tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7561631984395061740.post4172311468535032974..comments2023-10-22T06:15:30.760-04:00Comments on Boomer Musings: Don't think about it, just get madDouglashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09752593286034877538noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7561631984395061740.post-77946346840847757992011-05-01T08:16:14.504-04:002011-05-01T08:16:14.504-04:00We won't find it by driving up the cost artifi...We won't find it by driving up the cost artificially. We won't find it until <br />we have to. Until it really becomes a scarce commodity. Just as we moved <br />from whale oil to petroleum. We may never find it. Seems to me that <br />alternative fuels would have been developed years ago if they were viable, <br />reasonably priced, and abundant. In fact, look at the early years of the <br />automobile. We had electric cars and even steam powered ones. They failed to <br />perform and then failed in the marketplace. When I was a young man, gas was <br />cheap (under 25 cents a gallon) and cars got around 16-20 MPG. These were <br />full size cars, with bumpers that were made of steel, not fiberglass. With <br />bodies you couldn't dent with your fist. Strong cars , heavy cars. Now I <br />drive a mid-size car that gets 28 MPG on the highway and 14 in town. And <br />would be totaled by a collision over 10 MPH. And gas is running about $3.86 <br />for regular here.<br /><br />Gas will continue to go up until our tolerance level is reached. It will <br />then drop down to quite a bit higher than it was before this round of <br />increases started. We play games like subsidizing alternative energy sources <br />but it's not going to accomplish anything until the price of gas is out of <br />reach for the average consumer. And guess what? That will never happen. <br />Because we adapt, we take the price increases because we have no choice, and <br />we continue on.<br /><br />Air quality has greatly improved since I was a child. So are lakes and <br />rivers. We live longer, on average, than our parents and grandparents and <br />we're healthier overall.The war I was in had nothing to do with oil. We lost <br />more good men in that war in one year than we have lost in all these <br />so-called "wars for oil."<br /><br />Life is not simple. It is complex. It is constant trade-offs.Douglas4517noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7561631984395061740.post-21650692960689289122011-04-30T15:03:15.259-04:002011-04-30T15:03:15.259-04:00As much as it pains me to spend $60 to fill up my ...As much as it pains me to spend $60 to fill up my tank, if you think about it, $4 for a gallon of gasoline is actually pretty cheap when you consider the cost of finding the oil, digging it up, refining it, and sending it to the local gas station, while taking precautions not to spill any of it or let any of it blow up. And that doesn't even count the cost of building and maintaining the roads, of the cops who patrol traffic, of the EMT's who pick up the pieces when people speed and get in accidents -- oh, and of sending troops to the Middle East to secure our oil supplies. And it also doesn't count the pollution we send into the skies, and into our lungs, which causes all kinds of harm that we're not even sure about.<br /><br />There oughta be a better way to get around. Hopefully we'll figure it out before we go bankrupt or choke ourselves to death.Sightingsnoreply@blogger.com