Filled my work vans gas tank yesterday.

[leikam]

I will be interested in seeing some official stats to see if demand is going down. I think people may be driving less. I hate to jinx it, but my daily commute has been significantly lighter than normal the last few weeks. We've actually had a few "speed limit" commutes on I-85 this month! That normally only happens a few times a year.

 

I can't put my hands on the numbers at the moment, but MasterCard's consulting group and Gallup recently published some numbers on this. A search should turn them up but the gist of it is that demand for gas is down, miles driven are down and conservation is up. One projection I've heard is that demand this summer will not be up as it has been every summer for many years. It's starting to look like the late 70's again for a lot of people.

[smiller]

We should drill more holes and join OPEC as we start getting oil out of the ground just for spite...

 

In about 5 years, we'll have our country back in the black with all the debt to foreign nations paid off and then we can stop exporting and go back to feeding our own needs...

 

simple!!

Yep, simple, we just drill more holes and find enough oil to not only eliminate our need to import, but become a net exporter as well. Great idea!

 

Where do you guys get this stuff..?

 

[Matts_12GS]

Wait'll we bury all you baby boomer dinosaurs too! That way we can use YOUR scurvy hides to make even MORE OIL for our kids to burn!

 

This big giant brain is always engaged I tell ya! Keep eatin' the fried chicken!!!

[PRC]

Heck with drilling more wells, that's not eco-friendly! In Venezuela, it cost them 12 cents a gallon! I say we go invade the country and overthrow old Hugo and make it the 51st state and SHAZZZAMM! we gots lots of oil, black gold, Texas tea ! Our fuel costs would drop 90%!

 

Oh wait....we could just make Ir...nahh, never mind!

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

Mitch,

All good ideas but unfortunately there still is a large number of people being (mis)led into believing the simple solution is to drill more holes into the ground.

 

My understanding is that this is happening - high prices are encouraging/justifying new exploration and the drilling of new wells - but it takes time to bring new wells online. This will bring prices back down again, but it could be a while before it happens.

[Francois_Dumas]

Mitch,

All good ideas but unfortunately there still is a large number of people being (mis)led into believing the simple solution is to drill more holes into the ground.

 

My understanding is that this is happening - high prices are encouraging/justifying new exploration and the drilling of new wells - but it takes time to bring new wells online. This will bring prices back down again, but it could be a while before it happens.

 

... AND it will be very short lived no doubt ;-)

[velomoto]

Mitch,

All good ideas but unfortunately there still is a large number of people being (mis)led into believing the simple solution is to drill more holes into the ground.

 

My understanding is that this is happening - high prices are encouraging/justifying new exploration and the drilling of new wells - but it takes time to bring new wells online. This will bring prices back down again, but it could be a while before it happens.

Yup... a Whitehouse assessment was that it would take 10 (ten) years to bring on oil on-line from the highly political Alaskan fields. Other sources withing continental America could be brought on-line faster, but these are higher cost and much lower volume wells.

 

American consumption of gas (and oil) is dropping but unfortunately the rest of the world is increasing consumption faster than we are decreasing and thus driving up oil prices.

 

Because we live in a global economy (yes, difficult for many Americans to comprehend), the price for oil we see here will be affected by the amount of oil purchased by China. Once upon a time America was THE dominant factor in the price of oil so if we changed our usage the world wide price would change. This is no longer true - there are several large players (both producers and consumers) and most notably China is quickly catching up with us as a consumer.

 

Oil companies are driven by their share holders to make money. Those who think that oil prices in America will drop because it can be produced locally at a lower price should consider a career in writing fairy tales. Prices of crude will match what the market will pay. If a Canadian company can sell oil to China for $150/barrel, why would they want to sell it into the USofA for less? Similarly why would crude suppliers within American sell their oil for much less than it costs a refiner to purchase an import?

[azkaisr]

I will be interested in seeing some official stats to see if demand is going down. I think people may be driving less.

 

I recall seeing on the news a couple of weeks ago that airlines were reducing their cruise speeds just a tad in order to conserve fuel.

 

The Average Joe consumer, though, seems to mostly just bitch about it. It's a bit much to expect folks to do big expensive things (invest in more fuel efficient cars, move closer to work or get a job closer to home) overnight. But I doubt many people are bothering to alter their behavior even in easier ways:

 

• keep your tires aired up
  
• lower your cruise speeds
  
• avoid jackrabbit starts when the light turns green
  
• carpool
  
• combine trips
  
• manual gearbox? choose a taller gear

 

 

I believe Northwest is reducing the cruise speed on its trans atlantic flights to a point where it will add 10 minutes on average to get from Amsterdam to Minneapolis. This will save them several thousand dollars per flight. There is a point where going slower takes more fuel so you have to be careful.

 

If there is a real electric car on the horizon that works well, I am all over it for my commuter.

[Paul_Burkett]

Perhaps this will be the next exotic fuel.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CMovXzVOzc4

[Effervescent]

Put $32 in my 1200 GS Adventure this week!

 

-Eff