As for fuel economy/alternative fuels....here's some glimpses into my train of thought.<br /><br />I don't burn fuel just for the sake of burning fuel, despite my probably giving that impression in the earlier post. In fact, I consider myself a bit of a miser/environmentalist, but I'm not wacko about it...I heat my home with geothermal, flourescent lights all over the place, I recycle everything I can, and I often ride my bike to work. But I love high powered vehicles and they drink COPIOUS amounts of fuel, and I'm willing to pay the price for it because there is no viable alternative right now and I refuse to give up my hobbies. At the same time, I am waiting with open checkbook in hand for a viable option to gasoline/oil to get a foothold on doing what I need it to do. BUT...it's not here yet. Are there options? Very few. Feasible for MY uses? No. I know of no alternative fuel boats, snowmobiles, 4 wheelers, or race cars. A few passenger cars, and we're now at the very beginning of a much needed revolution in the world's transportation industry.<br /><br />Biodiesel: Hardly anywhere to fill up around here and anywhere else, and I'm not willing to do a whole bunch of legwork to find fuel when my gasoline powered vehicles can be filled at any street corner in the country.<br /><br />Electric: Not a solution....that just shifts the power supply to a different location. I'll relieve pressure on oil dependency, yes. It will also add pressure to our (United States) already overloaded power plants and distribution system. We already have rolling blackouts in many places in summer due to A/C load, can you imagine what would happen if at the end of every rush hour we all had to plug in our cars? Plus a huge amount of our electricity is produced by burning coal. The process is getting cleaner every year, but it's hardly a truly "clean" solution.<br /><br />Hybrid vehicles: That's nice they offer a 20% improvement in fuel economy over a conventional gas engine'd car, but they still burn a lot of oil. Hybrids will be a short term blip in automotive history. My prediction is that they'll come on strong over the next couple years, and probably be phased out in a decade or so when something better comes along.<br /><br />E-85 and other ethanol blends: Too expensive. Sure, at the pump it's fairly cheap from a consumer standpoint. But that's only because of government subsidies. You can't have a competitive product based on governent subsidies. It's much cheaper to process dead dinosours into fuel than it is to process corn into fuel. And there isn't enough capacity for it to really make a difference<br /><br />The internal combustion engine: Obsolete to the n'th degree. It is absolutely insane that our primary mode of transportation in 2006 is still based on the internal combustion engine. Been running them for the past 100 years. Look at how fast computer technology has advanced. Look at space travel, look at advancements in medicine, communication, etc. Yet here we are using the same basic technology that was designed when the world was getting around via horse & buggy. Why? It's cheap and easy to fuel. Still is, and will be for a long time to come. Honda CVCCs in the 70's were getting 35 to 40 mpg, Honda CRX's were pulling 40 to 45 mph in the 80's. I owned a 1981 VW Fox that got 40 on the highway. And here we are almost 30 years later and everyone thinks these hybrids getting 40 to 50 mpg is an actual improvement. 30 YEARS?!!?!?!?! By now we should be at 100 mpg. So I'm basically considering hybrids a giant step BACKWARDS.<br /><br />Fuel cells: This holds some serious promise. I'm banking on some method of fuel cell propulsion in my lifetime to replace the internal combustion engine. How to fuel them is the big question. All seem to be looking toward hydrogen for now, but some at natural gas, etc. Will be fun to see how it all works out. The other great news about fuel cells is it will reach far beyond the transportation industry. I can't wait for the day I go to my local Home Depot and plunk down $14,000 for an "energy module" for my home....sort of like an air conditioning unit that sits outside the house emmitting a gentle hum while providing all the power needs for my home for the next 25 years. No more power grid, no more gas lines, you name it. When it runs out of juice, you go buy a new one. I think we will see such a thing in my lifetime and I'm looking forward to it. When that happens, what will happen to the price of electricity? People and businesses will start abandoning their reliance on the power grid, fewer customers to pay expenses to keep the plants running. SKYROCKETING electricity costs. All while the power modules are getting cheaper every year as technology improves. Then one day the power grid system will suddenly be obsolete.<br /><br />Same sort of thing will hit the oil industry. When oil gets too expensive and technology allows a feasible alternative for transportation, people will stop buying oil. Supplies will reach massive peaks. Prices will plummett. Gas stations will close. This will drive up demand for the alternative fuel and the vehicles that use it. And eventually oil will be a lubricant only, and no longer a source of fuel.<br /><br />Our governement is all up in arms about the price of gas now and doing investigations to determine to cause. What a JOKE! Do they not realize that EVERYTHING is driven by supply and demand. This is where my comment came from about $3 gas in the US still being relatively cheap. Even at $3 per gallon, demand hasn't dropped one tiny bit. Because it's STILL cheap fuel. We really do need $5 to $6 per gallon to cause an actual drop in demand, and to cause both private industries and governments to make that last big push toward finding us the alternative we need. And I'm very confident in saying that this all will happen.<br /><br />The big question is, how long will it take?<br /><br />And somebody here referenced that the governments have no incentive to get price of oil down because of all the extra taxes they're collecting as a result of the higher prices. I tend to disagree on that. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in the United States, we pay about 45 cents per gallon in federal taxes. It's a fixed dollar amount, so we are not paying a percentage of the sale. Whether gas is $1 or $5 per gallon, the feds still get their 45 cents. Some of our STATES are getting a windfall due to sales taxes, and each state is different, but I don't think that has any bearing on the federal government. Other countries I'm sure are TOTALLY different. Just a thought there....<br /><br />End of essay. Now everyone can tear me to pieces. Have fun!
