zxello

Ok, so I, like many others recieved the massive 'omg dont buy gas on this day' chain letter today, and my real life buddy wrote a blog about it, and it completely sums up my entire thoughts on this chain letter and it totally rocks. so, thought I'd post it, all credit goes to my buddy Kasey.

discuss!

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Old signature just wasn't doing it for me anymore, so now I have this new one. It's equally as stupid but at least it looks really long. I'm probably just going to keep typing until I run out of things to babble about and see how many people actually read this. I once ran down a hill, fell down and hurt my elbow; my mom said I would be ok, she kissed it and made it all better. I've run out of things to say now, so if you have read this whole thing, congratulations you get a gold star!

Suave

Cynical, but nigh correct. If, on one day, everyone just didn't buy gas, and could resist their silly impulses to stock up the day before and after and so on, this thing could work. However, since people are stupid as a whole, this idea is pretty much crap. The article itself, while correct, I don't find particularly funny and he comes off as very egotistical.

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"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

fhqwhgads

Suave, explain to me how this would work... if I don't buy gas on Monday, and I buy it on a Wednesday or a Thursday instead, I'll just be buying a bit more, since I filled up later in the week. How does delaying my purchase change anything?

Here's Snopes' take on the "don't buy gas" idea:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/nogas.asp

cyrnel

If you want to make a difference, reduce consumption. Choose that day to bike, walk, or carpool.

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

Psycho Dad

I agree. A change in our attitudes and steps to reduce usage are what is needed. My SUV has been pretty much sitting in the driveway since gas got above $1.60 a gallon. I know I'm going to take a beating on it, but I'm going to have to consider trading it in on something a little more fule friendly.

However I still find this interesting how people are so quick to look at something like this and say "hell yeah" until someone sits back and says "wait a minute". On the surface it can look like a godd idea and then once it is looked at on other levels the wind gets let out of the sails.

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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

BigBen

In economic terms, they are talking about the elasticity of demand, supply, and its effect on the price at the pumps.

For this to work:
1. people would stop buying gas (lets say at about 6 am on day 1) en masse,
2. the fuel stations would quickly find an over-supply in their distribution chain.
3. to get rid of this excess, they would reduce the price a small amount.
4. people still continue to boycot, and the reduction in price does not change the over-supply.
5. This happens again and again, until at the end of the day the stations are giving this fuel away for free. The protest has succeeded!

Ummm, wait. The distribution link in the chain would stop all of this. They would
1. phone (or more accurately, get a signal from a computer monitoring the fuel levels at the local tanks) the station and find out that there was no demand for the fuel at that particular moment.
2. then sit back and let the fuel collect in their massive resevoirs.
3. This communication would happen all the way down the supply chain, and reserves (you guys listen to that word used over and over in the news when people talk about the price of oil?) would stockpile.
4. Then the oil companies would INCREASE the price at the pumps, to offset the new volatility in the market.

"What do you mean we didn't make any profit today? Raise the prices to cover our costs..."

The oil reserves that the US is sitting on is measured in MONTHS. Do you think that any protest could last longer than a few hours? People would see the price drop (not to zero, btw) and say that they succeeded, and then merrily fill up. If it did succeed, the massive amount of reserves would increase by 1 day. Instead of having 90 days of reserves, they have 91.

And all of this is ignoring the spike of buying what you lost the day before or the day after...

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3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

Rubyee

I agree that the only way to change anything is to reduce consumption. Unfortunatley, our country has become quite lazy- self included.

But really- boycotting gas for one day? That many more people would be at the pumps the day after, when the prices had risen again. Maybe boycotting gas for a week would make a difference- show the decision makers in this country what we are made of!

Nah, it probably wouldn't.

I did take economics, but didn't understand it nearly as much as Big Ben did. But what he said is true. We would really only be helping them out.

I wish that biodisel would come into the spotlight more.

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You don't know from fun.

Suave

Well if everyone didn't go and fill up the day before and whatever, it would have to be coupled with less vehicle use. National don't-use-your-car-at-all-day would be better though, I suppose.

I wrote this on the assumption that it was some sort of show of environmental solidarity or whatever, but it seems that, according to the other posters, it's meant as an economic blow to the oil companies, which is pretty funny.

__________________
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

meembo

For a single day, this means nothing. Overall consumption reduction, easing demand, for a significant period of time would change things, but that's not about to happen.

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less I say, smarter I am

tspikes51

Since crude oil is so expensive anyways, what would this change??? It's not something that anybody in the industry has much control over. We're running out of oil, and nobody can stop that. It's not like we could just manufacture more. Gas companies need to make money just as much as anybody.

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"I'm telling you, we need to get rid of a few people or a million."
-Maddox

BigBen

I am going to have to disagree with you there. There is a place in Northern Alberta, Canada that is rich with oil. However, it is in the inconvenient form of "Tar Sands" and thus very expensive to extract and process into useable fuel.

Advisors, Economists, Forecasters and other oil experts have predicted that there are HUNDREDS OF YEARS of world supply, just in Northern Alberta. There is more in Southern Alberta. And the rest of Canada. You get my point.

People use the "We are running out of oil" to further their political agenda in one way or another, and have since the 1970's. Ask yourself 'What does the speaker have to gain by making that statement?'

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3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

meembo

The New York Times Magazine last Sunday had a good article about oil production rates and their relationship to demand. Although there are a good deal of reserves present, the article suggests the days of easy production are over. Consumption by the US and China is erasing the gap between production capability and actual daily consumption, so a significant production interruption could devastate economies with inflation rates such as the ones we are beginning to see in the US this summer. One person talked about oil prices near $55 as cheap, compared to triple-digit prices that he says are possible, even probable.

In the past several years, the gap between demand and supply, once considerable, has steadily narrowed, and today is almost negligible. The consequences of an actual shortfall of supply would be immense. If consumption begins to exceed production by even a small amount, the price of a barrel of oil could soar to triple-digit levels. This, in turn, could bring on a global recession, a result of exorbitant prices for transport fuels and for products that rely on petrochemicals -- which is to say, almost every product on the market. The impact on the American way of life would be profound: cars cannot be propelled by roof-borne windmills. The suburban and exurban lifestyles, hinged to two-car families and constant trips to work, school and Wal-Mart, might become unaffordable or, if gas rationing is imposed, impossible. Carpools would be the least imposing of many inconveniences; the cost of home heating would soar -- assuming, of course, that climate-controlled habitats do not become just a fond memory.

But will such a situation really come to pass? That depends on Saudi Arabia. To know the answer, you need to know whether the Saudis, who possess 22 percent of the world's oil reserves, can increase their country's output beyond its current limit of 10.5 million barrels a day, and even beyond the 12.5-million-barrel target it has set for 2009. (World consumption is about 84 million barrels a day.) Saudi Arabia is the sole oil superpower. No other producer possesses reserves close to its 263 billion barrels, which is almost twice as much as the runner-up, Iran, with 133 billion barrels. New fields in other countries are discovered now and then, but they tend to offer only small increments. For example, the much-contested and as-yet-unexploited reserves in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge are believed to amount to about 10 billion barrels, or just a fraction of what the Saudis possess.

This demand-driven scarcity has prompted the emergence of a cottage industry of experts who predict an impending crisis that will dwarf anything seen before. Their point is not that we are running out of oil, per se; although as much as half of the world's recoverable reserves are estimated to have been consumed, about a trillion barrels remain underground. Rather, they are concerned with what is called ''capacity'' -- the amount of oil that can be pumped to the surface on a daily basis. These experts -- still a minority in the oil world -- contend that because of the peculiarities of geology and the limits of modern technology, it will soon be impossible for the world's reservoirs to surrender enough oil to meet daily demand.

The article clearly states that a minority of experts foresee this disaster. However, their underlying logic is sound, and the optimism of oil industry experts is no warm comfort to me, after watching my home heating oil prices almost triple in 5 years.

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less I say, smarter I am

JustJess

According to their numbers, and my very rough calculations based on that...
We have 1 trillion barrels in the ground.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have 496 billion barrels in reserve.
Assuming we stay constant at the 84 million per day usage (which we won't), and clearly ignoring other countries' reserves since I don't know about them, we will run out of oil altogether in 45 years. That says to me skyrocketing prices on EVERYTHING. That says that SUV etc.-owners continue to be irresponsibly selfish and short-sighted. That says severe economic catastrophe.

The 10 billion in Alaska? Can only support today's consumption rates for 119 days.

We should be a little more worried about things... not buying gas for a day is just laughable in the face of these issues.

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My heart knows me better than I know myself, so I'm gonna let it do all the talkin'.

shesus

I agree that not buying gas for a day is not going to help. People are inevitably going to have to fill-up and it doesn't matter when. Fortunately, we now live in an area where we only have to fill up the car once a month. However, when we lived in a city that was inconducive to walking and bike riding we would drive everywhere. I think that these people are going about the issue the wrong way. If these people are truly concerned about the environment and their pocketbook, they should be spending their time aiding people who are trying to find alternate sources of fuel. The main one right now that I have heard of is corn. However, I admit that I am not well researched in the alternate fuel studies except what has been mentioned in new clips. Therefore, I will not speculate on how people could help the non-oil fuel movement along. But I do know that boycotting for one day is not going to be effective. Most likely, the statement wouldn't even be noticed because most people wouldn't jump on that bandwagon.

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sclocke42

It's true: Reducing regular oil usage is going to be more effective than any chain letter one-day boycott protest ever will. It's been said by everyone else, so I won't harp on it further.

The point I wanted to add is something ('bout the only thing, actually) that I learned from my Science and the Environment class. The size of an "oil reserve" is defined by two things:
a) The amount of oil that can be extracted with today's technology; and
b) The amount of oil that is cost-efficient for oil companies to extract -- that is, oil that can be extracted without the companies losing money for it. (People have touched on this briefly already, but it's a major point and one I felt was worth nailing right on the head.)

Those two criteria greatly limit the amount of oil readily available to us; I would estimate (wildly) that, because of these two limitations, we haven't touched about 70% of all the oil the earth has to offer. So when you hear people talking about how the "oil reserves are running low," they could very well be right. But that doesn't mean we're running out of oil entirely.

The trick for the long-term is to find other, stronger, cheaper means of extracting oil, or find another fuel source altogether. Reducing daily consumption, while a noble effort and worth striving towards, is only a band-aid solution and will only prolong the inevitable.

As for other fuel sources, I heard from somewhere that some people somewhere could produce some kind of universal fuel by basically melting down wastes of all kinds. The problem with this is that the energy required to produce this magic fuel is greater than the energy the fuel can produce itself. If someone could find a way to reverse this equation, I imagine it would solve our major oil issues. (I also imagine this person would become the richest person in the world over the weekend.)

BigBen

Did I hear someone say NUCLEAR POWER?

Hmmm?

Anyone?

Some nutcase told me that a kilo of uranium fuel rods has enough energy equivalent to 35 tons of coal.

The energy created by nuclear power is also more efficient and clean (minus that real nasty nuclear waste stuff, I'm talking about air/water/other pollution) than other forms.

Oh, wait. Fear-mongering has pushed that viable option out of our conversation...

Answer: Electric cars, recharged by nuclear powered electric generators.

Everyone knows that solar power is a pipe dream.

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3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

ObieX

The thing is, we CAN manufacture it. There are multiple methods of creating fuel that just aren't being used because the control is in the hands of the drillers, and they use their control with extreme prejudice.

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We Must Dissent.

Slavakion

With the way the world is sucking down oil/gas, the natural reserves are gonna run out sometime. Then what....?

By the way, what methods are you talking about? The coal -> oil conversion from Germany? Again, what about when the coal runs out?

ObieX

Corn -> Oil for one. Recently there's been talk about a machine that can turn prettymuch any type of organic material into oil. An entire city, for example, could convert their recycling centers into conversion-to-oil centers and make their own.

There's lots of different ways to get oil. However, oil companies grab up pretty much any patent or idea the second it coms out and they horde it so it never sees the light of day. This also goes for alternate energy and things like hybrid cars. They force their oil on us, and eliminate any and all competition. Then we wonder why we have oil shortages and such high prices.

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We Must Dissent.

ObieX

Here's a post from a little while back from here on TFP about that anything into oil machine:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...ht=oil+organic

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We Must Dissent.

BigBen

Oh, christ, is anyone listening to me?!!!??!

No, we will not run out of oil for HUNDREDS of years. Let me state that again:

When people are telling you that we are running out of oil, they have a hidden agenda, and are using scare tactics to make people listen to them!

Please, people, lets not talk about "Running out of oil" anymore.

Lets further the discussion about reducing consumption, protecting the environment, screwing the oil companies over, et cetera.

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3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

Psycho Dad

But we are going to run out some time. We just don't have dinosaurs decomposing like we used to. j/k

You are right. The amount of reserves we have is enough to last us far longer than what I would imagine it would take to find an alternative. Remember, back in the 70s the song was that there was a shortage. Had we worked on a solution then, we wouldn't be having this discussion now I bet. And had we worked on it then, not only would we have an alternative, but it likely would have been a cleaner more environmentally friendly option as well.

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Don't always trust the opinions of experts.

cyrnel

Running out doesn't have to mean more than consumption outpacing production. We're there, and with non-U.S. growth it's going to get worse rapidly. Plot growth for China and India over the next decade and figure out where the oil will come from. That's the speculation that's driving current pricing.

However many trillion barrels are hidden away in shale and sand deposits if it isn't pumpable, costs too much/barrel, or someone else bought it, we'll feel the shortage and will have an economic incentive to expand our horizons. Alternatives will become a hot topic in the next couple elections.

I agree with BigBen on the inevitability of nuclear power. It has hot buttons but without some breakthrough in cheap power production our consumer society will demand its fix as a necessary evil.

__________________
There are a vast number of people who are uninformed and heavily propagandized, but fundamentally decent. The propaganda that inundates them is effective when unchallenged, but much of it goes only skin deep. If they can be brought to raise questions and apply their decent instincts and basic intelligence, many people quickly escape the confines of the doctrinal system and are willing to do something to help others who are really suffering and oppressed." -Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, p. 195

Slavakion

Exactly. It doesn't matter if it takes a hundred years or eight hundred years.

Now that's more like it. At first I thought you were gonna post something about biodiesel, but this is even better. Even if all it's good for is producing gasoline, that's still a lot less oil we need to import and refine.

sclocke42

The thing is, when considering nuclear power as an energy alternative, that package comes with the nuclear waste. If you're so eager to jump onto the nuclear power bandwagon, you'll need to consider the waste that comes with it, and have some idea of how to dispose of it safely. It's not something you can dismiss in light of "nuclear power is otherwise cleaner for the environment" -- I can't imagine Mother Nature appreciating that glowing green gunk very much.

You're right about the fear-mongering, though. There have been enough major incidents with nuclear power going horribly wrong that the general public isn't ready to see how efficient it truly can be. Though, if you dig deep enough, you can find dirt on just about anything. It's just easier to do this with nuclear power.

Rechargable electric cars sound fascinating. It would be awesome if we could produce such a thing that is as power and energy-efficient as the average vehicle on the road today. I know that there are some test models out there, but I have no idea how the hold up against the cars we have now. If it is a lesser alternative in any way, society won't buy into it; our culture has become too dependant on gas transportation to settle on anything below our standards.

One thing to consider with electric cars is whether you could also create electric transport trucks, jumbo jets, ferries, et cetera. Otherwise, oil will still be used in large quantities, and its longevity will still be an issue.

And on top of all that, petroleum is still used to create a great number of things, not the least of which is plastic. So unless we find a non-oil-based alternative to just about every aspect of our lives, the threat (or "scare tactic") of running out of oil still looms above us.

Hanabal

well when you think about it, the energy efficiency of the internal combustion engine is not so great. Remembering back to my thermodynamics days, the average petrol car is about 30% efficent, combining cost of mining, purifying, refining and not least transport of the fuel to your car, the efficiency takes a nose dive.

The elecric on the other hand is considerably more efficient, not sure about numbers, but with the generation and delivery infrastucture fixed and only needing minor expansion occasionally. As long as the clean generation methods become more popular, we're set.

Also its irrelevant when we run out of "fossilised" oil, we have to use something else. no more of this oil is being created, how sustainable is it to use something that isn't being regenerated at all.

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I am Hanabal, Phear my elephants

Willravel

We listened, you gave no sources and yelled (making me cry). We don't have hundreds of years of oil left in the world, let alone Alberta. JustJess gave you a perfectly good reply immediatally after your post about how Canada can give us a wonderful 119 days of oil use- i.e. people are listening.

BigBen

Okay, I was shaken at the base of my existence by this website...

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

It is flawed, IMHO, but there are some really good points, and that is that we don't have to run out of oil in order to create a society-ending catastrophe.

I appologize for the yelling.

There are several reasons why I am addicted to the TFP. One of the main ones is that this place makes me take stock in my attitudes/opinions/things I take as fact.

You guys have witnessed it before (my mind changing) and you will again...

I think I need a drink.

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3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

xepherys

Actually, on this point... with gas prices rising, not buying today at $2.70 just means buying tomorrow at $2.80. You're only screwing yourself. *shrug* People are dumb, lol. Glad the people here at TFP are smart! :-)

justinrazs

well, heres a little important info... Popular Mechanics - December 1941

Over in England it's saccharine for sugar; on the continent it's charcoal "gasogenes" in the rumble seat instead of gasoline in the tank. Here in America there's plenty of sugar, plenty of gasoline. Yet there's an industrial revolution in progress just the same, a revolution in materials that will affect every home.

After 12 years of research, the Ford Motor Company has completed an experimental automobile with a plastic body. Although its design takes advantages of the properties of plastics, the streamline car does not differ greatly in appearance from its steel counterpart. The only steel in the hand-made body is found in the tubular welded frame on which are mounted 14 plastic panels, 3/16" thick. Composed of a mixture of farm crops and synthetic chemicals, the plastic is reported to withstand a blow 10 times as great as steel without denting. Even the windows are of plastic. The total weight of the plastic car is about 2,000 lbs., compared with 3,000 lbs. for a steel auto of the same size. Although no hint has been given as to when plastic cars may go into production, the experimental model is pictured as a step toward materialization of Henry Ford's belief that some day he would "grow automobiles from the soil".

When Henry Ford recently unveiled his plastic car, the result of 12 years of research, he gave the world a glimpse of the automobile of tomorrow, it's tough panel molded under hydraulic pressure of 1500 lbs. per square inch from a recipe that calls for 70% of cellulose fibers from wheat straw, HEMP, and sisal plus 30% resin binder. The only steel in the car is its tubular welded frame. The plastic car weighs a ton less than a comparable steel car. Manufacturers are already taking a low-priced plastic car to test the public's taste by 1943.

now, it also ran on hemp seed oil, hmm, i remember when hemp was required to be grown before blasted oil companies made it illegal. lol, god, and... you can run a diesel on hemp seed oil, time to start growing pot people.

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coming to terms with my status as a drifter

streak_56

I carpool most of my trips to work. Plus gas is supposed to rise 20 cent a litre in some parts here in Canada, thats enough for me to Carpool everyday.

DEI37

I watched the price of gas jump up $.46/gal overnight. That's a load of BS. I bought it yesterday, thank goodness. Paid $2.749 yesterday at noon, and had the station at $3.209 same time today. There is NO justification for that mess. That said, we need more nuclear power plants, more fuel efficient cars, regardless of the fuel burned, and a general reduction in energy consumption. Won't be easy, we're used to living the good life in America. I'm lazy like that, I'll admit it. But, the hot rod hasn't been driven since June, and I milk whatever I can out of the little car.

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Generally speaking, if you were to get what you really deserve, you might be unpleasantly surprised.

cementor

The oil is out there for many years to come , but at current pricing much of it is uneconomical. That may sound strange , but even at $70/bbl the cost outweighs the reward. Processing oil shale and tar sands doesn't become economic with current technology until oil reaches somewhere around $100/bbl. The "low hanging fruit" has largely been picked, so we now are working on much more expensive options. The point of worldwide consumption being on the increase is absolutely true. China and India in particular now compete for product in a major way on the world stage. They must have oil in order to continue to develop. It's not prety , but I don't know of anywhere that it states "there is a God given right to "cheap" energy". By the way, If there was an easy alternative energy source discovered and immediately available, it would take somehing on the order of 20 years to convert all the vehicles and "fossil fuel" burning apparati to that new source, not to mention untold Billions of dollars. Conservation is where its at. I make my living in the oil biz, but we all need to make good solid choices for our children. Nuclear energy is not a terrible choice, but it has to be handled properly. Advances in technology make it much safer than it was in the 80's, but just like fossil fuels it has its downside, waste, risk. And the expense for government mandated "safety" requirements make it non competitive when compared with fossil fuels at the current cost levels. Additionally, folks don't want Nuclear plants built in their backyards. I don't either.

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Cementor
If I was any better I'd have to be twins!

Slavakion

I just got an email that's trying to get everyone to boycott Exxon and Mobil, so that their profits will suffer and they'll have to lower prices. This will cause the other companies to follow suit... People never give up.

EDIT: I should mention that the boycott is for the rest of the year, not a couple of days.

alansmithee

Oil isn't running out soon. There's tons of oil shale around still, it's just currently cheaper to pump crude than extract from shale. When oil reserves in-ground get tight, more companies will just look toward oil shale as a source. And as more companies look toward it, efficiency will increase in extraction driving the price down for production. This will also strengthen the US economy, as there are many reserves of oil shale right here in the US. This is all assuming that we haven't found newer sources for energy and chemical production by that point.

And the snopes.com article was very accurate about the lack of effectiveness of a one day boycott that lacks any real reduction in buying. Just moving your gas purchases forward or backward one or two days is really insignificant.