Gas Problem Solved; let’s go drilling for more!

With oil at $115 a barrel and gas at $4.15 a gallon immediate gratification is on the minds of many, (especially our Pez….oops I mean Prez) and if by immediate you mean a probable 10-15 year wait before a possibility of a somewhat break in gas prices at the pump then offshore drilling is the answer!! Let’s lift the ban on offshore drilling to suck the yolk out of our planet so we can become an even more unstable egg shell, while polluting our skies to do just that. Great idea! Thanks for lifting the executive ban (http://mpinkeyes.wordpress.com/2008/07/14/president-bush-to-lift-executive-ban-on-offshore-drilling/) now let me run over to Congress and give them my two thumbs up. NOT!! The fact that polls show more Americans in favor of drilling in areas off-limits for decades scares me. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/108121/Majority-Americans-Support-Drilling-OffLimits-Areas.aspx) I’m worried about us…I’m worried that we can regress so easily when a little strain is put on our pocketbooks. Drilling for more to satiate our never ending thirst is not the answer…we are only treating the symptoms here and not curing the disease. Can’t we come up with something better? Oh wait… we have! Alternative fuels! Bicycles! Hybrid Technology! Even our own two feet could get us somewhere…but alas, we’re reticent to walk and quick to run into yet another environmental expunging. Every year since 1981 our ‘just say no’ policy on offshore drilling is renewed by congress. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/18/ST2008061801397.html) What about this year?

Are Fuel Options Truly Options?

Pull up to the pump, swipe my debit card, glug, glug, glug, look at my total for 10 gallons and promptly faint. $40 bucks to fill up my hybrid?!? This is insanity, this is more than insanity this is….this is….Hummer pay back!!! The fuel prices are bittersweet for me; my childish side says, “Neener, neener, neener…don’t you wish you were greener?” And my adult side says, “Ouch…there’s got to be a better way for all of us.” But are fuel options truly options?
If you are one of the few that can open your back door to a personal backyard bio-diesel processor and haven’t blown up your house yet trying to make it…you have options. If I wanted B99 I would have to drive 145 miles. Thankfully the bio-diesel retailer map shows more pumps per state than I first thought...so I may be out of luck but Missouri looks like BD heaven! (From biodeiselamerica.org: http://www.biodieselamerica.org/retailers)
For those wanting to opt for plug over pump you’ll be happy to know that just last week there was a conference in Washington, D.C entitled, “Plug in Electric Vehicles 2008: What Role for Washington?” (See the agenda at: http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Agenda.aspx?e=1ba5bcee-2991-4be2-b8cb-a994058fc5ce See the transcripts at: http://www.brookings.edu/events/2008/0611_plugin_vehicle.aspx) Dave Vieau, CEO of A123Systems, is telling me that for just over $10,000 I can buy a conversion kit which can turn my Prius into a plug-in electric car and turn my 45+ mpg into 100mpg! This is amazing and thank God I can dip into my retirement savings and live hand to mouth for a few years when I’m 67 because this is worth it! (For the full story check out: http://www.forbesautos.com/news/features/2008/plug-in-electric-vehicles-story.html) I wonder if Dave extends personal loans…
Diving into Hydrogen use I find it’s more befuddling than a Rubik’s cube blindfolded. Some might call Hydrogen over-glorified with all the publicity of zero emissions and Bush’s $2 billion dollar research plan…(check out: http://greenhome.huddler.com/wiki/hydrogen-cars) I still question…should we put all our alternate fuel eggs ($2 billion worth) into one atom splitting basket? Last for me to discuss is Ethanol which is here and now. (Check out: http://www.e85fuel.com/e85101/questions.php) Currently most of our gas is already 10% ethanol. On the market is E85 (85% ethanol, 15% gasoline) I myself would have drive 157 miles to get it…again with the unreachable alternative fuel pump…(Check out: http://www.e85refueling.com/) I would like to be more optimistic, but right now my options feel less like options and more like pipe dreams…

500 Miles & 200 Gallons of Gasoline Later...

So, I've made a move. It's been a rough one and rougher still with my conscience eating at me about using a 24 foot U-Haul that guzzled gas like it was going out of style. Wait, it is going out of style, in fact it's already gone like the parachute pants of the MC Hammer days. I didn't take the time to research what other alternative options I had and if I had I would have found GREAT resources on moving green, from cardboard-less packing boxes (visit http://www.earthfriendlymoving.com/) to a biodiesel truck (visit http://www.gogreenmoving.com/). But now that I'm in this situation, what do I do with the 20 used only once boxes and the 200 gallons of gas on my conscience? Well, I will be praying that some unfortunate fellow who also needs to move will use the boxes. I've listed them on http://www.freecycle.org/, a non-profit 'give-away' site put together to keep stuff out of landfills. As for the 200 gallons of gas...I will be riding my bike for an awfully long time.