The petrol station of urban myth that purportedly had a sign on its forecourt offering "free petrol tomorrow" (and tomorrow never comes, right?), possibly inspired a less than successful promotional stunt for computer game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, at a North London petrol station recently. Motorists had the opportunity to receive £40 (A$86 approx.) worth of petrol for free, if they were prepared to wait long enough for it.... Read full entry

Doubling the current US price of petrol, from $4 a gallon, to $8 by way of a tax, could bring about all sorts of benefits... if you can overlook the negatives first that is. Cheap gas is unfair. Driving creates huge social costs in the form of traffic, health-damaging pollution and global warming that aren't suffered solely by the person buying the gasoline. Governments usually set up idiotic systems ... Read full entry

Cars were once useful. But now there's just so many of them, that they get in the way of each other. And our way also. And the environment... Once a key to the future, the car is now a menace to it. Freedom has given way to gridlock, pleasure to road rage. Even the best - fastest - car journeys are a guilt trip, now we've learned what carbon ... Read full entry

Awesome time line graphic from Good Magazine, with key dates in the history of our use of oil and petrol, going back to 10,000 BC. Brings to mind, for some reason, Daniel Plainview's (Daniel Day-Lewis) line from There Will Be Blood: "Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I'm so sorry. Here, if you have a milkshake, and I have a milkshake, and I have a straw. There ... Read full entry

Some of the consequences of rising petrol prices are actually quite positive, including less traffic congestion, reduced pollution, improved health and fitness, and, saving the best for last, possibly even four day work weeks: [US] Companies, colleges and governments are moving to four-day weeks. Brevard Community College in Cocoa, Fla., went to four days for the 2007 summer session and saved $268,000 in energy costs. There were unforeseen ... Read full entry

Apparently Earth's oil reserves are twice the size of published estimates, according to Richard Pike, CEO of the UK Royal Society of Chemistry, who says the inaccurate reporting of the capacity of multiple reservoirs is distorting the overall figure. Oil companies produce a bell-shaped probability distribution for how much each oil reservoir might hold, and then quote as an indicator of the reservoir's capacity a figure they are 90 ... Read full entry

How petrol is putting Sydney under the pump Of course it's not just Sydney, or even Australia, that's feeling the pinch from the ever rising cost of oil, and far from just biting into our bank balances, increasing fuel prices could bring about a radical realignment in the way we live. Further rises in petrol prices could see the end of urban sprawl, with people leaving their houses in the suburbs, ... Read full entry