From: Michael Roberts (michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk)
Date: Tue Nov 11 2003 - 13:59:58 EST
MessageThere is a high level of car ownership over here and if you own a sensible vehicle fuel costs in the UK are the same as costs for a SUV in the colonies. As much as I begrudge 75pence ie $1.10c for a litre of gas it does encourage fuel economy.
Dont forget middle class kids like me were cycling 2-3 miles to school at the age of nine and lots of people used to cycle 4-5 miles to work and back. There not many days of 80 mph winds or blizzards - more in Aberdeen but rare south of there.
I dont know what the answer is. We are dependent on cars as we live 3 miles from the nearest shop which is tiny and 6 miles from a supermarket.
Glenn can you work out how gas would be saved by
1, moving over to manual gearboxes
2. smaller engines - 1.1. to 1.8 litre max
Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: Glenn Morton
To: Don Winterstein ; pbrunt@xtra.co.nz ; 'Darryl Maddox' ; asa
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 6:53 PM
Subject: RE: Declining resources [was RE: Declining water]
Others have captured the essence of the issues in trying to replace oil with plant matter oil. The amount of land required to do this is so great as to be prohibitive. I did want to address something Don said,
Don Winterstein
Sent: Monday, November 10, 2003 11:21 AM
I've often thought it would be good for the US to levy heftier taxes on petroleum products to stimulate a change in behavior and to fund the research on energy that the oil companies are no longer doing; but apparently the required tax levels are politically out of the question. Besides that, at least one study has found that gasoline usage is fairly inelastic: consumption doesn't drop much as prices rise. Whenever a local shortage develops so that prices surge, the public invariably maligns the oil companies and demands that politicians investigate.
GRM: having lived in a country where the petrol taxes are quite high ($4.50/gallon, 80% of which are taxes) I observed the following. It didn't stop the rich from driving. I drove and lots of other rich Scots drove as well. But it did stop the poor from driving, which forced them to
1. walk to work in 80 mph blizzards in the winter
2. ride a bike to work in 80 mph blizzards on icy streets
3. spend 3-4 hours per day on busses trying to get to work (In London some people living out of London because of housing prices, would leave home at 4:30 am and get back home at 9:30 pm)
4. call in sick on such days and lose the income.
To me, such taxes are extremely cruel to the poor who need their cars to stay economically afloat. I find that it is really easy for the rich to want to have taxes raised for noble purposes.
That being said, you are correct that there is simply no R&D being done in the oil companies anymore. The contractors do a wee bit of it, but not all that much. The world will pay for the last 15 years of low R&D.
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