As gas price climb here in Puna & Hilo..

[morganlady]

Would an electric scooter (mine has a bicycle-type seat) be able to use these bicycle mounts, too? It weighs about 80 lbs. (I know because I brought it with me to the BI already once.)

[Carey]

Called the lady at HeleOn, unless your scooter looks like a bicycle, no. The racks are set up for bicycle tires, large & skinny, not the small tires & low platform that most scooters have. The racks are mounted on the front of the bus & currently are set up for 2 bicycles. You must lift up, load & unload the bike, that 80# scooter would not be fun for your back.
HeleOn also has share ride taxis, mostly in Hilo, but I imagine they would expand if there is a demonstrated willingness to use it in other areas. I have also seen a couple of "Van Pool Hawaii" vans... so there is another option, if you cannot carpool, maybe van pool.



Edited by - carey on 06/05/2007 12:26:13

[robguz]

I was surprised, but when I was in Puna 2 weeks ago, gas prices were about 10cents cheaper than in Oakland and 20 cents less than San Francisco and tons of refineries are less than 20 miles away. The oil companies will screw you wherever you live, but at this point, moving to Hawaii will mean lower gas prices for me.

[Les C]

I heard that Bay Area gas prices were higher because of "problems" at the local refinery, whereas HI refineries were not having "problems". "Problems" might be read as the company needing to get the profits above recent trends.

[Carey]

Les, there was a fire at the Chevron's Richmond CA refinery in January, 1 Imperial refinery fire in Feb., & 1 Imperial refinery fire this week. This year there have been more non-routine shut downs of refineries across the nation. Also, refinery fires do NOT increase the petrochemicals companies profits, and with the fact that no new refineries will most likely come on-line in this country, maintaining the refineries at peak load will continue to COST the petrochemical companies.
Having worked in the petrochemical industry for decades, refinery fires are one of the things I will not joke about. If you have ever been involved with one, you know why.
The unbelievable fact to me is that demand for petroleum products is still higher than ever. This is putting a stress on all of the refineries that are in production. The surest cure for high prices is to do every thing in your power to reduce the total demand (and make sure everyone you know realizes the importance of this). On this island this = reducing your total consumption of water (unless no petroleum based electricity is involved to get it to you), electricity (unless the source is totally non-petroleum) & petroleum based transportation.

Edited by - carey on 06/06/2007 12:08:35

[Les C]

I didn't know that refinery fires were involved in the Bay Area. But while I will admit that that is a good reason for price increases, there were times when I lived in the Bay Area that the refineries were claiming problems (not because of fire) that they would not divulge to the press. Seemed mighty suspect.

But regardless of whether they are boosting prices for profits or not, you're right, we just have to get off the carbon fuel truck. I really wish that there were effective ways to control how much oil is used in the products and services we buy. At some point, you can't just say don't buy those services or products. They're so much of what we depend on.

Edited by - Les C on 06/06/2007 12:23:50

[Hotzcatz]

Excessive use of oil has almost become a National disease for our country. We - as a nation - use a lot more oil than any other nation although China has now gone from a producer of oil to a consumer of oil and they may eventually take over our excessive user spot. Whatever the price of the stuff is doesn't really matter, we need to get off the oil kick however we can.

There isn't just one answer, though, we need a whole new awareness and a whole shift in our national lifestyle - however that lifestyle is exhibited in each part of the country. Take the bus, drive less, install solar electric panels and wind generators to produce power, use less power (although if you are totally not connected to the grid, then you can use however much power you can make since sunshine is ecologically guiltfree), produce your own food and whatever goods you are capable of making, use cloth grocery bags instead of plastic, recycle everything, live simply and use everything until it is worn out and quit rampant consumerism.

I personally don't shop at big box stores since I consider them part of the excessive consumerism disease in this country and don't want to encourage them. We rarely buy retail and we repair instead of replace. Actually, it is difficult for us to shop since our shopping list is rarely encompassed by retail stores. Currently we are looking for a set of feet to repair a clawfoot bath tub, they certainly aren't available at Wally's world!

If you look at what you buy and consider what had to happen for that item to get into your shopping cart, then you will be able to choose things that are less ecologically harmful. Here's a typical choice: a bunch of bananas is grown on a plant in Keaau and someone (who lives on this island) cut them off a tree, someone else (probably someone else, maybe the same person) washes the bananas and tidies them up for retail sale. The bananas are probably then boxed up (who made the box and where did it come from and do they reuse it?) then sent to the store (using a truck and gasoline, no doubt) where I put them in my shopping cart. By choosing locally produced food, not only is fuel saved on shipping it from the other side of the planet, but the folks who worked to produce the food paid taxes into the infrastructure that I live in. If I pick up bananas from South America, the money I pay for bananas goes off island and there is more harm to the ecology (more fuel used to get the bananas to the end user). All that from one choice at a grocery store. Did you know that the average bite of food on the average plate in the United States of America traveled 1,500 miles from where it was produced?

[Carey]

Nice thoughtful response Hotzcatz. One of my professors last semester stated that Americans must embrace a new benchmark for wealth, not in having more, but in wanting less.
You are truly wealthy if you are satified with what you have now, and want less.

[macuu222]

We're both retired state employees and we drive from HPP to Hilo everyday including weekends, plus 2 trips to Kona a month using a Ford Escape SUV (not the Hybrid)and we average $250.00 every month on fuel.

[Beachboy]

it's amazing that we as a country don't get it yet.! I'm talking about depleting our natural resources,especially with our oil consumption. It's just off the charts what this country does when it comes to oil, and all the while realizing that the spick-et will run dry soon!

But what is our best option? Bio-fuels, electricity, clean coal? I have come to embrass the idea of clean coal as an alternative to gasoline. I mean really, doesn't coal make sense to this country? Aren't we the leading producers of coal in the entire world? I think clean coal technology viable alternative to oil. I'm sure it would come to the consummer cheaper than gasoline does today.



Handle every situation like a dog,If you can't eat it or hump it,piss on it and walk away...