feel less safe.

So define safe. Safe to you, or safe to me?

[Jim Koepke]

Stop... Stop... You are both right.

The problem is the auto industry can make high milage cars or they can make behemoth SUVs.

The formula comes down to which are more profitable. We all spout our ideals of the Utopia World cars. But when it comes down to what we do, we need something that can carry a load of ply wood or horse manure. We need to do the monthly run to Costco and it ain't going to fit in that little smart car. Those who are well off enough may have the utility vehicle for hauling the kids to the soccer match and getting groceries. There is a truck in the garage for when something has to be hauled. Then there are a couple of single passenger cars for the commute to work. Trouble is, there is a cost associated with having that many vehicles and those who can afford it are the least likely to own the super economy cars.

Then there is the advertising for cars. How many ads do you see that focus on Zoom zoom zoom? Images of racing down roads and sliding around corners is the sizzle that sells cars. The last great campaign to sell cars based on their "boring" features may have been the VW ads of the 1960s.

jim

[David Weaver]

I did define it. 100mpg and safe. However, safe according to some people needs to be 4000lbs in weight, front air bags, side airbags, air curtains,roll cages, crumble zones, 6 point racing harnesses, etc., etc., etc.

I drove a 1973 F150 when I was a kid. Seemed safe to me. I've driven a lot of cars since them and I don't feel any safer today than I did back then. In fact, I feel less safe.

So define safe. Safe to you, or safe to me?

Why you should feel safer, even if you feel less safe....

Especially telling is the perspective of the driver in each.

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

And for good measure, an actual fatality rate per million miles, from '75 to '05

http://geoff82.files.wordpress.com/2006/12/fatality-rate-per-100000000-miles.gif

[Mitchell Andrus]

Why you should feel safer, even if you feel less safe....

Especially telling is the perspective of the driver in each.

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



Same '59 vs '09 crash, interior camera view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFTpKy27aLk&feature=related

Mercedes vs Smart Car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he6TL15pJtw&NR=1

I'll take the Mercedes.
.

[Glenn Clabo]

David...Yipes. That's called safer in fact...not feelings.

[David Weaver]

Same '59 vs '09 crash, interior camera view:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFTpKy27aLk&feature=related

Mercedes vs Smart Car:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he6TL15pJtw&NR=1

I'll take the Mercedes.
.

Yeah, me, too.

But I'll take the smart over a similarly sized (albeit would probably have to be european) car from 50 or even 30 years ago. The smart can't make up for its lack of relative size in a car to car crash, but it does pretty well otherwise.

Edit to add the smart individual test.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz-s1sIoLhU

Anyone who watched only the mercedes vs. smart video would probably think I was high for saying that the smart seems to do OK when not stacked against a big car.

Looks like against a bigger car, though, it gets launched since it doesn't totally collapse into the driver's compartment. I wonder how long it will be before one of those goes over the side of a bridge in a collision, or turns into a pinball for multiple impacts in heavy traffic.

[Bob Turkovich]

Scott,

Some emissions regulations have been fuel economy positive, some have not.

Emissions regulations are not just tailpipe related. For example, every vehicle has 10+ lbs. of parts solely to prevent hydrocarbon vapor emissions while your vehicle is sitting in the driveway/garage. They aren't really doing anything to help fuel economy but the added weight has a negative effect. Everything I mentioned that your CRX did not have affects vehicle weight or electrical draw. Electrical draw affects alternator sizing and parasitics on the engine which begets larger alternators which begets more parasitics, etc.

I mentioned in my first reply my recent accident with a dump truck. I estimate my impact speed (after braking) to be about 35mph. If I had been driving any 1973 vehicle at the time, I am 100% certain I would not be here participating in this forum.

Good luck marketing a 100mpg vehicle that no one can drive on the road. Being a corporate leader is more than driving the market. It also demands responsibility to the employees, shareholders and more importantly, the public.

Say, has anyone noticed that the original OP has been missing for awhile?

Where are you, Alex?.......Alex? (I say let's go back to what we really want to do...take shots at big oil);)

[Chris Kennedy]

When you burn a candle and you get a certain amount of heat out of it (whether a little at a time or burning 20 wicks all in one big fireball) the power stored and released is finite. The wax burns, BTU's are delivered. That's it. 1,000 BTU's stored, 1,000 BTU's delivered. Same with a gallon of gas. BTU's stored = BTU's delivered.



There's more to it than this, as well. An internal combustion engine has to turn heat energy into kinetic energy. We're into the realm of thermodynamics. My knowledge of thermo is extremely limited, but there is an upper bound to the efficiency of any engine -- you can't do better than the Carnot efficiency. A physicist could explain it a lot better than I, but basically, there is a set limit that we cannot overcome.

Cheers,

Chris

[Brian Elfert]

you say, it appears much of it is regulatory. How can that be? How can the emission standards hamper gas mileage? Wouldn't that be counter productive to what they are trying to accomplish? If a car gets 50mpg with no emission control and has relatively low emissions, and you strap emission controls on it and it now gets 35mpg, doesn't that in itself cause the user to consume more product? That would mean that more damage is being done by the

The EPA is more cocerned about what comes out of the tail pipe than what goes into the engine though there are MPG standards. If a car produces less pollutants per 1,000 miles even though it gets 10 MPG less than an older car that is a win to the EPA. The EPA doesn't consider the pollution created to make more gasoline.

The Honda CRX seems to be the car everyone brings up as the gold standard when MPG is mentioned. How come nobody mentions all the enormous cars of the 70s? Could that be because they had V8s and got like 15 MPG at best? My parents bought a 1977 Ford LTD II brand new. It was considered a compact car as this was just after the first oil crisis. That car was much larger than any compact of today. The LTD II is longer than today's F-150 crew cab by a few inches!

[Scott Shepherd]

The Honda CRX seems to be the car everyone brings up as the gold standard when MPG is mentioned. How come nobody mentions all the enormous cars of the 70s?

This is the first conversation I've had about all of this, so it's my first time bringing it up and I brought it up because it's stuck with me over the years because I worked there.

My question is if all of this fuel economy is lost due to safety, why do cars in Europe get better gas mileage? Seems their average is at our very high end. How can it be? If a unit of fuel can only produce "so much energy", then how can others get more out of it? I've been to 10 countries or so in the Europe area and I've not seen reports of mass deaths in unsafe vehicles. I've seen many a trucks, delivery vehicles, and other large things on the roads, but I don't seem Europe screaming for anything new that kills their gas mileage. I've also not seen too many European countries full of smog either. Maybe Paris in the summer, but overall, most places I've been were quite clean.

I guess I'm not communicating clearly, because what I'm talking about is a J.F.K. moment. The American people weren't sitting around demanding we go to the moon. JFK set the goal and we nailed it. Nixon promised to get us off of foreign oil. Carter promised it. Reagan promised it. Bush 1 promised it, Clinton promised it, and Bush 2 promised it. But no one's thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the country to make it happen by 2020. That's the moment I'm waiting for (and hoping for).

[Karl Brogger]

.....why do cars in Europe get better gas mileage?

A few reasons.

Very few gasoline engines. Gasoline is great in a performance standpoint, (I'm not all that interested in a diesel jet-ski, motorcycle, etc), diesel is much better suited for situations where load is fairly constant. As in a bulk of the time it is sitting at a relatively constant RPM going down the road

Emissions laws are way, way less strict in Europe. You couldn't get a VW TDI anything for a few years when the new emissions standards hit in the US.

Smaller vehicles in general. Their infrastructure just can't support large vehicles. Swinging a full size, crew cab, long box pickup around in an old part of some of the cities would border on impossible, much less finding a place to live with a place to park it.

[Mitchell Andrus]

I guess I'm not communicating clearly, because what I'm talking about is a J.F.K. moment. The American people weren't sitting around demanding we go to the moon. JFK set the goal and we nailed it. Nixon promised to get us off of foreign oil. Carter promised it. Reagan promised it. Bush 1 promised it, Clinton promised it, and Bush 2 promised it. But no one's thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the country to make it happen by 2020. That's the moment I'm waiting for (and hoping for).

The oil flowing into this country goes to many uses having nothing to do with cars. Petro-chem, home heating, diesel/freight, electric generation, fertilizer, paint/finishes, and a LOT of finished product exports.

Making cars with even 50% more mpg still won't get us off imported oil by a very long shot. Trucks use 30% of the road fuel in this country. Forget cars... we'd have to close most industry to get off imported oil. Most countries noted for being independent of imported oil have few oil-derived manufactured exports.

How much energy does an off-shore oil platform produce? I was shocked at this:

How Many Wind Turbines Would It Take to

Replace a Single Off-Shore Drilling Platform
Producing 12,000 Barrels of Oil Per Day?



"Let's say that this oil was destined to be converted into electricity at an overall efficiency of 50 % (Combined Cycle Plant, no co-generation). Assuming this was decent quality oil, and not overly burdened with a high sulfur content, this oil would go to make about 10,800 bbls/day of refined products (10 % of it is used to power the refinery/transport the oil). And lets
assume the oil had an average thermal content of about 140,000 Btu/gal."

"Using 42 gallons/bbl and a 50 % conversion factor, 1 bbl/day could deliver about 861.2 kw-hr of electricity per day, or about 314.5 MW-hr/yr."

"Where I live (New York), a single Vestas V82 wind turbine placed near the Lake Erie coastline would produce more than 5400 MW-hr/yr. This one turbine would thus be the equivalent of 17 bbls/day of oil used to make electricity. And a lot of oil is burned to make electricity in New York State, in addition to significantly more natural gas."

"Thus it would take 706 Vestas V82 wind turbines to produce the same amount of electricity that could be made with your
12,000 bbl/day oil well."

"However, if the oil was some of the sour Caspian Sea variety (15wt % sulfur), then the V82 would be the equivalent of about 20 bbls/day of oil."


A few other cool stats:

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Research.html#anchor_73
.

[Karl Brogger]

I guess I'm not communicating clearly, because what I'm talking about is a J.F.K. moment. The American people weren't sitting around demanding we go to the moon. JFK set the goal and we nailed it. Nixon promised to get us off of foreign oil. Carter promised it. Reagan promised it. Bush 1 promised it, Clinton promised it, and Bush 2 promised it. But no one's thrown down the gauntlet and challenged the country to make it happen by 2020. That's the moment I'm waiting for (and hoping for).

I'm not certain that getting off of foreign oil is the best thing at this point. Sure we're potentially funding terrorism, and some real crappy governments, but I'd rather see the US burn up the rest of the worlds oil first, but that won't happen for a very long time. Most of Russia and Africa is untapped, (pun intended, I know I have no shame), they're finding there is oil all over the place.

I'd rather see us be able to use our reserves under the Rockies, and other big formations like the Bakken in N.D. to our advantage at some point.


I'd like to see some statistics for what and how much petroleum is used for certain applications. I'd guess that transportation is the greatest use, but by how much. Agriculture via fertilizer goes through an obscene amount, plastics, etc....

[Brian Elfert]

This is the first conversation I've had about all of this, so it's my first time bringing it up and I brought it up because it's stuck with me over the years because I worked there.

My question is if all of this fuel economy is lost due to safety, why do cars in Europe get better gas mileage? Seems their average is at our very high end. How can it be? If a unit of fuel can only produce "so much energy", .

This may be the first time you mentioned a Honda CRX in a forum thread like this, but the CRX is mentioned in a lot of the fuel efficiency threads I read.

Europe has better MPG because they use lots of diesel vehicles. They also tend to have mostly manual transmissions although newer automatics are better in the MPG dept. Europe doesn't necessarily have lower pollution standards. They are just different. The EPA is focused on soot from diesel engines. Europe is more worried about CO2. Europe had ULSD long before the USA so a lot of the European diesels could not be brought to the USA.

Europe also has very high fuel prices so drivers tend to focus more on MPG than Americans do. In some European nations there are very high taxes on new cars based on CO2 emissions. The average joe could never afford to buy a large SUV by the time taxes are applied.

[Scott Shepherd]

Mitchell, I never said do away with oil completely. Coming from the manufacturing world, I'm well aware of all the uses of oil.

Brian, you said Europe is more focused on MPG so their MPG's are higher. I thought we couldn't get it any higher because we're already using it at it's highest potential, according to some in this thread!

They are focused on MPG and CO2. Hummm...sounds a lot like what we're trying to focus on. I traveled all over the place over there and didn't see a large number of diesel cars. They were there, but the majority of cars I saw where the ford and chevy (Vauxhall?) over there. Lots of manual gearboxes, but not many diesels.

I'm a little shocked at the responses to my postings. I said, more or less, "Come on guys, we're smart enough to figure our way out of this" and all I'm getting as responses are "No we're not".

[Scott Donley]

I am still waiting for Honda to bring back the Z600 coupe, 70 mpg, and a ton of fun to drive. Sold new for 1395.00, wonder what the price would be now days ? :D

[Bob Turkovich]

Uh-oh....two Scotts.....

Scott S. - In one of your earlier posts you stated the following:

"I stand by my comments, I cannot believe in todays world, technology does not exist that can get us to no less than 50 mpg on almost all cars and trucks, with possible exceptions for those that need massive power or torque to perform their duties."

It's that "almost all cars and trucks" part that is the issue.

The European consumer pays significantly more for gasoline, therefore, they are more willing to accept the consequences of higher MPG vehicles. They rely more on public transportation then we do and, I believe, drive less distances than Americans do. How many minivans, pick-up trucks (like you own...) and SUV's did you see when you were in Europe? For that matter, how many Freightliners did you see?

JFK's "man-on-the moon" program was fully funded by the government. The National Highway Transportation & Safety Administration (NHTSA) co-authors CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) with the EPA. NHTSA spent 1/3 of 1% of their budget last year on fuel economy.

BTW, the CAFE standards for 2016 are 37.8 for cars, 28.8 for light duty trucks and 34.1 for combined fleet (I'm remembering why I retired...) - so the needle is being moved, just not at the pace you're looking for. There is no NASA-type organization or government think-tank advising the auto companies on how to improve fuel economy. NHTSA spent 1/3 of 1% of their budget last year on fuel economy. The 404 page document that denotes the above standards just touts the advantage of smaller vehicles.
The auto companies are currently on their own on this one - and yes, we provide technical & financial support for university based programs such as the Solar Car Contest and Formula SAE.

If you can get the majority of Americans to change their lifestyles, your 50mpg target may be achievable. 100mpg in a standard vehicle (gee, where did that one come from????) - that will require a yet-to-be alternate form of propulsion.

[Scott Shepherd]

Then fully fund it by the government until it's solved.



Uh-oh....two Scotts.....

Scott S. - In one of your earlier posts you stated the following:

"I stand by my comments, I cannot believe in todays world, technology does not exist that can get us to no less than 50 mpg on almost all cars and trucks, with possible exceptions for those that need massive power or torque to perform their duties."

It's that "almost all cars and trucks" part that is the issue.

The European consumer pays significantly more for gasoline, therefore, they are more willing to accept the consequences of higher MPG vehicles. They rely more on public transportation then we do and, I believe, drive less distances than Americans do. How many minivans, pick-up trucks (like you own...) and SUV's did you see when you were in Europe? For that matter, how many Freightliners did you see?

JFK's "man-on-the moon" program was fully funded by the government. The National Highway Transportation & Safety Administration (NHTSA) co-authors CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) with the EPA. NHTSA spent 1/3 of 1% of their budget last year on fuel economy.

BTW, the CAFE standards for 2016 are 37.8 for cars, 28.8 for light duty trucks and 34.1 for combined fleet (I'm remembering why I retired...) - so the needle is being moved, just not at the pace you're looking for. There is no NASA-type organization or government think-tank advising the auto companies on how to improve fuel economy. NHTSA spent 1/3 of 1% of their budget last year on fuel economy. The 404 page document that denotes the above standards just touts the advantage of smaller vehicles.
The auto companies are currently on their own on this one - and yes, we provide technical & financial support for university based programs such as the Solar Car Contest and Formula SAE.

If you can get the majority of Americans to change their lifestyles, your 50mpg target may be achievable. 100mpg in a standard vehicle (gee, where did that one come from????) - that will require a yet-to-be alternate form of propulsion.

[Mitchell Andrus]

I'm a little shocked at the responses to my postings. I said, more or less, "Come on guys, we're smart enough to figure our way out of this" and all I'm getting as responses are "No we're not".

Actually, you said there's a conspiracy to hold down mpg and that continuing to get ever better efficiency is like landing on the moon or designing a jet fighter.

I think we are too - and that we've done it!!! Yippee!!!! We made it. Maxed out, hit the upper limit, squeezed the last drop, finite-o, at least for gasoline. I'm not looking for better fuel economy - for gasoline. WHY? If another two or four or 10 percent makes you and millions more happy, we put off a timely move to the next breakthrough, that's why. It's time to move on to another idea as long as it isn't hydrogen fuel cells, a waste of time and resources.

Doubling our mpg's won't get us off oil - it will bind us more tightly to it by squeezing out the need to develop alternatives. Nuclear pumping into a better electric grid charging better batteries in better electric cars will be next. WHY? Because of the relatively small steps required for each technology involved and because we won't have 10 million Hindenburgs sitting our driveways.

Please get used to the idea that we don't need gasoline anymore. Getting more use out of it is like finishing your dessert on the Titanic before running for a lifeboat.

If the French can do nuclear... we should "be smart enough" too, right?

I think we are. We need to get off the dime and work towards a more worthy goal than continuing to burn gasoline, no matter how efficiently we've managed to do it.
.

[Greg Peterson]

You guys crack me up.

We went to the moon.

Priceless.:D

[Belinda Barfield]

Belinda -

While the AG industry relies on petro for fuel and fertilizers, there are larger enterprises reliant upon petro. UPS comes to mind. Airlines, taxi fleets, mass transit....

Greg, let me say first that I was not in any way bashing the AG industry.

I was thinking on the poster's comments on population, which is certainly an issue, but the mind set of the population is a bigger issue. Here in the U.S. we are an urban society addicted to convenience. I don't think we will ever see much change in our petroleum consumption without a major shift in our attitudes toward self reliance/self suffience. The focus in any of these discussions always seems to revolve around personal vehicles and MPGs. I tend to take a broader view. I am currently not in a position to grow my own food. I am in a position to choose where to buy, and from whom. When possible I buy from a local farmer's market. I know that doesn't seem like much but if all my neighbors did the same we might keep one semi off the road. Again, that doesn't seem like much but if communities country wide changed to a "buy local" philosphy the semis would add up. If we bought as much as possible locally it would definitely help the local economy as well. Instead it's just easier to run on over to the super store and stock up on everything that has been trucked cross country after it was grown on a mega farm, or imported from another country that uses more petroleum that we do in the U.S..

The same desire for convenience has our superstores open 24/7. How much electricity (however produced) does it take to heat/cool and light a mega store that might have four people in it at 3 a.m.?

I guess the point I was trying to make is that it isn't all about our personal vehicle choices and driving habits.

[David Weaver]

Actually, you said there's a conspiracy to hold down mpg and that continuing to get ever better efficiency is like landing on the moon or designing a jet fighter.

I think we are too - and that we've done it!!! Yippee!!!! We made it. Maxed out, hit the upper limit, squeezed the last drop, finite-o, at least for gasoline. I'm not looking for better fuel economy - for gasoline. WHY? If another two or four or 10 percent makes you and millions more happy, we put off a timely move to the next breakthrough, that's why. It's time to move on to another idea as long as it isn't hydrogen fuel cells, a waste of time and resources.

Doubling our mpg's won't get us off oil - it will bind us more tightly to it by squeezing out the need to develop alternatives. Nuclear pumping into a better electric grid charging better batteries in better electric cars will be next. WHY? Because of the relatively small steps required for each technology involved and because we won't have 10 million Hindenburgs sitting our driveways.

Please get used to the idea that we don't need gasoline anymore. Getting more use out of it is like finishing your dessert on the Titanic before running for a lifeboat.

If the French can do nuclear... we should "be smart enough" too, right?

I think we are. We need to get off the dime and work towards a more worthy goal than continuing to burn gasoline, no matter how efficiently we've managed to do it.
.

Mitchell - I agree with your sentiment exactly.

In regard to the earlier comments about mileage in europe, if we had the same cars and were allowed to run the same motors in them (by the EPA), they'd get the same mileage here.

If they were actually allowed, the makers would sell them in a second. We'd have small pickups with 4 cylinder diesels, and cars with the same.

In the short run, it's going to be about how to move toward powering the car with something else partially - plug-in hybrids or whatever. Hopefully in the long term, toward something else entirely. Some folks who have long commutes might not find them so handy, but around most smaller cities, if they get to 25 miles one way honestly, then a lot of people will be able to drive/plug/drive home.

Our government is smart and nefarious enough to bottle up nuclear by making it take longer to get done than investors want, and putting enough uncertainty on the yes or no outcome that investors have no interest. Ever invest in anything where your money is tied up 10 years, with a significant chance of zero happening after the 10 year period? Nobody will do that, and they know it. It's an easy way for them to avoid being honest.

Solar grid tie-in might be OK once it doesn't involve solar glass (and the cost to insure, etc), but it's not appropriate for base-load power. The stuff that is required to make it good on-demand power is tens of thousands of dollars per household (battery capacity), and it still isn't going to yield enough to allow everyone to set their thermostat at 76 degrees in the summer and not think about it - especially with a few cloudy days.

fast-tracking nuclear is the only thing that makes much sense right now, and our legal and legislative system is set up to get nothing done and to allow everyone to sue into inaction along the way, driving the cost per kw/hr way up. Couple that with sweetheart deals for maintenance and construction, and it makes the cost per kw/hr look like alternative energy instead of what it should be. We have met the enemy and it is us.

Cheap scalable energy is required for economic growth. It's not going to occur with glass solar panels, wind or the biofuels scam. None of them even work at all right now without subsidy, and they aren't remotely close to new.

[Scott Shepherd]

Actually, you said there's a conspiracy to hold down mpg and that continuing to get ever better efficiency is like landing on the moon or designing a jet fighter.

Nice way to paraphrase things. Hardly truthful of the context they were said in. First, I never said there was a conspiracy, I said that I cannot believe the technology doesn't already exist. I believe I still stand by that comment.

I didn't compare getting better gas mileage to landing on the moon, I compared solving the energy problem to landing on the moon. I think it's a "man on the moon" size problem and without someone leading the charge, we'll flounder around like we have been for 40 years. Or, we could have someone step up, challenge us a nation (or world, even), and put the incentives into place to allow it all to happen and we can solve this problem and not pass it on to future generations.

I thought that was a reasonable goal to strive for.

[Mitchell Andrus]

but if communities country wide changed to a "buy local" philosphy the semis would add up.


Our local farmer's markets feature locally grown produce... and everything else for sale had been trucked in to a local distributor, then picked up in SUV's and trucks for the trip to the farmer's market. Honey, jams, t-shirts, caps, rocking chairs... all trucked into the area from somewhere else.

I saw no savings in fuel in getting 40 vendors and 150 shoppers to a place where you still couldn't buy a roll of paper towels or Windex which are for sale at the super store... our next stop - where locally grown produce is available in their farmer's market section.

I gotta think moving the food to the people in a few semis has got to be more efficient than moving the farmers and then the shoppers to a limited product market - in SUV's, pick-up trucks and BMW's.

My wife and I support the locals, but it creates a second, third, fourth shopping trip wiping out any hope of fuel savings anywhere else in the chain.
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[Mitchell Andrus]

David Weaver for congress. No, wait. I wouldn't wish that on a clear-thinker.
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[Mitchell Andrus]

Nice way to paraphrase things. Hardly truthful of the context they were said in. First, I never said there was a conspiracy, I said that I cannot believe the technology doesn't already exist. I believe I still stand by that comment.

I didn't compare getting better gas mileage to landing on the moon, I compared solving the energy problem to landing on the moon. I think it's a "man on the moon" size problem and without someone leading the charge, we'll flounder around like we have been for 40 years. Or, we could have someone step up, challenge us a nation (or world, even), and put the incentives into place to allow it all to happen and we can solve this problem and not pass it on to future generations.

I thought that was a reasonable goal to strive for.

As long as stop pinning our hopes on increasing gasoline efficiency, I agree. THAT moon landing has taken place. ....Next.
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[Mitchell Andrus]

You guys crack me up.

We went to the moon.

Priceless.:D

But..... I saw it on the internet.
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[Belinda Barfield]

Our local farmer's markets feature locally grown produce... and everything else for sale had been trucked in to a local distributor, then picked up in SUV's and trucks for the trip to the farmer's market. Honey, jams, t-shirts, caps, rocking chairs... all trucked into the area from somewhere else.

I saw no savings in fuel in getting 40 vendors and 150 shoppers to a place where you still couldn't buy a roll of paper towels or Windex which are for sale at the super store... our next stop - where locally grown produce is available in their farmer's market section.

I gotta think moving the food to the people in a few semis has got to be more efficient than moving the farmers and then the shoppers to a limited product market - in SUV's, pick-up trucks and BMW's.

My wife and I support the locals, but it creates a second, third, fourth shopping trip wiping out any hope of fuel savings anywhere else in the chain.
.

Every setting is different Mitchell. Our farmer's market is only local produce, no jams, jellies, or t-shirts. Our superstores don't have a "locally grown produce" section. I pass the farmer's market every day on the way to work so it isn't an extra trip to me.

[John Shuk]

Here's something to think about. Some of the car companies are also in the credit business. When gas prices increase without gains in efficiency the credit division makes money. Hence, companies can build less than efficient cars, sell them at a tenuous profit margin and make the dough on the back end when you fill up.
Not a bad conspiracy theory....right?

[Karl Brogger]

Here's something to think about. Some of the car companies are also in the credit business. When gas prices increase without gains in efficiency the credit division makes money. Hence, companies can build less than efficient cars, sell them at a tenuous profit margin and make the dough on the back end when you fill up.
Not a bad conspiracy theory....right?

That makes no sense.

Auto builders have their own financing.
They can sell a car cheaper because fuel prices go up and the credit division makes it up?

huh? I don't follow.

[Brian Elfert]

The same desire for convenience has our superstores open 24/7. How much electricity (however produced) does it take to heat/cool and light a mega store that might have four people in it at 3 a.m.?


It doesn't cost all that much to have the store open all night. They have a crew working all night to restock the shelves so presumably they still heat/cool at pretty much the same level. I've been shopping at midnight/1 am on a rare occasion and the stores are full of workers, but generally only one cashier.

That said, one of the local grocery chains went from 24 hours to closing at 11 pm at most of their stores. It must have cost more to have a cashier on duty than sales generated. Super Target has never been open past 10 pm while Walmart Supercenters are almost always 24 hour.

[John Shuk]

That makes no sense.

Auto builders have their own financing.
They can sell a car cheaper because fuel prices go up and the credit division makes it up?

huh? I don't follow.

As the price of gas goes up the credit card division reaps greater rewards due to the 3% fee that gets tacked onto credit card transactions. Consumers carry higher balances meaning that interest is calculated into higher payments. Higher monthly payments lead to some inevitable late payments generating even more fees. All of these fees translate to billions in profit.
If you go a bit broader all goods and services seem tied to the price of oil and generally people rely on credit as a means to pay for things. As prices go up so do fees and monthly payments. Meaning that a case can be made that those who make the chariots ultimately rule the empire. Whether this is by design, or rather the natural process of a corporation diversifying lines of business, is perhaps the best question.

Please note...I am merely prodding the discussion with some random thoughts.

[Joe Chritz]

As the price of gas goes up the credit card division reaps greater rewards due to the 3% fee that gets tacked onto credit card transactions. Consumers carry higher balances meaning that interest is calculated into higher payments. Higher monthly payments lead to some inevitable late payments generating even more fees. All of these fees translate to billions in profit.
If you go a bit broader all goods and services seem tied to the price of oil and generally people rely on credit as a means to pay for things. As prices go up so do fees and monthly payments. Meaning that a case can be made that those who make the chariots ultimately rule the empire. Whether this is by design, or rather the natural process of a corporation diversifying lines of business, is perhaps the best question.

Please note...I am merely prodding the discussion with some random thoughts.

Interesting theory except for the loss from defaults, the decreased discretionary spending habits in economic bad times and the decrease in the number of credit accounts because of closures for a variety of reasons.

Conspiracy theories are interesting and thought provoking but what we always have instead is open market principles. One of the snags is that the market doesn't move as fast as other factors do. Gas prices go up so demand for more fuel efficient cars goes up. There is a delay between the increased demand and the increase in supply.

Joe

[Karl Brogger]

As the price of gas goes up the credit card division reaps greater rewards due to the 3% fee that gets tacked onto credit card transactions.

Ah, okay. I was thinking about the financing of the vehicle.

[Darius Ferlas]

Conspiracy theories are interesting and thought provoking but what we always have instead is open market principles.

That's what politicians like to tells us and that is the real conspiracy theory. The matter of fact is that there is no such thing as free market. Hasn't been for decades. Some argue it has been non existent for at least 100 years.