22 Sept. No petrol day

"Stuart Lamble" wrote:

On 2005-09-14, Peka wrote:

If people really want to make a statement, they should stop driving to
work for a whole week, and clog up the public transport systems. That
will get the attention of the govt AND the oil companies.

I'd love to see such a thing happen. Even better would be the gubmint
declaring a given day a "car free" day, and forcing the general
population onto bikes or PT. Ain't gunna happen, though -- either of
them.

Well it's been happening in Bogota, Columbia for the past 3 or 4 years, run
by the city government along with a whole raft of other measures and
programs to deter motor vehoicle use and encourage cycling, walking and PT
use. What the f*$k is it about our guv'nmint that they can't read the tea
leaves?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0208-05.htm

Cheers
Peter

"Kim" wrote:
dtmeister wrote:
What the people suggesting this don't realise is that the rise in prices
is an international thing. If local refiners are subject to government
price controls or if people here actually stopped buying fuel for a
day/week, they could just export it instead. The high demand (especially
for refining capacity) along with issues like Katrina etc have driven the
world market price up because demand is greater than supply.

supply and demand is ******** in this case, it doesn't cost them any
more to make!?!?!

so why *should* the price rise? i mean really?

So I see we passed Economics 101 with flying colours. We all know there's no
such thing as the rational man. And you'll be more than happy to take that
pay cut in your next contract - your costs haven't gone up 'cos you ride a
bike. ;-)

Actually, didn't Stalin say that about economic systems, supply and demand
is just the repression of the workers by the bourgeiosie.

Cheers
Peter

I received this same e-mail and responded (reply to all) with something
along the lines of "Why not leave the Prado at home and ride your bike
or walk on this particular day. Hey, why not make it habit?!".

Has anyone else noticed a huge increase in people riding bikes of late?
When I first started commuting by bike 8 years ago, I saw maybe three
or four people on bikes every day. Now I'm fairly sure I see at least
50. I'm sure this sudden spike in the number of people riding bikes
has to do with it being spring, but I'm also fairly confident it has to
do with increasing petrol prices.

I'm not really concerned about the rising cost of petrol, but it does
make a lot of things more expensive including groceries and in
particular fruit and vegies - cyclist fuel!

The majority of Aussies are too f*cking dumb to do anything but whinge
about the fuel crisis. F*ck it frustrates me.

LotteBum


--
LotteBum

A mate of mine who is a senior person in the petroleum industry was over
for dinner the other night.

His views - the price will come down again before it goes back up for
good. This will be unfortunate because it will delay people getting
the message that fuel is expensive, limited and should be conserved,
and it will delay people making sensible decisions about cars (he
drives a compact 4 cyclinder car). He has heard all the calls for
governments to subsidise fuel prices and his view is that this would
simply put off the inevitable decision that people have to make to
conserve oil.

SteveA


--
SteveA

SteveA wrote:

He has heard all the calls for governments to subsidise fuel prices and
his view is that this would simply put off the inevitable decision that
people have to make to conserve oil.

That's where my point comes in - most people are genuinely stupid and
they truly don't give a f*ck. My boss is about to buy a Prado (I sh!t
you not...). He can afford the fuel, and that's fine by me. However,
to me he is showing a distinct lack of care, particularly for someone
with three young children (hey, they seem to be the worst offenders).
We live in a country of choice, but I am of the opinion that the
government needs to do more to force us out of big cars - not
necessarily by banning them, but by forcing those of us who don't need
to drive large vehicles out of them. Driving a big, fuel guzzling
vehicle should no longer be a choice we have. We should all be forced
to drive economical cars, pronto.

To those of you about to rant about rights and choice and how hard it
is to get the kids around in anything smaller than a Commodo Kiss my
@rse. My folks did it back in the 80's - their family car was a Camira
equivalent (Opel) and we drove across the country (admittedly small)
for a holiday in a Mini with even the cat on board! As much as Danish
people pay sh!tloads of tax, I have got to say that I like the fact
that you pay 180% tax on cars in over there and fuel has always been
FAR more expensive than most other western countries, but at least
they're not contributing in such a way that us Aussies are not even
close to. There are a lot of really smart, sensible people in
Australia, but the stupid every day morons really bring those people
down.

Lotte

P.S. I'm no rocket scientist, in fact I'm pretty dumb - how dumb does
this make those who drive 4WD's and other large vehicles?


--
LotteBum

On 2005-09-15, dtmeister (aka Bruce)
was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea:
I'm concerned about it...people think the economy is about money first,
but it's not. The economy is about energy. *Everything* that makes an
economy tick uses energy, and most of that is from fossil fuels.

It was recently stated as "we are depleting nature's capital". Put it
in terms economists can understand, and perhaps we may get something
done about it.

I just really wish that governments funded research into nuclear
fusion sooner. It's been pitiful up until now -- I think there is an
international experimental reactor going to France, was it?

Fusion can and will work -- the energy output goes up as volume or the
reactor to some power, and to reach and go beyond the breakeven point,
we simply need to devote more money, and more engineering to the
problem. The science has been (mostly) solved. It takes bugger all
fuel, and is renewable for all intents and purposes.

What's
the use of money when you get to the stage that it takes you the energy
of one barrel of oil to extract one barrel of oil? Probably a little way
off, but it will happen.

I was under the impression it wasn't all that far off indeed.

I had heard through a grape-vine (cm-melb? Here?) the current price
point where shale oil becomes competitive is when petrol is $3/L
(can't remember the oil price), and I believe shale oil requires as
much energy to extract as is available from it.

--
TimC
That's not a tau-neutrino in my pocket; I've got a hadron.

On 2005-09-15, TimC wrote:
I just really wish that governments funded research into nuclear
fusion sooner. It's been pitiful up until now -- I think there is an
international experimental reactor going to France, was it?

Yes. It was a choice between France and Japan, if I remember rightly.
But remember that this is an experimental reactor, and is not expected
to break even for a while (break even meaning that we put in the same
amount of energy as we get back out.)

Fusion can and will work -- the energy output goes up as volume or the
reactor to some power, and to reach and go beyond the breakeven point,
we simply need to devote more money, and more engineering to the
problem. The science has been (mostly) solved. It takes bugger all
fuel, and is renewable for all intents and purposes.

Yes, but the cost of the research, with all this lovely, lovely fossil
fuel floating around and costing bugger all to pull out, seemed too high
....

I had heard through a grape-vine (cm-melb? Here?) the current price
point where shale oil becomes competitive is when petrol is $3/L
(can't remember the oil price), and I believe shale oil requires as
much energy to extract as is available from it.

I think there was some recent research that found a less energy
intensive way to extract shale oil. But in any case, all this does is
postpone the inevitable crunch, where we either move to nuclear power
(fission or fusion, whichever works), or find ourselves without the
cheap, reliable energy upon which our society depends.

Even things like cycling only postpone this point; they don't eliminate
it entirely. Not even close to it.

--
My Usenet From: address now expires after two weeks. If you email me, and
the mail bounces, try changing the bit before the "@" to "usenet".

LotteBum Wrote:

I'm not really concerned about the rising cost of petrol, but it does
make a lot of things more expensive including groceries and in
particular fruit and vegies - cyclist fuel!


I'm working under the assumption that this might actually reduce the
energy input into food, in that it will make sense for distributers to
buy food from closer to the point of sale. This could improve food
quality through food spending less time in storage before sale, in
addition should support local grown products.

Yes, I know that there are energy inputs in manufacture but from what I
understand these are much less than the international travel of food,
that said a recent study suggested that one of the highest energy
inputs is getting the food from the shop to the home.

PiledHigher


--
PiledHigher

On Thu, 15 Sep 2005 11:02:58 +1000, LotteBum
wrote in aus.bicycle:


The majority of Aussies are too f*cking dumb to do anything but whinge
about the fuel crisis. F*ck it frustrates me.

Crisis? What Crisis?


Regards
Prickles

LotteBum Wrote:
how dumb does this make those who drive 4WD's and other large vehicles?Not all who drive 4WD's are dumb. A 2+ tonne turbo diesel wagon can use
less fuel than a standard petrol family car. A smaller diesel 4wd will
use less again. Diesel also requires less refining. There must be
reason why Europe has heaps of diesel passenger cars?


--
Peka