Fuel and Energy Alternatives

In the wake of Hurricane’s Ike and Gustav, fuel (gas or gasoline) supplies have been interrupted in the Southeast United States. Southern states such as North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee have seen some of the more severe shortages of fuel. Long gas lines have been reported in places such as Asheville, North Carolina, Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia.

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That is the headline that we see from this USA today story. In Asheville, NC things seem to have regulated somewhat from where we were the tail end of last week (2 hour long gas lines in some places, cars abandoned on highways out of fuel, city and county offices closing as well as local community colleges.) Things are better this week, but hopefully people will not take the opportunity to hoard, just get as much as you need to get a bit further through the week. (Many places are rationing, but there’s nothing to stop someone from turning around and going to two or three stations to “fill up” other than their own self-control. (hint hint)) There is more information on the situation in and around Asheville, NC on my Asheville NC Gas shortage page.

This is affecting a large part of the southeast including metro centers such as Charlotte, Atlanta, Chattanooga.

I’ve put together a page to hold all of the links and information I’ve been gathering on the Asheville North Carolina Gas shortage. Of course it’s more than just Asheville, but we seem to be one of the areas hardest hit by the current tight supply of fuel. I’ve got several breakdowns of where to find gas in the Asheville/Hendersonville/Mars Hill region as well as a place where you can report prices and availability. There’s a link to the Citizen-Times page on the current availability in case there’s something missing in my feeds and some news feeds on the Asheville gas shortage.

Sorry in advance for the slight disorganization to the site, I’ve been planning development here for a while and haven’t got all my ideas organized when the current shortage occurred, so I’ve just been trying to post information as I can around my work schedule to make this as usable as possible.

Page link should be here. It’s a bit lean now, but there are some good mileage and biodiesel links. More to be added as time allows.

I know I’ve come in kind of out of the blue to start working on this site. I don’t know how often there will be posts here, perhaps once a month or so. Currently I’m focusing on petroleum fuels because in our part of the country we are currently experiencing a severe gasoline shortage. (County and City Offices are closing for a couple days, the local Community College is cancelling classes, etc.) Ultimately though I envision this site as being a MUCH broader resource looking at ALL our fuel and energy potential whether it be petroleum based, or alternative energy sources. I’m hoping this can be a good gathering point resource for links to energy information. Thanks for visiting and stay tuned

Just caught this news. It looks as though the ban on offshore drilling in the United States will be allowed to expire. There is an expectation that there will be restrictions placed on offshore drilling (Florida offshore drilling is apparently controlled by separate bill.)

In the last several decades there has been an argument over the energy policy in the United States. On the one side there are efforts to allow for more oil discovery and drilling, greater refinery capacity, etc. The other side says NO drilling that fossil fuels are bad and we need to invest in their replacements. The problem is that in all of this there has been little real progress. Yes, our technologies are improving, but the reality is that we need to develop a broad, comprehensive and DIVERSE energy security plan. Drilling for more oil alone will not answer our energy problems, neither will investing in ONLY wind and solar. I’m not saying this to

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In the wake of Hurricane Ike, the southeast United States is still facing severe cash shortages. From what we hear the pipelines are not at full capacity yet. (Refineries aren’t completely back up from the shutdown.) Anyway, our area here in the mountains of Western North Carolina we have seen some fairly severe shortages, long lines at gas stations, etc. The local school systems seem to be canceling events after school due to the shortage. It’s affecting businesses as well. There are hopes that by the middle of next week things will be back to normal, but at the moment many of us are running on empty…..