Regular Gas at Chevron in CA ....2.19 per gallon

Shannon, good question! Hope there are lots of tips in the answers.

I live 37 miles from the nearest town with decent stores so my trips are now well-planned, doing as many errands as I can while there. My drives out to see what's blooming are a thing of the past.

I order many things (even food) off the internet if shipping is reasonable. I even pay all my bills online (checkfree.com) saving a book of stamps every month. I buy in bulk when I can, like paper goods, laundry detergent and garbage bags at Sam's, and keep a lot of non-perishables in my pantry. I have enough pasta, beans and rice to feed a family of four for months, LOL.

I do idle my vehicle more than 10 seconds because I read years ago that it takes more gas to start a vehicle than to idle... I have fluorescent lights in my pantry and tool rooms, and I leave them on all day. It takes less electricity to keep them burning than to start the ballasts to turn them on. I try to unplug all those things that use hidden energy, like the TV. (Remember when tv's took several minutes to warm up? New ones don't because they consume energy while "off" to keep the crt warm.) I have a solar drier for my laundry (old-fashioned clothesline!).

I use a prepaid phone card, cheaper than a long-distance service charge on my home phone. Of course, if I used a lot of long-distance minutes EVERY month, I'd probably opt for a flat rate service but my usage is not consistent.

Yep! I have slowed (trying anyway) to 55 mph. I'm sure people look over towards me and say to themselves "old fart." I used to. LOL

I did read that dropping highway speeds to 55mph would cut gas consumption by 20%. Speeds here are only 55mph anyway.... miles and miles to an interstate.

Believe it or not, keeping your windows up in your car and using the A/C uses less gas than rolling the windows down and letting the wind blow on you. Something about the dynamics of air flow.

Makes me wish I had AC.

The speed limit in Yellowstone is 45 mph. We got better mileage there than ever before! In Europe they turn off their engines (unless they're first or second in line) at stop lights. I wonder how long you have to idle to make it worth it to turn the engine off? They're so conscious in Europe that someone must have figured it out... (Same with fluorescent lights-- I've heard five minutes.)

And as I mentioned in a previous post, my husband has been riding the bus to work. Public transportation around here is not that great, but we DO have a city bus. Awhile back when our Japanese friend asked us about it, we were embarassed to admit we didn't even know HOW to ride the bus, so that woke us up! It works well for my husband, because he can ride the bus for free as a state worker, and then doesn't have to pay for parking either! It gives him some relaxing time to read or listen to his iPod. :)

Danak, years ago I would go to Blackwater Falls WVA (from MD) for holiday weekends. We loved riding around and back home in my Chevy convertible with the top down in summer. On one trip we took the back roads home, 45 mph speed limits. Got the best gas mileage I ever had!

Cannot get good mileage around here even at 45mph because of all the mountains. Usually have to down shift a time or two to make it up and over...

Guess saving bus fare helps pay for the iPod, eh?

Darius, it sounds like you've worked out a really low-impact lifestyle - one that I'm sure more people will move towards, as time goes by and resources become scarcer.

Interesting, pins2006 - I didn't know that about the A/C! Makes me feel better about using it :-) The humidex here is frequently over 40 (that's 104, in fahrenheit), so A/C is really a plus. Not sure how environmentally conscious it is in our house, tho' - no wind drag from the open windows :-)

We sometimes turn off our car in traffic too, if there's a jam. As far as the length of time goes, re. using less gas for restarting the car vs. for idling for that length of time, I've heard anywhere from 10 seconds to 1 min.

Not car-related, but my fave - canvas shopping bags. There's so much darn plastic in the world! The only thing we can't use our canvas bags for is kitty litter...lol...and we have bio-degradable bags for that.

Darius, my husband is one of those "computer guys." He got his iPod through work!

Spklatt, thanks for the idling info. I've been wondering that... We also turn off our car in traffic jams. And canvas bags-- that's another thing they do in Europe! When you go to the store, if you don't bring your canvas bag, they CHARGE you for plastic.

Some stores here do that as well...I think it's good. But at others, you almost have to fight NOT to get plastic. At one home improvement store (large international chain, which shall remain nameless), the clerk tried to tell me that if I didn't take one of their bags, someone might think I was stealing the goods instead of having purchased them. Amazing.

We always keep some canvas bags in the car (ironic, considering this thread), in case of unexpected errands. I've pretty much got my DSO trained to take some with him when he leaves the house. ;-)

I wish I knew for sure, about the idling time - maybe it depends on the size of the engine or something - ?

-Shannon

Cool, I wish stores around here did! I've refused the bags before if I have my receipt, but I'm afraid the checkers just threw away the bag they started getting for me. Grrrr! I noticed they set it aside and didn't use it on the next customer. And plastic is made from petroleum, so it's not too far off topic. :)

Good point!

For people beside me in the checkout line who are using plastic, the clerks seem to like putting one or two items per bag, even when they could hold more. And some people ask for each bag to be double-bagged - good grief. It's really discouraging - I wonder what impact my canvas bags could have. But I guess you have to start somewhere. Think globally, act locally...and all that....

At least we can recycle all those plastic bags.

I keep about a dozen or more canvas bags behind the seat in my truck. If I forget to take them in, I always ask for paper sacks. (My cat loves to play in them.) My natural food store issues a rebate of 5¢ for every bag you bring in to pack groceries in.

Nothing better than a paper bag or cardboard box, for cats! That's good recycling. Ours will cross the whole floor just to sit on a piece of newspaper - either that, or play with it until it's in shreds - or both.

Do gas stations in the states sell ethanol-blended gas? When we had an older car that had a steel gas tank (I think), our mechanic said not to use ethanol-blended gas, as it could rust the tank. But now we have a 10-year old Accord, which seems to be happy with just about anything.

How about hybrid cars - anyone here have any experience with them?

between 2.17 and 2.19 at Crown - down from 2.33 a couple of weeks ago

Y'all, I apologize, but this is going to be windy, plus my education did not get far beyond a few night courses at the local community college. I look forward to hearing everyone's opinions.

Am glad to see this thread turn to "what can we do". DH and I need to try to implement more of the ideas you have suggested. We are also going to see if we can muster a few more brain cells than the local epicureans a la woodchuck, rabbit, naughty bugs and pathogens, etc. in our garden.

On a larger scale, regarding a future decrease in fossil fuels with respect to urban/suburban planning and transportion, I'd like to make the following remarks about "what can we do".

By chance back in 1974, DH and I bought a ruin to rehab in what had been a typical Maryland mill town during the 19th century (Not that we had the wit to see what a ruin it was - it was standing - what did we know? LOL).

I understand that Maryland's 19th century economy depended heavily on manufacturing all along its rivers where the mills harnessed water energy (Maryland is now more service than manufacturing oriented). Little towns sprouted around these mills, and I suspect they were a lot like ours, Oella, which produced some kind of textile commodity (sport jackets?) up until 1972. (Hazel said that the day the mill stopped was the loudest silence she had ever heard - The sounds of its operations were amplified throughout Oella 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.)

When we moved here, it was like time had stopped 50 years before. Chickens ran loose in the street below us. Cows bulldozed one neighbors' tomato cages and wandered up our "access way" some times. A hog run existed across from our accessway up to a couple of years before we moved in. "Garages" (like our back outbuilding) were still waiting for the horse to come home. Mrs. Johnson, my home-making guru, had a dirt-floored cellar, lined with stone, whose walls were lined with shelves of canned fruit and vegies in the most beautiful garnets, emeralds, etc. that she put up every summer.

Wells and outhouses were common (with outhouses up the hill above the well!)

Old timers said that into the 1940's (50's?), the post office, grocers', butchers', dance hall for Friday night youth socials, etc. had all been at the bottom of our street. A church stood across the street from the mill (it's a real estate office now, steeple and all). The house across the foot of our accessway is thought to have been a school.

Oldtimers used to talk about a canon being fired when goods came into Ellicott City across the river. I don't know how true that is, but Main Street, Ellicott City, used to specialize in useful and necessary things.

The main employer in Oella was the mill, and the mill provided just about everything mill workers bought and used like food and wall paper.

The town planning about which Oella was built and remained past the middle of the 20th century was a European model - everyone lived within walking or horse distance of their job, shopping, school, church, etc.

Eventually, after the advent of the car in the early 20th century, town planners and governments in America created a different kind of community through zoning which contributed to today's living arrangement requiring such long distances to travel from home to work, etc. - we call this "sprawl". (Plus, a group of corporations were allowed to deliberately destroy the trolley systems in all American cities back in the 1930s. They were convicted of violating antitrust laws and each executive had to pay $1. (I read this in Harpers a few years ago.))

There are other forces at work here, some of which I know we need to stay away from on this thread, but someone asked "what can we do?" I think it's useful to keep in mind how we lived when we were relatively independent of fossil fuel. It wasn't so long ago for Oella.

We certainly can't go back. (One oldtimer told me that nothing - including fish - lived in our river back in the 1930's. In the late 1960's, pathogens of typhus and cholera were found in some of Oella's wells. Oella was dumping 30,000 tons of sewage a year into the river. Mill workers were locked into a kind of servitude that limited their choices in educational and professional opportunities.)

But rethinking how we structure urban and suburban communities through planning and zoning will help us to address the question, "what can we do", and there are lessons to learn from the past.

Again, I apologize if I have been too windy and preachy.

edited to say "30,000 tons of sewage a year"

This message was edited Apr 19, 2005 4:27 PM

Good post, bluespiral/Karen. I always believe if we can get a good honest view of the past MAYBE there's a chance to learn from mistakes. I had a website for a group that advocates integration of businesses and homes in planning. Must be in the bookmarks on my other browser.

Shannon, I don't see ethanol-blended gas around here at all. I used to see it when I travelled farther west, towards the Mississippi and beyond, where they raise a lot of corn.

I'm intrigued by the diesel conversions that let the engines run on used french-fry oil. Of course, solar engines make the most sense, given enough sunlight.

Bluespiral, that is very true. It has been suggested that American cities need to be made more attractive for residents (like in Europe), and wouldn't it be nice to have great public transportation? But then we have issues like the question on this week's poll-- people LIKE suburbia, and the new suburbia that's developing outside that. It's a tough question. I think a promosing hope is alternative energy technology. Hopefully we can find an effecient form of transportation, that doesn't rely on a nonrenewable resource, and that's environmentally cleaner.

Here are a few tips I found in a simple google search. There are thousands more but these are a beginning.

Warming up an engine by idling takes an awful long time compared to an engine under load. All the time it's warming up there's an excess of petrol sloshing around (even without the choke on), condensation hanging around the engine and of course petrol being wasted. The quicker you can get the engine warm the better and riding it is the quickest way. It will still take about 3 miles of normal riding to warm it up though.

Air conditioners Check and clean the air conditioner's filter once a month; make sure the air conditioning unit is the proper size for the room it is cooling; locate the air conditioner on the north or east side of a house in a shady area; ventilate the house's attic to reduce heat buildup; install ceiling fans to improve air circulation.
Dishwashers Wash only a full load; turn off drying cycle, open door to air dry dishes.

Clothes washers and dryers Use only with a full load; use warm or cold water, reserving hot water use only for heavily soiled clothes; use only full loads for the dryer and if a second load is necessary, dry that load immediately after the first to retain as much heat as possible; clean lint filter before each load.

Computers Turn off computers when not in use or set the computer to energy-saving mode. Monitors and computers represent 1 percent of the country's electricity use, according to the EPA, but about half of that output is wasted by computers and monitors that are left on overnight or that don't use the sleep mode feature. Research by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)

Lights Replace incandescent bulbs with screw-in fluorescent bulbs, which use 75 percent less electricity and last at least 8 times longer; turn lights off when not needed; install light dimmers or photoelectric switches that automatically turn off lights during daylight or install timers to control use of lights; for lights used for home security, install motion detectors so lights come on only when motion is detected. Even energy efficient fluorescent lights should be turned off when not in actual use.

New appliances Replace aging appliances with new, more energy-efficient models when possible; look for Energy Star label designating an energy-efficient appliance.

Ovens and stove tops Use microwave instead of oven where possible; food in glass dishes can be cooked at lower temperature; preheating oven is usually unnecessary; on the stove top cook with covered pans and match pan size to the size of the burner.

Refrigerators Check door seals to make sure there are no air leaks; clean condenser coils on the back of the refrigerator; keep refrigerator away from oven or dishwasher and give the unit breathing room; turn thermostat down to 37 degrees Fahrenheit; turn on energy saver switch.

Water heaters Lower the heater setting to 120 to 130 degrees Fahrenheit; insulate the water heater and any exposed hot water pipes; use low-flow shower heads.


This message was edited Apr 19, 2005 12:38 PM

Good tips, Zany.

On the tube last night there was a piece about the future of personal transportation. Mind boggling stuff in the works. I have CRS right now but, it had to do with air travel. Anybody see it? I think it was CBS so maybe not. LOL

Here's an interesting gasoline powered vehicle, 4 person capacity, 140-170 MPG!.
http://www.daihatsu.com/motorshow/tokyo03/ufe2/index.html

More alternative vehicles of all kinds:
http://www.evuk.co.uk/news/index.html#EVS21_notes

Imway, we don't have a television. What did it say? Go ahead, boggle my mind, please.

I've never seen this kind of stuff actually for sale and certainly not on the road. Have you?

Not often, John... but an occasional one here and there. I've seen a few of Honda's Insight http://automobiles.honda.com/models/model_overview.asp?ModelName=Insight
and a couple more I could not easily identify.

Unfortunately too many of us are still very uninformed, and at the mercy of what the media reports.




This message was edited Apr 19, 2005 5:34 PM

It looks like Darius' and my posts of 4:31 and 4:38 crossed in the ether - this is very hopeful stuff. So, one major obstacle is that production is held up by too small a size of market, right? Darius, I hope a lot of folks see the links you are posting here. Thank you.

I've heard that oil companies have patents on a lot of the more efficient technology. They aren't actually selling the technology, and the patents prevent others from doing so, which enables them to keep the profits up on oil. That is truly unfortunate for everyone, not to mention nature and wildlife.

One common sense thing that I don't recall has been mentioned (forgive me if I'm wrong) is keeping your engine tuned and your tires properly inflated. I just read that can save up to $100/year on gas-- and probably more now since prices are up!

I wish I was still a major consumer! That Honda really appeals to me.

Imway, we may not be major consumers, but we can still be major propagators of possibilities. We don't call ourselves gardeners for nothing.

Dana, be careful about what you say that could stir any controversy... it's against The Acceptable Use Policy on DG and could get our thread removed.

John IF I can ever afford another vehicle, it will be something like the Honda Insight unless there's something better by then. Of course, it's dependent on winning the lottery, LOL.

Karen, it that a little like, If you build it, they will come? Saying, if we put the word out enough, some of it will root and grow?

bluespiral, you said you don't have a TV? Then how in the world do you see American Idol?!? lol

Pins, not bluespiral here... and I often wish I did not have a TV. I keep it for The Weather Channel, though. I don't have a microwave either, nor a dishwasher. Hate them.

Pins, television and me are like Alice in Wonderland and the Rabbit Hole. TV was too easy for me to disappear into when I "thought" I was too tired to do something more constructive when I came home from work at night. So, the last time a fairy boob-tube godperson tried to bestow one on DH and me, we said no thank you. I'm too easily amused.

Darius, yes. I think one reason we are in this developing energy crisis and its related problems is that they seem to be invisible to so many people. So "putting out the word" illuminates what might be possible, which is key to effecting change.

These are just my opinions. Everyone on this thread has made a dent in my ignorance. If I had a TV, I would have missed Bagpypr's metaphors - not worth it.

I saved my gasoline today...I needed some things from the store (17 miles each way)...I remembered that DD was off work today and called to see if she was going in...Yep...heck...what a good deal...she even said
"Don't worry about it" when I asked her how much the 3 items she picked up for me cost!! *grin* I wonder if she plans to go in again Friday?? LOL Jo

I really enjoyed your longer post above, bluespiral, and excellent tips earlier, Darius. An additional note on clothes washers - we have a front-load model (common in Europe), and it really does use far less water and electricity. Plus, there's no agitator, so it's easier on your clothes. If any of you have a top-load model that's about to conk out, the front-load one might be something to consider - prices are going down, slowly but surely, as they become more common.

I agree with you, bluespiral - I think the provenance of our resources is invisible to most of our society, so people don't think about it as being a problem. And good point, dana, about this week's poll - many people in our society want lots of land (me included!), and often, in N. America, it ends up being prime farmland that goes under the new developments. Perhaps a fundamental philosophical shift is needed...I just hope it's not too late.

Shannon

That day is coming when the bulldozer will knock down houses so an enterprising farmer can grow crops! Right now its left to economics more than to wise land use planning.

Money sure seems to make the world go round, doesn't it.

Or, greed?

Our gas price is down to $2.03. Yipee!

This message was edited Apr 20, 2005 7:23 AM

The calm before the storm me thinks, pins.