20 Comments

1. ron norman:

As California goes down the tubes, the Democrats votes 15/14 to stop oil shale development in Colorado where we have an estimated 1 Trillion bbls. of oil locked in shale. They also blocked devolpement of coal slurry gasification, the Democrats stopped development of nuclear energy while France and Japan used our technology and became 80% self sufficent, France even sells energy now. The Democrats stopped oil exploration of the continental shelf and now China is drilling 60 miles off of our coast. Not one Senator or Representative has ever gone to Anwar to my knowledge where the mosquitio’s can drain your body of blood in one day in the summer and in the winter you can freeze in 70 degree below zero and thats not counting wind chill. McCain likens it to the Grand Canyon and Obama says buy oil from the Arabs. You would think that people would wise up, we’re in an ecomonic wars with OPEC and they are winning because the enviromentalist are doing their bidding. Want to raise price of oil?? Just take a major developer out of the market, thats what the enviro’s and idiots in the Senate and House have done. Why would they do that, are they completely crazy to ruin the greatest country that has ever been or is there something more sinister involved. The Arabs are making over $650 Billion Dollars because of the enviromentalists and Congress, if the Arabs took just 2% of that and said “THANK YOU” my friends who have helped us so much, who have made sure that we can buy and sell the United States, just continue and we’ll give you give you more. Doesn’t the venality of Politicians make more sense than being completly nuts. The Arabs who are noted for bribery could give every politician in Congress $100 million Dollars and it would be nothing compared to what they are making. They could fund every attorney in the United States to bring law suits against any type of drilling, they could fund the enviromentalist with all the money needed to kill us economically and they wouldn’t even be aware where the money was really coming from. We are in an economic war, our United States can be ruined and end up a 3rd world country. Our government has gone mad with ‘green’ while the working man and women can’t afford to get to work.

Jun 14, 2008 - 3:00 pm 2. Mgmax:

I would say 35 is a realistic typical MPG with a Prius. It will go down a little running the AC, it will go down a lot running the heat in winter (well, in Chicago it will), say 27 or so. Despite the fact that it’s officially rated higher in the city than on the highway, a straight shot of highway driving with few stops will yield the highest MPG, approaching 50. But 35 or so is pretty typical, federal mileage ratings are all bizarrely inflated. And what will change after a few tanks is not your car’s efficiency, it will be your driving habits as the Prius trains YOU.

Welcome to the world of obsessing about your mileage….

Jun 14, 2008 - 5:57 pm 3. Captain Hate:

How will they safely dispose of the batteries if a large percentage of the driving population own them?

Jun 14, 2008 - 6:43 pm 4. Boomerstuff:

Two years ago I thought conservation and high mileage were good enough reasons to determine what car to drive. I purchased a small, high efficiency car and felt I was doing my part. Driving in Oregon, it was a little intimidating to be surrounded by all the pickups and SUV’s but, figuring I had the advantage of agility and was preserving my pocketbook and the future of mankind, I continued safe and secure.
Until one day a new Ram pickup ran a red light and missed smashing me broadside by one second. Sitting in my little car, the left headlight dangling, I looked up at the top of the wheel well of the truck that almost changed my life and knew I had forgotten about safety. I drive an Expedition, pay the price, and know that my wife and I are much safer.

Jun 14, 2008 - 7:10 pm 5. ShoreMark:

“How will they safely dispose of the batteries if a large percentage of the driving population own them?”

In Yucca Mountain, obviously.

But the better question is how will they charge those batteries before they go south? With coal? With oil?

They act like the wall plug is some magic little pair of lopsided sized slots that spews forth free little “minny Gores” to save everyone.

Jun 14, 2008 - 8:07 pm 6. Captain Hate:

In Yucca Mountain, obviously.

That’s an appropriate place but good luck on getting Dingy Harry (I’m not a ditto-head, but am stating that characterization in case any of moron Reid’s operatives are lurking) to sign of on that rife-with-NIMBY location. I agree with everything else in your comment.

Jun 14, 2008 - 9:07 pm 7. Lem:

But I do believe in energy independence and it seems stupid to me, since I needed a new car, to buy another gas guzzler. Even if we started drilling in ANWR, etc., only a dreamer thinks it’s going to bring down the price of petrol in any serious way. It would only stop it from going higher faster.

Bless your heart Roger, I could reach across the time zones and, I don’t know, give you a hug?

You sir, are tying to practice what you with subtlety recommend.

Jun 15, 2008 - 2:45 am 8. photoncourier.blogspot.com:

ShoreMark…the Prius is not a plug-in hybrid; the batteries are charged from the engine and from regenerative braking.

For plug-in hybrids, the energy that comes from the wall plug is considerably cheaper than that in gasoline. The danger is that Democratic-”Progressive” policies are making it difficult to build new generation and transmission facilities…if this continues, it will greatly raise electricity prices and (among other things) strangle the plug-in hybrid at birth or shortly thereafter.

Jun 15, 2008 - 5:17 am 9. Michael Smith:

But I do believe in energy independence…

Why?

The whole premise of a division-of-labor economy is to give up the notion of each of us producing everything we need (i.e. of being “independent”) in favor of letting individuals specialize, with the result that production of any particular item gravitates toward the lowest-cost producer. This yields a vast improvement in the standard of living, as far more wealth can be produced in this fashion.

Attempting to impose national “independence” on any particular item is a step backwards from this principle.

Granted, we should remove all the artificial obstacles to domestic oil production and refinement (and all other forms of energy production as well) — and if we did that, we’d import less. But Canada, Mexico and Saudi Arabia — our three biggest sources of imported oil — would still sell us a lot of oil. Why is that a bad thing?

If any particular regime is using that oil revenue to finance our enemies, directly or indirectly, we certainly have the military power to punish them for it.

But remember this: every dollar that goes to Canada, Mexico or Saudi Arabia ultimately has only one use: to purchase something made here in America or to invest in something here in America. The Canadians or Mexicans or Saudis may trade those dollars for other currencies, but that only means that someone else winds up with a dollar, an American dollar, that must be spent HERE.

So, to the extent that you reduce those imports of oil, you are ultimately reducing an equivalent amount of exports, and the jobs that are involved in producing those exports (or you are reducing the investments in America, with the economic damage that causes).

Once before in our economic history we had an attempt at ?independence? from imports. It took the form of the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1929. We know what it did.

Jun 15, 2008 - 8:13 am 10. Henway:

I’m meh on anthopogenic global warming myself. I’m more a sunspot/solar flares adherent, however, I can’t see how more efficient, broad-based energy production and usage could be bad in any case. I’d love to see incentives for all kinds of innovation as well as maximizing what we know we’ve got domestically.

I read the linked article, and I disagree that a decision to drill in ANWR wouldn’t yield results quicker than the first drop leaving the pipe. Because the prices are being rocketed skyward by speculation on future scarcity (above actual mismatches of supply and demand pressure), any announcement that credibly reduces the notion of future scarcity makes arbitrage less possible and the prices drop. The Black Gold Rush will slow. It’s the instantly-digested new market information as much as the actual tangibles which are reflected in current pricing, a fact that’s apparent if the Saudi King hopes to bolster int’l confidence (and stabilize markets) by simply speaking about a project not due until 2009. Any time our gov’t gets into the business of legislating profits or speculation as they routinely threaten, they inevitably deform and degrade the industry in question, mostly refusing to unhook those talons even when the hamstrung victim’s later gasping for life.

I’d much rather see action like yours, consumer choice that encourages manufacturing expansion, combined with carrots of R & D tax breaks and expansion of domestic production on several fronts to change our future outlook and, therefore, the scarcity markup that gets charged.

Jun 15, 2008 - 8:14 am 11. bubbanelson:

This is the reason to drive a hybrid!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiNA0cpCq4U

I get around 38-40 mpg in my camry hybrid.

Jun 15, 2008 - 8:22 am 12. bubbanelson:

This is the reason to drive a hybrid!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiNA0cpCq4U

I get around 38-40 mpg in my camry hybrid.

Jun 15, 2008 - 8:22 am 13. bubbanelson:

This is the reason to drive a hybrid!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiNA0cpCq4U

I get around 38-40 mpg in my camry hybrid.

Jun 15, 2008 - 8:22 am 14. TerryeL:

I bought a cavalier for my work. I have to drive a lot and it gets much better mileage than the car I had before.

And I agree with Roger. We need to give that conservation thing a try. In capitalism the supply must increase or the demand must decrease if we are to see lower prices. ANWR would take a decade to get on line. Even the oil shale out west will take time and if it is eventually approved, it is an expensive process and will not be financially feasible unless prices remain relatively high.

Here in Indiana they are building a coal gasification plant at Edwardsport. They received their air permit from the state back in Jan. 2008, but it will still take a long time for them to come on line.

I was hoping that when the new oil field was discovered off of Brazil it would help ease market concerns, but it had no impact.

The Saudis should be nervous. More and more people are starting to think in terms of energy other than oil.

Recently Bush said that industrialized countries would have to move beyond carbon based fuels. The guys at Power line seemed to think that was some sort of betrayal, but it is just an acknowledgment that the world is changing.

Is global warming caused by people? I doubt it, but most people believe there is at least some connection. So maybe we need to think of ways of using that to serve another purpose. Besides, we all know what happens to a lot of that oil money..and I am not talking about Exxon here.

Jun 15, 2008 - 1:00 pm 15. RightBrain:

I rented a 2008 Prius from Hertz three days ago and just returned it a few hours ago, my first experience with the car.

Verdict: Wow!

I drove 356 miles and it took 6.97 gallons of gas for a mpg of 51.07. This was a round trip from Manhattan to the Hamptons and back, so roughly half at around 65 and the other half around 35. I ran the A/C only for about two hours as it was unusually cool this weekend. Traffic going out was horrible so I crept along, electrically, I read a web site about how to get the best mileage, which worked well for the LIE. Accelerate very slow and the gas motor won’t kick in to around 27 mph, sometimes it didn’t start until high 30’s. Acceleration if you need it is brisk with both the gas motor and electric pulling together, especially apparent as you start due to the elec motor torque curve.

The car had 1400 miles on it, which is notable because Prius owners claim to increase the mpg around 10% after it is well broken in, north of 10k miles.

Jun 15, 2008 - 5:39 pm 16. Michael Smith:

And I agree with Roger. We need to give that conservation thing a try.

But TerryeL, we’ve been giving that “conservation thing” a try for over three decades. The first “CAFE” standards mandating improved fuel efficiency in automobiles was passed in 1975.

Likewise, we’ve been subsidizing the development of alternative fuels for roughly the same period of time.

Neither has succeeded in either reducing prices or reducing our usage of oil.

The solution is for government to get out of the way and allow capitalism to work. How many times does government intervention in the economy have to fail before people will realize its futility?

Jun 16, 2008 - 4:41 am 17. BigFire:

I bought my Prius 3 years ago, not because I subscribe to the religion of Global Warming(tm). I was driving a station wagon for 12 years, and wanted the latest gadget as my car.

For my driving (22 miles to and back from work, through that dreaded 101 between Woodland Hills and Glendale), I get about 45MPG.

Jun 16, 2008 - 8:20 am 18. ElMondo:

I don’t mean this as any criticism of you, Roger, but rather as a statement of my own preferences. Anyway: God! I can’t stand the Prius! Ugly, overly little, and driven by too many poseurs (present company excepted; I’m talking about the self-back-patters around where I live. I’ve only met one humble Prius driver here, and she’s genuinely a good person, but all others can flip off for all I care).

I’d rather walk when I can, only drive when I have to, share rides when it works, and save energy other ways (looking at better windows and more efficient appliances like the fridge and A/C; already went CFL in my most used lights with the exception of one fixture that can’t use ‘em). If I want a fuel efficient car, I’ll get a different hybrid than the Prius – one that doesn’t try to advertise itself as one – or just go after a smaller car. But gawd… the Prius is the last car I’d choose. I’d sooner go after an old eighties diesel Rabbit or something than that car.

Jun 16, 2008 - 11:13 am 19. Larry J:

ANWR would take a decade to get on line.

Perhaps so, but if Clinton hadn’t blocked drilling in ANWR 14 years ago, we’d have that estimated million barrels a day. That could’ve been very handly lately.

Just because something won’t provide instant results, it doesn’t mean it has no value. If we keep postponing or declining to do things because it takes time to come to fruition, we’ll never accomplish anything.

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard.”
- JFK

They don’t make Democrats like that any more.

Jun 16, 2008 - 2:15 pm 20. david wayne:

Like BigFire, I don’t subscribe to global warming ™ either.

And yes, I confess, I get a little lippy about how great my Prius is.

Here’s why: I just returned from a 2500 trip. Going west, (against the wind), I got 54 mpg (that’s an actual miles/gallons calculation).

I haven’t calculated the return trip yet, but the instrumentation said 60/58/60 mpg per day. I could have gotten 61 or maybe even 62 today, but a bad rainstorm in the middle of the mountains cut the mileage down. (For the record, calculated mileage is usually about 2 mpg less than instrumentation mileage).

Finally, I note that I used one tankful of gas each day. Most days I had 1 or 2 “clicks” left. This morning, when the warning light came on (the final “click” blinks), my mileage read 530 miles before I filled up. Today, after traveling almost 400 miles, I still have more than 1/3 of a tank left.

To ElMondo: I don’t look at the Prius. I drive it.

Jun 18, 2008 - 8:49 pm

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