Are we in a lose lose situation?

Question

Our gas prices have gone through the roof. So people are turning to alternative sources for fuel. like corn based fuels etc. So as a result, our grocery bills have doubled. No matter what, those in charge find a way to rape our wallets. Thank God I am walking distance to most of the places I have to do business with. My car has been sitting for 2 weeks now. I am actually not missing it either.

Answer 1

Yes people need to go electric or walk or ride bicycles ! If alot of people stopped buying gas the price would drop.

Answer 2

Lose lose maybe, you already are seeing the benefits of exercise from your walking!

Answer 3

Well, first yes, lose lose situation. So what can we do? We can get hi-bred cars, or electric cars and get your own way to get electricity

Answer 4

Or GM could stop sucking the oil until it's dry and move us away from the combustion engine.  There really is no reason for us to be so dependent on oil.  There is a car that runs off of compressed air -- 300 miles per tank of air.  We have the answers, it's just that no one wants to foot the bill to create the infrastructure to solve the oil crises.  Ethanol is never going to work.

Answer 5

The cost of transportation is the main thing. Cost the farmer more to plant ,and to get the product to market.

Answer 6

it feels like party is over.. if u see this from a broader perspective..

we have hardly 50 yrs of storage for fossil fuel and 200 yrs for coal..

for poorer countries .. they have to source food and animal stocks locally .. may be energy too..

Answer 7

yes, the answer lies in social simplicity, u have found the solution... congrats!

Answer 8

Saying that those in charge isn't accurate in this case. It's oil suppliers that are making the money, even the oil produced from Athabasca tar sands in Alberta Canada costs the same as oil from other countries. Despite Canada being a friendly nation and the fact it's profitable at $40 a barrel, they don't want to sell if for less money than other oil, which is understandable.

The use of food to produce fuel is typical of the thinking I expect from politicians, meaning it's not only stupid and useless, it's actually worse than doing nothing. Biofuels are very inefficient at present, requiring as much fossil fuel per gallon as they produce in ethanol, while taking up farmland that should be used for food.

Things are rarely out of balance like this for long, the free market is very good at times like this. Someone will come up with a more efficient means of transport or fuel source for cars we already have since there's so great an incentive to do so now. At $20 a barrel that wasn't true, but expect to see innovations in electric cars and storage devices, hydrogen production and fuel cells, and even compressed air to power cars. The latter seems the most far-fetched but they're going to be making them this year in India supposedly.

In the meantime, walking or cycling are viable now that it's warmer and hybrids are not much more expensive than gas cars in some cases, while giving double the mileage. Don't buy into the doom and gloom the media has always sold, this will pass like other things have passed and the world won't end anytime soon.