Lost Prius to Wife——–” Please, Dick Goesinya, provide all of us unenlightened people with all the facts, data, and figures that support your point of view. Or maybe you do not have any facts, data, and figures that support your point of view?”———-

Well, the Department of Defense takes the same view as Dick, however, they expect the timetable to come around 2015. Increasing demand and prices for decreasing supplies of resources is a basic assumption for DoD strategic planning. (not only oil, also food, raw materials, and most especially WATER) DoD has several programs in progress to convert the Navy and Air Force to biofuels. The Navy is in the process producing biodiesel with Solazyme—field tests and procedure development is taking place now, and a full production plant is under construction now in Pennsylvania. The Air Force is working with the Fischer-Tropsch process at Malstrom AFB MT.

eddie——”…… I doubt oil prices are going to get as high as some have argued, especially given the revelations that Wall Street companies were buying large blocks of oil to drive up the prices (see 60 Minutes story on this).”————–

And what is there to stop another round of speculation? Nothing.

eddie——-” But, oil prices are only headed one direction in the long-term…UP.”————–

Yup. The only question is how far and how fast.

Personally, I think we need to be ready for another very sudden and very large increase.

Cars that have parts that fold up on impact keep their soft, pink centers from folding up instead. Cars that have parts that do not fold up on impact let their soft, pink centers fold up instead. As a soft, pink thing, you might prefer to stay unfolded up.

It’s called compression or crumple zones for increased safety. Look it up.

You state that the Prius, “They will fold up” in an accident. You are absolutely right. I seriously doubt there is a car being produced today that is not designed with “crush zones”. This is a design that protects the passengers, not the car. Of course, maybe you could get someone to engineer a car that protects the car more and lets the passengers bounce around in the interior until they are seriously injured or dead.

You also state, “Sure they are efficient but unsafe.” Now you have called our government crash test flawed or biased. Please provide us with all the data, facts, and figures that prove your point. I really do not understand how you were able to “find” the information on this one that the press missed. I would think the press would have a “heyday” with the “information” that a foreign country was not only injuring and killing off their fellow citizens, but injuring and killing American citizens also.

We are all waiting to hear from you.

Cindy, you sound like some very misinformed friends of mine who drive large vehicles because they think they are safer. I drive 22 miles to work on pavement that at times is 100% snow and ice covered and the most of the time if there is a vehicle in the ditch it will be some SUV. Many times upside down. I’ll take a small car any day over a huge inefficient behemoth that handles like an 18 wheeler. (sorry if I offended any truck drivers)

We have to break free from the misguided mentality that big vehicles are safer. Either that or we have to carve out some funds from the stimulus package to teach SUV drivers how to drive. (I’m kidding or course – we should not have to take it out of the stimulus rather, if SUV drivers can afford gas they can afford a driving course.)

I look forward to the day were more of us drive vehicles that are more efficient and for the foreseeable future these vehicles will probably be lighter and smaller that what we have grown accustomed to. Get used to it. We need to ween ourselves off of foreign oil and the sooner the better. Let’s not slow down this goal by using lame excuses.

How is oil supposed to stay at $250 when alternatives that cost the equivalent of $70/bbl are out there? Take a look at Wired magazine’s article from December 2006 about why high oil prices are good for us. (Hint: They encourage production of domestic alternatives that are abundant but not economical at $40/bbl)

I have friends who have them and they cant take a hit from anytihng. They will fold up.

Sure they are efficient but unsafe.