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PeakOil is You

PeakOil is You

THE Gas Rationing Thread (merged)

How to save energy through both societal and individual actions.

Unread postby DriveElectric » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 10:52:57

I have my Toyota Prius and I can go almost 600 miles per tank. 12 gallon tank, so even if there is a limit of 5 gallons/week or such rationing, that still will get me 250 miles. I have identified 3 co-workers who live within 2 miles of me. We could easily meet in a common location for carpool.
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Gas lines versus rationing

Unread postby DoctorDoom » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 10:59:46

Within 3 miles of my home I have a grocery store and my office, so I could get by with a bicycle for a long time. My closest friend is only 5 miles away, and a shopping mall is about 6 miles. I use a motor scooter that gets 80 mpg for most of those short trips. I still need the car, though - there' no other way to transport largish objects, passengers, etc., and it's the only way to cover longer distances to the nearest city, friend's places, distant stores. So, yeah, I'll be lining up for gas, just less frequently than most people.

I wonder, though, if gas lines really are in the future. Consider this: making people queue up for gas isn't going to stretch the supply. Instead, given limited supply, either the price needs to go up to the point people don't buy as much, or (given government price limits) there will be a shortage and some people will end up without any gas to buy. This is what leads to gas lines - the fear that if you don't get some right away, there won't be any left by the time you go. Of course anyone at the head of a line will, at some point, need to re-enter the line at the end anyway, so you might wonder
what's the point. And hence the line - people refill more frequently in a futile attempt to stave off disaster.

Lines won't stretch the supply, so what will? Assuming the government doesn't want to let pricing do the dirty work, rationing is the only answer. The current government will let pricing work for a while, but at some point cries from the lower income elements of society will cause them (or the next government) to step in with some form of rationing. In the 70s there was rationing where you got a fixed number of gallons based on the number of cylinders in your vechicle. They also did the odd/even license thing just to thin out the lines (didn't work). 70s-style rationing isn't very fair because it rewards people with gas-guzzlers by giving them more gas. I think we will see a return to WW2-style rationing with coupon books.
Ideally, it would also allow those of us who use relatively little gas to sell or give away our unused coupons to our friends.
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no waiting in gas lines for me

Unread postby BicycleCommuter » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 11:10:58

I have been a bicycle commuter for almost 10 years now and we are a one-car (minivan) family. My wife works part time from our house doing transcribing when the kids are napping. We recently moved closer to my work and to an area that is currently re-developing the downtown into a walkable and bikable community. Virtually everything we need we can access by walking or bicycling.
Bicyclecommuter bikes not bombs!
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Unread postby KiddieKorral » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 11:16:11

I could stay out of the gas lines were it not for the fact that my job is 25 miles away. :(
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Unread postby gnm » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 12:09:25

I've been getting 50mpg on my motorcycle so commuting wouldn't be too bad, but for the occasional china mart run with the truck I would need to fill er up now and then... probably could adapt to super early or late fill ups to avoid the worst of it I suppose.

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Unread postby Barbara » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 12:15:52

My 50cc scooter goes at about 100 mpg, so I'll simply fill the car tank only once to go on for WEEKS. :lol:
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Unread postby uNkNowN ElEmEnt » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 12:48:42

I'm around 3 miles from town. if the busses stop running we'll bike. I recently got my kids new bikes so we are set. I also have a 49cc scooter that works once in a while if I need too.
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Unread postby Pops » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 13:14:51

I work and play at home too; but I wonder if I would be working on designer-boy stuff very long in that case. I would probably wind up really working at home!
I suppose the price would be a bigger problem than the lines. I imagine gas prices doubling or tripling would keep the lines down some. Now we make a trip to the little town – 6 miles, at least a couple times a week for milk, libations, misc hardware, blah, but we certainly wouldn’t be spending that much money should real shortages occur. It would be milk from the dairy next door, libations from the vine and recycled hardware!

We could easily get by with a run to town every 4-6 weeks and a trip to Sams (45 miles) every 3-6 months -
That is if we had the cash to run and any left to spend when we got there!
{thought I had posted this already – wonder which thread it went on, LOL}
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Fragment on Government (July 1, 1854)
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Unread postby aflurry » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 13:26:16

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')y bikes are powered by cheeseburgers.

But my cheeseburgers are powered by oil. Doh!
I know it's not the point of this thread, but there's an overemphasis on "price at the pump" in the public view of the consequences peak oil.
I live and work in San Francisco which at 49 square miles is easy to navigate by bicycle. And I have a slick new fixed-gear track bike which makes it fun as well. But this is a small consolation to me. I am as dependent on cheap oil as anyone around.

Walking to work today I saw an add for the SF Examiner, that showed a picture depicting rising gas prices and said something like: "What's your boiling point?"
It struck me that this was such a dumb, and typically American, reaction to what is happening. Complete focus on how this will inconvenience me, no conception of the reciprocity between the world situation and my behavior, and mainly who can I blame for my personal frustration?

Gas lines were a large consequence of the 1970's oil crisis, but I think they will play less of a roll in the one we are about to experience. The gas you put in your car is just such a minor part of the whole picture.
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Unread postby turmoil » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 13:39:00

i doubt that lines will form if many can't pay for it.
Between the government subsidy of gas ending, oil prices, and layoffs, i doubt that cars will be anywhere but parked.
Bicycles are the best invention ever.
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Unread postby aflurry » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 14:29:01

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('stupid_monkeys', 'B')icycles are the best invention ever.

So true.
I just saw a slide presentation by a guy who spent seven years travelling around the world by bicycle. Unbeliveable. That will be my peak-oil exit strategy. I have spent several months travelling around europe already. You can cover some serious ground with the right tailwinds.
I want to make a peak oil road warrior kind of movie but have it all be bicycle themed instead of with cars. And instead of fighting over a tanker of gas, it would be over.... ummmm. A tanker full of Clif Bars.
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Unread postby highlander » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 14:50:31

Seems to me there isn't enough housing available in cities to take care of everybody who lives in suburbia so.....they will pay whatever it costs for gas as long as they can get it.
I'll continue cooking my own fuel as long as you bikers are eating cheeseburgers and a side of fries! remember to say supersize mine :razz:
This is where everybody puts profound words written by another...or not so profound words written by themselves
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Unread postby pilferage » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 15:28:15

I've been pulling a 15-20mph average on ~10mile bicycle rides, I'm slowly but surely closing in on my automobile commute times for the same distance. I don't think I'll get there w/o fairing, but I can get pretty close...
I usually do a 80 mile trip once per week since my Camry isn't too shabby @ 55mph (~40mpg), so that's minimum forty bucks on gas a month.
"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. "
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Unread postby Aaron » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 15:44:45

Yeah, Maybe the lines we should be worrying about will be at the induction centers.
The problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt, but it has always been nothing more than politics in disguise... economics is a form of brain damage.

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Unread postby Specop_007 » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 21:51:47

I drive a diesel.
I may be waiting in line, but mine wont be as long as yours. :P
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Unread postby DriveElectric » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 22:13:27

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'I') drive a diesel. I may be waiting in line, but mine wont be as long as yours. :P

You could wait in the line at McDonalds asking for their used veggie oil from the fryer.
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interesting

Unread postby Cool Hand Linc » Mon 20 Jun 2005, 22:33:15

Depending on what form of rationing occurs. I would fill my car up. Park it in my yard so my dogs could keep others siphon hoses away. Then I would siphon off the gas to use in my bike.
Peace out!

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Latest Falls Church News Press Installment: Rationing

Unread postby BabyPeanut » Sat 16 Jul 2005, 07:44:40

link excerpt:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')merica ’s most recent experience with rationing goes back to World War II. You have to be nearly 70 to remember the little square “A”, “B”, and “C” stickers affixed to the windshields of ever car. These stickers, when accompanied by a sheet of rationing stamps, allowed one to buy gas. Everybody got an “A” sticker (a whole 4 gallons a month just for the asking). To get a “B” or “C” sticker, one had to appear before a rationing board and make the case their mobility was vital to the war effort or at least the well-being of their fellow citizens.

Forgetting about something, are we? link $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')here were four rationing classifications. An "A" classification, which could be had by almost anyone, entitled the holder to four gallons a week. A "B" classification was worth about eight gallons a week. "C" was reserved for important folk, like doctors, and the magic "X" went to people whose very survival required that they be able to purchase gasoline in unlimited quantities--rich people and politicians, for example.

FCNP goes on
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') couple of weeks ago, the British press reported that Her Majesty’s cabinet is considering a plan to ration energy consumption. The immediate reason for implementing such a system is to reduce the UK ’s emission of greenhouse gases as required by the Kyoto Treaty. The plans authors, however, claim that if the proposal works, it will deal equally well with equitably allocating dwindling energy supplies caused by peak oil.
Good level of paranoia!
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Unread postby Sgs-Cruz » Sat 16 Jul 2005, 16:13:22

I've seen this same reference in a lot of anti-Kyoto right-wing publications: Kyoto is impossible! The British are considering rationing just to meet it, we don't want that in the USA do we?

I just say, considering a plan does not equal implementing a plan. I'll bet every government has considered some plans that would make your blood boil, but never implemented them.
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