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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

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ORIGINAL: Jeffff

Typical uninformed statement. The volt can go 40 miles on a single charge. If you work 8 miles or less from home, that would be a weeks worth.

It is not an SUV vacation mobile. It is a commuter vehicle than can be used for extended trips.

You never fail to amuse.

And you never fail to embarass yourself. Charging a battery with gasoline and then running on the battery CANNOT be any more efficient than running directly on the gasoline. If it were then you would have the makings of a perpetual motion machine.

It has nothing to do with how far it can go on a single charge or its purpose, its basic physics.

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ORIGINAL: flcouple2009

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ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
You're insane. Offshore drilling is expensive, and deep water drilling is costly. High oil prices are the reason to do it, not something that will be solved by doing it.

Don't take away their delusions.

The truth is many of the deep water fields, Arctic fields, and the oil they want to try and collect in the Dakotas would in no way bring down any prices.

Those are high dollar exploration and drilling fields which require high oil prices to make it worth the trouble.

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ORIGINAL: flcouple2009

Doesn't change anything I said.

Those fields still require massive infrastructure built (Pipelines, pumping stations, roadways, etc) which require high prices to make them worth drilling.

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ORIGINAL: tazzygirl

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I do believe Tazzy was speaking of the cost today which is all I was providing.

Yes, that is what i was asking. But, more specifically, say you were taking a trip, and needed to refuel away from home... what is the cost to plug into one of those stations?

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ORIGINAL: EternalHoH

EVs would have a transmission, too, so the losses would happen either way.

EVs of the future are not the ones that operate like golf carts.  Yes, some of the little 'around the town' scooter cars may be very golf cart-like, but that's not the design that is being talked about.  The EVs of the late 80s were just like a normal car, transmission and all. It would have to be that way, as a consumer acceptance/selling point thing. EVs would have to be very present day car-like.

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53

Americans will pay $5 a gallon when the price hits that mark. They will piss and moan but pay they will, just as everyone everywhere else has had to pay. They are too dependent on the car to have any other choice, people who say they wont pay need to wake up and smell the coffee.

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ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

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ORIGINAL: Politesub53
Americans will pay $5 a gallon when the price hits that mark. They will piss and moan but pay they will, just as everyone everywhere else has had to pay. They are too dependent on the car to have any other choice, people who say they wont pay need to wake up and smell the coffee.

We will?

We sent in troops.

Gas will be nearly free- since we now own it all- we control it and we have bombs.

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People tho need to exercise more.  We dont need cars. 

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I would love for my next car to be an electric car/hybrid.

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That said, I would love to see the price come down on mopeds and scooters, and better speed/ battery life on the electric ones.

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ORIGINAL: couldbemage

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ORIGINAL: EternalHoH

EVs would have a transmission, too, so the losses would happen either way.

EVs of the future are not the ones that operate like golf carts.  Yes, some of the little 'around the town' scooter cars may be very golf cart-like, but that's not the design that is being talked about.  The EVs of the late 80s were just like a normal car, transmission and all. It would have to be that way, as a consumer acceptance/selling point thing. EVs would have to be very present day car-like.

You haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about, and probably don't understand what a transmission does.

The best selling electric real car has no transmission.

The torque profile of an electric motor isn't anything like ICE.

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ORIGINAL: BenevolentM

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ORIGINAL: willbeurdaddy

No, $5 a gallon gas will not be the reality any time soon. $4 yes, but there are a lot of factors that will keep it from going much higher, most of which boil down to demand. The regular consumer has already shown that he will cut way back on his gas consumption when things tip around the $4 point. The US economy overall cannot sustain paying that kind of price, leading to further recession and more pressure on demand. A lot of articles will project higher demand from China as adding pressure on prices. They fail to take into account that China is still highly dependent on the US economy to sustain its growth.

To reach $5 unprecedented cooperation between cartel members would be needed, since as demand slips and revenues drop, some of the OPEC countries will break away and lower price to shore up demand for their product. The oil producing countries as a whole will also hold back price increases because if gasoline gets too expensive then harvesting domestic reserves and deveoping alternative forms of energy become more viable, and they want to avoid adding pressure in those areas.

My feeling is willbeurdaddy is mostly right, but may have overlooked something that caught my attention in the article at http://www.investorplace.com/27935/5-dollar-gas-prices-crude-oil-gasoline/. "Inflation Continues to Rear Ugly Head: Another weak, and another warning of runaway inflation in the works. Leading central bankers warned again Monday of resurgent inflation in fast-growing emerging economies and warned rising food and energy prices could spread to Europe and North America."

What might be going on I'm guessing is they may be drawing up plans if the global economy goes South and inflation is rampant. If the currency is devaluated as a result of inflation $4 or $5 may be the same as we are paying now from the stand point of OPEC.

Something else may need to be accounted for in everyone's equations, Russian may be the next Saudia Arabia. We are getting to work on that computer model aren't we?

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... Russia recently surpassed Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest crude oil producer. ... Saudi Arabia has traditionally been the world’s largest producer of crude oil, a position which it occupied since 1991. However, Russia overtook it in 2009, ... Saudi has a very large surplus production capacity which is currently idle, and could effectively become the world’s top producer again if it chose to pump at full capacity. ... Russia is not a member of OPEC and instead increased its production to take advantage of stabilising prices and to gain market share. ... If the US and Russia were to cooperate, the US could likely eliminate imports from Saudi Arabia completely and replace them with supply from Russia. ...

http://wasatchecon.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/us-could-replace-saudi-arabia-with-russia-as-an-oil-supplier/

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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

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ORIGINAL: flcouple2009

Doesn't change anything I said.

Those fields still require massive infrastructure built (Pipelines, pumping stations, roadways, etc) which require high prices to make them worth drilling.

The Russians are betting it will happen.

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ORIGINAL: InvisibleBlack

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ORIGINAL: Marini
I would like to hear what some of our resident "great thinkers" could be the answer to our ever increasing oil and gas prices.

Will $5 gas become the new normal?

Not being an expert in the oil futures market, my opinion is relatively uniformed as to the future price of oil - but I would say that a big chunk in the rise of the price of gasoline is simply due to the fall of the U. S. dollar in foreign exchange. Currently the dollar is at parity with the Canadian and Australian dollars. It's pretty much taken a nose dive against most of the world currencies (with the exception of euro which has its own problems and the reminbi which has a fixed exchange rate (and boy has that caused tensions with China)). Obviously, as long as the value of the dollar against foreign currencies is falling, the price of any imported goods will rise and one of the major things we import is oil.

So, I believe a stabilized dollar will stop the currently rising price of gasoline and a stronger dollar would lower the price of gasoline.

That being said, if your goal is lower the price of gasoline without resorting to currency manipulation, I have a number of suggestions which have a somewhat realistic time horizon (as opposed to developing entirely new technologies).

First, build more oil refineries in the United States. A great deal of the value in the price of gasoline is not created at the well head but at the refinery. By refining oil overseas and shipping gasoline here, that value is captured in foreign countries. Ship the crude oil here and refine it here.

Second, encourage a shift to diesel. Diesel burns more efficiently than gasoline. Modest estimates indicate a 5% fuel conservation using diesel instead of gasoline.

Third, improvements in technology have resulted in mssive increases in the amount of natural gas available in the United States and resulted in a massive drop in the price of natural gas. Convert everything you can to burn natural gas.

Fourth, focus R&D efforts on improving electrical transmission. The further you can move power around the country, the more efficiently you can source it and the more options you can offer people in what exactly is creating their power (if your hybrid is being charged off a dirty coal-burning power plant, just how green are you being, really?).

Fifth, develop good foreign relations and establish favorable trade agreements with new oil-producing nations. I cannot claim the United States' foreign policy has worked wonders with either the classic oil production nations of the Middle East nor the newer oil producing nations such as Venezuala or Nigeria. Even where we seem to have good relations with these nations (such as the countries that span the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan Pipeline) it seems to me that it's more built on a house of cards than any long term good will.

Lastly, to answer the OPs underlying question of Will $5 gas become the new normal? ... eventually, of course, yes. Even leaving aside the supply of oil in an ever expanding world, historically, inflation never goes away - so as the United States continues to inflate its currency, as it's done for almost a century, the prices of everything will increase. $5 gas will become the new normal no matter what. Remember, there was a day when people were speculating would $1 gas be the "new normal", then would $2 gas be the "new normal"...

[Edited: Typos]