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Posted

link

 

says:

 

"Think that gasoline is expensive at $4 a gallon? Maybe, but apparently that price point isn’t high enough to make Americans change their usual day-to-day driving habit:

 

If oil hits $200 a barrel, which is the upper end of Goldman Sach’s prediction for prices over the next six months to two years, the gasoline picture changes quite dramatically. At $200 a barrel, crude alone would cost $4.76 a gallon. Add on the costs of refining and distributing as well as taxes, and pump prices could rise to a range of $6 to $7 a gallon.

U.S. drivers haven’t radically changed their behavior, and it is unclear at what price it becomes unprofitable for Americans to go about their usual day-to-day activities, said Eric DeGesero, executive vice president of the Fuel Merchants Association of New Jersey.

"Maybe at $6 or $7 a gallon, it becomes less attractive to go to work," Mr. DeGesero said. "We haven’t hit that point yet, but we might soon."

 

 

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Posted

On the plus side, IMO people are sure thinking about it now. It will take time but changes will be made to adjust to the new reality that the american love affair with their gas guzzling cars is coming to an end.

 

Car makers are realizing this new reality and getting more serious about marketing more efficient designs including other technologies. More and more automakers are coming out with hybrids etc.

 

We have the know how, and now, the motivation to make necessary adjustments in how we consume this resource (oil). We'll get there, america is still a great country, if we survived the bush administration, we can survive anything...

 

d

Posted

Yes, soon you will beg us to exploit the Iraqi oilfields, and liberate Saudi Arabia from its savage terrorist-harboring despots. Dance, silly consumer units! Has the crop any choice other but to grow and be harvested? baa

Posted
Yes, soon you will beg us to exploit the Iraqi oilfields, and liberate Saudi Arabia from its savage terrorist-harboring despots. Dance, silly consumer units! Has the crop any choice other but to grow and be harvested? baa

 

mmmm Soylent Green

Posted

Gas been that expensive in Canada for quite some time, and neither the lifestyle nor the average fuel economy of their vehicles seems to be dramatically different at a result.

 

People will still drive, likely in smaller cars - and have less disposable income if the high fuel prices persist. Different story for the world's poor. For them, higher energy prices will translate into much more significant hardships.

 

 

 

Posted

 

mmmm Soylent Green

shit, for a twist on this, why can't we make soylent green power our cars too? i doubt charlton woulda got much attention that way - i'm totally willing to power my hummer on grandma's ashes!

Posted

 

mmmm Soylent Green

shit, for a twist on this, why can't we make soylent green power our cars too? i doubt charlton woulda got much attention that way - i'm totally willing to power my hummer on grandma's ashes!

Leave Gramma be. However, clearing out Death Row and reducing prison overcrowding has its attractions... :/

Posted

Geez - high gas prices has already modulated our lifestyle somewhat. We don't range as far as often as we used to. I don't head out to the Gorge for my training hikes as often as I used to (used to go twice a week). I think of everything now as "How much will it cost me to go on this hike?". From my house in Vancouver to Angel's Rest trailhead, it is about 60 miles round trip. In terms of gas, it is about 2 gallons in my Honda, which is about 8 bucks. In our Jeep brick, it is about 3.75 gallons, which is about 15 dollars for the outing. Thats just to Angel's Rest, which is a better than nothing hike. If we want something that is alot more fun, like Mount Defiance, then that would cost about 14.67 in the Honda and 27.50 in the Jeep. I guess its not that bad, but if you hit it weekly like I used to, a Nordictrack x10 starts looking mighty attractive...

Posted
"Maybe at $6 or $7 a gallon, it becomes less attractive to go to work,"

End-

 

I already find it unattractive to go to work. Thankfully my commute is only 4 miles.

Hell, even on the days I work from home I don't like going to work.

Posted

 

mmmm Soylent Green

shit, for a twist on this, why can't we make soylent green power our cars too? i doubt charlton woulda got much attention that way - i'm totally willing to power my hummer on grandma's ashes!

 

Finally a use for the bums trying to clean your windshield :eveeel:

Posted

I take the bus every time I can. A little extra time wasted is cheaper than buying fuel.

 

 

When I lived in Snohomish, I used to take the bus to Redmond. Cost me $7.00 a day, and that's WITH a free metro pass. Without the pass, it would have been closer to $10.00 a day.

Posted

I take the bus every time I can. A little extra time wasted is cheaper than buying fuel.

 

 

When I lived in Snohomish, I used to take the bus to Redmond. Cost me $7.00 a day, and that's WITH a free metro pass. Without the pass, it would have been closer to $10.00 a day.

 

That sucks. My fair is $4.50 RT (peak) and $3.00 even RT (non-peak). Driving is $4.00 worth of gas alone.

 

Posted

I don’t understand. We invade and occupy Iraq for oil? Or to control the oil. Yet prices go up and up…..looks like we have no control over the oil. Or is that perception yet another smoke screen for something bigger?

Posted

Wait until you see what happens to gas prices when Bush orders;

1. Operation VD( Venzuelean Destruction) through his Colombian proxy and

2. Israel makes a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilies

in Operation JEW TAA ( Jewish Empire Working Toward Arab Annilation )

 

In the meantime buy some oil company stocks.

Posted
Wait until you see what happens to gas prices when Bush orders;

1. Operation VD( Venzuelean Destruction) through his Colombian proxy and

2. Israel makes a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilies

in Operation JEW TAA ( Jewish Empire Working Toward Arab Annilation )

 

In the meantime buy some oil company stocks.

 

New handle = long_and_naked (unhedged)?

Posted
Gas been that expensive in Canada for quite some time, and neither the lifestyle nor the average fuel economy of their vehicles seems to be dramatically different at a result.

 

Actually, we're not quite there yet. Gas in Squamish is currently around $1.28/litre, or about $5.25/USgallon, and that's only happened very recently - like within the last month or so, so I wouldn't expect it to have transformed our lifestyles just yet. But the early effects are showing - sales of trucks and RVs are hurting badly, and smaller cars and/or hybrids are becoming the vehicles of choice. People are in fact starting to drive less: I saw a report this morning excerpted from a US DOT study that showed Americans' vehicle use has been down each month since Novemeber(?) compared to the same months previous year, a decline that hasn't been recorded since the 70s. There haven't been any seismic shifts in peoples' lifestyles yet, but we may be approaching a tipping point.

 

There was a discussion on CBC Radio last week that I was unable to listen to all of, but the basic question was "at what point do we start to see demand destruction as gasoline gets more expensive?" I think they were talking about $1.50/litre as being an important psychological barrier. That roughly equates to the $6-$7 / gallon that's being discussed for US consumers.

Posted

Ford has a hydrogen cell vehicle in development and they refuse to put a price on it. There's no place to fuel the thing up right now but someday maybe.

 

"Estimates" are around $45k. Ford understands well how supply and demand works.

 

A couple weeks ago I ran into the guy that is building an electric car called Tango. There are only three of them in the world right now but he's pretty excited about his little car company. Sealed lead acid battery weighs 2000lb. I sat in one of the three and I had room, I'm 6'5" tall. Price? $150k.

 

Even when the car makers really get cranked up on production of such vehicles, and refueling stations for them, most of us won't be able to afford one.

 

I've been riding my bicycle more to work and around town. It's fun and it feels good. Now, if I don't end up road kill...

 

d

Posted

Drove from Bonney Lake to Leavenworth and back Monday. My 3-door civic never got better than 34mpg previously, but I tried some of these high-mpg techniques. Wow! Even though the car now has 200K miles, I managed 42mpg (and that's with three mountain passes each way).

 

I think the high prices are GREAT! Ultimately people will find ways to drive less. Guys with small weiners will have to find new ways to compensate for their insecurities (other than buying big 4wd trucks). More small cars on the road will make my small car safer to drive, more equitable in collisions. For me, the bottom line is safer roads and cleaner air.

Posted
There was a discussion on CBC Radio last week that I was unable to listen to all of, but the basic question was "at what point do we start to see demand destruction as gasoline gets more expensive?" I think they were talking about $1.50/litre as being an important psychological barrier. That roughly equates to the $6-$7 / gallon that's being discussed for US consumers.

 

So at $6-7 are BC taxpayers going to start wondering why millions were pissed away into the sea to sky instead of the EXISTING rail infrastructure?

Posted
Gas been that expensive in Canada for quite some time, and neither the lifestyle nor the average fuel economy of their vehicles seems to be dramatically different at a result.

 

Actually, we're not quite there yet. Gas in Squamish is currently around $1.28/litre, or about $5.25/USgallon, and that's only happened very recently - like within the last month or so, so I wouldn't expect it to have transformed our lifestyles just yet. But the early effects are showing - sales of trucks and RVs are hurting badly, and smaller cars and/or hybrids are becoming the vehicles of choice. People are in fact starting to drive less: I saw a report this morning excerpted from a US DOT study that showed Americans' vehicle use has been down each month since Novemeber(?) compared to the same months previous year, a decline that hasn't been recorded since the 70s. There haven't been any seismic shifts in peoples' lifestyles yet, but we may be approaching a tipping point.

 

There was a discussion on CBC Radio last week that I was unable to listen to all of, but the basic question was "at what point do we start to see demand destruction as gasoline gets more expensive?" I think they were talking about $1.50/litre as being an important psychological barrier. That roughly equates to the $6-$7 / gallon that's being discussed for US consumers.

 

My hunch is that in the US, you start to see hints of demand destruction at anything over $3/gallon, the effects become more apparent at $3.50/gallon, and the seismic shifts commence once you cross $4/gallon for any length of time.

 

I could be wrong, but my sense is that prices in Canada have been over $3(US)/gallon for quite some time. My other speculation was that Canadians just got used to these prices, and more or less wrote them off as a "price of doing business (e.g. living)" in Canada. At the tail end of this chain of unfounded speculation lay my assumption that the percentage of household expenditures on fuel was set at a higher baseline for folks in Canada, and that net disposable income per-capita was proportionately reduced (and no one seemed to mind too much, perhaps on the assumption (not sure if it's accurate or not), that they'd make up the difference in out-of-pocket healthcare expenditures. Anyhow - I think that for a variety of fairly nebulous reasons, the threshold for demand destruction is a fair-bit lower in the US.

 

In any event, I doubt that you're sweating it too much in the Smart-Car, unless the number of people asking what kind of mileage you get, and where they can get one is getting annoying at this point.

 

This is probably more controversial, but I'm of the opinion that when and if things get to the point that substantial numbers of Americans can't pay for their energy, their aren't many people around the world that will be able to either (even accounting for the decline of the dolero). At some point, demand destruction goes global - but I fear that when we can't afford to drive, there will be a couple of billion people that can't afford to eat. I'm also of the opinion that these changes in the price of energy are small potatoes relative to what we'd see under the most aggressive plans to curtail C02 emissions by fiat. Curtail emissions at a rate that exceeds gains in conservation/efficiency and you cut total power consumption, which will invariably lead to declines in total output - which won't hurt the guy in the 10,000lb Canyonero on 22 inch rims nearly as much as the guy trying to eke out an existence on $2.20 a day....

 

 

 

 

Posted
There was a discussion on CBC Radio last week that I was unable to listen to all of, but the basic question was "at what point do we start to see demand destruction as gasoline gets more expensive?" I think they were talking about $1.50/litre as being an important psychological barrier. That roughly equates to the $6-$7 / gallon that's being discussed for US consumers.

 

So at $6-7 are BC taxpayers going to start wondering why millions were pissed away into the sea to sky instead of the EXISTING rail infrastructure?

 

I heart the Sea-to-Sky expansion, but if we're talking fantasy here, high-speed-rail from Seattle-to-Whistler would be even better.

Posted
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry::cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry::cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry::cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry::cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry::cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry::cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry::cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

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