yes, hybrids are not that great yet. but maybe as the tech gets better they will be efficient. when i was in college i had two vehicles. a toyota tercel for riding with my peeps, and a motorcycle for solo commutes. both got incredible gas mileage, and their combined cost was much less than the cars most poeple drive. it really inst that hard to avoid high gas prices. but then again i am not into conspicious consumption and i dont need to drive a tank. not that tanks arent cool. they are, but whining isnt. (yes i know gas prices are also reflected in the things i buy, i am only talking about direct gas purcheses right now)
just go get the oil from mcdonalds after they are done with it. i can't get a diesel honda accord. i can only get diesel in the biggest and ugliest heavy duty trucks and some ugly volkswagen and bmw sedans.
well when you have kids the smallest thing you can reasonably have is a minivan. im getting by with an accord right now but i will have to buy at least a van in the next couple of years as the kids get bigger. sucks i know but toyota and honda both make hybrid minivans and small suvs.
Don't worry, Uncle Sam to the rescue! Reps want to give us a whopping $100 rebate. The dems propose a 60 day gasoline tax holiday. At 18.4 cents per gallon, that would be about $30 savings for me. Gotta love election year politics...
you are spoiled. 4 adults can fit in an accord. accords are perfectly good cars for families. i definitely dont blame you for wanting something bigger, i am only saying that our own cravings for more than we need are the cause of our whining about oil prices. and for those times when you are alone, i bet you have a lot of fun on a motorcycle. you might die, but the fun and savings is worth the risk.
I have a cousin who used to be the head of the geological survey Dept. for the State of Louisiana back in the 1970's. They were looking into ways to extract natural gas from sea water. He said that the big oil companies bought the company doing the research and squelched it . By now they might have found a way to do it cheap enough but the big oil companies will never let that happen. New technology will never be allowed to be developed until the big oil companies figure out a way to make their money from it. They are too large and own too many politicians. I bet we would all be surprised to find out how much they have blocked new inventions that would make the oil based engine obselete.
I have 2 sisters and all of us and my parents drove around in a tiny ass 1990 mustang and later in a life a small neon. You don't have to have a van unless you have more than 3 kids or your kids are heavyset and you can only fit 2 in the backseat.
Natural gas from seawater? That's news to me. Perhaps you mean methane hydrates in deep-water deposits and in permafrost. DOE funded research has continued in that area and is still being investigated by the US Geological Survey and others. LINK: National Energy Technology Laboratory It is virtually impossible for an oil company to squelch an energy technology because federal and university research efforts lead to open publishing of findings. They could perhaps buy out a small company trying to develop these resources, but it would likely be to develop the resource itself, not to squelch it.
its of course an issue of comfort. when you have little ones, it becomes extremely difficult to fit three carseats in the back at one time. my four year old weighs 60 pounds. hes off the charts both height and weight wise.
