Gas Shortages Throughout the Southeast More than a week after Hurricane Ike, there's little or no gas around much of the American Southeast. [more inside]
posted by mygothlaundry on Sep 23, 2008 - 84 comments

Fuelly tracks your gas mileage over time, helping you save fuel and expenses as you drive.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Aug 21, 2008 - 52 comments

Petroleum Industry Christmas Wishlist Conservative pundits are quick to point out that no "new refineries have been built since 1976", and even quicker to blame "environmentalists". But the facts just don't support that. Refiners have chosen the environment that they do business in, and in some cases have willingly contributed to it. (Plenty of data here.) Here's why:

• The government has allowed the industry to merge, consolidate, and restrict refining capacity, thus impacting pricing, supply, and demand.
• The quest for profits has caused the need to run extremely lean supplies (ie. no stockpiles of crude - it arrives when you need it, not before) and has resulted in susceptability to wild volatility in prices, but has allowed refiners to operate at very high efficiency but with no margin of excess capacity for temporary shortages, disasters, etc.
• Oil refiners trimmed back capacity after the Oil Crash of the early 1980s and have been unwilling to reinvest in new technologies unless environmental restrictions and local fuel cleanliness mandates are reduced.

As one would expect, Bush's solutions nicely match up with the wishlists of OPEC and US refiners, who in the past few decades have largely undone the breakup of Standard Oil (via) via mergers and joint ventures. Representative Joe Barton, (R-TX), Chairperson of the Energy and Commerce Committee, incidentally up for reelection and well funded, by "the industry" through various Political Action Committees, has released a draft of the predictably named (to be found here when released) Gasoline for America's Security Act of 2005 (committee discusion and webcast are scheduled for 9/28 at 8 am.) Given that new refineries are years away, there is still no solution for current prices or the (90%?) increase in prices since January of 2001.
posted by rzklkng on Sep 27, 2005 - 22 comments

Resource wars and gas rations, what will be next ? I bet you didn't know we gobble oil like two-legged SUV's.
posted by graytopia on Aug 31, 2005 - 20 comments

Gas prices too high? Try Europe. $7 a gallon? That's what drivers in Amsterdam pay. But Europeans have long adapted to high prices.
posted by Postroad on Aug 28, 2005 - 117 comments

$400 Dollars (yes, that's four hundred) is the price per gallon of gas for our military. The cost of moving fuel to a war theater can boost its price to about $10 dollars per gallon. And if it has to be airlifted in, that price tag can reach $400 dollars a gallon or more. This story is the opening piece on this week's edition of Living on Earth on NPR. Read the transcript here, or listen via MP3 or Real Player.
posted by bluedaniel on Apr 12, 2003 - 13 comments

Sure, we all know the story about how Detroit developed, and then kept under wraps, a 100mpg carburetor is false. However, affordable 80mpg family sedans are real: behold the Supercar! They are the results of a nearly decade-long partnership between The Big Three and the Clinton administration. However the program was quietly shelved last June, the victim of the Bush administration, and corporate backpedaling. Read the whole sordid tale here. [use username/password for login] In the meantime, you'll have to settle for one of these.
posted by thewittyname on Dec 13, 2002 - 22 comments

VW introduces a car that gets around 235 miles per gallon (1 liter per 100km).
When should we expect Ford to release a commercial in which the newest heir to the auto dynasty relates how his father shot bears with Einstein and was told by him, in confidence, that he thought small cars were for whiny little babies?
posted by internetgeniuses on Apr 17, 2002 - 48 comments

If you're on the road this summer and on a budget, you might want to check out Gas Price Watch. Volunteers report on gas prices in their area around the country and in Canada.
posted by aflakete on Jun 1, 2001 - 4 comments

He gives a whole new meaning to the word "Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy." NY Times
posted by crunchland on May 1, 2001 - 138 comments