Fuel and Energy Alternatives

More fuel efficient cars are coming in all shapes and sizes now. Hybrid is a catch phrase that many dealers are pushing. Is it time to buy a hybrid though? The last time I did the math on the difference in cost (taking into account tax rebates for the hybrid). It didn’t make sense to spend the extra money unless gas went up to 8 dollars a gallon or I drove twice as much a year. (Or I kept it for 10-15 years.)

So, when does it make sense to buy a hybrid?

(more…)

I haven’t looked around too much, but saw a price of $1.98 at the Woodland Hills (19/23 New Stock Road Exit) Ingles. (The other gas station there has it cheaper with a car wash.)

This is the first time I’ve seen the price under $2 in I don’t know when.

Here’s hoping we see $1.50 gas by Christmas. (Of course, I’d take it if it were lower too.)

We can’t let the lower prices though make us lax with our gas saving habits and the true need for more domestic production and development of alternatives! So, keep using gasoline carefully and let’s keep looking at alternatives and domestic production so we can stop sending so much money to the parts of the world that don’t have our best interests at heart.

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!

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.

(more…)

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.

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

(more…)

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…..