Originally posted by: Skoorb
Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
Originally posted by: Lonyo
If you bought more fuel efficient cars, you might not b!tch so much about prices.
It is never economical to replace a car that is in good repair simply in order to save money on fuel. I get 26 mpg highway with my big V8 Lincoln. It's a '95. If I sold it, I would get maybe $7,000. Maybe. A 2000 V6 Accord gets 28 mpg on the highway and with equivalent features and mileage to the Lincoln would cost $15,000 according to KBB. So a 2 mpg improvement would cost me $8,000 (and 90 HP). I drive about 12,000 miles per year. I would save 40 gallons of gasoline per year. Even at $2 per gallon it would take me 100 years for the savings in fuel to break even with the $8,000 initial price premium. Even with good vitamins and regular exercise, I'm not going to make it that long.
ZV
Bad car to replace it with
Pick a 95 corolla, and you'll save money on the car AND on gas
AmusedYes, prices are the same and the US gov doesn't tax as much. I personally think that if the fed through a half dollar onto each gallon the population would long-term be well served by it. Take that half buck and throw every damn dollar (I mean half dollar!) into R&D for alternative energies. Ultimately people would need less gas to the point where they're not only saving that buck, but mroe importantly to the point where the US isn't at the mercy of much of the rest of the world. Oil plays WAY too much of a role in the foreign relations of the middle eastern governments. If the developed world could cut imports of oil from OPEC massively then it wouldn't be held hostage by those countries to such an extent and it could be more forthright with how it deals with them. For instance, we all know that saudi arabia is a big factory of terrorists, but you don't hear that from bush, do you?
Yeah. It's a nice thought, but.. there quite simply just isn't enough money in alternative energy right now for it to be worth it for anybody to persue it. That's the problem.
If it is true that the Earth has reached its peak in oil production, it is only a matter of time before the
Energy
Profit
Ratio between crude oil and alternative energies become close enough to the point that exploring them becomes seriously worth it.
Oil used to have such a huge EPR that it was virtually free, around 100:1. The EPR of oil is currently about 10:1. That means it takes 1 barrel of oil in energy to extract 10 barrels. Some estimate that we will actually be in a defecit (~0.7:1) in the next 20 years. :Q
The energy crisis is pretty real. I just don't think it's going to be doomsday, we will adapt.. even if it means some hefty lifestyle changes. The only way it would be catastrophic is if it shut off like a tap - and thats exactly what isn't going to happen. Just like the ramp up in oil production took ~60 years, the ramp down in production will take about that long - at worst, something like 30 years. That is plenty of generational time for some pretty dramatic changes.
Of course, to the generation of those times, it will be normal, and we'll be all the old folks goin "Wow.. times sure have changed... I miss the late 90s.".
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