Gas prices: good idea, but...

[Guest]

Yesterday I received a message with an interesting idea. But the question is: how to know where the particular gas station purchases the gas?

THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $2.00 PER GALLON.

It was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive
came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton.
If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.


Phillip Hollsworth offered this good idea.

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy gas on a certain day' campaign that was going around last April or May!



It's worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $ 4.00 a gallon by summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to 'hurt' ourselves by refusing to buy gas.


It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them.


BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can Really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $2.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $3.55 for regular unleaded in my town.



Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace...not sellers.


With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action.


The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!


I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) .. and those 300 send it to at least ten mor e (300 x 10 = 3,000)...and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers.

If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!


If it goes one level further, you guessed it..... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all!


(If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to 10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am . so trust me on this one.


How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receipt, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!!!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you!


Acting together we can make a difference.


If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on. I suggest that we not buy from EXXON/MOBIL UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE $2.00 RANGE AND KEEP THEM DOWN. THIS CAN REALLY WORK.
Keep it going

 

[asm]

For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

thanks for your consideration.
Jim Waterson
Chevron Corporation


:roll:

sorry dude, wont work.

 

[JohnRoberts]

For any confused or weak minded to believe this drivel allow me to simplify it for you.

If indeed an effective consumer boycott were effected against Exxon that prevented them from getting market prices for their refined gasoline at retail (highly unlikely). They would simply sell their crude to world markets at market prices. Oil is a fungible commodity... You can easily sell it anywhere.

Their 4 million barrels a day production would cause chaos if it wasn't made available to meet the total world consumption of around 85 million barrels a day.

You think gas is expensive today, imagine if 4 million barrels a day was held off the market for even a brief period. :roll:

Luckily such a lame chain letter/ponzi boycott would never happen.

You want to do something to lower gas prices, drive less, and check the air in your tires...

JR

 

[SSLtech]

+1.

Keith

 

[lofi]

and if you think ints expensive stay away from the UK, £1.15 a litre!!!

thats £4.35 a US Gallon

or at todays rate ($1.9778) a total of $8.61

dont like the cost of Gas, walk or get a push bike, its what i have just started doing. not to try and topple a company but to stop wasting money on needless journeys.

 

[StephenGiles]

Yes - start walking.

 

[Steve Jones]

Oil is such a valuable organic molecule, it is the cornerstone of every synthetic item in the industrialized world. we shouldn't be burning it in SUV's. It is too cheap, and hence we waste it in horrifying amounts. There is no liquid available that is so energy dense. Here's a thought: most of the next generation will never fly in an aeroplane.

I do feel sympathy for the UK though, your prices are extreme, lucky you though that you don't have the distances to cover that we have in Australia.

Some concepts are really stupid, such as shipping bottled water between Australia and Scotland. We waste it, and when it's gone the world will be a very different place, for a start our population will have to drop to almost pre-industrial revolution levels. Methanol won't save us, it doesn't have anywhere near the energy density of oil, you certainly can't run a marine diesel on it, and where do we get the land to produce it anyway.

As much as it pains me to say it, the USA taught us all to be rampant consumer units, and now the party is over.

 

[Kit]

and if you think ints expensive stay away from the UK, £1.15 a litre!!!

I didnt know gas was so expensive in the UK.
Thats pretty close to Swedish prices per liter.

Im buying a bicycle this summer to get to work.

 

[lofi]

at xmas it was £0.89 / litre, but everything has just sky rocketed here except earnings

for real work i run a motor mechanics garage with my brother in law, a couple of years ago people came with cars for an MOT test (cars older than 3 years get tested each year for road worthiness - i don't know what you would call that test, but you have it) and ask for a full service at the same time. now they only do the work needed, the services are getting few and far between.

the knock on is lower earnings (last week we earn't overheads plus an apprentice wage each) and poorer maintained cars polluting everywhere.

apparently higher prices mean fewer cars traveling on wasted journeys, just wish they'd tell all the parents taking kids to school that.

 

[kato]

$4 a gallon still seems like a good deal to me.

I'm expecting it to hit $7 in 2010. That's when things get really interesting!

 

[MartyMart]

[quote author="kato"]$4 a gallon still seems like a good deal to me.

I'm expecting it to hit $7 in 2010. That's when things get really interesting![/quote]

Try $7 before 2008 is out !!
It's just going to continue up at the moment, £1.16.9 per litre near me today!!!

 

[Rochey]

having seen the difference between european cars and texan cars, it's safe to say, that whilst gasoline is cheaper in the US, your car is burning double the fuel in Texas.

I suspect this to be down to 3 main points:

(a) Your car is double the size in the US. It's coming to the point, especially in Dallas when a small SUV is one of hte few things that help you see the road. Visibility on the freeway with a roadster is near 0.

(b) Your running the air conditioning all the time No choice on this one. Simply putting the air intake on "cold" does nothing but bring in the air from the outside without heating it. If the air outside is hot and humid, then the inside of the car is hot and humid. Noone wants to get to work a sweaty mess

(c) Americans insist on driving cars like dodgems (bumper cars at a fun-fair) Yup, changing gears is far too much of an inconvenience. It's so much more convenient to drive with an automatic gearbox, which only has 3 gears in it. Bye Bye fuel efficiency.

I think they key things that have to change is that we need more efficient vehicles... better gearboxes (automatic, with the option for manual, with at least 5 gears). Hybrid technology is cool too.
Also, why do families need 2 SUV's? Me and my Fiance have an SUV each (got them before we met each other)... but my next car will most definately be something small... I drive to work and back most of the time.

There you go... just my drivel.



/R

 

[sonicmook56]

I can't wait for gas to cost $9 a gallon.

Take public transit
RIDE A BIKE
live closer to work

:green:

 

[SSLtech]

HUGE over-simplification, but...

Small cars. -Lighter. Use less energy to accelerate, use less energy to brake. Requires less force to change direction. Lower. Accident avoidance capability = better. Punches a smaller hole through the air at highway speed, so requires less energy to maintain a constant high speed. -In collsions with immovable objects (walls, trees) less stored energy means less lethal energu to be dissipated.

SUVs. -Heavier. Use more energy to accelerate, use more energy to brake. Requires more force to change direction. Taller. Accident avoidance capability = worse. Punches a larger hole through the air, so requires more energy to maintain a constant high speed. -In collsions with immovable objects (walls, trees) greater stored energy means more lethal energy to be dissipated.

On Capitol Hill however, the only speeches which I seem to hear from politicians are those which quote the fact that when a large SUV collides with a small car, the large SUV often does much more damage to the small car, (mainly as a result of the fact that the bumpers on these things are at 'truck' height which is mandated differently under US regulations, and therefore meets the small car closer to 'glass height', where ALL vehicles are weaker) and drawing the mind-numbingly-simplistic concluision that "SUVs are therefore safer, and small cars are therefore quite dangerous".

Fact: If we didn't have these blessed SUVs all over the road, there would be fewer deaths. And if we all drove vehicles which used less energy, we'd be less exposed in terms of economic vulnerability.

But listen to the Congressmen who have constituencies in Michigan and you'd NEVER get that story straight.

Keith

 

[dale116dot7]

I am not so sure that the next generation will just never get to fly in an airplane.

I think it is very likely that the next generation will live a shorter life than any generation in the past, and pretty likely for our generation (I'm 36), to live a shorter life than our parents.

-Dale

 

[skipwave]

[quote author="SSLtech"]Fact: If we didn't have these blessed SUVs all over the road, there would be fewer deaths. And if we all drove vehicles which used less energy, we'd be less exposed in terms of economic vulnerability.

But listen to the Congressmen who have constituencies in Michigan and you'd NEVER get that story straight.
[/quote]

:guinness: :guinness: :guinness: :thumb:

 

[analag]

[quote author="kato"]$4 a gallon still seems like a good deal to me.

I'm expecting it to hit $7 in 2010. That's when things get really interesting![/quote]

Everytime I pass the gas station the price goes up. It's going to hit $7.00 this year. The people who use heating oil will be seriously f#@ked up this winter. They should changed the national slogan from "In God We Trust" to something more like "May God Have Mercy On Us"
Time for a change!!!

 

[3nity]

this is hilarious:

"May God Have Mercy On Us"

 

[Greg]

... 300 million people ... that's the entire population in the US at the last census.

 

[dale116dot7]

[quote author="analag"]Everytime I pass the gas station the price goes up. It's going to hit $7.00 this year. The people who use heating oil will be seriously f#@ked up this winter. They should changed the national slogan from "In God We Trust" to something more like "May God Have Mercy On Us"
Time for a change!!![/quote]

Perhaps, but I think it is too late for that. We're doomed, screwed, f#@ked up, whatever you want to call it. It took millions of years to accumulate the oil under the ground, and in one century we have burned over half of it. As Dylan said, times are a' changin'. Get used to it.

Yes, there is a lot of oil under the ground - probably at least three hundred years at our current consumption rate. But when the EROI (energy return-on-investment) - the ratio between energy in and energy out - drops below 1, it is no longer a energy source. It is an energy sink. Why would you continue to do this? For chemical feedstock - plastics, agrichemicals, semiconductors. I am not an oilfield geologist, but I do know several of them and I've grilled them over the last few days.

We are also talking about free-market economy and commodity trading. Oil pricing is set up just as farmers get paid for grain. The farmer that produces grain (or hogs, or cattle), get paid when they sell at a 'market price'. The farmer does not set his/her own price. Speculators and supply vs. demand set the price. Primarily it is supply and demand, and the ratio between them.

In the same way, these 'profitable' oil companies do not actually set the price. They will gladly take the profits - after all, isn't that the American Way? - but they do not really set the price. In addition, dividends are paid to the shareholders of the company. That means anyone with a retirement savings plan (RRSP in Canada, or the 401k in the US), or an interest-bearing bank account. We get a bit of that profit redistributed to us.

Current maximum oil extraction ***CAPACITY*** is within a few percent of current oil use. This buffer zone is what sets the pricing. The simplest, most sure-fire way of lowering the oil price is to use significantly less of it. If the maximum oil extraction capacity is 30% higher than use, then the price of oil should be in the $70 to $80 per barrel region, using a reasonable gross margin of 35 to 40 percent. Since we are right on that tipping point, any hiccup in supply - even a single ship being late by a day due to weather - can cause a huge spike in price. Keep in mind that daily, we as a species, use (much of it burned) about 6,000 olympic-sized swimming pools full of oil. Our production capacity is only about 6,200 of those per day.

Biofuels do not make sense. We cannot grow a crop without sigificant petroleum-based products, and come out ahead by very much. The EROI is about 1.2 to 1.3 for ethanol, and that makes no sense to do, unless you are making vodka so we all forget about it and just get loaded. Well, possibly biofuels may make sense if their scope is limited to providing fuel only for the agricultural process. We have always done that in farming. When we used horses, the horses would consume about 25% of a farm's output.

Practically speaking, there are a few ways this could pan out....

1. We can wean ourselves off of oil using modern technology, starting right this second, while trying to keep somewhere close to our way of life. I'd predict it'll be a 15% chance that this goes successfully if we chose this path.

2. We can wean ourselves off of oil, both using technology, starting right this second, and engineered social and economic change, while accepting a reduced 'standard of living'. I'd also say there would be a 15% chance of success here. This approach would hinge on the masses accepting this and not fighting over resources.

3. We can attempt to change our way of life substantially and reduce our population voluntarily. Essentially, return to a world population and agriculture methods from about 1850 or 1900, while keeping a small, selected, efficient amount of our technology. If we choose this path, I'd say there's about a 15% chance that this goes successfully. If we choose to reduce our population voluntarily, it could be done with simply reduced reproductive rates.

4. We can do nothing and hope for the best. I'd say there is a 95% chance we go this way, and a 100% chance for a massive human population dieoff, either by energy wars, or disease, or famine, or whatever.

Given these choices, and looking at human history, #4 is the most likely, I think at about 85% probability. #3 is probably the most sane choice but our leaders tend not to be that way.

Ok, I haven't slept in two nights, and haven't eaten more than a handful of spinach leaves in a couple of days because I feel terrible thinking about how this will play out.

-Dale