Fuel and Energy Alternatives

You’ve probably heard a fair amount about the “Pickens Plan“. So, what is it?

Essentially, the idea is to bolster domestic electrical production with a massive investment in wind turbines through the wind corridor between Texas and North Dakota. All vehicles under the plan would be fueled by biofuels and natural gas. Clean fuels that we can have abundant supplies of. There are already Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV’s) and the price of natural gas is lower than that of gasoline (even $1 a gallon in some areas) not to mention that it burns cleaner.

Ultimately…. here’s what I think all of this gets at.

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Today I saw gas under $2.50 a gallon ($2.46 to be exact.) So, the price is still working it’s way down. I’m hoping it will get down another 20-30 cents by Thanksgiving.

On the downside for some people, I have seen news stories of people that “locked in” heating oil prices back in the summer because “everyone knows that the prices will keep going up.” Unfortunately for these people they took a risk and will be paying the price with higher heating oil and fuel costs this winter. This is no different from the oil futures market speculation. Sometimes you put your money where your prediction is and you get burned.

In the Asheville area of North Carolina we seem to be recovering from the recent shortages quite well. I’ve seen a few places selling gas for as little as 2.99 a gallon or so which is the first time in a while we’ve been on the low side of 3 dollars per gallon. I’m seeing news reports that this is a national trend and hopefully we’ll all be seeing the price down in the low 2 dollars per gallon soon. I know the current economic uncertainty is having some bearing on the matter, but lower gasoline prices really should help our overall economic situation as it cuts costs for people that need to 1) get to work or 2) need to move goods from point a to point b among other things.

While the Chevrolet Volt is a hybrid that is still not available for purchase, there are ways of converting existing cars to be VERY high mileage hybrids. Some can get as much as 100 miles per gallon. Essentially, there are companies selling a retrofit kit for existing hybrids like the Toyota Prius and Ford Escape. The kits can run from $5000 up to $35,000 but mileage can average around $100 per gallon. Depending on your vehicle usage this could be a fantastic upgrade!

Things have really improved in the last two weeks over the Asheville area. There are fewer locations that are just out of gas. Few have premium or Hi test these days, most every place I’ve seen has regular though. I’ve also seen prices start to drop. The lowest I saw was today at 3.04 a gallon. Just this morning I was seeing 3.49 a gallon at the same station. So, things really are improving in Asheville and from what I can tell, the rest of the southeast. I’m looking forward to the price drop continuing under $3 per gallon soon hopefully.