Going the Bike Route

This summer, when gas prices were sky-high and the weather was good, my husband started biking the two miles to his office (yes, I know, why did it take him so long to start doing this?). He liked the exercise, and the fact that he could actually take a shorter route when he rode his bike than when he drove. Best of all, is his employer and the City of Redmond offer all sorts of great incentives and prizes for folks who use alternate forms of transportation.

I thought once the fall weather hit (and now that gas prices are more reasonable--they just recently went below $3.00/gallon around here) that he would go back to driving, but so far, that's not been the case. In fact, this weekend he went out and bought a reflective yellow rain jacket so he can bike when it is dark (by 4:30 p.m. in the wintertime) and wet. So, those incentives have really helped keep him motivated, and even though it's not a whole lot of miles saved each week, every little bit helps.

Our oldest son has also started riding his bike to early-morning seminary before school each day. Even though the chapel is less than a mile from home, we used to always drive him to seminary because it was still dark, then he would walk to school and walk home after school. We decided to let him bike because he now has a light on his bike, and it saves him time between seminary and school and school and home to be able to bike.

It's those little trips that really eat a lot of gas, so I'm glad to have eliminated the morning seminary run, and for my hubby to bike at least 3 days a week, if not all 5. Gas prices may be down now, but who knows what tomorrow might bring?

$3.29 a Gallon

When was the last time you paid $3.29 per gallon? I paid it today, thanks to Safeway's new fuel discount program. You earn a 10-cent per gallon discount for every $100 you spend on just about everything at Safeway (including gift cards). You can accumulate the discounts and use them whenever you want. The discounts expire at the end of each quarter. As of my weekly shopping trip last night, I had accumulated 40 cents off per gallon, and had $92 toward another 10 cents off. I needed gas today, and I remembered that I also needed to get a gift card for my brother-in-law's birthday so I went to the Safeway right next to the gas station and bought a gift card. The discount is available literally immediately; I went straight to the pump and got my 50 cents per gallon off. Woo hoo!

More on Hypermiling and Maximizing Your Gas Mileage

This weekend, there were two great articles in the Seattle Times about hypermiling:

• Hypermiler tips for using every drop
• Tricks of the hypermilers

Check them out if you want more information; each article lists several different hypermiling websites if you really want to get into the subject.

One small tip that I had not thought of before was parking nose-out instead of nose-in, because going in reverse when your engine is cold is less fuel-efficient than when it is warmed up. This got my hubby feeling pretty smug because he has been backing into the driveway forEVER (at least the whole time we have been married, going on 21 years).

To Coast is Clear

...or is it? I was about to write a post about how I have improved my gas mileage in the Sienna almost 5 mpg just by not running the air conditioning when I am driving around town, and by coasting in neutral whenever I have a downhill slope or am approaching a red light. I'm very pleased by my results in doing these two things. When I refilled the Sienna yesterday, I was thrilled to figure out that I got just under 20 mpg. I figure there were maybe 50 highway miles out of 300 driven, so that's phenomenal.

I wanted to find an article that I could link to that would illustrate what I would consider the other "way out there" techniques of hypermiling. As luck would have it, I found one right on the front page of msn.com. I was a little disappointed, though, to read that the authors thought that turning off the a/c only helped if you did not roll down the windows and that coasting in neutral was dangerous.

So, take it for what it's worth. Because I don't have to deal with triple-digit heat in the summertime, I am still going to roll the windows down a bit instead of using the a/c, and I am going to coast whenever I can (generally not on busy streets with lots of traffic). An additional 5 mpg is nothing to sneeze at these days.

Gas and Oil--The Future?

OK, I bummed myself out yesterday reading the article in National Geographic, and my friend Fenchurch comes to the rescue (see comment on my previous post about gas and oil). I read the article mentioned, and it gave me hope. There are scientists who have found a way to genetically modify a microscopic organism so that it excretes petroleum! Wow! Go take a look for yourself. We're a long way from replacing any of our fuel with this "Oil 2.0," as the article calls it, but who knows? This could be the start of something big.

Gas and Oil

At lunch today, while I was pedaling away on the stationery recumbent bike at the gym (something I have long been neglecting to do), I read a very interesting and sobering article in the June 2008 issue of National Geographic. "Tapped Out," by Paul Roberts. The entire article is worth a read, and surprisingly, you can read it online without being a subscriber.

Mr. Roberts notes that oil output is beginning to plateau just as global demand is skyrocketing. He states unequivocally: "The era of cheap oil is behind us." As gas prices here have soared into the stratosphere, that has been my feeling as well. It's a nagging feeling, especially when I consider that my 2006 Toyota Sienna, which I dearly love, but which gets only about 18 mpg around town, is nowhere close to paid for, yet I can't afford to drive it. My hubby is now biking the 2 miles each way to work (which, quite honestly, he should have been doing for a long time now) and I am driving his more-efficient 2005 Scion xB, which gets about 26 mpg around town.

This quote from the article is especially chilling:

For decades oil geologists have theorized that when half the world's original endowment of oil has been extracted, getting more out of the ground each year will become increasingly difficult, and eventually impossible. Global output, which has risen steadily from fewer than a million barrels a day in 1900 to around 85 million barrels today, will essentially stall. Ready or not, we will face a post-oil future—a future that could be marked by recession and even war, as the United States and other big oil importers jockey for access to secure oil resources.

So, it's time for all of us to do something--even if it's something little. In a future post, I'll tell you what we are doing aside from parking the Sienna whenever we can, to help cut down on our consumption of gas and oil. I'll close this post with another quote from the article:

Fuel-efficient cars and alternatives such as biofuels will compensate for some of the depleted oil supplies, but the bigger challenge may be inducing oil-hungry societies to curb demand. Any meaningful discussion about changes in our energy-intensive lifestyles, says Husseini [a Saudi oil geologist quoted extensively throughout the article], "is still off the table." With the inexorable arithmetic of oil depletion, it may not stay off the table much longer.

Sorry to be the harbinger of such gloom today, but it's been on my mind, and it's worth us all thinking about it. And, that's what this blog is all about!