Panic buying warnings ignored across the UK

I've just read some of the comments on this here forum, some I agree with, and some I don't. Peakoil strikes me as a paranoid, green, activist, who believes whole-heartedly in the 'new world order'! That everything we are told by the powers that be is true. (By the way.....we are being told that global warming is going to get worse. Of course it is! The Ice Age only ended 15,000 years ago, and the earth is still warming up!). Lighten up fella! We have always had scares about our fuel reserves dwindling away. Does anyone remember the 70's fuel crisis? Petrol coupons that were issued, but never used? This will hapen every few years, but we will put fuel in our vehicles, and carry on with our lives. But the subject of fuel duties and high road tax DOES need to be addressed. But how? Activly, you could have rolling road blocks, but you need fuel to be able to take part. I wouldn't bother trying to lobby your local MP, they're members of the government remember! I think a more passive protest would be the way to go. On one pre-arranged day, nobody buys fuel of any sort. If you need fuel, get it the day before or the day after. If you could persuade the majority of motorists, hauliers, van drivers etc., to protest in this way, then this would put a big hole in the chancellors and the petrol companies coffers.
Just a thought...Somone on the forum mentioned something about poloticians cars being gaz guzzlers. Who pays for that? Who pays for the road tax on such vehicles? It's you and I, my friends! Through our hard earned cash that, by law, we entrust to our government to spend wisely.
In parting, I would like to say that we have to be sensible about all this, and try not to get to excited. But something has to be done, and done NOW!
For years we, the motorist, have rolled over and taken every duty increase up the rear. Don't you think it's time to turn the tables?
Oh and Mr. Green Activist. When you need to go to New Zealand to save the whale, how do you get there? Walk? Just a thought!

With regard to the recent Shell tanker driver strike and the panic buying by the fools that just make it a lot worse.

There should be a coordinated effort from now going forward to boycott shell petrol stations.

This will send a clear message to both shell and the tankers drivers in that the public has had enough and will not continue to be the fall guy.

It will also force shell to reduce it's fuel prices to attract customers back, which in turn will force the other companies to reduce the price of its fuel.

lets start the fight back and show these people what consumer choice can do boycott shell garages or the next two months and watch what happens to the price.

i bet gordon hasnt given up using his jag and how fuel does that use i wonder, hes not interested in being green or emmissions hes only interested in hiself.

Well said Peak Oil.

Instead of piling all this money into Tony Blairs Lie we should be researching alternatives such as the water powered vehicles the Japanese have just developed.

Post #133

Run your car on water, use an HHO fuel cell, buy this snake oil ROTFLOL.

Just try and think about it, if these get rich schemes worked don't you think that the AA or RAC or Clarkson or car companies would be falling over themselves to tell you about it or fitting it as standard??? Why do you think that none of these has EVER passed a proper sientific test? Sure you can "see" stuff on youtube, but look at a good magician close up and you still can't see how they do their tricks.

If you still want to go ahead then I have a great bridge to sell you.

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* Engine to run smoother
* Saves on fuel costs
* Reduces emissions by potenitally 50% or more
* Gives more power for less fuel.
* Engine run Cleaner with less carbon build up.
* Increases engine life
* Engine runs cooler
* Engine to suffer less wear

The 'HHO FuelCell System' is simple to install made from long lasting components. Please go to our website at hhofuelcellsystems .com to get more information on the HHO FuelCell System.

Having read most of the comments, it would seem to me that we blame governments for the hike in petrol prices, whilst I would have to agree that the amount of tax that we pay is dis-proportionate, the rate of tax has not changed much.
The main problem as i see it is that all of the traders in 'The City' are just raising the price for the sheer hell of it, nobody can justify a 30% increase in a barrel of the black stuff over he past 6 months, nobody is going to convince me that it costs 30% more to drag the stuff out of the ground and nobody is going to convince me that it costs 30% more refine it. I asked my boss the other day for a 30% pay rise, he asked why?, i told hime that it is costing me 30% more to come to work so therefore I have to pass on my costs, you can guess the reply I received!!.
Concescutive governments have always targetted the motorist in the same way they have targetted smokers and drinkers, we are easy pickings. Think about it when you see the Prime minister or one of his other cronies driving across london do you see them in a Smart car no it is in a Jag or some other limo.
Governments do not want to get cars off the road it is money for old rope, I don't see the transport minister going into the stock exchange and telling the traders to stop mucking around with peoples livelyhoods.

I read in another blog that we should all try and get a job locally, unfortunately i have a 100 mile daily round trip because there are no jobs locally. If i take public transport it would take me 2 hours to get to work at a daily cost of £56.00. If that person can get me job locally please let me know.

Yesterday during lunch a conservative MP was interviewed by BBC and was asked what are they going to do should they win. He said his party would abolish things like council tax. Then the interviewer asked how are you going to replace that money. He answered by saying his party would encourage people to use energy less by increasing green taxes.

The interviewer then asked whether he is sure his party can afford to take that risk as motorists have already expressed their anger at the 2 pence fuel duty increase.

He responded by saying that is a risk the Conservatives are willing to take.

Therefore I think Gordon Brown is going to get my vote after all.

TAX TAX TAX, this is the sole reason the pump price is so high!!

Ian, i dont think the idea is viable; 1st thing how do you mean we have been conditioned into thinking fuel per litre is cheap? if you mean that we know what they pay for it it then i agree but if you mean we have just got use to the price of fuel then i disagree, Its bloody expensive.

2nd we/us the buyers do not control the market, i have to pay what the price says and i need fuel to 1: earn a living and 2: get from a to b efficiently and also a majority of items we all buy are made from plastic.

3rd to boycott a fuel company on such a massive scale as your suggesting would take more than an email infrastructure, it would take planning and managing plus where i live esso and bp are sometimes cheaper than shell and total so people with genrally just roll with the cheapest.

Under the consumer act i think we have a right to see the break down of the cost to these fuel companies and then use our human rights 'for once' to fight against the hiked prices, then tackle the gov to make sure they are spending our taxes from fuel wisely and if thats being spent ridiculously which i have no doubt it is then we should arue that too.

This to me is little effort which could cause a stir!
Power to the people
Graham

We are hitting 123.9 a litre in some areas now, soon we will be faced with paying 2.00 a ltr. Philip Hollsworth offered this good idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the 'don't buy petrol on a certain day campaign that was going around last April or May! The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to hurt ourselves by refusing to buy petrol. It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT,whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work.

Please read it and join in!

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a litre is CHEAP, we need to take a ggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the market place not sellers. With the price of petrol going up more each day, we consumers need to take action. The only way we are going to see the price of petrol come down is if we hit someone in the pocket by not purchasing their Petrol! And we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves. Here's the idea:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP .


If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. It's really simple to do!!

Now, don't wimp out at this point... keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to a lot of people. If each of you send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300)... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000) ... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth generation of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers! If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted! If it goes one level further, you guessed it... ..

THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all You have to do is send this to 10 people. That's all.(and not buy at ESSO/BP ) How long would all that take? If each of us sends this email out to ten more people within one day of receipt,
all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8days!!! Acting together we can make a difference . If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on.

PLEASE HOLD OUT UNTIL THEY LOWER THEIR PRICES TO THE 69p a LITRE RANGE

It's easy to make this happen. Just forward this email, and buy your petrol at Shell, Asda,Tesco, Sainsburys, Morrisons Jet etc. i.e. boycott BP and Esso

Will from stirling referance your comments Disabled driving big 4x4. im disabled dont drive a 4x4 like most genuine disabled people i drive a normal car? look at the people getting in or out of the 4x4s they are fit, usualy its a case of using other peoples badges to park and avoid the road tax, it will increase now the tax is going up. nobody ever checks to see if the driver is the person whos photo is on the disc .jvf

The bottom line is this, the goverment are making enormous amounts of money from fuel
oil companies are making enormous amounts of money from fuel.
Global warming: the goverment are making enormous amounts of money from this.
Greed is the problem with this country and these oil barons.
Its kind of ironic but as more enviromental friendly fuels are developed the more we pay for then, i blame the 60's 70's and 80's its those years that caused global warming.

Pump Prices are set every morning Mon-Sat, between the hours of 02.00am and 06.00am. This is known as the "Gate" or "Rack" price, based on the "Products Market" close the previous day.

Additives and delivery charges are then added, usually 2p/litre.

The final Pump Price for each station is calculated by its own "Throughput Formula". High volume stations are usually lower than low volume stations.

There is very little time lag between the price of Crude Oil and Pump Price, at most a week.

Post #123 jude007, I read this weekend that £100 billion per year is spent on quangos, sometimes even with opposite aims!

Oil has risen from $115 to $127 (~10%) in a month. Since prices at the pump take a few weeks to reflect the price of crude oil we should expect further increases over the next few weeks:-(

Many people are now lookingat $200/barrel by the end of the year.

Government spending is the most inefficient form of spending possible. More money they get, the more money that is wasted, that is the lesson to be learnt from Soviet Russia. The UK economy is heading the same way. Decentralization and the excision of hugely wasteful government bureaucracy is the only way. The NHS has just spent 5 billion on a computer system that doesn't work, to do something the internet could have done for free. How long can a country bail out such over funded incompetence, even such a wealthy country as the UK. The governments answer is forever, because they can just print more money, or borrow , as they call it. But doing that inflates the currency leading to higher prices for commodities. Even with their own massaged figures, inflation is rising, real inflation is actually double what they quote.

Up again today i shall go on the dole and i need my car so there ya go

I must have heard GB says 3 or 4 time in interviews this week about the rising cost...reduce tax on what you can ie petrol...that would help the nation

The interesting thing with Burma is that they have stuck two fingers at the west because of the disagreements of the past. I do admire them in sticking to what they believe, but people are in need.

So basically lets help them now and if the arguments don't stop we (the west) shower them with bullets later.

Its quite ridiculous, there is a petrol station in Wateringbery that I drove past this morning, they want £1.339 for diesel, I filled up at the very same station two weeks ago at £1.199.

Greg, I fear you might be right, if they do cut the duty then we will suddenly see cigarettes or alcohol or something else go up.

If only they could restructure themselves and work more efficiently that would not be necessary. If they do insist on something going up then throw it onto alcohol, people consume a lot of it yes but not that often and it isn't a necessity rather a luxury, driving to work to make money to put food on the table is a priority rather than a luxury.

Now the UK goverment will pledge more money to Burma, they need all the money they can get, dont know why they are doing this, what does Burma have to offer us ?? Sure i feel sorry for the people effected but charity starts at home or if your eastern european in GB

I strongly disagree with profiteering, we are not paying through the nose on our fuel to help the enviroment, there are no gov insentives that i know of to help us find and fund alternatives.
If we are to believe the reason for high taxation on our fuel is to stop us driving or using our vehicles as much then expect a long journey of high price increases, simply because as a country there are many millions of people who could easily afford £10.00 a litre, so for the gov to use that excuse.......

Re: 116

Lower taxation on fuel? Yes that would be good, I think you will find though that it will be compensated for in taxation elsewhere.
Sometimes I do wonder why the Government feel the need to bait the most vociferous interest group in the country, they could go for a softer target and get a lot less hassle.

LOL. Good old news papers

Well perhaps I should elaborate.... or maybe not

Simply put cheaper fuel prices as in for lowering the duty as that is the only way fuel can come down in Britain.

So, are you with me Greg?

That it explains it! I read The Independent. I've obviously fallen for their subversive doom mongering, the wily tricksters that they are.

The fight for cheaper fuel prices? You don't get it BTPO, at all.
Just for your amusement, this is how Peak Oil will be announced by the newspapers:

The Independent: "We told you so"
Daily Mail: "We're all doomed"
Daily Express: "PO - the truth behind Diana's death"
The Sun: "Immigrants nick our oil"
The Sport: "Gorgeous pouting Tracey, 18, explains why petrol is getting more expensive"

I admit this was lifted from another forum, thank you Wolfatthedoor, who has his own rather fabulous PO website.

Jude007 I am struggling to follow. From what you wrote I think you are trying to say that Britain has such a large debt that it needs to get money from somewhere to get us out of this "enormous economic problem".

If this is the case then are you implying that the solution to this is to get it from motorists? Or do you believe the oil will run out within the next decade?

From what I understand Jude007 is assuming that the national spending is perfect and can not be managed more efficiently. Well all I can say is that over £161 billion is almost half of the national budget and do you know where it goes? I do, and you and I both know that this amount could be less, way less and still help the right people instead of helping the wrong people and promoting laziness.

Its interesting that terms like idiot and other provocative language can be used to find solutions to the high oil prices.

Realistically oil prices will rise yes, but other countries are subsidising diesel and ensuring that the rise in oil prices does not overtake the rise in house hold income.

Greg, lets look at the other side of the coin 75% is even a larger number. I believe certain things in this earth are inevitable and natural. There is only so much we can do to slow it down but by making people poorer, in my opinion, does not help anyone.

I say again, fuel prices in Britain (which is part of the reason we are commenting here), can go down and rise up at a lower level than it is currently doing if the government would take some of the blows for us.

We have been talking about the necessity of the price of crude oil going up, I personally think it shouldn't even with Peak Oil but realistically one man in Britain is not going to make money hungry companies suddenly hate money. So as a solution in Britain today, the government should re-nationalise the entire railway system and run it efficiently while keeping the cost to you and me as a priority. That would be part of the solution to curbing demand, but until then the government should realise that by reducing the fuel duty it would take of some of the pressures of the economy as well as actually revive some voter confidence.

I look forward to some constructive Blogging, but Jude007, Greg and others you are still more than welcome to join us in the fight for cheaper fuel prices in Britain.

"Global warming? Human beings + all of our CO2 productions together amount to less than 25% of the total CO2 produced. Therefore all the other organisms put together take care of the rest."

Re the above post 108.

I have no idea what the amount of co2 we are responsible for, but 25% is a hell of a lot, and if you think otherwise, well, words fail me.

95 % of money owed, DOES NOT EXIST. You tell me how your gonna deal with that amount of debt and compete to buy oil on the market?

Posted by Boo To Peak Oil, 6th May 2008 9:07am

"Realistically, I really doubt that the oil will run out within the next decade. If it was to then it would take more priority in the media as its a very big story. Governments of the world would have to try and find solutions."

I don't mean to just suggest that he is unique, but what an idiot. To illustrate my point, we are in the midst of a enormous economic problem, not just in terms of oil and housing, but what information has the main stream media reported about it? The weakening of the dollar, sub-prime market and global shortages. From the hours and hours of coverage as anyone even heard mention of Fractional Reserve Banking? on any media channel? Briefly what it means is banks do not have the money they lend, when they have a reserve of money in their vaults they can lend NINE times that amount, some banks aren't limited to that they can lend THIRTY times their reserve, some banks can lend any amount, unlimited amounts with no reserve. Incidentally, it's politicians that lay down the rules for lending. What that means is they, the banks, produce money that then goes into the economy, but only with debt attached to it. Meaning that people and governments can borrow any amount of money because it doesn't really exist, only the debt exists. What do governments do with the money ? They snort it , eat it or give it away. It doesn't matter, because they can then tax people to pay it back. Unfortunately they have borrowed sooo much there isn't enough money in the world to pay it back, they must tax people just to pay the interest. That is why the dollar is tanking , that is why oil is going up, that is why houses are being repossessed. That and complete and utter ignorance on the part of the tax payer.

I really think we motorists in the uk need to do something about rising costs and being ripped off now it appears on a daily basis.
I think if it were possible all uk motorists should stop using their cars for up to 48 hours each then maybe we could stop these price increases and being ripped off.
I drive at least 500 miles a week use my own car for work and the costs are awful now.
its time we did something about it.

Global warming? Human beings + all of our CO2 productions together amount to less than 25% of the total CO2 produced. Therefore all the other organisms put together take care of the rest.

Therefore isnt as bad as people say it is.

i welcome global warming...think of all that lovely oil under those iceburgs...of course the rising waters will then be an issue

Richard W I know you mean well but I think I have covered this in one of my posts.

From what I understand Peak Oil is about the rate at which we get the oil out of the ground which is becoming less than the demand. The rate at which we get it out of the ground has reached its "maximum" and therefore someone is going to be without. Am I correct so far?

Let me talk a little about greed. Greed is when a shop that knows it is the only one selling bread tells its customers that you must pay x times more than last time because I need more money. Because of our reliance on bread the shop needs to make more and more bread.
Now according to Peak Oil the shop must make the bread so expensive that not everyone can afford to buy it hence cutting the demand. In the process people die and some out of desperation turn to crime.

I stress this point. By putting up the price of fuel you are not going to cut demand. As the world is much bigger than Britain out of the 85 million barrels a day how much does Britain use?
We need to look at the bigger picture. Cutting demand will only work if we do something globally. By putting up the price people will stretch themselves even further because for most, especially on this island, depend on it to bring food on the table. Take that away and we will be in chaos.

Even if we have reached "Peak Oil" it is not a must to put up prices. How about just distributing it equally? Yes, in reality I know it wont happen because countries like Saudi Arabia, Libya etc depend on oil to feed its people.

What can we do about it you ask.

Well, the fuel duty that this government has introduced should be either scraped or minimised to a level where the average Joe can afford to put food on the table.

At the end of the day no matter what you say about Peak Oil, Britain can reduce its fuel prices if it wanted to because of the unnecessarily high fuel duty punishing its people.

We are in a mess yes, but a manageable one, so lets not make people poorer in this country just because some are scared that an alternative will not come in time.

In conclusion Richard W I think instead of encouraging economical punishment why not encourage alternative transport for example. Better buses and trains.

Cheaper fuel will help all of us in Britain.

Ref 104:

BTPO - it's nothing to do with 'oil running out'. As Greg Brown says, you need to do some in-depth reading to better understand the situation. The books he mentioned are very informative (and shocking to the uninitiated). There are also plenty of excellent web based resources such as powerswitch, the oil drum, peakoil.com etc.

Basically the planet's inhabitants are using approx 85,000,000 barrels oil each and every day. It is unlikely that this figure can be increased very much more and soon will begin a steady and inexorable decline. We will never actually run out of oil, it will just get more and more expensive and more and more scrarce as times goes on. And as Greg has pointed out there is nothing out there (natural or synthetic) that can replace the dense energy contained within a barrel of sweet crude oil. Therefore we will all have to change the way we go about our lives.

In the 5 minutes it has taken me to type this out the world has used nearly 300,000 barrels or nearly 15 million gallons of oil.

The topping or peaking of oil production is absolutely vital when attempting to understand the mess we are all in.

On the contrary Greg, I for one am quite satisfied and happy. I completed my post graduate degree not too long ago, I got a promotion, I finally bought my dream convertible and I am going to get married next year. I am beginning to eat the fruit of my hard work. I don't like talking like this as it gives the impression that I am showing off, so in future I will not be so elaborate.

By making people panic, people will run to the nearest filling station like headless chicken. They will just increase the demand. So lets adopt a more relaxed approach. Discuss things rationally and realistically.

Realistically, I really doubt that the oil will run out within the next decade. If it was to then it would take more priority in the media as its a very big story. Governments of the world would have to try and find solutions. One definite solution is to cut out the ridiculous introduction when heads of states shake hands for the sake of taking pictures, usually behind closed doors they are all swearing at each other and you hear no agreement was made in that meeting.

Lets give the scientists a chance, I am sure they feel the pressure.

In the mean time, keep the fuel prices of Britain at an acceptable level. (No one expects to see under 80p a litre).

Hey, come on Boo, no one is being scary. Perhaps the real problem is that our forward planning skills are somehat on a par with yeast. Which is why business as usual is no longer an option.

As for those others here who claim Peak Oil is some kind of big oil/government conspiracy, get a life. Peak Oil is the one thing they DON'T want mentioned, don't talk about, and gloss over when backed into a corner.

And yes, BTPO is correct about this and pretty much all governments, they are incompetent, it's only ever a matter of degree.

Alternative energy? Of course there are alternatives, only an idiot would deny it. Yet it is only an idiot that would claim there is even the remotest possibility that even ALL alternative energy sources combined can provide a fraction of the energy embodied in fossil fuels. There is nothing even close to it.

Does that mean we all go into a corner and quit? Of course not, alternative energy sources will continue to be developed despite the rank idiocy of this governments policies, but they will not enable the continuation of business as usual. fossil fuels have very unique properties that cannot be duplicated, easily transported, relatively safe, very dense and so on.

Politicians are not going to solve our problems, they are not equipped to do so, and frankly, if any party were to tell us what we really need to know, they would be dismissed with jeers and hoots of laughter. You are going to have to watch out for you, yours and your local community, there are no 'big' solutions on the horizon, and look around you anyway, are you living in a way that makes you happy? H ell no reading some of the comments here, you are a very unhappy lot! Take matters into your own hands. Start by getting informed, read Powerdown, read The Party's Over, read The Last Oil Shock, read Twilight in the Desert, just look past today if you want to give yourself something worthwhile to do.

Greg you are scaring us unnecessarily.

Ken the problem is political and little or no funding of research of alternative energy sources not the depletion of oil. Instead of funding new bus services, better roads and railways systems they are taking your money and ..... that's about it where it goes is no where near what we are arguing about here. It goes to support people who have messed up their lives with drugs (support in the sense of giving them free accommodation, much better than the average man can ever afford to buy). Haven't you noticed that its mostly the guys on benefits that can afford to run a 4x4? I didn't mean to sturup a bitter discussion but when I think of it, when a girl falls pregnant she can be given a house to live in while the other girls that finished school and university can not afford to move into a place with similar standards. No incentive to do the right thing. The benefit system, if revamped could save us billions.

It is clear that the only reason everyone in Britain is not filling up with 80 pence a litre is because the government duty is hitting us all. The necessity of that is what I have been trying to explain to many, is non existent. The duty is not there because the government wants us to stop using cars, its because they need more money to fund their mismanagement's. If we all stop using cars the government will find a 8 Billion pound whole in its pocket, hence it can not afford for us to just stop using cars. People have been blindly led to the fire and are now asking why it feels so hot.

We all know the fuel will finish why does it have to finish with £100 per litre? The demand for fuel is not going to just vanish. If it was up to me, I would keep the price as it is until the very end when we switch to a new energy source.

Greg, even you can not deny that there are viable alternatives out there. The problem is, and is going to remain unless we do something about it, that what ever the new power source is going to be some one (minority) wants to make lots of money out of it.

This is why I say don't panic. Just let these politicians know that we don't want to pay duty while there is VAT that is raising enough money as it is.

Greg Brown, Peak Oil and Tonyw why don't you add your name on the petition on 10 Dawning Street to reduce the fuel duty. That would be 3 names to help in reducing the burden of unbearable price increases on basic necessities.

Re: 99

"I was just wondering what the answer is?

I travel to work day in day out. I can only get there via car. I can't afford not to work! If I try and get public transport (which I dont think is even possible for me) I am sure it would cost me 3 times more than going by car! If they raise petrol prices to be comaparable to public transport costs I would be able to afford to live!

So Greg and Peak Oil whats the answer? I hate my daily journey to work as it's an absolute nightmare! You tell me..whats my choices then? Realistically!"

You aren't the only one seeking answers Ken. The problem is simple, we are inexorably moving to a lower energy future. No way round that. The answer for you is the same for us all. Start planning now for a different world, business as usual is not going to be an option.
First, get informed. I would suggest a start is to read up on the options, there is a book called Powerdown, by Richard Heinberg. Read it, decide if it's a rational analysis of our situation, if so, act accordingly.