High Fuel Prices Hitting City Emergency Vehicle Fleets (Peak Oil & City $)

[cthrumatrix]

High Fuel Prices Hitting City Emergency Vehicle Fleets

POSTED: 6:54 am EST March 31, 2005
UPDATED: 6:57 am EST March 31, 2005

RALEIGH, N.C. -- With gas prices spiking recently, commuters aren't the only ones feeling the crunch.

As prices top out at over $2 a gallon, it costs around 90 bucks to fill up an ambulance.

Many government agencies are finding their fuel budgets are almost running on empty.

The Raleigh fire department's burning through its budget. It costs nearly $5,000 to fill up the fleet.

At the Johnston County Sheriff's office, fuel costs mean shelling out an extra $4,000 a month.

And the Wake County School district is spending $22,000 a day to keep the buses going.

http://www.wral.com/news/4333418/detail.html


And what does America hear about 7x24....?????????????? Not Peak Oil.

[jojo54]

1. SSSSOOOOOO

Who wants to be held accountable for this one?? HHHHMMMMMMMMMM.........

[Kolesar]

2. No more fire trucks in the summer parades! ... eom

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Don't count on it

As a former medic for a volunteer group (abroad) I do remember paying for more than one tank of gas, and this was ten years ago...

Will the cops fill their own squad cars? Will medics have to pay for their gas?

[saigon68]

4. The police will still waste gas.

After all they are all the heroes of 9-11.

Don't believe me just ask one.

Unless you are of a persuasion darker than white.

Then just shut your mouth and "move along"

[radwriter0555]

5. There is no oil shortage. We're not running out of oil. Peak oil is a myth

designed to bolster false profits for the oil pimps.

Refineries are closing in the US... Why? To prop up false profits.

Come on, tell me where the oil shortage is that's causing the high prices?

Then go ahead and check the quarterly reports for all the US oil cos, tell me how their stocks and profits are WAY above projections.

Peak oil my ass.

[Terry in Austin]

11. *Sigh*

Got facts?

[cthrumatrix]

12. there is data that says "demand is outgrowing supply growth"...

what do you have?

[Terry in Austin]

16. Shortfall -- the first signs of Peak Oil

The DOE collects estimates of world petroleum reserves, currently at about 1,123 billion barrels. Note that these estimates tend to be very optimistic, given that there is every incentive for companies and countries to overstate reserves (e.g., the recent Shell and Saudi adjustments). For example, the figure in 2001 was 1,018 billion bbls, despite the fact that new discovery has been essentially flat since then.

Consumption worldwide is now at about 83 million bbl/day, or 30 billion bbl/year. Historically, consumption rates have on average increased about 2.2% per year, although recently that has gone up to 2.5% with China and India ramping up demand.

From there, the arithmetic shows a theoretical "last barrel" extracted in 2029, although that point will never be reached. Well before then, we'll reach a point where the petroleum supply is, for all practical purposes, effectively exhausted. Several factors drive this: 1) the last bits of oil are difficult and expensive to extract 2) it will soon take more than a barrel's worth of energy to extract a barrel, which ends petroleum as a net energy source and 3) the modern world is premised on cheap, abundant oil, and the real crisis comes when oil becomes scarce and expensive. Perhaps the only good news is that the rate of increase in extraction will probably start heading to zero very soon, as we appear to have approached the maximum rate that oil can be extracted -- about 83 million barrels per day. Even that would put the "last barrel" year at about 2042.

It's not really good news, however: demand will continue to rise at the same rate, which means, with extraction essentially flat, the two curves will diverge at a rate of 2.5% per year, creating a built-in shortfall. In the seventies, the profound economic impact was caused by a shortfall of about 5%. We'll be getting to that point in a couple of years, then. Prices, of course, will go up accordingly.

The real question is At what point does oil become too expensive? How long can we expect our present way of life to continue when gasoline is seven dollars a gallon? Ten dollars? At $180 or so per barrel of oil, gasoline will be about seven dollars a gallon. That's a price considered realistic for oil right now. The price needs to be high enough to bring demand back into equilibrium with supply. Unfortunately, those high prices ripple throughout our economy, causing stagflation and worse.

[NickB79]

18. Tell that to Shell

"LONDON (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch/Shell replaced less than half the oil it pumped last year with new finds, according to revised reserves figures published Thursday.

Shell said its proved reserves stood at 11.9 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) at the end of 2004, equal to less than nine years' production at average 2004 rates, excluding the Athabasca oil sands reserves, which it put at 0.6 billion boe."

Yeah, one of the top oil companies in the world only has 9 years of production left, AT CURRENT RATES. Everything sounds just peachy.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1360176

[VegasWolf]

6. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney are getting rich beyond even their

wildest imagination. People with oil interests are sitting on easy street.

[DS1]

7. Get rid of 90% of those stupid school buses

Or have the drivers NOT stop at every goddamn doorstep, and have them stop every 4-5 blocks.

Of course, I'd sooner see ALL school buses eliminated.

[cthrumatrix]

8. or go "electric".... we need to use renewable resources

[ChoralScholar]

9. why is that? EOM

[DS1]

14. Because around here, every stop is doorstep, even if it's one house up

and all those buses do the rest of the time is sit around and rust.

Somehow most of the rest of the developed world can manage without them, but Americans are so used to being coddled these school buses have become a yellow cancer on society.

[ChoralScholar]

15. I don't mean this in a bad way, but

the entire world is not like it is outside your window. In a district like mine, where it encompasses 4 counties and over 100 square miles of farmland and farm houses, buses are a necessity for kids to get to school. End of story. If the school does not provide the bus, these kids don't get to school.

Be a little more open-minded, will ya?

[durablend]

17. Thank you...

See this is why we constant get bashed with that "elitist" label. Much like many of "those" people across the aisle, some of us have the attitude of "Well it works (such-and-such) way here, so it has to work that way everywhere"

As for here, the kiddies would have to walk around 15 miles to school (yes, you read that right). So it's either bus, parents drive them, or they just stay home.

[Kolesar]

19. My school was 3.5 miles away and there were no sidewalks...

...for half of the route. The sidewalks that were there were not cleared of snow because the people did not care.

[DS1]

21. Right, and rural areas probably make up 10% of the school bus numbers.

So, like I said, get rid of the other 90%

I'm aware of some of the rural areas, and I'm okay with them.

[Roland99]

10. It's getting very widespread...here comes inflation and higher interest

Gas prices extend record climb(national avg. $2.159)
http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/31/news/economy/aaa_gas_prices/index.htm?section=money_latest


Gas prices dry up volunteer drivers
Charities find help is harder to locate as costs at the pump continue to increase.
http://www.detnews.com/2005/metro/0503/31/B01-134913.htm


Oil prices spread to grapes, TVs, pizza
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0329/p01s01-usec.html

[Martti]

13. Sigh...

So IT begins...

[Ezlivin]

20. Here in Bush Country the Police Dept. got nice big SUVs

Drive around Southlake, Texas and you will see dozens of the behemoths, sucking down gas at prodigious rates.

Guess they needed them to pull over the H2s that all the citizens are driving.

[Javaman]

22. Hold on a second there partner....

I thought old moron* was going to jawbone those saudi's into lowing the oil prices??

Oh wait, sorry, that was during the run to the 2000 election, if it was said earlier than yesterday, moron* doesn't honor a damn thing. What was I thinking?