Yeah, liberals are the ones causing the oil crisis...there's some brilliant analysis

Anyway, technology will eventually shift away from gasoline IMO. Gasoline will likely be available for as long as its around, I think primarily for enthusiasts who have older vehicles like us. But I think we'll see a major shift in what powers normal, daily driven vehicles.

With that said however, all the car mags in the mid '70s predicted this would happen by the mid '80s, so who knows...we haven't run out of oil yet

 

That is a great point.

And I think the big oil companies know exactly what they are doing. Why would they want a solution found? They are making way too much money on oil right now.

 

It's a shame that the Gov't only seems to want to spend money on "proven" methods or theories.
All the "New" discoveries or breakthroughs seem to begin in the private sectors.

If I were a CEO of an oil company, it seems I'd being working hard on "New" fuels, cells or conversion units, as everyone is speculating that fossil fuel is going to peak or has peaked.

I know BP has commercial out about alternative fuel research, but not much from the larger ones.

Where's the self preservation of the oil companies future's?
What's after oil for them?

 

Well, I'm not sure if this dude qualifies as an "environmental fear monger":

That's from ConocoPhillips CEO Jim Mulva.

That's from Thierry Desmarest, the CEO of Total. Based on his French-sounding name, I bet that he eats granola for breakfast and hangs out with dirty hippies on the weekend.

This quote is from Ernest Ronald Oxburgh. The way he uses his middle name suggests that he's a bit of a snob - maybe even a liberal blue-blood!

James W. Buckee, former CEO of Talisman Energy. Given the fact that this is a Canadian company, it's surely not reliable information.

To be perfectly honest, these quotes are indeed cherry-picked, and there exists no small number of quotes from other oil execs stating that there is no immediate problem (of course, that requires one to define "immediate"). But it's intellectual dishonest to suggest that the risk of an oil supply crutch is just a boogyman constructed by environmentalists. There's much about this issue that's not releated in any way to concerns over global warming; instead, a lot of this is just a matter of petrogeology and the fact that what we've consumed in 100 years took 100 millions years to create.

Ignore that at your own risk.

 

Eventually we're going to have to find a renewable fuel source for our vehicles. Gasoline is not going to be around forever.

 

100% agreed.

 

It's this sort of environmental fear-mongering that's going to prevent me from driving a 6,000lb vehicle so that my 180lb self feels "safe".

 

The more I think about this topic, the more I'm inclined to think that as long as the competition doesn't offer hi-po cars, then that's good reason why GM should stop building them!

Conversely, GM should keep offering performance as long as everyone else is doing it while meeting emission requirements.

PS How do blown engines meet emissions more easily than do NA engines? My understanding is that it's not as straight forward as that.

 

Meeting modern emission requirements with any engine is not an easy task, and forced-induction engines tend to be more difficult to calibrate due to their additional degrees of freedom (every variable that's added will multiply the required calibration time and effort).

But who mentioned anything about emissions in this thread? Meeting emission requirements isn't a problem within the industry. Improving fuel economy, however, most certainly is a problem. Forced induction shows much promise here.

 

So you're saying GM should just follow the crowd and do whatever they do? That's definitely not the way to get ahead in this game. GM (or any automaker) should offer performance cars as long as it makes a business sense, period. It doesn't matter what their competition does. If GM can offer, say, a Camaro Z28 that gets only 25 mpg, but makes enough money either to pay CAFE fines or subsidize enough economy cars to avoid fines, and still make a profit, then that is what they should do. Emission requirements are just a red herring because all cars must meet them; there's no just paying fines like there is if you don't meet CAFE.

 

Yeah, all his talk about Global warming being our fault, yet he "flies" to Oslo and back to recieve the Nobel Prize...typical Gore
It might have been more impressed if he just would've teleconferenced and had them ship it.

 

Congress is looking at new legislation for the real reason oil prices are spiking.....speculators looking for a quick buck. Talk of things such as limiting the amount one can buy and lengthening the amount of time one has to hold a contract are being discussed to curb the roughly 40% speculation fee that is currently in the price of a barrel of oil. Even with the market adequately supplied speculators continue to cause the raising of prices through fear mongering and any little reason to cause prices to rise.

 

Yeah I saw that that hearing. It's a good explanation to a point, but doesn't negate the importance of this and other legislation to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. It's that dependence creating an environment in which specuators can thrive.

In general, I think it's important for Congress not to get smug (as they are so used to doing) and think, "Well we solved foriegn oil dependency." This CAFE legislation is important, but isn't really going to solve anything. Higher fuel efficiency really means people are going to drive more, negating most of the legislation's effects. We really need that multi-pronged effort to attact the fuel problem from all directions. I think the Volt is emblematic of the sort of strategy we need.

 

No. That's not what I'm saying. To reiterate, if the competition is able to offer performance then there is no excuse for GM not to... is what I'm saying.

I hope that the OHV V8s are good enough to continue to pass every tightening emissions regulations. The point someone here made is that 'we should expect more power adders, in future' or words to the effect, implying that it's easier to pass emission laws with boosted engines. I'm wondering if there is any truth to that 'assumption'.

 

So the global warming speculation is actually innuendo started by the oil companies? Sounds like an oxymoron?

We all know there is no reason why oil prices should be this high. None of the 'excuses' conjured up by the oil companies ever makes sense to me. It's really an insult to my intelligence to accept the crap they publish through the various news agencies.

I'm hoping people don't just accept reasons without questioning them first.