Oil Slick Stuff

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He's right.

The gas tax SHOULD be $2. Or more. $2 is a good place to start, anyway, in the transition that is needed.

That would spur the longer-term shift in this country away from imported oil. It's a national security thing.

We can do much better as a society, if we switched to alternative fuels. (I'm an E85 guy).

And charge the $2 tax, for starters.

Look at France, Germany, England for examples. Taxes on the order of 5 to 7 dollars a gallon. For it, they get wonderful roads, incentives for biofuels, and public demand for smaller, more efficient cars.

But most of all, they get lower imports of foreign fuels, and lower amounts of dollars in the hands of unstable nations.
 
Or make is just a $2 gallon tax on foreign fuel imports.

That should help get the message started- while protecting domestic production.
 
James48843 said:
Or make is just a $2 gallon tax on foreign fuel imports.

That should help get the message started- while protecting domestic production.
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Wow, how did I know you would agree with this guy? OK lets make unleaded $3.50 tomorrow!! :D I think I'll start a POLL "How Many Think a $2 tax on Gas and Oil would help the economy?". That is $2 MORE tax by the way.:worried:
 
$2.00 tax or any more tax is LUDICRIST and would be so detrimental to our economy you wouldn't believe..Since you have a good paying stable job, it's easy to sit back in your Lazy-boy recliner in front of your 52" Plasma and make these ridiculous suggestions...You all Forgot the fact, that millions of people in this country are struggling to make ends meet week in week out..And can't afford to go to a job if they had one..Now, don't throw in; hey use public transportation BS..yeah sure, guess who pays for that fuel?..And Millions of these people don't live where there is public transportation...Y'all need to come out of your air conditioned urban palaces and smell the real air..it stinks for the real people of this country!


That is all..
 
Buster said:
$2.00 tax or any more tax is LUDICRIST and would be so detrimental to our economy you wouldn't believe..Since you have a good paying stable job, it's easy to sit back in your Lazy-boy recliner in front of your 52" Plasma and make these ridiculous suggestions...You all Forgot the fact, that millions of people in this country are struggling to make ends meet week in week out..And can't afford to go to a job if they had one..Now, don't throw in; hey use public transportation BS..yeah sure, guess who pays for that fuel?..And Millions of these people don't live where there is public transportation...Y'all need to come out of your air conditioned urban palaces and smell the real air..it stinks for the real people of this country!

That is all..
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Uhhh... aawww, niver mind. :cheesy:
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Buster said:
$2.00 tax or any more tax is LUDICRIST and would be so detrimental to our economy you wouldn't believe....

That is all..
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It's all in your mind, Buster. You have to start thinking outside the box.

I get 146 miles per gallon of gasoline I consume.

I drive a mid-size car. A former GSA Dodge Stratus.

A $2 per gallon tax would cost me $ 4.80 more per tank than I currently pay. And I would be able to travel 352 miles for the additional $4.80 above today's prices. That's still a fraction of the price of gasoline was just three months ago.

You see, I don't burn regular gasoline- I burn E85. A relatively cheap, available fuel. Competitive in price with gasoline.

Yet made IN THE USA by USA FARMERS, RENEWABLE, and the technology is AVAILABLE TODAY.

GM makes more E85 fueled vehicles than anyone. They have committed to making half their vehicles E85 capable by 2012.

Toyota? Only one model. Nothing more on the horizon.

Why not?

Solves import problem with oil, and with big ticket import item- cars. the market would react by buying more US domestic made E85 capable vehicles. Keeps BILLIONS of dollars out of the hands of foreign nations.

It would boost the economy. Not hinder it.

Start with a 25 cent addition this year, then go up a bit each year. That gives people time to convert over to smaller cars, to get better MPG, and to convert to alternate fuel vehicles. It's not very painful at all.
 
James48843 said:
It's all in your mind, Buster. You have to start thinking outside the box.

I get 146 miles per gallon of gasoline I consume.

I drive a mid-size car. A former GSA Dodge Stratus.
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I luv you brother..but are you kidding me..? A 146 miles to the gallon?...in an ex G-Can no less?
 
It’s a misleading statement that E85 guys like to throw around. E85 fuel is formulated using only 15% gasoline and 85% alcohol. So, while burning approximately 6.66 gallons of E85 fuel, you use 1 gallon of gas and 5.66 gallons of alcohol. The actual “fuel” economy in miles per gallon of E85 is about 21-22 mpg.

146 / 6.66 = 21.92 mpg
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Yes, buster. read carefully what I said.

I said:
I get 146 miles per gallon of gasoline I consume.

That's because my former G can is powered by E85.

85% ethanol, and 15% gasoline.

I pay roughly $1.50 a gallon today for E85.

I have a 16 gallon tank, and get 22 MPG's of E85.

ON my 16 gallon tank, I am able to drive a total of 352 miles.

For that 352 miles, I burn 16 gallons of E85.

Which means I burn 2.4 gallons of gasoline, and 13.6 gallons of better-than-moonshine grade U.S. farm grown, U.S. distilled alcohol.

352 miles on 2.4 gallons of gasoline, equals 146.6 miles per gallon of gasoline, and the rest is ethanol.
 
budnipper1 said:
It’s a misleading statement that E85 guys like to throw around. E85 fuel is formulated using only 15% gasoline and 85% alcohol. So, while burning approximately 6.66 gallons of E85 fuel, you use 1 gallon of gas and 5.66 gallons of alcohol. The actual “fuel” economy in miles per gallon of E85 is about 21-22 mpg. :rolleyes:
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Not misleading at all.

Yes, I get 22 MPG (or better) on E85.

And gasoline, the non-renewable, imported, foreign obtained portion of that, is just 15% of what I consume.

I would be happy if they had a gasoline tax of $5 a gallon, and used the money to help develop more E85 infrastructure in this country, and perhaps even gave a voucher towards helping you pay for a new car, if you earned less than XXX amount per year (say maybe 40K)- but only if you buy a U.S. made E85 capable vehicle.


The fuel economy isn't the problem.

the problem is that the fuel currently being used by the vast majority of the nation - is non-renewable, and 65% of it is coming from other nations.

We've GOT to get off our addiction to foreign oil.

If Brazil can do it, we ought to be able to .
 
My total purchases of FUEL this year were:
Total Quantity 984.865
Purchased (Gallons) Total : $2,989.44
Cost ($) Average : $2.985
Economy (MPG) : 23.51 MPG
Fill-ups #: 125

Of that 984 gallons of fuel, about 150 of it was gasoline.

So a $2 A GALLON TAX would have cost me a total of $300 this year- or about 10% of my total fuel bill for the year.

Here is my MPG for the year:
View attachment 5332

And here is my total fuel bill for the year, broken down by month. Note the dramatic fall off since August.

View attachment 5331
I'm not "URBAN" at all. I live out in the country, and have a 45 mile commute each way to work.

I drove 23,555 miles in my own car this year. I used 984 gallons of fuel. Of that, only 150 or so was gasoline.

So in reality, this year, since January 1, 2008, I got 157 miles per gallon of gasoline.







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James48843 said:
Not misleading at all.
Yes, I get 22 MPG (or better) on E85.

And gasoline, the non-renewable, imported, foreign obtained portion of that, is just 15% of what I consume.

I would be happy if they had a gasoline tax of $5 a gallon, and used the money to help develop more E85 infrastructure in this country, and perhaps even gave a voucher towards helping you pay for a new car, if you earned less than XXX amount per year (say maybe 40K)- but only if you buy a U.S. made E85 capable vehicle.

The fuel economy isn't the problem.

the problem is that the fuel currently being used by the vast majority of the nation - is non-renewable, and 65% of it is coming from other nations.

We've GOT to get off our addiction to foreign oil.
If Brazil can do it, we ought to be able to .
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Maybe I should have said "tricky" instead of misleading, although it's close to the same thing. Obviously, from seeing his reply, Buster didn't catch your wording, or your method of calculating the fuel economy for E85. It also took me a while to understand it, as well. Later, you explained the "slight-of-hand" details.

I understand your reasoning and passion for getting away from fossil fuels, but until the technology improves I won't be buying a flex-fueled vehicle. I checked on some pick-ups with flex-tech awhile back and left, disappointed with their performance. I pull a boat and a camper with my truck and those newer engines fall short on power for that kind of load.

Your personal requirements for your type of vehicle just fit the E85 mold better than mine. In my defense, I can say that I'm helping the cause by driving much less than most others I know, including you. I've driven my gas-guzzling Dodge Ram just over 80,000 miles since I bought it new in June, 1998. That averages about 7600 miles/yr. Before I retired last January, it took me about 3 minutes to drive to work and the grocery store was about 4 miles down the road. I probably drive more now than I did before retirement because the nearest grocery is about 11 miles from where I live now. Even though I cussed the recent gas price gouging as much as everybody else, it didn't really affect me that much because a tank of gas lasts me a long time. (26 gallons)
 
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I consider corn food and I consider fuel fuel. If they would please make their Moonshine out of something that people, cows and chickens don't need to live it would be more acceptable. I know they are working on that one but until we do find an acceptable substitute we need OIL to make gas and fuel oil. Can we make plastic out of corn?

But on the international front it looks like Iraq is finally starting to put out some curde oil:

Iraq opens oil fields

By allowing foreign investment, the government says production could increase by 2.5 million barrels per day.

December 31, 2008: 7:06 AM ET

'No way' did oil demand plungehttp://javascript<b></b>:cnnVideo('...2/18/fortune.okeefe.simmons.121808.fortune');



BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- Iraq on Wednesday opened up some of its most prized oil and gas fields to international firms that have been excluded for decades, part of new deals that could more than double its output within a few years.
In a second bid round, following on from one earlier this year, Iraq has put forward 11 oil and gas fields, including super giants.
"Under service contracts prepared by the oil ministry, 11 oil and gas fields will undergo complete development," Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani told a Baghdad news conference.
Two of the oilfields - Majnoon and West Qurna Phase II - are classed as super giants and between them could produce 1.2 million barrels per day when fully developed.
Shahristani named the other fields as Halfaya, East Baghdad, Gharrafa, Qayara, Najmah, Badrah, Kifil/West Kifil/Mirjan and a group in Diyala province, as well as the Siba gas field in Basra province.
He said the 11 fields could increase production by up to 2.5 million barrels within three to four years of the contracts being completed at the end of 2009. That increase is roughly equivalent to what Iraq produces today.[more]
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/31/new..._fields.reut/index.htm?postversion=2008123107
 
Yep, I was afraid of this, there goes the price of food, again!! UP UP and away!! One ribeye please, what, $100, make that a pork chop, what, $25? Oh well just forget it!! I'll just fry up these seat covers, yummy!!
Old info so this thing must be cookin' a lot of corn by now?


Construction Underway On Facility to Make Plastic From Corn
Business Wire, April 25, 2000

Business Editors

BLAIR, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 25, 2000
With today's groundbreaking ceremony, construction has formally begun on the first world-scale manufacturing facility to make plastics out of corn.
Cargill Dow is developing a several hundred million dollar facility that will be located approximately 30 miles north of Omaha, Neb., in the heart of corn country. Scheduled to be on-stream in 2002, the manufacturing plant will require 40,000 bushels of corn per day to meet its production capacity. [more]
 
nnuut said:
Yep, I was afraid of this, there goes the price of food, again!! UP UP and away!!
Cargill Dow is developing a several hundred million dollar facility that will be located approximately 30 miles north of Omaha, Neb., in the heart of corn country. Scheduled to be on-stream in 2002, the manufacturing plant will require 40,000 bushels of corn per day to meet its production capacity. [more]
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Yeeow! I'm with you there nnuut. I WAS thinking about DOW as a future divvy-stock purchase, but I can't support something like this. food-tradeoffs, massive requirement for water as well. Not to mention the fertilizer requirements that are all ending up in the Gulf expanding the dead zone and ocean productivity for hellooo-protein and methane recycling processes. To do this, they're probably going to be pulling land out of CRP reserves-soil erosion, dust bowl, those who don't know their history doomed to repeat.

A number of years ago a friend of mine in NRCS (soil conservation service to those unfamiliar with acronym) told me she was having to re-educate upper plains states ag people about importance of replanting/restoring windbreaks and contour plowing, longterm trend had started of NOT contour plowing (for convenience, efficiency with big equipment I'd guess), and cutting windbreaks down to use those last few feet of land for production. Dustbowl era hard lessons being forgotten. Hmm. So the first thing to do is avoid investing in DowCargill. We need 3d generation biofuel R&D investment a whole lot more.
 
James still believes in the Ethanol white elephant and I'm sure this information was put out by the oil industry to ruin the Ethanol industry.;)

WSJ

An Ethanol Bailout?

And we thought we'd seen everything.

Along with Russia, Venezuela, Iran and the Dubai property market, add another name to the list of bubble economies hurt by the falling price of oil: the ethanol industry. And naturally, the ethanol lobby is looking for a bailout on top of its regular taxpayer subsidies.

The commodity bust has clobbered corn ethanol, whose energy inefficiencies require high oil prices to be competitive. The price of ethanol at the pump has fallen nearly in half in recent months to $1.60 from $2.90 per gallon due to lower commodity prices, and that lower price now barely covers production costs even after accounting for federal subsidies. Three major producers are in or near bankruptcy, including giant VeraSun Energy.


So here they go again back to the taxpayer for help. The Renewable Fuels Association, the industry lobby, is seeking $1 billion in short-term credit from the government to help plants stay in business and up to $50 billion in loan guarantees to finance expansion. The lobby would also like Congress to ease the 10% limit on how much ethanol can be added to gasoline for conventional cars and trucks -- never mind the potential damage to engines from such an unproven mix.

Of course, the ethanol industry wouldn't even exist without the more than $25 billion in taxpayer handouts over the past 20 years. Congress only recently passed energy and farm bills that further greased ethanol production with a 51 cent a gallon tax credit, corn subsidies, plus increasingly stringent biofuel mandates. We were told, as usual, that profitability was just around the corner.

The uglier realities of corn ethanol are at least becoming more widely recognized, even on the political left. The Environmental Working Group and five other environmental organizations said this week they oppose a bailout because subsidies "for corn-based ethanol have produced unintended, yet potentially catastrophic environmental consequences, with little or no return to taxpayers in energy security [or] protection from global warming."

Don't expect Congress to listen. Ethanol may never be profitable in the real world, but in Washington it's a lucrative business that provides jobs and votes. Like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, ethanol is a business created by Congress that now has to be bailed out to save Congress from embarrassment.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123008114168231965.html?mod=special_page_campaign2008_mostpop
 
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I like CORN, I keep a bottle in the freezer!!:D

Oil remains lower after supply data
Energy Department says crude inventory increased 500,000 barrels versus expectations of a 1.75 million barrel decline.

By Ben Rooney, CNNMoney.com staff writer
December 31, 2008: 10:46 AM ET


chart_oil_1_year.03.gif

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The price of oil remained slightly lower Wednesday after the government said the nation's supplies of crude expanded last week.
Light, sweet crude for February delivery was down 17 cents to $38.86 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil had traded down 21 cents just prior to the report's release.
In its weekly inventory report, the Energy Information Administration said crude stocks rose by 500,000 barrels last week. Analysts were looking for a drop of 1.75 million barrels, according according a survey by oil research firm Platts.
Distillates, used to make heating oil and diesel fuel, expanded by 700,000 barrels while gasoline supplies added 800,000 barrels. Analysts were expecting distillate supplies to grow by 1.3 million barrels and gasoline stockpiles to have increased by 1.75 million barrels.
Wednesday's advance comes at the end of a volatile year. The global economic slowdown has sapped demand for gasoline and other petroleum products which has driven the price of oil is down nearly 61% year to date.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/31/markets/oil/index.htm?postversion=2008123110
 
Thanks for the Gas mileage increase!!

James48843 said:
It's all in your mind, Buster. You have to start thinking outside the box.

I get 146 miles per gallon of gasoline I consume.

I drive a mid-size car. A former GSA Dodge Stratus.

A $2 per gallon tax would cost me $ 4.80 more per tank than I currently pay. And I would be able to travel 352 miles for the additional $4.80 above today's prices. That's still a fraction of the price of gasoline was just three months ago.

You see, I don't burn regular gasoline- I burn E85. A relatively cheap, available fuel. Competitive in price with gasoline.

Yet made IN THE USA by USA FARMERS, RENEWABLE, and the technology is AVAILABLE TODAY.

GM makes more E85 fueled vehicles than anyone. They have committed to making half their vehicles E85 capable by 2012.

Toyota? Only one model. Nothing more on the horizon.
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Interesting!, I have a '05 Toyota Corolla S (sport) model and the first time that I needed to refill the gas tank, I read through the owners manuel for the best preferred fuel for my new car. I get 38 mpg according to dealer, etc. I read the owners manuel and it said the best fuel that burns the cleanest and was recommended was ethanol, I had believed it also gave some numbers, but I was not concerned.
I just got my owners manuel and I started digging around and the car has been getting gas that has been 1 octane below what's recommended. Any auto workers out there? your thoughtsI have ~60,k on it and I've never had any problems. It hums along, no pings, and I get great mpg on the highway. I never speed since I had that motorcycle wreck in high school. I go to Jiffy Lube for oil change every 3k, (I have only 1 arm that works due to motorcycle wreck in high school.)
James48843, I like you more and more each day. If I use your train of thought, I don't get 38mpg but I get 236mpg! I know that is skewed thinking that's just not right, but it is a pleasant thought. All the fuel needed to plant and maintain the crops, then harvest them and all the other expenses, along the way, make that figure very inaccurate?
However, if everyone planted crops in their backyard or wherever, the plant's qualities are natural filters of the air and takes polution out? Everyone stops poluting the aiir as much with their big American behemoth autos making a eutopia in America. (Steady, I need alot of your flowerchild stuff here)
America would be self sustaining, needing little oil, everyone grows most of their own food, the next Hooterville?
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Re: Thanks for the Gas mileage increase!!

dannyboy said:
Interesting!, I have a '05 Toyota Corolla S (sport) model and the first time that I needed to refill the gas tank, I read through the owners manuel for the best preferred fuel for my new car. I get 38 mpg according to dealer, etc. I read the owners manuel and it said the best fuel that burns the cleanest and was recommended was ethanol,

I had believed it also gave some numbers, but I was not concerned. /
I just got my owners manuel and I started digging around and the car has been getting gas that has been 1 octane below what's recommended. Any auto workers out there? your thoughts /
I have ~60,k on it and I've never had any problems. It hums along, no pings, and I get great mpg on the highway. I never speed since I had that motorcycle wreck in high school. I go to Jiffy Lube for oil change every 3k, (I have only 1 arm that works due to motorcycle wreck in high school.)
James48843, I like you more and more each day. If I use your train of thought, I don't get 38mpg but I get 236mpg! I know that is skewed thinking that's just not right, but it is a pleasant thought.>>>
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According to the quoted text in red, I can only assume that your are using E85 fuel in your Toyota. Was it engineered to run on E85, or is this just your own experiment to test if it would? (or, maybe I'm completely off track)

I've been told (by more than one auto mechanic) that biggest issue involving using fuel with high concentrations of ethanol and alcohol in engines not designed to burn it, is deterioration or breakdown of rubber components such as seals and gaskets. I am not a professional mechanic, so I can't say that this is actually the case. But, when I need to fuel up, I try to use the few existing stations that still sell gas without the ethanol additive.

To elaborate, I'm satisified with my own personal experience in vehicle maintenance and I try to keep them as long as possible... over 10 years on the truck I have now, and before that, I drove a Chevy Van (350-V8)for 19 years with only minor, routine repairs. I think I got my money's worth out of that one, and got $1,000 for it when I traded it in. :)
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