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Let Trump know and maybe THEN we’ll see some action on gas prices.
You assume that by increasing gas prices it would result in people not buying it and hence less CO2 emissions.
The production process for gasoline also contributes in CO2 emissions whether or not humans use it.
The current issue with gasoline (and why prices are increasing) is that gasoline companies aren’t opening up more reserves, because by doing so it will decrease their revenue. I’m not sure what will happen once US gas reserves are finished.
You’re right that it is helping the climate, not for the reason gas prices are expensive.
Unfortunately, there’s an oversized impact to low income people.
Yea they’re going to be the ones protesting when they have no money left.
The trick would be to switch the handouts to big oil to electric car manufacturers to subsidize low end electric vehicles kinda like China is doing. I’m surprised Elon hasn’t pushed this grift already.
Tesla wants to keep being a premium product, as that’s a higher profit margin.
They keep saying they want to make a smaller / cheaper model but don’t deliver on that. Meanwhile many other brands have introduced models below the Tesla price point.
Energy has historically been much cheaper in the US than the rest of the world. I remember hearing somewhere that in cost per unit of gasoline the US is something like 30-40% cheaper than Europe. During this gasoline price spike and the last one, I did find a part of me hoping it would sustain so that lifestyles would adjust to be a bit less careless about fuel consumption.
What I’ve observed, living in a rural area of a rural state is that once gas prices get up to around $4 per gallon, people start making small changes to save fuel. If they have a gas gusling truck and a comparably more fuel efficient SUV they might drive the SUV more. Workplaces become more thoughtful about making their employees drive in unnecessarily. Car dealerships start advertising fuel efficiency rather than hauling capacity. People will think twice about extra trips out, or select closer trips.
Once the higher prices are sustained for a few months, I expect that super commuters will start recalculating if they can still afford their commute or need to change jobs. Folks in the market for a new vehicle may buy a more fuel efficient vehicle, and new lifestyles will bed in with a bit less driving for most people
Once the higher prices are sustained for a year or more is when I expect more noticable changes to take effect. Sales of fuel efficient vehicles will likely tick up, electric vehicle sales may also increase, solar panel installations will likely increase, and the most inefficient vehicles on the road will become a bit less common. This is the timeline I’ve observed and expect respectively for gas prices remaining around $4/gallon.
Now if they go really insane and get up to $6-8 per gallon average for over a year, that’s when I’d expect a big uptick in people choosing to go car-free or car-lite, I’d expect to see a lot of new companies starting up to try to capitalize on the demand created by the fuel crisis, and I’d expect established companies to begin investing in more R&D into more financially risky and exotic solutions that can be expected to save energy
100% with ya! But that’s only the consumer side. Higher prices aren’t going to retard commerce, business just has to suck it up.
Not really. People who need to drive still drive. Trucks, trains, and ships continue hauling freight. Navies continue their patrols. Planes still transport people and goods.
It’s just more expensive.
Not true. The prices are higher because less fuel is available. You can’t burn what ain’t there.
Plus, the increased fuel prices mean alternatives become more attractive. This stimulates investments into these alternatives. Hence the price increase speeds up the transition to better technologies. This is why an emmision tax could work.
They will eventually not be able to pay.
Sure, but they can at the moment.
All the bankrupt trucking companies couldn’t, there will be more.
All those bankrupt companies were small operations or owner/operators who were already struggling. The big companies are doing fine.
Indeed, thanks for confirming that we’re in a K shaped recession.
Yeah, but that’s been going on since the 70s.
Nope, the 1990s were a recovery period, and now we’re in the late stage acceleration.
Thats just plain wrong… there is a LOT you can do to influence fuel consumption.
Driving style, vehicle type and also distance traveled.
Yes… some things will take more time than others but simply claiming my F500 is the end of my efforts is plain wrong
Also… Transport costs are really low if you actually look at it and compared to what a product costs… and yes I do a lot of internal shipping
Most of his point was about oil uses other than private vehicles. Discussions always revolve around personal use, because that’s where we understand oil, but there’s a hella lot more going on.
For example, I live next to a Navy base where they train helicopter pilots. They’re going to fly those machines regardless.
Sure, but To replace that F350 you need credit and the income to cover the payments. Most people can’t afford another payment, especially if their car is already paid off. Trade-in value is pathetic these days when dealerships will offer you $1,500 on a trade-in worth $5,000.
It doesn’t need to be right now… but it will influence the choice for the next car.
My point stands. As long as big ass trucks are bought gas isn’t too expensive
Depending on what you do for a living you may need that big ass truck.
Sure Sure…
This is lemmy where every time we see a big ass truck we assume the driver is an asshole who doesn’t need it. Working Outdoor Lawn and Garden at Lowe’s cured me of that attitude.
Funny enough, no one here would bitch about my beat up 2004 F150, despite the fact that my gas mileage is worse than every pavement princess out there.
Of course
Rush hour never ends.
(short for sadly no)
That’s longer though?
I haven’t filled my Chevy Volt’s gas tank in 3 months
Yeah …still waiting to refill the gas on my id4
Great car, I haven’t filled my Chevy Bolt with gas ever. 😂
Say what you will the Iran war has pushed many people and countries to renewable energy.
I honestly don’t completely understand the conservative agenda against renewable energy it allows independence at so many levels. Never have to see a gas pump again. Use the electricity from your house or a solar panel.
I think there’s a very simple explanation, the renewables as in solar and wind energy generation methods show that the world isn’t perfect, that even ignoring the basic notion that natural gas and coal generate CO2 emissions; natural gas, U-235 (used for nuclear power generation), and coal are of a finite supply.
That destroys their ideology that we live in this perfect world with infinite resources, because most conservatives come from a religious background. They are beyond condescending (I know this because I lived in one), even with the world crumbling from gas prices and food, I don’t think they’ll even give a damn that prices are exponentially growing. They live in this fabricated environment abstracted away from the rest of the world.
We have enough minable nuclear fuel to sustain our current power needs for a couple billion years. And with enough technological gains, we can extend that to well past the time that the sun has died. Hence, it is safe to consider it renewable.
Doesn’t invalidate your point, but I just wanted to point this nugget of info out.
Each uranium rod has a life of around 6 years before needing replacement, the relative abudance of uranium-235 is about 0.9% compared to uranium 238 which has 98℅
Sure, the decay chain of uranium 235 is long, but the usability of in converting it to nuclear power the uranium rods last 6 years, not billions.
Even if we take all our uranium-235 reserves (which is about 56,304 kilo-tonnes of uranium-235)
1.) It’s unrealistic because we use U-235 for other things 2.) This is a global reserve. Countries haven’t made peace with another yet.
I know niche points, i’ll admit I really dug through the barrel with this one. Nuclear power plants are also quite expensive to maintain and build since these are often built based on the selected site. Also very inefficient as each reaction loses 1.4 neutrons (or else kaboom).
These reasons are why (despite it generating 17℅ of the US electricity with only 92 reactors), countries don’t invest more into nuclear power. Inefficiency + large costs make it unappealing compared to wind which generates 40℅ or even 60℅ (with offshore) of the energy the wind pushes.
UK here, I had solar panels and a battery installed. My electric bill has gone from being £100-£150 a month down to £20. And that’s with an electric car.
Estonia here, electric bill ~300 EUR in the winter here, once I get the entire house heated using a heat pump and get an electric car, it might be more like 600-700 EUR. But solar panels are useless in the winter here.
Meanwhile in the season where I could have solar panels produce all of my electricity, my bill is well under 100€ and I couldn’t sell the electricity to the grid either unless I have a big ass battery to sell only at night when the price is actually a positive number lol
Are you sure about them not working?
Its been cloudy here all day and they were still generating a kilowatt per hour at around 11am.
Also, we have tariffs here where electricity in the day is more expensive but its dirt cheap at night. So when the battery needs it, I top it up overnight from the grid. 10kwh costs me £0.80p (1€) instead of £3.50 (5€). Do you have anything like that?
That far north the winter nights are long and the sun less intense. Still, they’ll make some power, even if cloudy.
Mount your panels vertically, and just get more of them. The panels are the cheap part and as long as you stay under the max open voltage you can keep adding more to match your inverter
I honestly don’t completely understand the conservative agenda against renewable energy
Because they’re owned by the oil companies, simple as that.
This, 100%.
Trying to tie this to any aspect of conservative “ideology” is misguided, because conservatives don’t have a consistent ideology.
And that’s where we realize that the two party system is hollow and doesn’t actually represent anything other than greed
If the GOP actually stood for tradition, we would go back to single income households
If the GOP actually stood for self-determination, anyone could change their gender on legal documents
If the GOP actually stood for hard work and personal responsibility, taxes would be proportionately higher for the mega rich, and the working class would be getting proper compensation
If the GOP actually stood for the 2nd amendment, Alex Pretti wouldn’t have been shot to death simply for having a gun on his waist
If the GOP actually stood for Christianity, there would be homes for the homeless everywhere
If the GOP actually stood for isolationism, then this country would not be practicing genocidal foreign policy
And if the GOP actually stood for small government, well there wouldn’t be this whole… craziness
Edit: why the booing? If I’m wrong then tell me why you think that
Any downvotes are people thinking you’re promoting “they’re both the same”. Though I’m not sure why you called out the two party system and only highlighted the GOP.
Well we’re on the subject of the GOP, so of course I’ll be focusing on their contradictions. If I gave the democratic party a similar treatment then I’d be writing an essay
And donalds & musks shenanigans have solidified the EU and the fight for democracy and independence too.
I think at this point it’s fair to say that they are just dumb as fuck. Imagine for a second you live in your house, that generates it’s own electricity, the electricity is used to heat your home and water via heat pump. The same electricity is fueling your car over night. Electricity is out, no, not for you it isn’t.
Somwhow they got convinced that this is terrible, your car doesn’t make a loud wrooom anymore? Fuck you! Then they take away the gas stoves that gives them cancer? NO!
Genuine independence on an individual level is at odds with nationalism
But green energy represents independence on a national level as well, should be a no-brainer for any given ideology.
Well no, because some ideologies require people to be dependent and easily controlled so that they won’t discard the ideology for being garbage.
- It’s change from the norm they’ve grown up on. Change is antithetical to conservatism.
- Identity. Conservatism is more tribal.
- Red team vs. blue team - if it harms the “other” then it’s probably good. With a helping of “I want you to hurt like me” mixed in.
We lost the conservatives when Carter espoused it and Reagan dismissed it.
Comrade Trump has made public statements on the billions the US oil industry has profited during his reign.
I would agree with you for every country besides America. In America, especially in states like Indiana, you’re completely dependent on gas because there’s no other way to get to your job. So it does nothing to stop car usage and only finanically cripples people who are already barely keeping their face above water.
I bet you in Indiana it’s still 50% (or more) stupid sized trucks or SUVs. Higher gas prices will:
- force people to carpool
- buy more fuel efficient cars (literally happened everywhere else decades ago)
- buy EVs
- take public transit
And then the very small minority who can’t do those things, they pay the higher prices for their gas guzzlers.
Why do you think monster pickup trucks only exist in the USA? Pickups exist in other counties, but they’re sensibly sized with smaller engines. Other counties figured out many decades ago that it’s the most efficient (cost-wise and emission-wise) to use a vehicle appropriate to the job, instead of getting the biggest extended-bed, 4 door crew cab, 5.8 litre 8 cylinder truck with oversized offroading tires to pickup the damn groceries.
The F150 comes in a WIDE range of engine options. The most fuel efficient is close to an average ICE car.
You’re pulling the typical lemmy bullshit where you assume every pavement princess you see isn’t a working truck. Working at Lowe’s dispelled that nonsense for me.
Living in Canada and having travelled to the US frequently (before covid), I see that 90+% of trucks on the road are unnecessary. Most jobs that people use trucks for can be accomplished using more fuel efficient vehicles. And if necessary, get a trailer.
The vast majority of trucks and SUVs are in cities, because that’s where most people live. And most of those are pavement princesses.
Working at Lowe’s dispelled that nonsense for me.
So one of a handful of places where people who actually use their trucks for the actual thing they are literally built for would congregate to use their trucks for truck things. And that’s not a biased perspective how?
The most fuel efficient is close to an average ICE car.
The most sold F150 engine is the 3.5L EcoBoost v6. It gets a rated 12.4 L/100 km, which means in reality it gets closer to 14 or 15.
Your average car is going to be under 10 L/100 km, with many cars getting under 8. That’s a very big difference and not at all “close”.
Hybrid cars do even better with many getting well under 5 L/100 km.
Edit: and for those people who “need” a truck that one or two times a year can rent a truck. Plenty of people do. I do it and I save a ton on the insurance and gas. The rental cost is the same as maybe one or two fill-ups with a truck.
Gas use is pretty elastic, even in Indiana.
If gas is expensive, people tend to buy more fuel-efficient cars (or even electric cars). They drive slower and more fuel efficient. They consider whether a trip is actually worth it and bundle trips. So e.g. instead of driving to the shop for a handful items every day they instead do a weekly shopping trip where they get everything they need for the week.
Just with changing your driving style you can often save a ton of fuel.
The increased prices also mean that shopping in general goes down. If you don’t have money for unnecessary garbage you buy less unnecessary garbage, thus again helping the economy.
So yes, even in Indiana where you have to drive to your job, higher fuel prices will lead to benefits for the environment.
Maybe this will help Americans get healthier then.
It won’t
What about EV’s? Is it a range issue? Makes me think why dont EV’s have solar panels slapped on them?
What about EV’s? Is it a range issue? Makes me think why dont EV’s have solar panels slapped on them?
Someone did the math on the Hyundai Ioniq 5’s solar roof when it came out and I think it was found that best case scenario you get like 5 km of range a day with good weather and the panels will pay off in 10 or 15 years.
Because the w/m2 of a solar panel in optimal conditions (3-400W/m2) when applied to the area of a car is a rounding error compared to the energy consumption of the vehicle itself (5000-20000Wh), and those optimal numbers are degraded massively by the fact that the car can point any direction, and for aerodynamic and style reasons the panel will not have optimal angles even when pointed the right way. Best you could do is offset the 12V load to some degree.
There are cars with panels on the roof but just do the math. It’s a drop in the bucket, unless you live in the tropics and drive very little.
I recently attended a lecture on dynamic charging of EVs. Theoretically speaking slapping a solar panel on a car to charge it is feasible, but by putting on solar panels it will add a lot more additional weight and will result in larger wind resistance.
The car would ultimately use more if not the same energy (with the additional energy supplied by the solar panel) then if it didn’t have it in the first place.
Whoever gave that lecture is more than a decade behind the times then. Flexible solar panels exist, and technically the solar cells themselves are very lightweight. It’s generally the protective glass that sandwiches the cells that make up most of the weight.
And these cars already exist. BYD, Hyundai Ionic 5, Toyota Prius Prime, etc, are all production cars with the option for a solar roof.
That article is from 5 years ago.
I don’t know about the rest of those, but the Hyundai Ioniq 5’s solar roof takes over a decade to pay off at average electricity prices. But if you keep your car parked in the sun for 2 or 3 months, you could get a full battery!
It’s a deceptively simple math problem. You only have so much surface area to cover in solar panels and solar panels only produce so much energy per square meter. You can fit maybe at most a kilowatt of solar panels onto a vehicle if we’re being generous, and those panels aren’t going to have optimum placement for power generation, and solar panels don’t generate their peak output for more than about an hour per day, so the rest of the time will be significantly less than that. Let’s be generous and say 3 kilowatt hours is being generated by those panels in an 8 hour workday of being parked in the sun.
3 kilowatt hours is a lot of energy, but let’s not forget that about 20% will be lost to battery and circuit inefficiency, so 2.6 kilowatts is ultimately useable. But here’s where it really falls apart: electric cars are extremely energy-hungry because cars in general are super inefficient. You’re literally moving a ton of plastic glass and steel around, accelerating and decelerating repeatedly, all to transport on average 1.2 humans. Electric cars consume about 150 watt hours per kilometer in their regulatory tests. Some are more efficient, some are less but no matter what it’s a ton of energy. That generous estimate of 2.6kwh will give you a whole 17 kilometers of range.
In short, the solar panels on electric vehicles are for show. They exist to trick buyers into believing they’re more efficient than they are, and probably they’ll help ensure a parked car doesn’t lose too much range just from sustaining itself while parked. Also private cars are an extremely inefficient method of transportation
the solar panels on electric vehicles are for show
I don’t think that’s a fair take. They are upfront that it provides a trickle charge. But that’s not what matters. Solar tech will get better over time. Eventually this sort of tech will meaningfully extend the range of EVs, and provide enough power in emergency situations.
Makes me think why dont EV’s have solar panels slapped on them?
Already have
You still need the credit and money to acquire one.
Same is true about gas cars, no?
My diesel wagon cost me under 2k EUR. Point me to a similarly useful (no i-miev or leaf!) EV for under 10k?
Gas cars are more numerous having been the norm for over a century. They’re much cheaper and more plentiful on the used market. You’re less likely to find an EV on marketplace or Craigslist, I’ve never seen one there.
What do you mean? I LOVE spending $350/mo on gas!! I’m in Illinois, I feel INs pain.
I just bought an electric scooter that goes 20mph, it’ll take 30 minutes to get to work, when it’s not cold or snowy, but saving a tank of gas a month is $100 right there. I’ve already saved multiple trips to the local grocery store with little pick ups here and there. Looking forward to more fuel saving!
Even in places like that, it might cause people to avoid additional, less necessary, car trips.
If you’re too poor to drive to work, you’re helping the climate by reducing fuel burning and eventually the oxygen and food you take up being alive by not being able to afford to live.
I fear if you tally up the environmental impact of war, which is more often than not the reason for the rising oil price, it may exceed the savings at the end consumer level.
Yeah I wish the price had gone up without the war, then it would have really been a benefit.
I want gas prices to keep going up to insane levels as quickly as possible. A major acute pain will cause change.
You’re asking for even more financial stress for probably closer to a billion people who are already struggling. The rich do not care what the fuel costs.
They say the populace is 3 meals away from a revolution at any given time. Ripping the band-aid off seems to me like the only way forward at this point.
There’s only so much you can change urban sprawl. In the US especially, high gas prices just mean people who are middle-class or below can’t afford to get to work. Last summer, 6% of my salary after tax went into the commute to and from the office.
You can change a ton. Especially in an urban sprawl environment.
Urban sprawl means it’s comparatively easy for people to get PV, heat pumps for heating/cooling and EV chargers at home.
With that, you make yourself completely independent of high gas prices.
Yes, it has high up-front costs, but the long-term benefits are massive. And with enough pain comes political momentum, which can be used to get state subsidies for that kind of stuff and that way you and your country can become independent of importing fossil fuels while at the same time reducing harm to the climate.
And yes, it needs to hurt quite bad first to cause such a big systematic change.
it has high up-front costs, but the long-term benefits are massive
And that’s where the Sam Vimes theory of socioeconomic unfairness comes into play.
People driving cars are a tiny fraction compared to billionaires and their private jet usage. They can afford any price. More expensive fuel only affects poor people.
Poor people are a tiny fraction compared to billionaires per capita.
But not in total. There are much more poor people than billionaires, and even if each billionaire produces 50 000x the emmisions that a poor person does, all in all the emmissions of poor people are quite relevant too.
(From an equality standpoint obviously billionaires should be emmission-capped or taxed to the point that they aren’t billionaires anymore, there’s no question about that. But poor people’s emmissions are still significant and more than relevant to the climate.)
True but The climate doesn’t care about equality, only emissions.
Higher oil prices also drive electric adoption and overall less consumption as general retail prices rise to reflect transportation costs. Its hard to call deprivation a good thing because people suffer, but if it reduces consumption and waste of resources it is a net benefit for sustainability, just not a politically desirable method.
One would think so, in theory. Reality shows so far that too many people can’t easily and meaningfully decrease their fuel consumption and will just have to find the money somewhere. And the big consumers just raise the prices of the products they ship to compensate.
What I understand from this is the price isn’t high enough then.
And it doesn’t impact worldwide freight, private jets, or military consumption.
It only really affects trucking, ships and trains are so big compared to the amount of fuel they use.
