The Gasoline/Oil Problem

Gasoline/ Oil thoughts for the last year


Oil Prices

Hey, wake up America! $3 a gallon gas is on the way. While the terrorists try to kill us, the other Arabs are picking our pockets through our wanton insatiable use of their oil.

Fellow Americans it's time. Time to get serious about our priorities. We need to drive cars that get twenty-five plus miles a gallon or car pool or both. We as a country need to put alternative energy back on the front burner. Hydrogen, solar, wind, water, it's all there for the taking.

If we don't do something soon $5 a gallon gas will be on the horizon and Social Security's solvency will be the least of our problems.


A Ticking Time Bomb

It seems obvious to anyone that will take the time to think about it that the only way that our enemy, the terrorists can really hurt all Americans is through the economy and little by little they are succeeding.

I am dismayed by our Government's cavalier attitude about our burgeoning foreign oil dependency. Efforts to curb our appetite run from abysmal to non existent, while new slowly emerging technologies like the hybrid car may be too little too late.

It's time for the Government to grab this bull by the horns and tackle our ticking time bomb.

We are at war with an enemy who without logical reason attacked us. The last time that happened was in 1941 and the government instituted a rationing policy on many things including gasoline.

With our country being held hostage to our overzealous addiction of petrol and now competing on a global scale for our daily fix of oil, we are in the no win position of skewing our foreign policy and even going to war to protect our addiction.

If ever gasoline rationing made sense, it makes sense now. With a basis of eighty to hundred gallons of gas a month per licensed driver, we could make a marvelous headway toward reducing our wanton dependency, until new energy technologies allow us eradicate it all together.

9/1/2005

Welcome to the world of hundred dollar fillips. No it’s not here yet - unless you drive an RV or a big SUV - but it’s coming and what’s really astounding is that everybody is shrugging it off. I say Baloney! We seem to be facing a leadership problem here. Almost thirty years ago President Carter said we needed to find alternative energy sources. And what have we done? Next to nothing. But hey, the horse is out of the barn so what can we do. We can start to do what we should have done thirty years ago, developing alternative energy sources but that’s the long term, for now for once in our lives, use common sense and conserve.

First, do we need one or two generators at the ten thousand homes that are under construction at any given time. They burn four or five gallons a day and pollute like crazy. And why not reintroduce the rake to yard maintenance workers. Blowers are noisy and burn a lot of petrol as well but the biggest thing that needs to be done is start gas rationing. What, it’s not fair to the driver’s of the big gas guzzling SUVs. Damn straight it’s not fair that they use two and a half times as much gas as I do. Let them park it and drive a Civic or just drive less.

2-2-06
The fact that the president has deemed it necessary to place an emphasis on energy conservation (oil) and development of alternative fuels (ethanol etc.), is a good start. However, we need to do even more. That we cut back on our use of petroleum is indeed a good thing, but for every barrel of dependency we wean ourselves off, other consumers like China and India will be waiting in line to buy what we no longer need and more.

The problem with that is that most of the countries who sell oil are lukewarm friends at best and declared enemies at worst and at today’s oil prices, they are becoming very rich adversaries. Even if we cutback on our dependency, the oil supplying countries will be getting obscenely rich.

What we truly need to do is make oil irrelevant. Totally new technologies must be developed. Theoretically, water could be used as an energy source. It is, after all, comprised of flammable hydrogen and combustion assisting oxygen. I read the other day that there are pockets of methane in quantities that could provide energy worldwide for centuries but we don’t know how to access them.

Well, it’s time we figure it out. It’s time the United States regained the preeminent position for scientific research and development in the world. Let the Saudis and Iranians take baths in their oil.