Skyrocketing Budget Problem: Fuel
I’ve added a new blog to my blogroll, Save Fuel – Save Money today. I don’t know about your locality, but gas is pushing $4 a gallon right here in my neck of the woods right now, and will probably go to $5 a gallon before summer tourist season hits. Or, more likely, doesn’t hit this year due to the prohibitive cost of gasoline. Which as of this morning, March 11, 2008, is trading on the futures market for $109 a barrel. It probably won’t be coming down.
Sure, Europe has had $5 gasoline for years now, but Europe’s not all that big. One can drive from one end of a country to the other in a few hours, and most European countries have reliable and comfortable mass transit systems. Things we don’t have in the U.S. if you don’t happen to live on either the right or left coasts. Worse, it takes me as many hours to drive to my own state’s coast as it takes me to drive to Florida and visit relatives! It takes two long driving days to visit Mom in Oklahoma, and I’ve friends in Arizona and California I haven’t seen in years because it’s just too far away.
I bought a well-kept almost-vintage Mercedes sedan a couple of years ago for less than $2,000. It needs some rear end work, and we’ve had to replace engine parts here and there, but its biggest asset (to me) is that it’s a diesel. I can buy biodiesel in my nearest city because they run all their city buses and truck fleets on biodiesel. Unfortunately, it still costs a full dollar more than petroleum diesel. Why is that?
In our attempts to reduce our dependence on foreign supplies of fossil fuels, biodiesel seems like a pretty easy fix. I live near a rail line, over which I see literally hundreds of tank cars a day moving thousands of gallons of vegetable (and sometimes animal) oil per car. We can recycle old engine oil, used fry grease, even rendered road kill (and slaughterhouse leftovers, and animal shelter victims) to make biodiesel. But who will use it – or ethanol, which isn’t such a great environmental deal – if it consistently costs a lot more than petroleum? Doesn’t that defeat the whole plan?
We’ll be taking a closer look at fuels over the next few months, but in the meantime readers will get a lot of good information on trends and technologies from the Save Fuel blog. Check it out!
3 Responses to “Skyrocketing Budget Problem: Fuel”
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The BioFuels are a great way to Reduce Reuse Recycle. As you say, however, there isn’t much cost savings associated with it. Gargantuan mass transit vehicles gobble fuel unbelievably as do homes and high ceilinged Government buildings and Big Box stores and Office Buildings.
The energy problem needs to be solved across the board.
We don’t need a ‘tithe’, as Mal Gore suggests so those who CAN afford it can use energy as they please. (Hey Mal, I’m more comfy in my big SUV, too! AND my big house!) We need a Corporate (united) Commitment to SOLVE this crisis. Or we will be Surfs at the whim of our Masters.
When a company can’t make ends meet they’ve analyzed, adjusted, and changed strategies; they close the doors.
When an American household can’t make it, then what?
My opinion? There is much more to this than folks realize. And we are going to sleep like a frog in warm water while the powers that be play ‘Let’s Pretend’.
Hi, Melissa. Aren’t we Surfs at the whim of our corporate energy masters right now? I saw a fun read at Wise Living Journal about industrial hemp. Why are we still spending $4 billion a year NOT to grow it? It’s a weed…
I don’t have a big SUV. I could justify anything short of an Escalade or Hummer because I live where you do actually sometimes need 4WD. But instead I have a ‘vintage’ Mercedes that runs on biodiesel and a pickup truck that gets ~25 mpg. And my little but adequate cabin is 28′ square, with loft and basement and barn for storage.
I think you don’t want to sacrifice your luxuries for what’s real. That, IMO, is a big part of the problem we face. Corporations aren’t people, they’re collective for-profits. They’ll serve us only when we demand with our ‘feet’ that they do so.
Thanks for the comment.
Peter Towler -
Thanks so much! I was delighted to list your site, it’s been in my “permalink” file for a couple of months and finally got to post a post where it fit perfectly. Keep up the good work, we live in times of great interest!