Talk-Polywell.org

It didn't work for vegetables and it doesn't work for expensive gas:
http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/ ... dabfac3518
Why do Progressives insist on treating people like ignorant children.

The road fleet in Europe would appear to prove you wrong. At twice the price of fuel, our fuel consumption average is probably around a half of yours.

I can walk into a showroom today and buy a car that does over 90 mpg. (Mine already does 60, so I'm not particlarly in any hurry to do that. I used to have one that did mid 80's, and they are not small cars, we're talking medium sized 3500lb cars.)

What do you think has promoted that fuel economy, if not fuel cost? It is surely a major factor on my purchasing decisions.

Your contention would seem to be unfounded, unless you can explain this difference in the European and US passenger car fleet fuel consumption by some other argument.

Jccarlton wrote:It didn't work for vegetables and it doesn't work for expensive gas:
http://money.msn.com/saving-money-tips/ ... dabfac3518
Why do Progressives insist on treating people like ignorant children.

Curious why you are treating this little tidbit of an article as some kind of a progressives vs the world platform.

Nothing in it is necessarily "progressive" - there is no suggestion that we should intentionally increase oil prices through taxes for example. In fact, one of the points was that we may increase oil production in the US and Canada including opening up new deposits, which is counter to the current characterization of "progressives". Unless it is your general impression of the article (if you can call it that) or the fact that it is coming from MSN, I am not really sure where this another-example-of-why-progressives-suck proposition applies. There are far better ones to use.

Actually, I must be an ignorant child, because a lot of those points sounded like they were probably right, although insignificant.

chrismb wrote:The road fleet in Europe would appear to prove you wrong. At twice the price of fuel, our fuel consumption average is probably around a half of yours.

I can walk into a showroom today and buy a car that does over 90 mpg. (Mine already does 60, so I'm not particlarly in any hurry to do that. I used to have one that did mid 80's, and they are not small cars, we're talking medium sized 3500lb cars.)

What do you think has promoted that fuel economy, if not fuel cost? It is surely a major factor on my purchasing decisions.

Your contention would seem to be unfounded, unless you can explain this difference in the European and US passenger car fleet fuel consumption by some other argument.

One of the things you may not be taking into consideration regarding the U.S. of A is the possibility that we mostly have little choice about the distances we drive while commuting. Since the Development of the Automobile, our society has evolved to take advantage of what was originally cheap fuel by creating the "suburbs."

Before cars became ubiquitous, people needed to live close by to where they worked. This resulted in an interspersing of work places near neighborhoods so people could walk to work, or perhaps ride a horse. Much of Europe was set up along these lines. America, post auto, has since evolved to have most of the residential areas away from their places of employment, necessitating an oil fueled commute, and this is just in the cities.

Unlike Europe (with many of it's cities and towns having grown together) American cities often have wide open spaces between them, and many people live in the countryside and commute to the city. I knew people that would drive 30 miles every morning just to get to work, and 30 miles every evening just to get home.

What i'm getting at, is the fact that we are spread out over vast amounts of land. The Evolution of development under the benefits of cheap fuel has left us with a road and community system designed to USE cheap fuel. Now that fuel costs have risen, we find ourselves having to live with the consequences of decisions made when fuel was plentiful and cheap, and we have discovered it's more difficult than to what we were accustomed.

America is DESIGNED to run on cheap fuel. I for one intend to work towards helping my community convert to cheap natural gas for transportation. I am building a Natural gas filling station on my property to facilitate this effort. Currently natural gas is selling for about between $0.50-$0.75 per Gallon. The biggest impediment to implementing it for transportation is the Government who's excessive busybodyness causes the cost of an "Official" conversion to be around $12,000.00

People can do their own non-certified, non E.P.A. approved installation for under $1,000.00. Strangely enough, Argentina, Brazil, India, etc. all manage to implement Natural gas transportation conversions with very little difficulty and with out needing the excessive costs demanded from our governmental agencies.

Government, get out of the way and let us do what we do best. Innovate.

Diogenes wrote:One of the things you may not be taking into consideration regarding the U.S. of A is the possibility that we mostly have little choice about the distances we drive while commuting. Since the Development of the Automobile, our society has evolved to take advantage of what was originally cheap fuel by creating the "suburbs."

I do not see any need to take that into account. It is non-sequitur.

Actually, I would direct your attention to the fact that people in UK, at least, probably commute further than in the US. This is because a) housing is cramped and expensive, close in to places where you get good wages, b) that cities are small, so there just isn't enough 'suburb' to live in. Personally, I commute 50 miles a day, and at the place I work that is only a typical average. The furthest commuters live around 100 miles. We had one guy in my department who commuted 250 miles round trip, every day because he lived in an area that did not have industry to which he could contribute his skills, and it was too expensive to move.

But I digress, because that doesn't matter. In fact, your argument is reversed. If you are saying you travel further than us (I'd say it is about the same, because we all have the same number of hours in a day, and this limits how far we can go!) then the impact of fuel prices should be MORE on you than us, so high mileage should mean MORE efficient cars, not less.

Every modern country's infrastructure is based on private cars these days. Your comments connecting US city layouts to fuel consumption are as non-sequitur as your comments that this is a 'progressives' issue.

Diogenes wrote:America is DESIGNED to run on cheap fuel. I for one intend to work towards helping my community convert to cheap natural gas for transportation. I am building a Natural gas filling station on my property to facilitate this effort. Currently natural gas is selling for about between $0.50-$0.75 per Gallon. The biggest impediment to implementing it for transportation is the Government who's excessive busybodyness causes the cost of an "Official" conversion to be around $12,000.00

People can do their own non-certified, non E.P.A. approved installation for under $1,000.00. Strangely enough, Argentina, Brazil, India, etc. all manage to implement Natural gas transportation conversions with very little difficulty and with out needing the excessive costs demanded from our governmental agencies.

Do you mean LPG, rather than gas? Compressed natural gas conversions don't have tanks big enough to take you very far, no?

The simplest gas conversions were done here in the war - stick a big bag of the stuff on the roof. Still doesn't get you very far.

chrismb wrote:

Diogenes wrote:America is DESIGNED to run on cheap fuel. I for one intend to work towards helping my community convert to cheap natural gas for transportation. I am building a Natural gas filling station on my property to facilitate this effort. Currently natural gas is selling for about between $0.50-$0.75 per Gallon. The biggest impediment to implementing it for transportation is the Government who's excessive busybodyness causes the cost of an "Official" conversion to be around $12,000.00

People can do their own non-certified, non E.P.A. approved installation for under $1,000.00. Strangely enough, Argentina, Brazil, India, etc. all manage to implement Natural gas transportation conversions with very little difficulty and with out needing the excessive costs demanded from our governmental agencies.

Do you mean LPG, rather than gas? Compressed natural gas conversions don't have tanks big enough to take you very far, no?

The simplest gas conversions were done here in the war - stick a big bag of the stuff on the roof. Still doesn't get you very far.

No, I mean compressed natural gas. Liquid Propane costs around $2.60/gallon around here last I checked. As for the distance a tank will take you, that depends upon the size of the tank you use.

For my own purposes, I plan to use a ten gge (gallon of gas equivalent) tank. It ought to handle my needs for about 5 days at a time. If the tank runs out of Natural gas, the vehicle will still operate on gasoline.

The problem isn't the gas price, it's the assumed sense of superior morality and sense they know better than I do about making my own decisions. Especially if those decisions involve things they don't like OTHER people having. I don't see Progs in general living the "sustainable" lifestyle, but that is what they keep trying to force us to lead. And sparing no expense in trying to bleed us dry and make us poor while assuming the mantle of aristocracy for themselves. This is probably American in belief but I don't see anybody as my "better" simply because of silver spoon advantages and going to the "right school". I also do not accept anybody as an expert just because they have the school certification and the punched ticket. As far as I am concerned even if somebody came St Brutus' Academy of Incompetent Idiots, if they proved they could do the job, well they should do it. The current crowd who are our "ruling class" have proved that they are the incompetent idiots even though they were fast tracked through the best Ivy Covered Snob factories and have the pretty pieces of paper.

chrismb wrote:The road fleet in Europe would appear to prove you wrong. At twice the price of fuel, our fuel consumption average is probably around a half of yours.

I can walk into a showroom today and buy a car that does over 90 mpg. (Mine already does 60, so I'm not particlarly in any hurry to do that. I used to have one that did mid 80's, and they are not small cars, we're talking medium sized 3500lb cars.)

What do you think has promoted that fuel economy, if not fuel cost? It is surely a major factor on my purchasing decisions.

Your contention would seem to be unfounded, unless you can explain this difference in the European and US passenger car fleet fuel consumption by some other argument.

The rise in energy cost is a deliberate result of Administration policies:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/56186625/REPO ... ent-Action
Not speculation and not the evil oil companies as the Administration would have us believe.