Yup.
The gasoline situation is stressful and of course it will get worse, but the thing that worries me the most is the coming bad news with home heating. It's easier (in the short term) to adapt to the transportation challenge; drive less, buy a better car, perhaps move closer to work. But home heating is a different animal. Here in the Northeast we have an enormous inventory of VERY old, utterly energy inefficient, houses. Retrofitting them is such a nightmare that it really would make much more sense to just tear them down and rebuild from scratch (which of course, isn't going to happen).

Even now, the poor, especially in the inner cities cannot pay their heating bills. And you know what the answer is; the utilities charge the people who can pay their bills more to subsidize the people who cannot pay. And I think it's inevitable that sooner or later the politicians will get into the act and start raising taxes to pay for additional public help for the poor. It's going to be very difficult to watch people freeze to death. I don't think very many people have the stomach for that; not even practical, hard headed types like me.

 

Yep, my father with 35 years experience in the oil biz has said that for years. Large cash expenditures to gain a fractional increase in net energy availability in the best case. IMHO it really is a political expediency to look like something is being done on the energy front that won't require any change in lifestyle or habits. North Americans like voting for people like that. Just ask Jimmy Carter how well things went when he asked Americans to change.
Funnily enough the whole ethanol complex also sees huge amounts of government money subsidizing large corporations.

On another point, one thing that older vehicles need to be careful of is that fuel line components may not be designed to resist high alcohol concentration and it's acidic properties.

 

I used to live in MA and when talking to local people and some Canadian folk I used to know it became apparent that the insulation standards set by the states were very poor in comparison to other cold places (IE canada). If the states had passed more stringent legislation regarding home insulation standards years ago they would not be stuck with a legacy of leaky expensive to heat homes now. I am willing to bet some forward thinking people tried back in the day but got shot down by the "less goverment interference!!" lobby, what exactly is their answer now? a shrugging of shoulders I am willing to bet....

 

This is an eye-opener.
A sad and frightening thought.

 

Plus, keep in mind the oil companies are pretty happy sitting back and collecting ever-higher prices for their refining. No need to build new refineries when they are reaping record profits. And, it's in their best interest, too, to stretch out the consumption time-frame. They stay in this profitable oil-refining business that much longer if the oil isn't ALL used up as quickly. Before the end-of-oil, they'll move on to other things (in order to survive), but it's just too easy right now - it's a big cash cow.

 

We should all be this guy: evnut.com

If darelldd can do it, and 12 years ago even (Rav4EV and EV1), why not now, and why not more people? Well, that's been answered above (oil profits). And no, ethanol is NOT the answer, sorry.

 

Couldn't help bumping this thread. Remember that only little more than a month ago, some experts argued that oil prices would fall back to around USD 90/bl, soon. And good ol' Dick C was going to middle-east to talk prices down. Oh, yeah.