Winter of discontent looming??

[danclarkie]

another post about petrol prices, they are still rising, my local asda was selling fuel at the bargain(sic) price of 92.9 per litre and was packed all day so i decided to wait, i eventually went at 3pm and it was completely out of petrol and diesel, the second cheapest was an esso/total station at 93.9 which i went to and put in nearly £60 of fuel in my car and 2 cans. they only had one pump left of unleaded and when i left there was a que of 5 cars. i heard there will be a go slow on the M1 today (12/9/05) southbound to london and again on wednesday. Anyone know any more on the official refinery strikes due to take place on the 14th?? if it gets bad im gonna get some serious mileage out of my 125 and syphon the petrol from my car as and when needed. might even sell the 2 petrol cans on ebay if things get desperate , i was reading after the fuel protest of 2000 the price dropped to around 70p and were started because prices rose to 85p. im al for helping the environment and i do worry about the rate at which we consume oil, but then i look at america and think "why do i even bother." im glad i stocked up on fuel though i see some shortages coming even if its just from people like me being sheeplike and hoarding oil with a fear of strike action. the thing is if we all load up on fuel now at this price then it might have the exact opposite effect of the government thinking "well when we put the price up to £1 a litre it sold out in days" anyone else worried about the looming fuel crisis?
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Bah Humbug

[paulthewitt]

worried...yes

it does indeed look like another nasty winter for all concerned. but the government say they wont take it and will tow the lorries away.

excuse me for taking this thread sideways but, surely if the (voting) public are so annoyed about fuel prices that a strike is on the cards then the government should listen. after all something silly like 80% of fuel prices is tax, so they can control it no matter what they say. how aboiut the halve the tax on fuel, and stop allowing ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS (not the legit ones who give to society, the ones who blow buses up and are a root of crime) into the country, and stop giving young chavs houses when theyu get pregnant whilst high on crack.

just my opinion, you may agree, you may not.

Paul

[yambabe]

[kawakid]

My firm has fuel tanks at work.

So no worries.............


If you have a diesel car.

Aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Its about a 1hour 15 minute walk, not end of the world I suppose.
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I've a twin and a 4.

[headlamp]

I filled up this morning - 96.9p a litre!! £14.80p for my Faser. As I was there a queue and people were not just filling up their cars but also petrol cans. Ridiculous!

The proportion of tax for fuel in this country is the second highest (after Holland) in Western Europe - generating over £52billion (I recall that's the figure) in excise duties. Yet road/rail infrastructure spending remains stuck around the £6billion a year mark. This government's (and previous Governments) atitude towards transport is laudable with little or no planning or long term strategic plan (where are the new raods to support the 80,000 new homes to be built every year for the next 15 years?). TB put fatboy John Prescott in charge of roads so that's how much he thinks of it!!

Fuel crisis? - I look forward to it!!
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Using a mobile phone while driving a car should be made a capital offence!

[zx636]

Agreed.

Its only going to be people panic buying and filling up everything in sight that is likely to cause queues at stations and shortages.

I am not againt protestors etc and am willing to put up with the hastles if there is a chance of the prices being reduced.

As a substantial amount of our freight is shipped by road these increases will hit us both ways, cost of fuel for ourselves and any goods we buy.

[veeeffarr]

/me hugs his CG

Good old 100mpg

[kal9001]

"Fuel crisis? - I look forward to it!!"

OH no you dont sir!

even if its justa little taste of the full power of the peak oil fuel crisis then you wont be very impressed. no more deliveries, no more work, the economy will shrink massivley, also think, police cars, and medial services use petrol, Fire service uses desil, when your house gets set on fire by the local yobs and youve got burns and need your house putting out, but theres nothing anyone can do cos a, noone is present at 999 as they cannot get to work, b, the serivces cannot attend as they have no fuel for the trucks/vans/cars, B*, there are no serivce personel as they cannot get to work...
that scenario will be cped for every company in the country bar those who have their employees living within walking distance.
and even then who will the customers be...they cannot work, or travel to the shop ect

someone said "why bother" as the US uses like 2x the fuel per person...well thres nothing we can do abotu those gas greedy ignorant fools who have in the past and will again sacrifice the rest of the world for their own gain or to soften the blow to themselves (as ive said before, with the power the US carries when the shit hits the fan who do you think will end up worse off...the world or them?)

they way forward for those who want to weather this as much as possible is to
A, become as self sufficiant as possible, grow your own veg or something in the back yard, try and produce your own power (Solar, Wind, thermal, chemical but dont go and buy a 10kW petrol generator as that will be pretty useless by the time you REALY Need it, if you dont know how to do the above FIND OUT) try and ajust your life, try and imagine its costing you £5 per litre, use petrol fuel as little as possible, dont sit there naked with the heating on...wrap up and turn it off close the windows, keep internal doors closed this will keep the warmth in the room your in, and not let it escape thru the rest of the house.
if you ajust your life to use as little energy as possible and learn to live with as little as possible, not only will you save money now, but when this all does kik off in years time, you will be well prepared.

the ultimate is rather then haveing 10 people all living in 10 houses, bunk up...have 10 people in two houses, or one big one...this will be more efficient energy wise, youcan all share the same resource and share the work load...im not going to say what this is generaly called as it will put alot of you off and make me sound like some kind of hippie...look at it the financial way, rather then two people having two 200k morgages (spelling ) why not have 2 people in one 200k house then have the other guy paying half of that...you will both me better off, and as a whole be saveing energy, and can share house work ect...
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Anyone stupid enough to think we will drag a load of wooden horses full of soldiers into our city is certanley stupid enough to drag all of ours into theirs!

[veeeffarr]

Bloody hell, it's not world war 3... stop sensationalising... There's just going to be queues for fuel for about a week, nothing more, nothing less... Stop panic mongering and none of us will have anything to worr about.

[Kickstart]

Hi

Doubt it will be a winter of discontent. This is a short term problem caused by a large disruption to the refining capacity. We are likely to suffer high prices for a few weeks / months. Ironically the high level of tax on fuel in the UK makes the current jump in prices less severe for us than for the USA. Oil prices double and it adds about 25% to our petrol costs, yet for the USA it adds around 75% to their prices.

I do support protests against fuel duty levels as I think it it far too high. However I do not think that this will generate any concessions at all beyond reminding the government that they are our servants, not the other way round.

Peak oil is not a near term problem. Just something hyped up by the greens to frighten people. Pity they cannot come up with any realistic alternatives beyond "bankrupt the economy now to save it going bankrupt when oil supplies slow", or to have such minor fuel savings as to be virtually irrelevant. There are things that can be done, but people object to nuclear power, windfarms, hydroelectric schemes and the like, and they currently are not financially viable. Rising fosil fuel prices make them financially viable.

All the best

Keith
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[kal9001]

im not scare mongering, im just pointing out what will happen eventualy, peak oil wont happen for a while yet i know that, but this is what we will see in the starting stages of it...hopefuly this little jump in prices will make the people that have the money where it matters will get the idea and invest ALOT more in sustainable fuels!

it pisses me off when people moan about the "moors are beautiful you can put loads of wind farms there, you can put nuclear power there it will kill the animals, you can put a dam there you will wipe that forest out, but you also cannot put solar anywhere as that takes lots of room for when i go for a walk in the country, and no more fossil fuel ether as they smell" well WTF DO you want us to use!! FFS!

Oil is very essential in western economy, if it stopped flowing tommorow there woul be anarchy...i myself am not comftable with knowing my life is controled by the price of black stuff and the blind belief that it will just keep comeing for ever. my generation WILL one day suffer for the greed of the previous generation's who have build their economies on finance rather then sustainability.

i accept i do carry on abotu it alot, but its too easy to say "oh it will be allright" or "we have pleanty of time yet" maybe we do, but isnt it better to have accepted whats going to happen and adjust your lifestyle to it, and even if it doesnt happen, isnt it better to live with more people around you, to save energy and money, to not be a puppet to the changeing prices of oil?
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Anyone stupid enough to think we will drag a load of wooden horses full of soldiers into our city is certanley stupid enough to drag all of ours into theirs!

[gavin]

[gavin]

[Kickstart]

[Kickstart]

[gavin]

i dont think kal is scaremongering. all society is but a house of cards, and ours is built on oil. i dont think its going to fall over just yet, but i think often about introducing my son to an alternative way of living. technology and convenience marches on at a rate that our memories cant keep up with. by way of example, once a generation grows up with oven ready chickens from the supermarket, it loses the need to know how to prepare, let alone kill, a whole bird.

if fuel stopped tomorrow, most people in the cities would starve to death with food ( or at least the means to make food) all around them, simply out of ignorance of what it takes to survive.

ironically, the ones who would survive would probably be the third world immigrants and the old folk who know how to pluck chickens and make their own preserves.

[Kickstart]

[danclarkie]

i totally agree that if people hoard fuel like i did then it will cause a shortage but its a self fulfilling profficy

there's risk of a strike
people panic but
panic buying causes shortages
shortages force people to panic buy
ect

but i have driven past 3 petrol stations today and im very pleased i filled up as much as i did

the first one i drove past was ASDA and it was still totally closed, no diesel, no unleaded not even any LRP. the next i drove past was morrisons at 92.9 a litre the garage was full with cars at every pump and a que leading out of the garage across the car park round the slip road into the dual carriageway and back through the junction, a que of 20-30 cars i couldn't believe it. then i passed a sainsburys selling also at 92.9 and the stroy was the same every pump full with a que of about 10 cars. On the front page of the newspapers today it says "dont pump us dry" saying that people have been panic buying because of a looming fuel strike this just makes people panic buy even more
wether its going to be by strike action or panic demand outstripping supply shortages are already starting as with my asda its a little concerning dont you think?
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Bah Humbug

[danclarkie]

double post
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Bah Humbug

[feef]

[-Savage-]

Saw a petrol station up in newry, petrol 99.9p, diesel 99.5p bloody scandelous!
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[RickHolt]

I'm probably wrong because I've not really paid much attention to this whole "petrol crisis".

It isn't the tax/duty that's pushed up the price of petrol, it's the cost of oil that has done it. Why is it suddenly the governments fault? Yes petrol is expensive and they could make it cheaper, but the current problem has nothing to do with them. What do people want to achieve by the slow downs on motorways etc? I'd love to pay less tax but as far as I have seen, they've only changed tax in our favor recently on petrol. Haven't they frozen it for now?

Went to Tesco to check my tyre pressures before, don't think the car drivers liked me filtering to the front of the garage queue.

Rick.

[Kickstart]

[paulthewitt]

[feef]

the %age tax we pay isn't that much more than the rest of europe actually..

for example the average price per litre in Europe, and their respective taxes are...

UK: 91p & 67%
France: 85p & 66%
Germany: 90p & 60%
Denmark: 92p & 64%
Italy: 87p & 63%

bear in mind that "road tax" equivalent in france is VERY high compared to here, and Denmark has a high car purchase tax on new vehicles. Also, France and Italy have toll road networks.

All in all, the cost of running a car in the UK isn't THAT different from other countries in europe, it's just that the costs come from differnt places.

The percentage tax is lower now than it was during the fuel protests (66.% as opposed to 77%), so the reason for the increase in cost isn't tax, but the fuel price itself. If the fuel price hadn't incraesed, the tax value wouldn't be any higher.

a
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