Oil Production And Consumption

On one side, we have scientists saying that "peak oil" will be here within 4 years give or take, then you have a company planning the first US refinery in over 30 years. What does that say for our oil dependency? It says that we'd better start doing something soon.

Electric cars, compressed air cars, hydrogen, any other alternative fuels need to be explored with a vengeance and soon. I'm more inclined to believe scientists when they give warnings. Sometimes they are off by a bit, or wrong completely, but it would be foolish to ignore their warnings. Personally, I like the Air car or the Chevy Volt. I am particularly impressed by the Chevy because it allows me to drive my commute almost completely on electricity. I am also impressed that and American car company has gotten off it's ass and engineered something that is innovative and gets us off of oil dependency from foreign sources.

We're simply burning through a resource at a record rate and that resource will eventually dry up. Yes, there's a LOT of oil out there, but you don't want to be caught with your pants down when that happens. Personally, I like Honda cars best because of various reasons, but if Chevy were to bring out the Volt and keep all of the promises on their website, I'd be first in line to get one....as long as it was reasonably affordable. I'm not paying $50,000 for a car that saves me $2,000 in gas. We need oil for various things besides gasoline, so we'll never truly be oil free, but we must start reducing our consumption, otherwise we'll be standing around with our cock in our collective hands wondering what happened.

Now, say you can't afford a new car, most of us can't, what to do? Well there's a ton of things that you've all seen that you can do, but Mythbusters just confirmed that drafting a semi truck does indeed increase your gas mileage. I'm not saying take it as far as they do (well beyond the safety zone), but if you're behind one, use it to your advantage. :) Maybe I'm talking out of my ass, but I don't plan on paying $4 and $5 a gallon for gas and still continue to get 35-40mpg in my Civic EX.

Travis
travis@rightwinglunatic.com