Double coupons EVERY day at the gas pump?

ikendu

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Did you know that every day can be double coupon day at the gas pump, and that you are the one that controls it? I hope you are asking …how is that?

When you work at saving gasoline, it pays you double. First, you save on your own fuel cost. If you check your tire pressure (use the maximum allowed by your owner's manual), stick strictly to the speed limit (5 mph less saves 10%), combine trips (stop off at the store on the way home from work with a shopping list), carpool, etc., you will save on your gasoline expense. If you own two cars, always take the car that will give you the best fuel mileage. This part of the savings is really clear and easy to understand.

So where is the double coupon part?

Our gasoline prices (and the cost of crude petroleum) respond to supply and demand. If we use less fuel, the price of fuel goes down. That's the double coupon. Saving a gallon of gas doesn't just save the cost in your wallet. It also means that less gas is being used everywhere (when lots of us do it). As our consumption of petroleum fuel goes down, so will the price.

Here is a key part. When the price goes back down, don't slide back into your previously "fuel in-efficient" habits. Because when you do, consumption goes right back up and so does the price. When you buy that next vehicle, be sure to check out the fuel efficiency. Nothing lowers the price of gasoline like sustained conservation. You've heard the old phrase "it takes money to make money"? Well, now you know a new phrase, "saving fuel lowers the price per gallon".
 

jtr1962

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You're right although the only thing which will get us off oil permanently will be sustained high fuel prices. Let me explain. The higher prices go, the more attractive BEVs look. Once BEVs reached some critical production mass there would be no going back to liquid fuels, ever, simply because of the enormous advantages of BEVs over anything else. The general public has only to get their feet wet but this won't happen until sustained high fuel prices get some early adopters to switch to electric cars. As more people do so, the price of BEVs will drop until it eventually is less than a comparable gas car. Since operating costs will be less as well, and charging stations will pop up, there will be no turning back once that happens. You don't see people thinking about going back to the horse and buggy any more. It will be the same here. Who will want to switch to a gas car that costs more to buy, more to operate, stinks, is noisy, and has less acceleration? My guess is only a few hard-core purists who won't consider an electric car a real car no matter what but they'll be SOL anyway once all the gas stations close up.

As far as I'm concerned let people waste oil, let the price continue to go up, let it run out faster. Conservation might give someone the warm fuzzies, but lower oil prices and greater supply brought on by conservation will mean I'll have to continue to smell auto exhaust for probably most of the rest of my life. I'd rather the price of oil gets so high in the next five years that people switch to BEVs, bicycles, and public transit en masse. At least I won't have to worry about getting lung cancer any more, or being a virtual prisoner indoors in the summers because the air smells so bad. We've already tried the conservation angle in the 1970s. It brought temporary relief from higher fuel prices which in turn brought us SUVs in the 1990s. :thumbsdow Had we not done this, we might have had $10 a gallon gasoline now which would give people a real incentive to switch to something else.
 
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cobb

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ikendu, that sounds great in theory, but not everyone is going to do it. Not just the Americans, but the Chineese, Japanise, Indians, etc, etc, etc. They will just off set what we use to use as it takes millions of years for more oil to be made.

jtr1962, right. We should start to artifically inflate the price of gas to continue the offset of suv users to more efficient cars. We are just now getting reports that suv sales have slumped for ford and gm. Let the hybrid thing become more popular so folks know folks who drive one and get 80mpg or what ever they do so they wont want to go back to a 9mpg suv.
 

ikendu

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Sorry guys.

What you say is true... high fuel costs will spur development and adoption of non-petroleum transportation alternatives. But... we aren't ready for it just yet and our economy will hugely suffer with higher and higher gas prices. I'd be willing to take the hit from the higher prices if it was taxes being spent here at home to research and develop higher yielding biofuels and battery electric transportation.

In the meantime... I am for conservation. Whether world demand goes up or not, conservation is still the best route to the lowest fuel price we can get. Without conservation, higher world demand just means all the higher prices.

I'm definitely not in the "burn it up as fast as we can" camp.
 

gadget_lover

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There are many ways to promote better conservation. Some work better than others.

There are mandated standards (like California did in the 1990's) to require innovation. The result was the Prius, the EV1 and the electric Ford ranger. The weakness is that policies can change over the course of several years. Some companies simply bet that they can get a waiver using the claim that the the goals are un-reachable. Others buy the politicians that make the rules in the hope of having them overturned.

There are non-tax incentives. In California, the power company is required to buy power that individuals generate if they follow basic guidelines. This promotes private energy production at no cost to society. It might diminnish the power company's profits by a miniscule amount. The weakness is that the regulations for providing power require expensive (and often professional) installation and certified equipment. $30,000 per home appers to be normal. This is a serious barrier to the average person.

Other non-tax incentives fall into the basic category of enhanced privileges. Car pool lanes, free parking, reserved parking and government contracts have all been used to promote conservation in one form or the other.

We are all pretty aware of the tax based incentives. These can be direct, as in deductions or tax credits on the purchase of conserving equipment. They can be indirect as in subsidies for the purchase or maintenance of equipment.

The most perverse incentive is the "pollution credits" that large plants get if they can prove they meet certain goals. The credits are negotiable, and can be sold to other companies that would otherwise be exceeding their pollution quota. Sort of like the allowable filth standard in food, except that it lets one company meet the standards even if there's a cup of rat droppings in every cereal box. Like I said, somewhat perverse.

The politically easiest way to do it is to wait till prices go through the roof. The big companies make huge profits for less work, the law-makers don't have to do anything and eventually the market forces the decision on all of us.

Personally , I prefer the non-tax based incentives and mandated efficiencies.

Daniel
 

raggie33

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i ride right bye em on my bike even though the bike is kinda messed up i ride by gas station loseing fat and not haveing to suport big oil or the middle east
 

BB

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Unfortunately, the mandated pollution controls, non-tax labor code changes, minimum wages, guaranteed time off, the horrendously abused government mandated/run workman's comp/welfare systems, etc. have succeeded in driving pollution, jobs, inefficient manufacturing, etc. overseas; and encouraged illegal immigration into the US where people are making $10-$15 per hour ($15 / hour cash is roughly equivalent to $60,000 per year fully taxable wage in the US) under the table while our hospitals are closing down and jail populations surge due to non-tax requirements by the federal government that requires these unfunded mandates and drive the US into a black market type economy...

As I have posted in other threads, governments are the ones that are hooked on cheap oil because (especially in Europe) they collect 3/4's of the revenues at the petrol pump (to fund social programs) and leave 1/4 to the oil companies.

European governments (and the US to a lesser extent) could not afford a massive change to Solar or other non-taxable energy source.

Notice the governments working on a GPS based tax system (and for collecting tolls/fines/etc.) for vehicles... These are being justified to ensure that the hybrids pay "their fair share of taxes". Then it won't matter which fuel sourced is used as all vehicles will be heavily taxed and the marginally cost competitive fuels (like solar with its high up front capital costs) will fade again.

-Bill
 

jtr1962

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ikendu said:
What you say is true... high fuel costs will spur development and adoption of non-petroleum transportation alternatives. But... we aren't ready for it just yet and our economy will hugely suffer with higher and higher gas prices. I'd be willing to take the hit from the higher prices if it was taxes being spent here at home to research and develop higher yielding biofuels and battery electric transportation.
All the pieces are in place right now to allow a full-scale conversion to BEVs. We have AC motors, electronic controls, regenerative braking, and batteries with a five-minute recharge on the way. Installing charging stations is trivial. Longer term we can discourage development patterns which require the auto as the primary means of transportation. That's what got us into trouble in the first place. 60 years ago we actually had a non-polluting, convenient system of local transport in place in the form of trolleys, interurbans, and subways. We were duped into thinking buses were better so we let GM buy up trolley lines and allow them to deteriorate. The demise of these easy local connections in turn decreased long-distance travel on railways. The jet put the last nail in the coffin of railroads. We encouraged people to settle in the suburbs, probably just so we could sell them automobiles. In essence we got ourselves into the jam we're in. We can get ourselves out of it as well.

You're quite right that a sudden rise in fuel prices hurts our economy. The silver lining around that is perhaps people will finally see that an economy based on oil is not sustainable, and is also too volatile. It makes good business sense to switch our economy to something entirely based on electricity. BEVs, electric trains, maglevs, BEPs (battery-electric planes) are the way to go in the future. Building the needed infrastructure will provide jobs. What will pay for it? I'd say the savings on medical costs will easily pay for all this. Right now 600,000 people die each and every year from cancers caused by air pollution. I think the average cost of treatment before these people die is something like $1 million each. That's $600 billion a year in potential savings to pay for conversion to an all-electric economy not even counting the years of lost productivity from all these people dying before their time. Conservation is all good and well but whether we conserve or not we should get off oil as soon as possible. At this point there are no good technical or economic reasons for continuing to use it. We do simply because the oil companies manipulate everyone, including our legislators.

Right now we need to create ready markets where alternatives like BEVs can succeed so people will build them. I believe a good start might be for some of our larger cities like New York and Los Angeles to prohibit the use of non-zero emission vehicles within city limits. City dwellers will be forced to buy a BEV as their next vehicle, or just do without a car. Suburban auto commuters wishing to commute into the city by auto will have to buy a BEV, or take the train instead. We probably would have had a large BEV market already had California not wimped out on th 10% ZEV requirement. The automakers saying they can't develop these vehicles is pure BS. They're bribed by the oil companies to say that developing anything that doesn't burn fuel is an impossibility. Why do you think they're so gun-ho now on fuel cells as our eventual savoir but not BEVs? The answer is that BEVs will leave the oil companies completely out of the loop.
 

gadget_lover

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jtr1962 said:
All the pieces are in place right now to allow a full-scale conversion to BEVs. We have AC motors, electronic controls, regenerative braking, and batteries with a five-minute recharge on the way. Installing charging stations is trivial.


I think that you are missing a few points. If we have 5 minute charge batteries, we have to have places to charge them that quick. Others have mentioned in other threads the huge power feed needed to charge a 30kwh battery in 5 minutes. That comes out to 600,000 watts per car. That's only 2,200 amps at 270 volts. per car. I've worked in businesses with large power requirements, and it's not that easy to get a high power drop into your business.

Now I know that you would not need to charge evey car all the way every time, but you have to be prepared for the worst case, such as after a city wide blackout or a rumor of electricity shortages.

I think conservation is a good first step.

Daniel
 
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PlayboyJoeShmoe

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Conservation is all I can do. My 8,000# Dodge 2500 will get almost 25mpg at 55. I try to do 60 as much as possible. But where we live and do business involves DISTANCE.

Sometimes I gotta do 70.

I do keep the tires up however!
 

jtr1962

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gadget_lover said:
I think that you are missing a few points. If we have 5 minute charge batteries, we have to have places to charge them that quick. Others have mentioned in other threads the huge power feed needed to charge a 30kwh battery in 5 minutes. That comes out to 600,000 watts per car. That's only 2,200 amps at 270 volts. per car. I've worked in businesses with large power requirements, and it's not that easy to get a high power drop into your business.
Actually, it comes to 360 kW per car, maybe 400 kW allowing for charging losses. Many large cities are already set up to deal with those kinds of power demands. A subway or commuter train accelerating out of a station uses several megawatts, for example, enough to feed 10 or more cars charging simultaneously, and in NYC you have many such trains leaving stations at the same time. You wouldn't get your 400 kW from the 240 volt AC line, but rather tap into the several kV feeder lines to reduce current demands. One thing to consider which I discussed in the other thread is that there will be two primary users of 5 minute recharge. First will be drivers on long trips stopping to "refuel". Those charging stations will likely be in the middle of nowhere, and thus more problematic as far as getting near a grid capable of meeting the power demands. This problem can be solved by filling the charging stations at a slower (1 hour?) rate from the grid via energy storage, and dumping this energy into the car batteries as fast as possible. Remember these are remote filling stations. By definition there just won't be huge steady demands on them. The second main users will be city apartment dwellers who can't recharge at home but as I said the city grid can accomodate them. Since slow home recharging will undoubtably be cheaper, especially at off-peak rates, the number of cars needing 5 minute recharges won't even be close to the number coming to gas stations now.

Believe me, the grid problem is a relatively minor obstacle here, hardly a show-stopper. You can reduce the problem somewhat by letting the charging stations have different charging rates, thus incenting drivers to use the cheaper 10 minute, 15 minute, 30 minute, or 1 hour rates unless they're really pressed for time. Often drivers combine a gas stop with a 20 or 30 minute bathroom/food break anyway so 5 minute recharge would be wasted in such situations.

I'm 100% for conservation as well. Drive less, use less electricity, buy a more efficient car. Don't take my earlier posts to mean I don't support these things. I do, but by themselves they won't get us to alternatives. Higher fuel prices will, combined with hopefully well-thought out government incentive programs, even though long-term I feel government manipulation of free markets isn't a good idea. Also, we need to fundamentally restructure government so as to reduce dependence on energy taxes. That's a big obstacle to getting governments solidly behind alternatives like solar if they fear a loss of revenue. Of course, the alternatives will mean less military spending and less Medicare/Medicaid spending, so a loss of energy taxes might turn out to hurt less than otherwise thought.
 

gadget_lover

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I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but the post did say that installing sufficient charging stations was "trivial".

The economics of running a business demand that you service as many customers as possible while minimizing your costs. Too few customers means the ones you do service have to pay the overhead all by themselves.

A rural "filling station" that fills a battery bank so it can service a car or two an hour will not be sucessfull unless they can charge hundreds of dollars per car.

A subway system has dedicated power and a known load that they carefully regulate. This is radically different from a small town with a dozen filling stations that each service 1 to 10 cars at a time.

If there is little demand for filling stations because every one charges at home off hours, they will not be built. If there is a lot of demand because many people can not charge at home, the filling station power demands will fall right when you don't want them.... during the peak demand hours.

The other problem, of course, is that the filling station will need to make it's profit. The electricity that it buys for $.13 per kwh will cost you how much? $.50? $.75? No one knows.

My only point is it's not trivial and we are not quite "ready for prime time" when it comes to a mass conversion to BEVs. I wish it were.

Daniel
 

idleprocess

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I think a somewhat gradual conversion to a majority BEV fleet over 5-10 years would work without killing the grid.

I think that utlizing the existing grid for BEVs as much as possible would be the best. I'm not so sure that cross-country trips with BEVs will be practical for some time, unless folks accept the savings in-town to pay for the rapid charging on long trips.
 

jtr1962

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idleprocess said:
I think a somewhat gradual conversion to a majority BEV fleet over 5-10 years would work without killing the grid.
That's my idea. We can't convert to 100% BEVs tomorrow because obviously people aren't going to scrap perfectly good vehicles with plenty of life left in them to buy BEVs. However, we can get people to purchase a BEV as their next car, and in the case of cities perhaps as their only car. I'd be very happy if we were 100% converted to BEVs in the cities within 10 years, and maybe 50% everywhere else. I think the grid could handle it.

I'm not so sure that cross-country trips with BEVs will be practical for some time, unless folks accept the savings in-town to pay for the rapid charging on long trips.
You're guite right that long trips with BEVs will depend upon an installed base of rapid recharge stations. As gadget_lover pointed out, the economics for that might not exist for a while. However, on a more positive note the majority of car trips are well within the feasible range of BEVs so I'll accept that a small minority of longer trips will still need to be made with ICEs for a while. Another thing really worth thinking about here is that, in all honesty, a car is really not the best means of traveling long distance. It's too cramped, too slow, too unsafe, there are no bathroom facilities on board, you need frequent stops to refuel, etc. The best idea would be to build high-speed rail to take care of the long distance part, and have BEV rentals at the train stations to cover the last 50 miles or so to the final destination. This offers higher overal average speeds, much better safety, and much better comfort. As a bonus it gets rid of all short distance and most medium distance air travel, saving yet more fuel (plus noise pollution). The thought of sitting in a car for a 1000 mile trip frankly makes me nauseous (going 400 miles to Montreal in 1973 just about pushed my limits for car travel). I'd rather take a 45 minute subway ride to Penn Station, catch a high-speed train for a 6 hour journey to cover most of the 1000 miles, and then rent a BEV to go the last few dozen miles to wherever I'm going. Cars as a rule are just too claustrophobic and bounce around too much to be comfortable on trips longer than about an hour. This isn't even getting into the nauseating fumes from the other traffic that enters into the passenger cabin.
 
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