gas prices

Sam Pulcrano, Vice President, Sustainability, United States Postal Service (USPS) is interviewed about sustainability initiatives at the US Postal Service, including recycling, energy efficiency, and the new business opportunities sustainability brings.

Soaring gas prices have motivated people to do some positive things from driving more efficiently to looking for alternative fuels to heat their homes. These tough times also motivate people to do some strange things that raises eyebrows or in some cases things that make Bill O’Reilly seem sane. Here are 5 unusual things you wouldn't see if gas was $1.38 a gallon…

It seems like everywhere you go, people are talking (complaining) about the cost of gasoline. From the natural food coop to Twitter, everyone is wondering how many hours they will have to work to fill up their gas tank. There is one person who remains clueless as to what Americans are paying at the pump:  John McCain.

How to Boil a Frog's FrogBlog points out how Society somehow seems to suffer from all the same character flaws that we do, leaving us speeding towards the twin cliffs of peak oil & climate change.

Peak Oil Nashville founder Gigi Gaskins talks about the process of dealing with the onset of peak oil on an emotional level.

Those trendy Californians… Recent jumps in gas prices have seemingly driven them [sic] to adopt a new chic habit: letting their cars run out of fuel on the highway. Allstate has announced that the number of Californians running out of gas on the highway jumped 17% in the first 5 months of 2008 compared to the same time period in 2007.

King Abdullah sat on a well.

King Abdulla had a great swell.

All the King's camels and all the Kings' men,

Couldn't put OPEC together again.

Cars.com has announced that for the first time ever, the Toyota Prius has become the most searched for new vehicle on the popular vehicle classifieds site — surpassing long time favorites such as the Accord and Camry.

Not only that, their top ten list for new car searches (see below) now contains mostly fuel-sippers including the Honda Civic, Toyota Corolla, Honda Civ

Rising gas prices are ridding the roads of recreational vehicles (RVs and campers), and are also hurting organizations like Meals on Wheels where volunteers deliver meals to the elderly and invalids. Two articles on these topics are discussed.

Cool idea.

Now that the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline has finally hit the $4 mark, it is probably a good time to reflect on how far our perspective regarding the price of gas has changed over the last year or so.

Think paying $100,000 for an electric car is obscene? How about $100K for an F-250? The NYTimes reported last week that if you account for total ownership of a full-sized truck, including insurance, interest, repairs, taxes, and gasoline, a big vehicle like Ford’s F-250 will now set you back $100,000 in the first five years of ownership. Five years is the average amount of time an owner keeps one of these trucks.

Chrysler has recently launched its “Let’s Refuel America” campaign in which it claims to offer Americans protection from rising gas prices. Anyone buying a Chrysler in the month of May will get the deal. Here’s how it works: each qualifying buyer will get a ‘gas card’ that has been linked to their own credit card, but when they gas-up they will only pay $2.99 a gallon with Chrysler charged the difference.

In the midst of rampant unemployment, and a bleak economic forecast the outlook for the summer of 2008 is grim at best. Housing prices continue to drop, while commodity prices continue to rise, and gas prices, ugh well lets just say gas is becoming out of reach for many if not all Americans. The economist inside of me is tempted to say this is a good thing, after all rising gas prices will lead consumers to switch to now relatively cheaper greener substitutes such as hybrid vehicles such as the Toyota Prius.

Most people have probably never heard of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves (SPR) maintained by the US department of energy currently housing more then 727 million barrels of crude oil. The reserves were originally created to mitigate future petroleum supply disruptions during the 73-74 oil embargo. With the oil embargo long past the reserves now seem rather foolish.