Don't buy gas on 5/15!

Its not like most people buy gas every day as it is...the discussion isn't about whether its "not possible" to not fill up on one day, but about the flawed logic of staging one day to abstain from buying gas...I guess for someone that fills up once a week, the other 313 days a year are gas-out days then ;)

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Originally Posted by lord jackel

I would suggest you blame Mother Nature too. All the hurricane damaged a lot of the refineries in the Gulf and that currently is the biggest bottleneck in getting more gas to meet the demand.

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Refining capacity is a huge issue. New refineries haven't been built since the 70s...oil companies have no incentive to increase refining capacity.

Think about it - people are still paying the astronomical prices for gas and oil companies, as a result, are realizing astronomical profits.

Only when gas prices rise so high that it begins to curb the demand in a significant way and the reduced revenue starts to put a squeeze on the oil companies, they may consider expanding refining capacity to a level that brings the price down and demand back up to a more desirable level.

Who knows when that could be. How high do gas prices have to go before people start making lifestyle changes - $5? $7? $10?

If you want to look into a crystal ball...look at Europe. They've been paying $5-7 a gallon since the late 90s and there, they utilize public transportation and fuel efficient cars much more than we do. The proplem with the U.S., and always has been the problem, is that we're so much bigger and with sprawling suburban areas outside the reach of efficient public transportation, personal automobiles are the only way to get around. Its a problem that will need to be addressed in the future.

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

Its not like most people buy gas every day as it is...the discussion isn't about whether its "not possible" to not fill up on one day, but about the flawed logic of staging one day to abstain from buying gas...I guess for someone that fills up once a week, the other 313 days a year are gas-out days then ;)

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I would only be affecting if you shut down every thing that burns a petrolium based fuel, cars, truck, trains, 18 wheelers, farms, ships, electrical plants everything for say a month or two then they might get a little bit of a message. Maybe

what gets me is we have all kinds of other sources we can use a fuel, they have hydro cars, solar power (however this is actually really unrealistic), Hybrids, and a few others I forget. The solar power is unrealistic till they devise more efficient panels to gather energy, although one company is close to making it pretty reasonable, but currently an entire car has to be covered in panels and gets REALLY hot. yet we dont use any of these fuels, we keep using gas. the hydro power actually takes the hydrocarbons from the air and with manless stations turns it into a fuel. There was a huge show on it on the discovery channel that made me asking why the hell we arent using it consider they have a car that runs on it, and a station that is fully functional and requires no workers......

and dont give the supply and demand speech, Alaska is nothing but pure oil, but we turned it into a national park, so now we cant touch any of it. The oil in the mid east is still in plenty quanities, they just want more money, and its rediculous. We have the means to not use normal gas, and use fuels FAR FAR MORE cheaper, yet we dont.

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Originally Posted by SnakeEyes

what gets me is we have all kinds of other sources we can use a fuel, they have hydro cars, solar power (however this is actually really unrealistic), Hybrids, and a few others I forget. The solar power is unrealistic till they devise more efficient panels to gather energy, although one company is close to making it pretty reasonable, but currently an entire car has to be covered in panels and gets REALLY hot. yet we dont use any of these fuels, we keep using gas. the hydro power actually takes the hydrocarbons from the air and with manless stations turns it into a fuel. There was a huge show on it on the discovery channel that made me asking why the hell we arent using it consider they have a car that runs on it, and a station that is fully functional and requires no workers......

and dont give the supply and demand speech, Alaska is nothing but pure oil, but we turned it into a national park, so now we cant touch any of it. The oil in the mid east is still in plenty quanities, they just want more money, and its rediculous. We have the means to not use normal gas, and use fuels FAR FAR MORE cheaper, yet we dont.

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Saw a car that ran on water. It was based on a hydrogen power plant. the guy even had a cutting torch that you could touch the flame of..

See this is for lack of a better word Bad Ass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rb_rDkwGnU

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Originally Posted by SnakeEyes

and dont give the supply and demand speech,

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If you don't subscribe to economic truths like supply and demand, participating in this discussion would be like a monkey assisting in a liver transplant.

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Originally Posted by SnakeEyes

Alaska is nothing but pure oil, but we turned it into a national park, so now we cant touch any of it. The oil in the mid east is still in plenty quanities, they just want more money, and its rediculous. We have the means to not use normal gas, and use fuels FAR FAR MORE cheaper, yet we dont.

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Agreed...there is a huge oil reserve in Alaska. However, put on you "oil company" hat for a minute. People are still paying $3-4 a gallon for gas and will continue to do so well into the $6-7 / gal range, IMO, why would an oil company, at the present, want to invest billions upon billions of dollars into tapping that reserve?

Harvesting crude is not as simple as digging a hole in the ground and letting the well flow...its incredibly capital-intensive, and there's absolutely no economic reason to do so until the price of crude as it is reaches a level where the price significantly curbs demand and starts to chip away at the oil companies' future profits.

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

Saw a car that ran on water. It was based on a hydrogen power plant. the guy even had a cutting torch that you could touch the flame of..

See this is for lack of a better word Bad Ass

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Rb_rDkwGnU

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thats also one of them, they say it could be possible to have a "powerplant" in your home that can turn normal water into the fuel for your car, cause all it does is rearranges the atoms that makes up H2O, or adds a hydrocarbon, or something like that, yet you never see it anywhere or hear anything else about it? makes ya wonder where all these special cars, fuels, and designs go after they are made...

Anyone else live in a college town? I'm at Purdue (W. Lafayette, IN). When you wanna take a road trip or head home, you've got to buy gas on your way out of town. That'll run you a cool 3.39/gal at least. But that's ok, college kids or loaded so it's ok to screw us :P

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Originally Posted by SnakeEyes

thats also one of them, they say it could be possible to have a "powerplant" in your home that can turn normal water into the fuel for your car, cause all it does is rearranges the atoms that makes up H2O, or adds a hydrocarbon, or something like that, yet you never see it anywhere or hear anything else about it? makes ya wonder where all these special cars, fuels, and designs go after they are made...

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Yep. I have a friend who's uncle, well over a decade ago, invented an engine that gets over a hundred miles per gallon. He drove a car from Texas to Chicago using only 7 gallons of gas. As soon as he applied for patents he had a knock on his door. A couple of suits made him an offer for the patents that he couldn't refuse. He's never heard or seen his design after that day. He's one of the head engineers for a major auto maker. The technology exists for all kinds of things that would cause oil and gas corporations to be forced to stop raping us. It's too bad they own the patents to them.

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Originally Posted by nebby3103

Anyone else live in a college town? I'm at Purdue (W. Lafayette, IN). When you wanna take a road trip or head home, you've got to buy gas on your way out of town. That'll run you a cool 3.39/gal at least. But that's ok, college kids or loaded so it's ok to screw us :P

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I don't live in a college town, but reg. unleaded is $3.69+ today here.