Check this guy out.

[Lane]

[paulson games]

Woooh Chicago having the most expensive gas in the US! Average is $4.67 a gallon which is a record gas price, about $1 per gallon more than this time last year. (a few places are over $5) During the summer it's expected to be as high as a dollar more per gallon which could make it come close to $6. ugh

I'm glad I live like a hermit and hardly drive. The public transportation sucks and if you don't live in downtown chicago you have to drive as there's no option for suburb travel other than to drive, a few places are along the train lines but everything is schedualed early morning or after work so you're stuck during the day without a car.

One of my friends has a 60 mile commute to his job, spend the better part of 90 minutes driving each way. So he's spends basically 3 hours a day driving and fills up 2-3 times a week, these prices are killing him, for what he's paying in gas he could probably pay rent on a cheap apartment.

[Lane]

About a decade ago a friend of mine moved to California. The closest he could find an affordable place to live ($2000/month for a two bedroom apartment) was 45 miles from work. He was lucky his work day started at 6am. Even that early he had to leave for work a bit early. He said leave at XX time and it takes 45 min, leave 30 min later and it takes 1.5 hrs, leave 1 hr late and it would take 3 hrs.

One of the jokes about the economy I saw was "you know the economy is bad when you see two white people on the bus". Sadly enough it's almost true, public transportation here is so bad only the poorest people use it.

I find it humorous when people say "we need to break our dependence on oil", "we need more renewable energy", "we need electric cars", "electric cars would save us from high gas prices".

The people who suffer the most from high fuel prices are the low income working class. People who can not afford a $40k hybrid vehicle let alone a $50k electric.

Electric cars place the "fuel" load on the power grids which are already near limit. I've heard the US power grid, at current demand growth will be overloaded within 5-10 years. Some areas already have rolling brown outs in the summer.

The fastest and cheapest way to expand power generation is petroleum fueled generators.

Wind power may have a free fuel source but the land and equipment is expensive. IIRC wind power is 20% more expensive, after government subsidies, to produce than the average of all other electrical power sources. Commercial wind power generation requires very specific wind condition making 90% of the country impractical.

Ethanol fuel for cars, great idea. Last I checked E85 was about 80% the price of gasoline, after govt subsidies. It also provides fewer miles/ gallon than gasoline. Net effect is E85 is about 20% more expensive.

[mangozac]

Wow this really makes our complaining about fuel prices moot! When I read horror stories about city traffic it makes me even more grateful that I only have to drive 15 mins to work!

Lane I agree with you about the outlook for power technologies. Our government (along with many others) is doing a big push for grid connected photovoltaic solar (so no storage capacity), but the problem is that this does nothing for peak demand, which occurs on dusk when the solar panels have stopped generating!

I believe it would be far, far more beneficial for the government to invest in thermal solar systems with molten salt storage. And ultimately I hold promise for Thorium based reactors produced in a small enough size that they are distributed and supply individual suburbs or even houses.

[Lane]