Very few people are aware of how the value of the dollar has affected the recent rise in fuel prices. I am glad you pointed that out. Here are some really bizarre FACTS regarding our national energy policy. Since 1985 (Dept. of Energy statistics) our nation has reduced energy production by 40% - meanwhile we have increased our consumption by 30%. So as a policy our government is exacerbating the rise of fuel prices by restricting further domestic supply (drilling or further production).
The restrictive policy like not drilling for the oil we have (no mater where it is) and by not allowing for the the building of more gasoline refineries, because we are refinery limited. We literally can not make anymore gasoline. We are importing gasoline from Mexico. The latest refinery being built in Louisiana is the first one built in something like 30 years in the US (entirely due to governmental controlled policies). Meanwhile domestic consumption has increased dramatically as well as international consumption. More nations chasing a shrinking commodity.
With numbers so large and policies so controlling, it would be a high risk to "dabble" in this field because the government could (as it is doing today) artificially move the price up & down with either monetary policy, energy policy or environmental policy. I don't think it is complicated - I think it is just high business risk. Am I saying that if you invented a device that would improve your fuel economy by 30% - that tomorrow you should not pursue that venture? Certainly not - I am saying that your investment into that venture has a high uncontrollable risk because the government could arbitrarily effectively change the price of oil to make your device of no consequence. That is the nature of business risk - in oil related businesses it is necessary to effectively understand how the price of oil will effect your business - up & down.
What we can do with very little risk is lobby - point out to our senate & congress-people, governors, state law-makers, etc - that we know what is going on. They are reducing the domestic supply on PURPOSE which is driving the price up (law of supply and demand) and with very little effort their (the lawmakers) policies can and WILL be linked (come re-election time) to these policies that are causing the fuel prices to go UP. Tell your lawmakers to imagine the bumper stickers you will make for their re-election - "VOTE for "(fill in you elected official)," HE (or SHE) MAKES GAS EXPENSIVE FOR YOU."
So that is one business we could be in, the business of changing policy through effective communication of the truth. "Lower gas prices" non-profit organizations - to effect legislation and/or elected officials or blogs that present the truth. Right now a great deal of the population believes there is some giant conspiracy between George Bush, Oil companies and the Arabs. We only get 15% of our oil from Arab countries. Most of our oil comes from Canada which somehow manages to drill in the frozen tundra environment and not disturb the pristine natural beauty of "frozen tundra" - yet our government chooses to not allow drilling in the Alaskan Wild-life Preserve area (even though we KNOW there is about 1/2 to 1/3rd the oil deposit there with respect to the Saudi Arabian known oil deposits).
These are political facts - we could be oil independent. We choose to not be and this has financially hurt many Americans. It is not due to a conspiracy or Arabs or aliens - it is our elected officials.
Short term - look for products that are made of petroleum that can be made from non-petroleum based commodities. Then broker those commodities. In some cases plastic (petroleum base) parts can be replaced by natural resins or agricultural based oils. I say short term again because of the huge governmental control of the price of oil (which is a plentiful & efficient energy producing product) - IF the price is reduced it could put your whole "alternative" approach to petroleum out of financial competitiveness.
Environmentalist may argue that we should seek alternatives anyway - that market is not as big when it comes to price pressures. That again is a fact - there are many fair weather environmentalist. If you have competitive alternatives priced competitively - you succeed. If the alternatives are more costly - your market shrinks dramatically. It is a very inelastic segment and price & convenience controls it.
When we reduce the amount of the price that the government controls of this commodity (oil) - it would be a better business venture to pursue. That is if the government was not putting high artificial reductions in supply and there was a dramatic reduction in natural supply (right now this is not the case - they keep finding more and more of it every where - they just discovered a huge deposit in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Brazil). When the market is artificially controlled - your business case elements can change dramatically without any market forces. Your case changes based purely on political ideology which can be fluctuating and based on perceptions rather than facts.
A couple of things that will reduce your personal fuel expenses are that gasoline volume changes dramatically based on temperature. You get less volumetric gasoline when it is warmer as compared to when it is cooler. Therefore fill up in the morning - when your tank and the fueling tank is cooler. When gas companies buy gas it is supplied via temperature adjusted volumetric dispensers. It has to be to insure the storage tank or the tanker truck does not overflow - once it gets hot outside. The customer pumps are not temperature adjusted. So the reality is that you can fill up when it is hot and (depending on the size of your tank) - once it cools you really only have 9/10ths of a tank --> you paid for 30 gallons (hot) - you got 27 gallons once the temperature cooled down. Notice your gallon gas can - that you fill up your lawn mower with - how it expands and contracts with temperature. This could potentially reduce your gas expenses by as much as 10%, which is significant.
A 1 degree F, rise in temperature is a huge deal in the gasoline business.
Another gasoline price reducer is the speed of the pump handle - if you pump at the lower speed there is less vapor produced by the fuel sloshing around in the tank. The vapor is lost immediately (especially if the handle has vapor recovery devices). That is you paid for the volume of gas but the percentage that was converted to vapor escaped either to the vapor recovery device or into the air. The slower the pump speed the less vapor produced - again not a huge savings when gas was less than $2/gallon but now these 2% or 3% savings are becoming significant.
A potential device that inventors could work on is - gasoline storage tanks have internal floating roofs to reduce the effective air space in the storage tanks. Gasoline evaporates very fast - easy experiment for the scientifically inclined. The floating sealed roofs in the storage tanks minimizes evaporation - no space to evaporate. You can invent a bladder device to expand as the fuel is consumed or an internal floating roof (similar to the storage tanks). This also points us to the direction that a mostly empty tank will allow for more evaporation than a mostly full tank (keep it as full as you can afford to - to minimize evaporation).
Also if the delivery truck is filling the tanks when you arrive at the station - don't buy gas unless you absolutely have to. The gasoline is being dumped as fast as gravity allows but this does stir up the tanks and add vapor to the gasoline and therefore at the hand pump - you will get the correct volume but some of that will be in vapor which will most likely escape during fill-up.
I know these are all little tips but if you can save 10% total - that is huge, now with nearly $4/gallon average prices. I guess we can ride our bikes more - I do need the exercise. These alternatives in transportation should also increase in popularity but those markets will normally fluctuate with gas prices.
The biggest thing we all could do to reduce our petroleum consumption to nearly zero is convert to the Amish. Not all that bad of an alternative either. Sorry for the length Howard but oil prices are a fascinating topic presently filled with a lot of opinions. The facts are rarely brought out because they disagree with certain peoples political view of the world. The reality is we have plenty of oil in the world. This obviously, does not mean we should waste it. But does it mean we should financially ruin mostly poor people because we find it politically expedient to garner environmental support for a certain election?
I hope this helps, God Bless, Ed R.,_._,___
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