Im not an alarmist, and believe this is still at least a decade away... but these indicators are currently in place:

1. Political unrest or tensions with the US and most oil producing nations (Mid East, S. America, Eastern Bloc)

2. Gas prices at highest levels, which motivates development of alternative fuel technologies

3. Global warming becoming a big political issue internationally puting pressure on more eco-friendly fuels

4. Potential shift to Democratic leadership in our next election.. which could have a more (Gore-like) environmentally based platform.

5. US policies and public opinion swaying towards a more closed border "make it and use it here" mentality.

Whether its ethanol, electric, hybrid or hydrogen (my leading candidate) there will possibly come a time in the next 20 years (our lifetime) that there is a major shift in our fuel of choice.

Whats going to happen to all our beautiful G35s? Will they collect dust, with no resale value or fuel to run them, or will they be retrofittable to accept alternatives?

Just a thought that will hopefully start an interesting thread.

 

Should of said what will happen to the G35 coupe when there is no more gas and maybe this thread wouldn't get moved!

 

yeah im surprised this has lasted as long as it has without getting moved

 

sorry.. new here .. I will edit now..

 

Without gas I'll sell the ranch and move to Indiana and grow corn with the rest of my family.

 

im gonna start stock piling gas... 20 years from now im going to be running a monopoly, u think gas prices are high now? wait until im the only one selling it bwahahha... *notices no one is laughing*... um i do believe i wont be driving my g 6-7 years from now, il be stuck driving the new GTR and paying $10 a gallon

 

by the time there is another definative fuel, the G35 will stop being sold...it will be the g75 by then... I don't see gas going anywhere for a little bit.. why waste what we have in alaska...if no one is useing gas, whos going to buy it?

 

Is this a Mad Max movie? no.. this is reality. The government would love people who store gas, they think for their personal use. Gee.. sounds like something else.
If they can't tax it, they will make it illegal.
And of course, gas gets sucky after sitting a while.
Drive your G like you stole it! May be your last fun car, at least until you can afford an Ion Drive.

 

Ethanol is the way to go, we already have an infrastructure in place to sell the stuff. We can support our own farmers by buying crops to make ethanol and in the end it should be cheaper than gas. Just like how aluminum used to be expensive and now it's pretty damn cheap. IMO it's the right answer, I could care less about the environment as far as emissions are concerned. You certainly wouldn't be dependent on other countries and you could take your time coming up with other alternative fuels because there isn't a limited supply of ethanol. Wonderful temp./permanent solution.

 

The problem with ethanol it requires quite a great deal of energy to produce. Plus it has about 60-70% efficiency of fossil fuels. It's not really beneficial. Granted for temporary use yes, but you have to figure how much it will cost to change the infrastructure, which will ultimately increases taxes to put into affect. I believe Brazil is the only country that currently has 100% capacity with ethanol, but they are a mere fraction of the US in size and population.

In any case, our 220-240 hp G35's will be 120-150 hp.

Besides statistics say automobiles only use a small percentage of total fuel usage of all things that require combustible fuels i.e. homes, industry, transportation (shipping, aviation, rail.....) If you make those things more fuel efficient things would seriously change.

 

If Im not mistakened, Brazil is using a form of sugar cane for its fuel. And concerning ethanol, can you retrofit a gas engine to it..and doesnt still require a large portion of gas as its mix?

Someone earlier in the thread had it right.. cherish every mile you can now.. no guarantee the american dream as we know it will be here to hand our G's down to our kids. Gas at $3+ does force us to more appreciate the experience, and take it less for granted.

 

You can burn more ethanol than gasoline while keeping it stoich. Yes you'll have worse mileage but if prices are low enough it won't matter. You should be able to produce more hp with how much ethanol you can burn compared to gas.

What changes to the current infrastructure would you need to make? Gas stations can easily use one of the in ground tanks to store ethanol, engines would require minor modifications to run ethanol (bigger injectors, etc). The biggest/hardest part would be setting up a place to distill all this ethanol, large enough to support our normal gasoline consumption.

IMO it's a lot easier than converting to hydrogen and a lot smarter than going electric(try doing a roadtrip in an electric car D: ).

 

The biggest/hardest part would be setting up a place to distill all this ethanol, large enough to support our normal gasoline consumption.



I live outside Baltimore.. and know someone who did very well in Real Estate during the boom, and is diversifying a portion of his wealth into a local Ethanol refinery. Is he crazy or jumping into the next big thing?
Remember the first time you heard of the internet, or microchips, or Yahoo?
Did you immediate get it? and see the impact it would have.. I guess not.. cause if you did, right now you'd be driving something a little more exclusive than a G35.

 

Let's see - with 140 billion barrels worth of oil still in the Earth to be pumped and made into gas - do you actually think all those in power will actually give up those 100's of trillions of dollars over the next 50 or so years or more?

Electric cars will come - 3-5 years away from the next generation at a cost of at least $100K - $150k. Some test vehicles are looking to be $80K-$100K, hand built, maybe a couple hundred a year at most - and two seaters. Along way away from being family cars.

If they make them too cheap - everyone will buy them and the powers that be will not make their trillions....it won't happen as fast as you all think.

It never does when politics are involved....

Rick

 

According to this article from 2004, there is 300 billion recoverable bbls in Canada, with another trillion on tap with new recovery methods...

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/oil.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sands