Gas Prices Going Up

I have some sexy words for you.

Radioisotope thermal generators.

Please contain your excitement!

Porn site….no enviros allowed….

http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2012/08/07/converting-heat-into-electricity-without-moving-parts/#sthash.BD8d0r7x.dpbs

Yeah, that’s what they use in satellites and probes and all kinds of spacey star-tracky stuff.

Probably get raided by some DOE hit squad, though.

You can do that by buying futures through your brokerage.

Maybe we should get some of those futures. Are they available to anyone, or you have to be a certain type of investor?

Water is next, I just saw 40 cents/gallon of filtered water at one of those outdoor water dispensing machines, the price doubled in the last few years,

I know quite a few EV owners and the subject of being green or our carbon footprint rarely comes up. I have either been in or driven over a dozen all electric vehicles and what is talked about is how fun they are to drive. One pedal driving fundamentally changes how you drive. And there are some very interesting things to come as well. A lot of misconceptions out there. The first 13 minutes of this video summarizes it well.

As far as gas prices go, the rate of increase between 2002 and 2008 is quite extreme. According to this cited source it was nearly $2. While causation and association are two different things, it’s worth considering when thinking about the collapse of 2008. Makes me wonder what the US economy would look like if over 6 years you added $2 to today’s prices. It’s not like China and India are going to slow down their thirst for oil. Wouldn’t getting through some of the growing pains car manufacturers are having and gaining consumer acceptance be a good thing. I would rather see a slow steady change to say 10% of the cars on the road being electric as opposed to the 1% now. Might give the U.S. a buffer in case of a natural and/or man made extreme events.

IMO, most people’s best bets to save on gas would be:

1. Use an electric car heater during the winter.
2. Try to keep a constant speed to prevent acceleration and deceleration.
3. Keep your windows open during the summer below 50mph, and closed with AC running above 50mph.
4. Try to use other types of vehicles, like bikes, walking, public transport.
5. Car sharing. Meaning you not only get to pay each less gas, you get to socialise a bit.
6. Turn off the engine/put it in neutral mode after 30 seconds for putting it in neutral, and about 2 mins for turning off the engine.

I saw the video and if one like electric and suits them fine, but once again, more nonsense about the real cost of driving electric cars. Starting from “”it’s only 8 cents” which i seriously doubt that there are no other charges. Minimum billings, delivery charges, transmission loss charges, etc.

Up here, it’s “only 12 cents” but lands up costing 28 cents CDN with all the charges and taxes. Then there is the efficiency loss of charging. The comparison has to be the all in price at the plug versus the pump. For comparable sized cars, at our electricity cost, there is not much difference. Definitely not the nonsense numbers of the video.

Then there is the “average America goes 33 miles a day”. Because I want to buy a Smart car, which actually has one of the lowest ranges, I’ve taken notice of our “shopping trips”. They run anywhere from 10 to 45 miles BUT, if we go to the other side of the city, and it is a BIG city, day shopping and dinner, then we could be closer to 100 miles. So even though I like the Smart for it’s convenience and not worrying about someone scratching it, it has real limitations. If the outing involved highway use or closer to the upper end of it’s range, it’s staying home.

The Leaf is better in both the above regards….but now it’s less “disposable”. The Tesla even more so and closer to a “no anxiety” daily driver.

Like I said in previous posts, I don’t have any problem with electric cars, just the BS that surrounds them. Real costs aside, if it’s a second car AND pretty predictable use AND the ability to conveniently charge it, it IS a solution.

When I buy mine, I’ll make a no BS video.

Between Canada and USA oil production, we don’t need any oil from anyone else. So if the Hormuz Strait closed tomorrow, aside from Russia, China, Europe, Japan and pretty much every major country in the world would be in a world of hurt.

Of course the oil companies will be jumping with glee to rake us over with “world prices”….until they get slapped with “no exports allowed”.

The biggest threat to our oil security are enviros. Which can only be a threat if we let them be a threat.

Ok wut.

Weeze got to thinkem outside da box……

Hahahaha.

I mean, the biggest argument to not using gasoline cars would actually be this, to people who don’t care about our survival on this planet anyway:

If we continue to use petroleum based fuels, how are we going to produce many chemicals if we run out of petrol? Petroleum jelly, many cosmetics, medical plastic, liquid lubricants, etc.

The World Is Going To End In 12 Years… :person_facepalming:

With current coal/gas/oil deposits, about 400 years. They are interchangeable in use.

I want research on this….

1,741 kWh * 0.039782 = $69.26
1,741 kWh * 0.003230 = $5.62
1,741 kWh * 0.066002 = $114.91
$189.79 + other charges = Total $205.36/1741 = $0.118 kWh

OK been gone for a day, and wow this thread has some interesting points.

1. No, put a cover on your radiator. Use the heat from the engine to heat your car, it will still get cold air for better combustion you want to get the longest life out of your rig to maximize the “Carbon foot print”. Also double duty if you find your car not moving, you still have a way to keep warm.
2. Works great if you are driving in no traffic and no hills.
3. Might work, but comfort is the name of the game on long commutes. If you are comfy you are most likely to work on getting better MPG.
4. Again great if your not looking at longer commutes in bad weather or during winter.
5. If there is someone going your way it is a great idea. Not so much if you are going counter to traffic, or have an off hour work schedule.
6. Turn off the engine while in traffic waiting for a light to change? It works if your car does it automatically, if not you are just putting a huge amount of stress on your starter, and shortening the life span of the starter. Also it may work for an automatic car, some of us still drive manual transmission.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a summer car that gets 40~ish MPG, and I have a winter rig that gets 20-24. In the summer my little commuter is a great car and I only have to dodge other drivers and Moose. The winter is a different story. 16 inches of snow over night is not unheard of. I have yet to see a electric or hybrid deal with 6 inches of snow. AWD or 4WD are needed for winter. Icy roads and temps that drop in to the –20 deg F are also common.

Like one of the members from Aus said a page or 2 back. Electric are great if you live in a city, have chargers ready at a decent interval and live in a mild climate.

About 6, I did not specify if you were parked or not.

Shutting off your engine after 2 minutes is when you are parked.

How is #1 gonna help unless you have a heater that runs on gas or diesel??

Those are extremely uncommon around here.

I don’t think so. The engine is going to be running anyhow and a running engine produces a lot of heat. I seriously doubt you would be able to measure any difference as if when driving you used electric heating that power has to be replaced by the alternator which does not work for free.

#6…. I once rented a car that shut off and restarted itself in traffic. My first thought was whether or not the fuel savings was truly going to offset the likely shorter starter motor life. Manufacturers are sort of forced into coming up with some of these fuel-saving ideas to get their CAFE ratings as high as possible. Some manufacturers who sell a lot of bigger no-so-efficient vehicles have to try harder. I do not believe they factor in any extra wear that will occur on other components. As long as I have choices I will never buy one of these vehicles with the auto stop-start “feature”.

These saving techniques reminds me when I use to drive stick. Early on, being a dirt poor student, I made it a habit of coasting and then, it became it became a reflex. Any light or downhill was in neutral. Then on to automatics and before, I was always afraid I hit reverse in a mechanical link, in my current daily driver, it’s fully electronic so there is no such thing as accidentally putting it in reverse, so, I occasionally resort to my old habits.

It’s kind of cool to watch the fuel consumption run over .7 liters per 100Km (400 mpg) on long down hills.

BTW……just to plug Benz diesels…….on relatively flat terrain , I’m running 5.1L/100km at 120 km/hr. Or 55 mpg at 75 mph. It’s my sweet spot between speed and economy.

@MtnDon and teacher, by electric car heater, I meant an external engine heater.

Here in Quebec, we call them “chauffe-moteur”, which plugs into a special outlet to directly heat the engine and car up.

The reason for this is because it saves a non-negligible amount of gas if you let it run for 30 mins before using the car.

The energy expenditure of the engine block heater is much lower than the cost of gas preheating the car, and is more environmentally friendly.

It therefore costs less.

@MtnDon, that seems very dangerous. Just shifting to neutral during traffic is necessary.

Shutting off the motor should only be used when parked for more than 2 mins.