Fuel Protests - C/D?

The justification that it is an anti-pollution tax is sometimes made. But not a lot of effort is going into developing and marketing cleaner alternatives. Whilst Bp and Sh3ll are doing their bit, it isn't that much (BP spent more on rebranding than it does per annum on hydrogen fuel cell reesarch). Exx0n M0bil, the world's largest oil company, spends nothing at all.

Just switch all your petrosleds to rape seed oil and be done with it.

Meanwhile, the fact that people are protesting the building of wind farms is so utterly preposterous it leaves me speechless. Would they honestly rather live next door to a nuclear power station?

Now it's the fishermen and the shipping with ships people protesting windfarms! The former coz they are "noisy" and drive away the fish (oh not half as noisy as noisy fishing boats and nothing drives away fish like an oil spill) and the latter coz they "interfere with shipping lanes and could cause accidents!".

I see the fuel protesters to some extent as being afraid of change, and wanting things to remain as they are, in this case, able to take advantage of the (in my experience illusory) "freedom" that car pwnage and heavy usage appears to offer. "I need my car" yadda yadda This is surely a dangerously short-sighted outlook though? I mean, once oil prodcution peaks and starts to decline, my god are we all going to be FUCKED. Perhaps best to save yer money by cutting down on un-neccesary car usage and ownage, rather than moaning abt the price of fuel. Campaign against the fact many facilities, shops etc are being situated in such a way that using them w/o a car is at best highly inconvenient.

(xpost to dave)

as for high gas prices (and only that) leading people to be environmentally safer, does that work well? maybe temporarily. as markH brought up, for all the taxes on oil, how much real government subsidized research into *clean* sources of alternative energy are there? it's kind of ludicrous. meanwhile, can you say that a hybrid car is really worth it on solely an economic basis (ie, if you gave two shits about the environment and only got one because oil prices are high?) these things are still considerably higher priced than regular car and the difference may never actually pay off. that said, i'd sure as hell like to have one.

finally, this offshore wind farm thing is are ludicrous. capewind are they really in the way? these fuckers are placed 1/3rd of a mile apart and on a shoal. how much fishing can you do on a shoal anyway?

As for Petrol prices. Oil gets more expensive. Therefore Petrol gets more expensive.

So people complain. What is the point? It is the way it works! Things get more expensive when there isn't enough to go around...

Aaron - there is less of it. I can't remember the figures of how much is left, but with China growing as it is they reckon about 30 years (I will check with a guy round the corner). But if they bring less out of the ground, there is less about. So the price goes up. The ability of OPEC to manipulate the price by production is the only legal cartel, and just proves how much of a commodity oil is.

i don't understand the anti-wind farm people at all, it seems that "ooh, but there'll be a swishing noise all day" is their major complaint...

It also reminds me of one of my long mysteries. I saw two magpies, which is joy. Then one flew in front of a bus and got splatted, leaving one, and sorrow. So do I get sorrow or joy? This has bothered me on and off since the event four years ago.

Look what happened to Elvis!

Herman Melville would not be happy.

It's called Dupont Circle.

okay, < /pedant > (for now)

I'm always dubious about Malthusian musings on reserve capacity though. There were many, many articles of this same flavor written in the 1970s. And alot of these doomsday scenarios are coming from the same people (i.e., exploration geologists at big oil companies) who want to open up ANWR to drilling, etc. Obviously these are things we should be thinking about very seriously, but you have to take all the breathlessness with a grain of salt.

Anyway, I haven't been there since last summer but according to people I know that have, almost every oil-bearing hole in West Texas is working right now, unsurprisingly.

Just imnagine though if everyone in the states drove a car that was twice as efficient (not difficult) or heated or cooled their homes a couple of degrees less. And those are just the easy solutions. OK so they require a paradigm shift in attitudes but the US has had enoguh of those over the last century.

Once you start getting into alternaticve fueld vehicles, renewables and building that are more than just glass boxes, that have cooling, heating and ventilation built into the design the possibilities are limitless.

By the way, I'm wondering when the big Midwest states switch gasoline blends. I assume this has already happened for summer, but when do they switch back to winter blends? October?

damnation!

dunno, I thought Chicago had RFG all year 'round. Didn't that big refinery downstate get blazed in a winter month?

for a moment there i thought ANWR was "interweb speak" for anywhere...

Alaskan North West Region?

do you buy anything made from a petrochemical process? do you buy food?

ween ourselves off it as much as possible. use less, reuse where possible (irish plastic bag tax = good idea), recycle what we can (lbhf council collect types 1, 2 and 3 from the doorstep) and just use alternatives like glass or paper (!)

kate, i didn't laugh but i did smile. and whales are mammals.

(thanks stence)

Currently fully taxed vegetable oil based fuel in the UK is 75p a litre vs 93p for diesel.

There are lots of stories about people fueling their cars with used cooking oil that restaurants normally pay to have hauled off and disposed in an ecologically sound way. However, if many more people were to start using this fuel source these sources would soon be exhausted.

only to a point. Kinda reminds me of ethanol subsidies for Iowa, without using the tech for full advantage.

And here we go again...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/transport/Story/0,,2225276,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11

We are not aiming to bring the government to its knees, as we did in 2000

Did they ?

Arseholes

well, it's not as good as bringing them to their knees, admittedly.

Check out the beautifully crafted website (with snow!)
http://www.transaction-2007.com/

cute

*SEVEN* years ago that was?!!

way back in the day, when Fragma, Madison Avenue and Black Legend ruled the airwaves