 |
GasBuddy has an assortment of other gas price related maps. You can even get area gas prices text messaged to your phone if you need a fill up while out of town.
Support the Blog — Buy This Book!
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
Put this ad on your blog!
Syndicate
Subscribe to Main Blog feed here:
Subscribe to Comments too (below):
Junk Email Filter
>>You are still assuming that all of individual
>>tax receipts (about 1/2 of total revenue) is
>>going to subsidizing oil prices.
I’m not assuming anything, other than that the US government is subsidizing gas prices to keep them artificially low compared to most of the rest of the world. That seems to be a foregone conclusion. I’ll leave it up to Scottie to do the accounting.
In any case, $15/gal gasoline would serve as an excellent catalyst for developing alternatives to fossil fuels and the current 1.5-cars-per-person mentality we’re currently opertaing with.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov shows a 7-23% increase in fuel economy for driving at 55. The sample case they show drops from 30mpg at 55, to 23 mpg at 75.
Wind resistance increases as a square of speed, so small increases in speed correspond to large decreases in fuel economy.
Another source:
Most automobiles get about 28 percent more miles per gallon of fuel at 50 miles (80.5 kilometers) per hour than at 70 miles (112 kilometers) per hour. Likewise, gas mileage is about 21 percent greater at 55 miles (88.5 kilometers) per hour than at 70 miles (112 kilometers) per hour.
Source: Dalley, Robert L. Are You Burning Money?p. 126.
What is wrong with 1.5 cars per person? You can only drive one at a time. Having two cars is not using any more gas than having one car.
$15 gal gas may cause a desire, but would remove the ability.
Of course SOME think that the government can do these thing better than private enterprise.
>>Wind resistance increases as a square of
>>speed, so small increases in speed correspond
>>to large decreases in fuel economy.
Great in theory, not so great in application. You’re not factoring in rolling resistance, engine efficiency at different RPMs, and about a million other things.
The Toyota Celica, that got better mileage at 65 than 55 pretty much debunks your myth.
>>What is wrong with 1.5 cars per person?
Well, if you adhere to the idea that everyone must have a car, 1.5 cars per person isn’t really any worse than 30 cars per person.
An alternative might be that people could take mass transit, trains, walk, ride bikes, ride a razor scooter, or do something other than fill up their $100/tank Humper every week. Maybe a family of 3 could actually get by with ONE car, instead of 2 or 3 or 4.
Actually, having two cars can be a good thing. I have a 1989 GMC Suburban (or did until last weeks tornado). I put about 500 miles a year on the Suburban. It got about 10mpg. Camping trips, blizzards, trips to the dump were handled with the suburban. The rest of the time is handled with the minivan, at 24 mpg.
If I only had one vehicle, I would need to choose one which handled all of my requirements, and be stuck with 10mpg for the entire year. With multiple cars, you can drive and economical vehicle usually, and be able to have a utility vehicle when needed.
I didn’t say that everyone must have two cars. I wouldn’t tell anyone what they must do. Each person has individual needs, and should be able to choose the vehicle or vehicles best suited for them.
Glad you came up with one example of a car which improves from 65 to 55. That is not typical, and the situation is much worse from 75 to 55. The biggest issue is gear ratio. Rolling resistance always increases with speed. The engine will always be most efficient at the minimum speed at which it can produce enough power to move the car in it’s highest gear.
It doesn’t take long to see the results on a flat road in a car with an instantaneous MPG display. Of the five or so such equipped cars I have driven, after about 45, the MPG always decreases as the speed increases on a level road with the cruise control set.
>>Camping trips, blizzards, trips to the
>>dump were handled with the suburban.
I’ve been on a million camping trips, driven through blizzards, moved all my posessions, and much much more with a normal, gas-efficient car.
We have trash pickup where I live, so I don’t generally go to the dump.
Christmas of 2006 we had 36 inches of snow. Our road was not plowed for a week. I did not see any small 4wd without major ground clearance on the road for days.
Most snowstorms are no big deal, but we do get big ones. We have trash pickup, but when the garden is pulled out every year, there is a load of trash much to big for the curb side pick up.
I have gone camping in a 35mpg chevette, but taking five people for a week, that doesn’t work.
Why is it up to you to decide what people should drive?
>>I’ve been on a million camping trips
Loose with the facts again. 1,000,000 one day camping trips would take 2739 years.
>>Loose with the facts again. 1,000,000 one
>>day camping trips would take 2739 years.
You’re in a deep hole, Les. Stop digging.
You’re the one whose lying about the number of camping trips they have taken, not me.
Funny how nobody noticed that Cheney’s state — Wyoming — is the cheapest of them all.
>>You’re the one whose lying about the number
>>of camping trips they have taken, not me.
You’re in a deep hole, Les. Stop digging.
I live 40 miles from Wyoming, and know several people who used to make the drive to get gas. I seem to recall that the state tax was much lower in Wyoming as opposed to Colorado.
See #26, some of us will admit when they made a mistake.
At first glance I thought that was a 2000 electoral map, until I took a closer look. Anyways, in the short term, we should allow drilling in ANWAR and off the coasts, with obvious environmental controls. Take the money that is made off the taxes from that drilling and use it to start a major push towards alternative energy, whether that be one type of fuel (unlikely) or several different fuels.
Seriously, oil is so, important for our economy. And costs us so many lives, and money to maintain our oil supply. I say its justified in many ways since its so important, but we really should be trying to find real alternatives, right now their is frankly no more important issue to the future of the country than finding a sustainable solution to our transportation and energy needs.
# 23 Les said, on June 2nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
>>First, we are already paying over $15/gal. I want to see it at the pump rather than in my income tax bill.
I would like to see some proof of this. If I am paying $11 per gallon in my income taxes, I did not pay enough, and none of my taxes went to anything else.
Click the link in post #14. You likely aren’t paying enough. People with fuel efficient vehicles are subsidizing the fuel costs of those with enormoSUVs or their flatter cousins, the uber-sports-cars.
Also, if there were any commercial electric cars, where do you think that electricity comes from? Consider the inefficiency of the electrical distribution network. Unless we want to endorse nuclear in a big way, you are just moving the pollution, not helping it.
Even if all the energy came from coal, we’d still win with electric cars. Electric motors are about 80% efficient versus about 35-40% for gasoline.
It is up to you to decide that a family of 8 should have to drive two priuses instead of a van?
No. It’s up to all of us to make the appropriate decision based on real financial information. Externalities, as documented in the aforementioned link, confuse the issue by hiding the real costs of gasoline. If we pay the real costs at the pump, we’ll have more money left after taxes with which to do so, and can make appropriate vehicle choices. These would most likely be the most fuel efficient vehicles that met the needs of individuals.
I agree that we need to work for the environment, although when I look at the evidence I don’t see man as the cause of “climate change”.
The planet won’t really care what you think. Practicing climatologists have their opinions based on available data. You have yours based, most likely, on ExxonMobil press releases carefully and effectively concealed as real information in reputable looking places. It’s understandable to be fooled by this. It’s just unfortunate that so many are.
You goal to destroy the economy will not fix the problem, oh I forgot, your a liberal.
A liberal and proud of it. Here’s an interesting one for you. 1,700 individual climate scientists and economists have gotten together to advise strong action on climate change as an excellent investment in our future with an ROI of about 10:1.
BTW, you may also be interested to know that democratic presidential administrations since 1960 have been far better for the economy than republican ones.
And, provide some links if you really want to make any points. Don’t expect the rest of us to take the word of an anonymous blogger any more than you would.
Hey Scott–excellent contributions/links/arguments==thanks.
What do you think of this: Man is contributing CO2 to the atmosphere. It is being captured by the oceans turning them acidic. Even if it turns out ((or can’t be proven or indicated or modeled otherwise)) that this CO2 does not significantly drive global warming, it still could nonetheless destroy human civilization by destroying our ocean based food chain?
Looking for one specific effect can often blind us to the 20 others just as likely?
[i]Even if all the energy came from coal, we’d still win with electric cars. Electric motors are about 80% efficient versus about 35-40% for gasoline.[/i]
Yes, but there are the inefficiencies power distribution to consider, and inefficiencies in charging, and overloading the system when everyone starts charing their cars.
Personally, I would love to have an electric to commute in. That does not mean that I would impose that on anyone else.
[i]Click the link in post #14. You likely aren’t paying enough. People with fuel efficient vehicles are subsidizing the fuel costs of those with enormoSUVs or their flatter cousins, the uber-sports-cars.[/i]
Sorry, they are including parking, accidents, and many other costs of transportation, not the fuel. The numbers just don’t add up. $11 per gallon of subsidies just doesn’t leave any money for the country to run on.
[i]The planet won’t really care what you think.[/i]
For that matter, the planet doesn’t really care if we exist. We could all die, and it will make no difference to the earth.
[i]BTW, you may also be interested to know that democratic presidential administrations since 1960 have been far better for the economy than republican ones.[i]
Oh yes, we loved 12% inflation with Carter and 3% with Reagan. (Need a link for that one?)
#30
It would NOT be free. First rule of economics is that there are no free lunches. If you dropped the speed limit to 55, I bet that the States would increase the number of patrol cars so they could increase their fine revenue.
Secondly, we should let people *choose* whether to drive in a fuel efficient manner. If someone wants to drive in first gear to work and back that is their choice; a choice for which they will pay at the pump. Their money; their choice.
#37
> An alternative might be that people
> could take mass transit, trains,
Clearly you have never lived in Southern California. I suggest you try using a bus in LA someday. It is an eye opening experience. Frankly, even if the cities in Southern CA and the State decided to expand mass transit, it will be decades before it is sufficient to make it practical. As it stands now, it requires close to a miracle for mass transit, that is not a bus, to go where you want it when you want it.
Northern California and New England are blood red and happen to be lefty havens here in the US. Is that a coincidence?
Les! Use chevrons for your HTML, OK? Not square brackets.
#52–Les==do you agree that gasoline benefits from external price supports? If not, read more. If so, stop quibbling.
Thanks!
#53,
sorry, a large discrepancy in speed is the cause of accidents, more so than actual speed. If we all want to drive on the public streets (which we all paid for), then we need to all follow the same rules.
#56,
I do not believe that it benefits from external price supports. It is a fungible commodity, and the price follows supply and demand.
If you live in Kuwait, and are paying 78 cents a gallon, then yes I believe that you are benefiting from external price supports. Here, not to any significant amount, certainly not to 1/2 of the federal budget as you propose.
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/
>>it will be decades before it is sufficient to
>>make it practical
As Lao Tzu tells us, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
The state of affairs in Los Angeles is just one of the many, many, MANY reasons I would never live in that God-forsaken city. The buses in San Diego aren’t too bad, and they have a nice trolley to Tijuana.
In any case, sure it’s going to be painful. People are going to have to learn how to walk, ride bikes, suck it in and deal with mass transit in places where it’s shitty.
It won’t kill us, though; therefor it will make us stronger.
Unlike continuing to suckle at the Saudi tit. That may well kill us deader than a Raid-treated insect.
#58–Les==gas is fungible but that concept, valid in itself, is completely irrelevant to the concept of external price support. Gas, to fuel cars, would be worthless if there were no roads to drive cars on. You see how the cost of roads is “external” to the cost of extracting/shipping/refining/distributing gas?
There is a tax to build/maintain roads. With bridges falling down, looks like that tax needs to be higher?
Some states wisely add a tax for uninsured drivers==we would all benefit ((only the insurance companies would lose)) if we all paid car insurance at the pump==those driving a lot would pay more, those driving less would pay less==as it should be and is not==but again another external cost.
No, Les, you need to read more. I don’t think you understand what an external cost is and is not. Scott has overstated his case, perhaps in his zealotry, or to simply make it interesting.
> In any case, sure it’s going to be
> painful. People are going to have
> to learn how to walk, ride bikes,
> suck it in and deal with mass transit
> in places where it’s shitty.
Forget painful and try impractical. Don’t forget the billions if not trillions it will cost. Further, claiming people can walk or ride bikes it be ignorant of the distances involved. Sure, I could ride a bike to work if I didn’t mind arriving to work at noon and leaving at 2 PM. As it stands, people are already dealing with crappy mass transit: they drive and as a bonus, it is more convenient.
IMO, closer to 80 is better than closer to 50.
Yes, but closer to 80 (as in today) uses more gas. Be realistic. If we made the national speed limit 2 mph, we would save 30000+ lives every year. Almost no traffic accident would ever be fatal. There would also be a huge economic cost. It would take a truck 2 months to cross the country. Food would spoil en route to the grocer.
There is a bargain to be made. 30,000 lives a year, against a ruined economy.
I propose the the economic impact of 55 would be minimal, and the fuel savings substantial.