Rising costs

[tjguitarz]

Don't you just love government regulation?

That's one of the reasons I liked Ron Paul. He was for minimizing governmental control, like it was back in the beginning of this country.

It's interesting to note that governmental restrictions are one of the reasons gasoline is priced so high. It is so burdensome and expensive to open a refinery, and takes many years. If oil companies were allowed to open up refineries as needed, supply would increase and the price would decrease.

Is this comment really needed tj?

Yes.

 

[blackgravity]

Maybe we can hook my child powered generator up to me, I've got a 3rd shift part time + a 1st shift full time gig starting up in about 2 weeks. I don't mind working to keep what small luxuries we can afford these days, but I can only stay awake so long

 

[Hescominsoon]

Yes.

why?

 

[vibrokatana]

why?

Because we don't succumb to political correctness. There is nothing wrong by mentioning that any living matter can be converted to ethanol.

Every time you try to impose regulation on something, you end up breaking another item. Every time you measure something, you inadvertently change it in some way. Every action has a consequence and the more action you take against an item then the more resilient it will become as it gets fragmented and spread. It is better to make peace with a person then to judge them and force them into a line of action that may lead to greater harm. Unless that person has already resorted to doing you harm, which then you should defend yourself as necessary.

[/101 reasons not to post nonsense]

 

[Odale]

Taking corn and changing it to fuel is not the way to go because as that happens the price of our food goes up as well and then we have both rising rapidly.

So its gonna come down to fuel and food. Do we struggle financially from here on out?

I feel it like everyone else. My mom and I share our cars, we have a '99 Saturn SL2 (that I am loving more and more) and a '96 Volvo 850. The Volvo which is the nicer of the two gets 22 mpg, and that's if I am being nice to it. The Saturn on the other hand gets about 30 to 32 mpg, and that is why I am loving it more and more.

As for corn being turned into Ethanol, I believe we are on the right track, but there are better sources out there. Algae for diesel and switch grass for ethanol.

Algae grows anywhere where there is water and sunlight (and reasonable temperatures.) You feed the algae and then starve it, take the fat out of the cells and viola, you have biodiesel. I saw it on the history channel.

As for Corn based ethanol, it only yields 1.3 gallons of fuel for every 1.0 gallon of fossil fuel used to make it. Is it worth it? Technically, yes because it yields .3 more gallon than the fossil fuel it replaces. On the history channel, they stated that for every acre of corn turned into Ethanol, you get 350 something gallons, with sugarcane, you get almost 1,000. With switchgrass, you get close to 1,500. Since sugarcane doesn't grow everywhere, and switchgrass does, it seems logical that switchgrass would make the best candidate for ethanol.

I don't see us using switchgrass for ethanol production any time soon though. Iowa farmers got a great deal out of their politicians... and their corn is the main fuel for ethanol production... = more money for them...

Also, if we did that, then the food prices would go back down, because the price for feed would drop (less corn for ethanol = more corn for feed.)

 

[Odale]

Also, there was one guy in France who ran a car off of compressed air.

Not much cleaner than that.

 

[rizz]

We could walk...

 

[Odale]

We could walk...

Americans don't walk...

 

[Avesther]

As a result of rising fuel costs, food and most everything is on the rise.

Many of us will have to change our budgets accordingly and will will be forced to make decisions that may upset our families.

Online video games may no longer be an option or a a getaway from whats really happening in this world.

Taking corn and changing it to fuel is not the way to go because as that happens the price of our food goes up as well and then we have both rising rapidly.

So its gonna come down to fuel and food. Do we struggle financially from here on out?

Could this be what will bring out Mr.666 with some revolutionary idea to save mankind from the brink of disaster?

Lol Anyhow my point is this, what will be more important for us do to then with everything begginning to rise dramatically ? Food on the table , gas in the car or dare i say it playing video games.

Just some food for thought lol so to speak.

I suppose it could. There are three factors driving the economy right now.

1. Fear (fear of global warming, fear of rising costs, fear of downturns in the economy)
2. The greed for money (the love of money).
3. Control through number 1 or 2 above.

I think its a good recipe for evil to enter through.

 

[Jeshurun]

About a year ago i was watching the news and they showed a guy who converted his car to run on cooking oil. Lol it was amazing he would stop by restaurants and use their old cooking oil to fuel his car.

Later apparently the goverment went after this guy and made him stop. LOL Dont ask me why. Probably wasn't good for the environment.

 

[Jeshurun]

I suppose it could. There are three factors driving the economy right now.

1. Fear (fear of global warming, fear of rising costs, fear of downturns in the economy)
2. The greed for money (the love of money).
3. Control through number 1 or 2 above.

I think its a good recipe for evil to enter through.

Only those with the mark of the beast would be able to buy or sell and a control of something like food/fuel would be the ultimate power.

 

[Odale]

About a year ago i was watching the news and they showed a guy who converted his car to run on cooking oil. Lol it was amazing he would stop by restaurants and use their old cooking oil to fuel his car.

Later apparently the goverment went after this guy and made him stop. LOL Dont ask me why. Probably wasn't good for the environment.

Actually, running cooking oil out of an old diesel produces 75-78% less CO2 emissions than regular diesel fuel does. Diesel engines were originally (as in back around 1900) designed to run off of Peanut oil, not a fossil fuel. Diesel fuel (the fossil fuel) was easier to get to market back then so the engine fuels changed.

5,000 posts!!!

 

[Avesther]

Only those with the mark of the beast would be able to buy or sell and a control of something like food/fuel would be the ultimate power.

And people will gladly give up that control because it will ease their fears.

 

[Lazarus]

Every time bad things happen Christians start talking about the end of the world and Mr. AntiChrist showing up. Why bother? You'll all get raptured and don't have to worry about it.

This whole thing is ridiculous... gas prices are terribly high, because our government is terribly high... on cocaine.
At least, that's the only reasonable explanation for their behavior other than a possible desire to destroy our nation. There's a ton of oil hanging around. In the U.S. I heard one estimate that there's enough in one(one single spot) in Alaska to power the U.S for a hundred years.
But we can't use it! It might hurt the environment! (Yeah right...)

Well, what little we get out of Alaska is apparently being sold to Japan and other countries. I guess we'd rather buy it from those swindlers in the Middle East.

Man, that is so stupid. We've got the military for it, why don't we just take over the whole doggone continent and stop paying for the stupid stuff.

To be honest, I think this country deserves high gas prices. And high food prices.
And high taxes. We deserve it for letting those crooked politicians lay waste to our nation. (If we took all the lobbyists and sent them to Mars in a one-way rocket, that'd be a good way to start fixing this problem...)

Maybe all of this is just God judging our country. After all.. how many babies were murdered last year - in this "Christian" nation? Millions.
How many people around the world have died due to our "economic sanctions", our "wars for Democracy"...
Sad to say, but it serves America right.

IMHO.

 

[Jeshurun]

Every time bad things happen Christians start talking about the end of the world and Mr. AntiChrist showing up. Why bother? You'll all get raptured and don't have to worry about it.

This whole thing is ridiculous... gas prices are terribly high, because our government is terribly high... on cocaine.
At least, that's the only reasonable explanation for their behavior other than a possible desire to destroy our nation. There's a ton of oil hanging around. In the U.S. I heard one estimate that there's enough in one(one single spot) in Alaska to power the U.S for a hundred years.
But we can't use it! It might hurt the environment! (Yeah right...)

Well, what little we get out of Alaska is apparently being sold to Japan and other countries. I guess we'd rather buy it from those swindlers in the Middle East.

Man, that is so stupid. We've got the military for it, why don't we just take over the whole doggone continent and stop paying for the stupid stuff.

To be honest, I think this country deserves high gas prices. And high food prices.
And high taxes. We deserve it for letting those crooked politicians lay waste to our nation. (If we took all the lobbyists and sent them to Mars in a one-way rocket, that'd be a good way to start fixing this problem...)

Maybe all of this is just God judging our country. After all.. how many babies were murdered last year - in this "Christian" nation? Millions.
How many people around the world have died due to our "economic sanctions", our "wars for Democracy"...
Sad to say, but it serves America right.

IMHO.

Ahhh hahaha thx ahhhh Sorry i know most what you were saying was serious but i found it to be somewhat funny.

 

[Lazarus]

Ahhhh?

 

[Odale]

In the U.S. I heard one estimate that there's enough in one(one single spot) in Alaska to power the U.S for a hundred years.
But we can't use it! It might hurt the environment! (Yeah right...)

Well, what little we get out of Alaska is apparently being sold to Japan and other countries. I guess we'd rather buy it from those swindlers in the Middle East.

IMHO.

This is from an MSNBC article:

The shutdown, which drove oil and gasoline prices sharply higher on energy markets, removes about 8 percent of daily U.S. crude production.

8% is nothing to cry about. Look at this chart from April 22, 2008.

I think that this could turn out to be a good thing, it doesn't seem like it at the moment. High gas prices will further fuel alternative fuels. It will make people want to buy electric cars, therefore urging more auto manufacturers to produce them. In the not so near future, I can see that ethanol will be a viable fuel source, it may or may not be from corn though.

Even if my prediction does not come true, which I seriously doubt, fewer people will keep their gasoline cars, and the oil companies will realize this, and drop their price accordingly to keep customers.

It is a win-win situation.

But for the moment, it does suck.

 

[Odale]

yes we are. One of my clients is an Iowa corn farmer. He's loving life right now because ALL corn is being used for ethanol. My former church deacon was commodities trader specializing in foods and corn futures are through the roof due to the demands put on the corn crop by ethanol conversions. Ethanol is a dead end..it takes more energy to make than it produces AND engines that run on ANY mixture of ethanol have worse efficiency due to the lower energy output per gallon of ethanol than gasoline.

It is not that ethanol is bad, or even inefficient, its what the ethanol is made from that counts. 1 acre of corn = ~350 gallons vs 1 acre of switchgrass ~1500 gallons. You tell me which is worse.

If you care coming from an emissions point of view, then I cannot help you there. I don't know how much they pollute.

 

[Jeshurun]

Ahhhh?

That was part of my laughter in writing. duh

 

[Lazarus]

Funny? ....

You have an unusual sense of humor, dude..