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Automotive News & Views How does gas at $4 and higher impact you?
2183 messages, Last post on Nov 21, 2009 at 5:13 PM
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Replying to: kdhspyder (Sep 23, 2008 4:40 pm) $4/gal gas to us is relatively $16/gal to them. If gas goes up $0.50/gal to $4.50, it has 4X the effect on developing countries. Lower income people and countries are forced to "blink", and demand decreases. It is the same thing in this country right now. Lower income people either didn't have money for gas, or they're skimping on other things to buy gas, while people who are better-off maybe don't really care about the price now. It all comes down to personal income. And China and India and such have much larger populations but their economy isn't as large as the U.S. So on a per capita basis U.S. citizens will be able to afford gas/oil long after people making $5,000 - $10,000/ year "blink".
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Replying to: kernick (Sep 24, 2008 9:18 am) |
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Replying to: 1stpik (Sep 22, 2008 5:56 pm) It's worse than that. Back in the late 70's we looked into the possibility of going off grid with our own wind system. The cost was staggering. Worse though were the government roadblocks. A structure high enough to gather worthwhile wind was taller than allowed by zoning laws. It would have required about 100K in studies, permits and variances to get approval. In effect the local government talked a good game about conservation but when put to the test told us to "drop dead". I doubt things have changed much in the last 30 years.
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Replying to: kernick (Sep 24, 2008 9:18 am) I think the evidence disputes that thought. It's not merely "lower income people" who are driving 11 billion fewer miles each month. It's people from MOST economic levels, possibly excepting the very very rich. ( Although P Diddy recently said he's not flying his private plane nearly as often these days, since it was costing him about $200K per flight. ) Maybe ALL income levels have felt the effect. Regardless, it's good that we are moving away from gasoline excesses. We have enough excess consumption in this country, so anything that reduces our excess is a good thing in most people's views. |
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Replying to: oldfarmer50 (Sep 24, 2008 9:29 am)
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Replying to: gagrice (Sep 24, 2008 9:40 am) There was a case in CA recently where a neighbor had a tree blocking another neighbor's solar panel, and the solar panel guy won the case. Tree had to be cut so it would not block the panels. I think your "solar enemies" opinion for CA is flawed. I think there are FAR more people pushing solar than there are anti-solar agendas. I can look it up and post proof if you want, but that is my "shoot-from-the-hip" quickie opinion. P.S. Found something. Looks like the "localized opposition" is just upset that they might be putting large solar arrays out on open desert land. The don't oppose solar power - they just prefer it to be "rooftop" installations and not to be just taking up space in the open desert. NY Times story Terry Frewin, the chairman of the Sierra Club’s California/Nevada desert committee, wrote to the club’s executive director, Carl Pope, in July, criticizing him for backing large-scale solar projects. “Remote solar arrays destroy all native resources on site, and have indirect and irreversible impacts on surrounding wildernesses,” Mr. Frewin wrote. He urged the Sierra Club to embrace distributed generation as an alternative to the “industrial renewable” option. |
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Replying to: larsb (Sep 24, 2008 9:46 am) Just out of curiosity, what was there first? The tree or the solar panel? I could see if the solar panel had been there for ages and the neighbors planted a fast-growing tree that blocked it. But if the tree was there first, I say tough ta-ta's. Back in the 80's, the neighbors behind us got satellite tv. Unfortunately, the trees in our back yard, established old Poplar trees that were probably 80 feet tall, were blocking the signal, so they had someone cut them down...without our permission! That little stunt cost them about $4,000, as I recall. |
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Replying to: andre1969 (Sep 24, 2008 9:56 am)
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Replying to: larsb (Sep 24, 2008 9:46 am) |
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Replying to: grbeck (Sep 24, 2008 11:38 am) Redwood = Bad / Solar Panels = Good SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Call it an eco-parable: one Prius-driving couple takes pride in their eight redwoods, the first of them planted over a decade ago. Their electric-car-driving neighbors take pride in their rooftop solar panels, installed five years after the first trees were planted. Trees — redwoods, live oaks or blossoming fruit trees — are usually considered sturdy citizens of the sun-swept peninsula south of San Francisco, not criminal elements. But under a 1978 state law protecting homeowners’ investment in rooftop solar panels, trees that impede solar panels’ access to the sun can be deemed a nuisance and their owners fined up to $1,000 a day. The Solar Shade Act was a curiosity until late last year, when a dispute over the eight redwoods(a k a Tree No. 1, Tree No. 2, Tree No. 3, etc.) ended up in Santa Clara County criminal court. The couple who planted the trees, Carolynn Bissett and Richard Treanor, were convicted of violating the law, based on the complaint of their neighbor, Mark Vargas, and were ordered to make sure that no more than 10 percent of the solar panels are shaded. A few weeks after The San Jose Mercury News wrote about the situation, the first act ended with the couple pruning 10 feet to 15 feet of Tree No. 6’s upper branches. The event drew more cameras than an episode of “Extreme Home Makeover.” |
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