I wondered because gas stations raising the cost is price gouging. When oil companies raise the cost it's just record profits.

Exactly. Its isnt just the "evil oil companies" fault that oil is so expensive. Look how much money the Gov't profits and for what?
__________________
Best Car Insurance | Auto Protection Today | FREE Trade-In Quote

My salary, in part.

to give corn farmers money duh.

Maybe not.. but for fucks sake just LOOK at their fucking profits.. In a time when the dollar is turning to complete shit and the world is about to completely end.....

you make a great point. The green power is a great back up but we can't run the whole USA off it. What we can do is running solar panels on roof tops of housing and building to cut down on the amount need to be massed produced. Places like the south would be able to run solar panels on almost ever building and be able to cut down massive the amount of outside produce power. This wouldn't work as well up north cause as soon as it snows, the panels would be cover. Unless one would to run heaters to melt the snow which would then be reducing the amount of energy the panels could produce.

In the end, we need to use green power source along side other power sources such as fusion to supply power.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.


Commie.

Funny thing about people, they'll say they are for wind/nuclear power because the renewable source, low carbon emissions, etc..., BUT not in their backyard. I've driven through parts of south, south NJ where there is a nuclear plant and every few miles there is a sign that says if you hear a loud horn to immediately tune to some AM station for an emergency broadcast about the nuclear plant. Awesome!

Also, on the offshore drilling, it comes down to the same thing....MONEY! Why do a bunch of the South American countries freely allow it? Because their oil companies are majority, if not entirely, owned/controlled by the government so the government sees a big chunk of that money. Whereas in the US, the profits would go to private companies (and to some extent their shareholders), and politicians would get no $ and lose votes from the environmentalists.

Oh, and the best part is, that even if they approve a bunch of new drilling areas, it'll take at least 5 years (if not more) to even make it to production.

you know what never occurs to people? not using so damn much in the first place.

set the A/C to 85F when you leave the house
turning lights off in office buildings when you leave
setting the "monitor shut off" on your computer when you're away for 20 minutes
turn lights off when you leave a room
shit like that.

it doesn't impose itself on you any more than having to press a button to change the channel on your TV.

While this is true, and also that we have not addressed adding more refining capacity, and that there are so many different regional blends (sometimes even gas on different sides of the same city are different), the fact is that a price of a bbl of crude is not priced by the laws of supply and demand. Instead, crude is priced by speculation. It's all bullshit. Great read:
http://www.financialsense.com/editor...2008/0502.html

Maybe I'm just jaded, but I really don't seem to suffer from NIMBY syndrome.

Example: I live about 25 miles from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station and drive past it regularly. The Encina Power Station, a natural gas plant, is about three miles from where I live.

Neither of these two structures bother me in the least. In fact, I consider the Encina station to be beneficial, as the warm waters of the artificial lagoon which serves as its cooling system are the farming ground for a particularly delicious and unique breed of oyster, known locally as the Carlsbad Blonde.

Truthfully, I would welcome the construction of additional nuclear power stations in the area, as this would tend to solve our rolling blackout problems. The risk of death or injury from a nuclear power plant just seems trivial compared to the risks I face every day when I get in my car (or on the bike) and drive amidst a swarm of drugged out and uninsured SoCal motorsists.

For what it's worth, I do not use air conditioning (ever) and try to conserve power in other areas where practical.

We don't really have the right topographical conditions locally for a wind farm, although there is a tiny (and relatively unproductive) one off I-8 not far from here. We certainly could host a photovoltaic or heliostatic solar plant in the flat desert regions to the east, but the fact that nobody has constructed one speaks less of a conspiracy theory than of the relative impracticality (from an economic standpoint) of doing so, even in what is probably one of the most amiable locations in all of North America for such a project. Their only real function at this time is to satisfy legislative requirements for "xx% renewable energy", not to serve any commercially viable purpose.

Maybe they would eventually serve a more viable commercial purpose is they got anywhere near the government funding for research that corn ethenol and hydrogen are getting.

And Y8s, you're on the money again. The easiest impact everyone could make on the environment and their wallets is conservation. Fuck just turning out the lights. Everything (other than the fridge) is unplugged in my apartment when I'm not there. Plugged in electronics still use juice even when they're not on. Use a couple sturdy bags for groceries and stop throwing out plastic bags is another easy one.
The shit my coworkers throw out everyday that is actually recyclable is obcene, and I'm sure the same thing goes on everywhere.
Bottom line is people are lazy or stupid or a combination of both.

fixed, IMHO.

fixed is spending the $30 for a programmable thermostat so you can set it to whatever you want when you're gone and a half hour before you get home to where you like it.

oh and insulate the shit out of your house because that's even better.

btw, joe, it takes more heat energy to heat a house from 30 F to 70 F than to cool it from 100F to 80 F. not sure how that correlates in actual energy though. and since you live in "never colder than 50, never hotter than 100 dry" carlsbad, you dont need A/C. in humid places you want it for more than just cooling reasons. your house will mold!

I'm not sure how long you're gone from your place y8s, but surely you agree that maintaining a temperature uses less energy than constantly switching between 70* and 85*.. just like maintaining a constant 55 mph uses less energy than constantly slowing, accelerating to 55, slowing, accelerating to 55, etc.

We tried adjusting the thermostat while we were gone, and it didn't save us any on the electric bills. We put it at 75 when we were there, and had it at 85 when we were gone. The thermostat we have is "programmable" but no matter how many times we program it, it will just reset to a default of 68. So we just set it to 85 when we leave, and back down to 75 when we return. The thermostat is on the bottom floor, so it was well over 90 on the top floor, so you just stayed on the bottom till it got cooler, which was normally 9-10pm.

We saw basicly no change in the electric bill between leaving it at 75 all day and raising it when we were gone, and it has been hotter since we have been keeping it at 75 all day, but the bill hasn't gone up. Of course, our house is only 7 yrs old, and has really good insulation in the attic, and a new AC unit.

Yeah, when I lived in Ohio, I had to run the A/C from time to time to de-humidify the basement. Usually I kept the vents on the main floor closed, the basement door open, and ran it just enough to keep water from condensing down there. I tried using a standalone dehumidifier, but the poor little thing just wasn't up to the task- it ran more or less continuously, and the basement was still wet. I hate basements...

Since I moved to CA 3.5 years ago, I haven't used the heater at all, and the A/C has been turned on for exactly one occasion- when we had the big fires last year. Apart from that, the breakers for both the outdoor unit and the air handler are switched off.

I was actually a bit peeved when my electric bill rose above $30 recently.

LOL, shut up. The only time I've had a $30 power bill was the month before we moved in.

Of course, the water heater and range are both electric (no gas at this house unfortunately) so it's not too fair to compare.

Yeah, no gas here either, I'm afraid. It's in the neighborhood, but not plumbed down to our apartments.

my god man, do you not cook? i'd wager my range costs nearly $30/mo itself. especially in the winter when it's too cold to grill on the weekends.