The current fuel crisis is affecting everyone from limo drivers on Wall Street to municipal bus systems to individuals simply trying to get to work.  While lawmakers in Washington are grappling with the issue, everyone else is trying to just get through on a daily basis.

Since the warning was not heeded 30 years ago, people are just now having to figure out what to do to conserve fuel and to afford to purchase it.  The problem is that it is much easier to plan in advance than it is to come up with workable solutions once you are in the middle of a crisis.  And since the administration has been denying that there is a crisis up until the recent outcry became deafening, it left people at an even greater loss.  How can you plan for a crisis that the government says doesn’t exist?  Exactly.

Some of the latest victims of the fuel crisis are schools – and the kids that attend them.  Many school districts have had to curtail or eliminate activities that involve transportation. 

Of course, hurricane Ike and all of his previous hurricane relatives have not helped the situation, either, because the supplies of oil have been interrupted in the Gulf.  Even before the hurricanes there were cuts in driving activities.  Now they are mandatory.

One school district has curtailed the driving portion of driver’s education to save fuel.  In addition, there is a moratorium of sorts on field trips.  For now, unless a trip is for an essential athletic event, any other types of field trips are cancelled.

There are serious budget issues involved in these decisions to curtail or eliminate trips.  Busses get about 8 miles per gallon in city traffic and about 10 to 11 miles per gallon on the highway.  When even a small school district transports children it can be up to 7,000 miles per day to transport over 5,000 students, the cost can average about $3000 per day.  This is quite a hardship on districts that struggle with small budgets and are trying to stretch every dollar.

For now, for some school districts, this is the only answer.  Lawmakers are now seriously working on the fuel crisis issues and have finally passed a bill to try to begin fixing the problems.  This is a step in the right direction; however, you can’t fix 30 years of problems that have been ignored, overnight.

In the meantime, schools and other businesses and individuals will continue to have to suffer.  It’s unfortunate that our kids are losing out because it has taken so long to start working on the problem.

With the fuel crisis looming large and causing problems and disruptions in families, businesses and industries around the world, there are many questions floating in the air.  Many questions are being asked about whether we will be able to turn the situation around.

Some experts say that it can turn around, but it will take a few years.  Others say that things can be better, but not totally turned around without an infusion of money, drilling and more.  Still other experts say that the situation can be turned around only if we approach things in a totally different way, not looking to fossil fuels to save us, but looking for viable, effective and efficient alternatives that are environmentally friendly, affordable and will actually work.

As if we don’t have enough to think of and deal with, the question has repeatedly been raised about what might happen to natural gas.  Yet more experts are talking about types of alternative fuels, with the main possibilities being natural gas, coal and nuclear energy.  As with anything in life, each of these energy sources has  a number of advantages along with some problems.

Environmentalists and conservationists are encouraging as much solar and wind power as possible, however, it would take more of those types of power than is possible from those sources to be able to supply the massive amounts of power needed to maintain power demand of cities, counties, states and the majority of the country.

So what is the problem and the worry with natural gas?  It would actually be an ideal fuel for many situations, except for the fact that it is also non-renewable, meaning that once it is gone, it is gone.  The great part about natural gas is that it is versatile and it is used in making everything from plastics and chemicals to fertilizers, and even to manufacturer and process hydrogen – a fuel source that many countries are looking at as an alternative to gasoline.

Natural gas burns cleaner than fossil fuels, however, it is hard to transport and extremely explosive – often responsible for catastrophic explosions that took days, weeks or months to contain.  One more point in favor of using natural gas is that 95% of the natural gas that the U.S. uses is gathered from right here in the U.S.  One of the problems, as mentioned earlier, is that natural gas will eventually run out, most likely sooner than we think (just as this fuel crisis has shown), and we need to find a fuel that will be sustainable and renewable.

There are sill many questions to be asked and ideas to be explored to solve the fuel crisis for the long term.  In the meantime, we can all do our part to conserve the fuel that we do have now and deal with sensible alternatives today and for the future.

OK, so we are all trying to do our part to conserve fuel. Many of us are doing it because we want to do the right thing.  Many of us are also doing it because at over $4 per gallon and rising for a gallon of gasoline in the United States, we simply have no choice.  So we are planning out our errands and doing them all at once.  We are carpooling where possible.  We are driving less often and not as far.  We are not leaving our cars idling, not leaving the air conditioning on for long periods of time.  We are keeping our tires inflated to the right amount, getting lubes and oil changes and tune ups, as well as cleaning out our fuel injectors, driving the speed limit and using additives to make a tank of gas take us further.
As we hear about more things to try we are willing to try them to save money and to save fuel.

Many of us have not taken vacations because of high fuel prices.  We haven’t even taken vacations with semi-short drives because the gas is too expensive.  We are getting to be more careful when we shop because prices of food and other essentials are rising due to the fact that it costs more to transport everything to the grocery store.

Now there is yet another casualty of the fuel crisis.  In addition to airlines raising fares, canceling the number of flights, firing thousands of employees and charging for luggage (who is going to fly across the country without a change of clothes and other personal items?),  we are now at an all time low.  Several airlines have eliminated in flight entertainment.  That’s right.  No movies.  If you want to keep little Johnny or Jane occupied during a long flight, you had better bring a laptop, a portable DVD player or a portable game system.  You could bring crayons and books, to, at least as a backup. 

The airlines say that if they raise prices, charge for luggage and eliminate entertainment which adds weight to a flight and costs more in fuel, they might break even.  The question is: Don’t those laptops, portable DVD’s and other entertainment items that passengers bring on the flight weigh as much or more than the earphones and small built in screens?  

It will be interesting to see what the fuel crisis eliminates next.  Maybe it will be those overhead reading lights.  Keep abreast of what’s happening because you may need to bring flashlights on your next flight just in case you want to read!

With fuel prices at a premium and politicians warning that we could run out, or at least run short, most of us are trying to find ways to conserve this precious commodity.  There are some easy and effective things that each of us can do to conserve the amount of fuel we use in our cars and the amount of money we keep pouring into our tanks.

There are some logical things that we have heard for years, such as keeping tires inflated to the correct pressure, making sure that our cars are tuned up and observing the speed limit. 

There are many other things we can do to improve our fuel economy no matter what the type, size or age of our car is.  Some of the ways we can economize on fuel are:

• Avoid carrying excess weight in the car.  Anything that you don’t need with you shouldn’t be hauled around with you if at all possible.  The more weight the car is carrying, the more fuel it uses to carry it.
• Avoid leaving your car idling.  There are times when we just have to run in and get something and it would take as much fuel to stop and start the car again, however, leaving the car idling when you are going to be a few minutes – even just five minutes – eats up unnecessary fuel.
• Check your air and fuel filters.  If your air filter is dirty or clogged, your car will use excess fuel.  If your fuel filter isn’t checked and/or replaced at the proper time you could end up with fewer miles per gallon.
• Use your air conditioner only when necessary.  Your air conditioner uses extra fuel.  This goes for your defroster as well, since it is actually part of your air conditioning system.
• Keep engine parts clean.  Fuel injectors, throttles and other parts can increase fuel consumption when dirty or clogged and decrease fuel consumption when kept clean.
• Use cruise control and overdrive.  Overdrive helps your engine idle at a lower rate when you are going up hills and in other situations.  This conserves gasoline and helps your car run smoother.  Cruise control keeps your car run more efficiently by maintaining a steady speed, which usually saves fuel.
• Drive conservatively, not aggressively.  You don’t have to be the slowest person on the road, however, driving conservatively vs. aggressively saves gas.  Aggressive driving usually involves speeding, lurching ahead at lights and other actions that increase fuel consumption.  Calming down behind the wheel will save fuel and keep everyone, including you, safer.

There are other things that each of us can do to conserve fuel depending on our car and our circumstances.  However, if we all did just a few of the things on the list above, we would save somewhere between 2% and 4% of the fuel we use.  That could help with the fuel crisis and it would also keep our cars running better and put some extra money in our pocket.