Are we ignoring the real cost of oil?

Question

We all hear the complaints about $4/gallon to fill up at the pump, but are people still ignoring the real cost of our addiction to oil? If people had to pay the real price of gasoline at the pump, would they be demanding +100 mpg and electric cars from the big automakers?

Milton Copulos was a conservative (served in the Reagan White House) and an expert on the oil energy industry. In this 2006 interview he estimates that the real cost of oil to our economy is (again from 2006) $480/barrel. That would be somewhere around $16/gallon at the pump (more in 2008).

http://www.evworld.com/article.cfm?storyid=1018

Even if global warmer were not a problem (which it is), surely there are more than enough reasons for us to aggressively move away from a fossil fuel based transportation system. And doing so will not only help our economy, but it will help fight global warming.

Please read the article before responding in ignorance.

Answer 1

I'm ignoring the cost of oil... I walk wherever I go. Living in a suburb I don't need to drive anywhere. With mass transit, it's pretty much the same in a city. And if you don't live close enough to your workplace to walk/ride a bike, you likely live near a train or other mass transit system which would take you near your place of work.

Some people are just lazy-asses.

Answer 2

The one reason to get off crude oil is

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There is only so much of it and when it is gone it is gone period

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Think what the world will be like with out any any NO crude oil any where

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And it will happen with in a life time of a person today

.. . ..

Answer 3

well the government doesnt care about how high the cost of gas costs.

After the oil crisis in the 70's the government required car companies to make their cars have better gas mileage.

Answer 4

My best guess is the solar. My home uses about 30 KWH/day. A solar system big enough to pay for my electric bill employing net metering would cost about $37,000. This would be about a 15 year pay back. As systems become more efficient the costs should come down. As carbon caps become the norm they will eventually be applied to cars and homes and businesses. Factories will gear up for the global demand and solar equipment will become mass produced. When solar systems down to a 6 year pay back It will be just smart to install solar. I think there will be a solar revolation. Kyote and mainly the price of fossile fuels will just make renewable forms of energy the right choice.

Answer 5

I hope you ride a bike EVERYWHERE, don't eat Anything from a grocery store and don't exhale.

Answer 6

I agree, it has been sold too cheap since its beginning and now we are trying to adjust for it.

Answer 7

I usually don't consider myself to be a "Right Fighter". I also know we aren't a 100% percent dependant on foreign oil. But the sound of total independence has a certain ring to it. Archaic attitudes, ancient infrastructure, and social economical transition worries me. The push for oil production is increasing not declining. Third world development and Japan are demanding more. Our ability to export and import will also dry up along with the pumps. I also understand that oil prices can go up even when demand is down.

So I just reside at my keyboard wondering just how all this is going to be done in a realistic time frame. I have yet to hear of one feasiable solution.

Answer 8

Yes, the real price of oil should be a lot lower!

http://wyden.senate.gov/issues/wyden_oil...

Answer 9

oh everyone knows the real cost of oil and everyone even the oil companies admit we need to get off of oil

but so far the alternatives arent' lookin too good electric is weak cuz we'll still be using coal to charge it plus it takes forever to recharge em so we'll never be able to travel long distances

hydrogen scares me cuz i mean it explodes!!

so until we can refine the alternatives it doesn't look good

Answer 10

Well --- I don't know if battery powered cars are actually "the answer" to (supposed) man-made GW??

The carbon imprint of the power plants and battery production and disposal required on a global scale to convert the entire world car fleet to electric----seems to NOT do anything to reduce carbon ---------- globally. AND probably leads to other issues related to the production and disposal of the toxic substances inherent in electric batteries.

AND--- a $16 gasoline price would drive the entire world into economic depression.

EDIT-- for Dana-- your premise does not take into account that here in the USA enviro-maniacs will fight tooth and nail against the construction of nuclear plants-- and that the world's economies RUN on diesel fuel, jet fuel, and gasoline-- personal cars are a small part of our total fuel requirements--- seems I read somewhere that if all personal vehicles in the USA were removed from the road -- the affect on global temperatures would be so small as to fall within the statistical variance calculation...... that's why I said personal electric cars would have no effect.

A more measured view about our "car culture" is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

Answer 11

not drilling that 1.2 trillion barrows of oil in Dakota is ignorance

Answer 12

Hello

I am running Cycle to my office to save oil price

Can all people will come forwad to do Cycling ?

Answer 13

Oh there's no doubt about it.

Just for starters, fossil fuels contribute to global warming.  That's a gargantuan cost that gets completely ignored.  On top of that, they have other byproduct emissions which cause problems like smog, health problems, etc.  Then there's the military cost of trying to secure oil in foreign countries - absolutely enormous.

If we had to pay the true cost of oil and other fossil fuels, renewable energy would be far cheaper.

In response to boatman, because electric motors are so efficient, studies have shown that they produce lower emissions than gas cars even when most of the energy comes from coal power plants.  Plus we can make them as clean as we want by building more renewable and nuclear power plants.

Also the batteries are recyclable and the construction energy costs are both not much more than gas cars, and are also dwarfed by operational energy costs over the lifetime of the car (see link below).  So yes, electric cars are the solution to our transportation problems.

Answer 14

I agree 100 percent with the ends of your argument. These record high oil prices are little more than a scam orchestrated by oil companies and oil traders. All of this on top of the foreign relations nightmares that oil causes are more than enough reasons to get us on a new energy system. (And, yeah, we wouldn't have to drill in areas that ought to be environmentally preserved.)

We also need to shift to electric cars for more reasons than one. Electric cars, as it was pointed about by another poster, are much, much more efficient than gas ones. Just as a matter of general energy conservation, this makes sense. True that the energy will be diverted to a power plant, but more power plants are clean-burning ... and the ones that aren't are still being kept out of the cities.

As always, I disagree with the idea that burning oil is somehow going to bring about the end of the world, but does it really matter if we can all agree on the end result? Gas burning engines are nothing but a dinosaur technology that's only sticking around because of convenience, tradition and aggressive lobbying.