Ian Watson Quotes

There's no such thing as low-cost fuels.

Parisians overwhelmingly buy small cars. And it's not because people are petite, but because fuel is drop-dead expensive. Gasoline costs more than twice as much in Paris as in New York.

Fifteen states across the country have gas prices that have dipped below $2. That means it's now cheaper to buy a gallon of liquefied dinosaurs than one cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Unlike fuel-economy standards, the most common method of reducing demand for oil over the past thirty years, a gas tax doesn't tell people what kind of car to drive. It simply raises the price of gasoline and lets people adjust their behavior accordingly.

The only way people are going to change their car buying habits, and the only way government will get behind alternatively fueled vehicles, is if gasoline prices continue to go up.

Sometimes people wonder why aeroplanes are so cheap and rockets are so expensive. Even the most superficial comparison shows one obvious difference: aeroplane engines use outside air to burn their fuel, while rockets have to carry their own oxidisers along.

You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place.

I think of myself as someone with a kind of Tourette's. I cannot help saying the thing you're not supposed to say.

The problem is, is that President Bush and the Republican leadership in the Congress have resisted attempts to increase dramatically our fuel economy standards over the last five years.

I love driving. I still drive a 1993 Toyota Camry. I do want to get an electric car, but it's less of a carbon footprint if you keep your old, fuel-efficient car on the road than if you say 'build me a whole new car.'

Everyone would have bigger and safer cars if they didn't have those CAFE standards: corporate average fuel economy.

I want a Mini-Cooper because it's fuel efficient, emissions efficient and all that stuff. It's small and better for the environment. I think that will be my next car.

The armed forces are paying a lot more attention to the use of energy. The Air Force has realized that the paint on planes is heavy, so there are going to be a lot more silver planes, or planes painted in a less heavy way, so that you are using less fuel to get from point A to point B.

As long as gas is cheaper than bottled water, we can't be in a position of dictating to the consumer what to buy.

The automotive X Prize, to a great degree, is focused on addressing petroleum usage and carbon emissions.

Scientists at MIT and engineering schools all across America say that they could improve the fuel economy standards for the existing set of vehicles by 10 miles per gallon using existing technology, without compromising safety or comfort at all.

But we must take other steps, such as increasing conservation, developing an ethanol industry, and increasing CAFE standards if we are to make our country safer by cutting our reliance on foreign oil.

I've got Tourette's, practically. I'll tell anyone anything.

The cost of motoring is a massive issue at the moment, there's no question. The price of petrol goes up every time you go to the petrol station.

Across the country, people are willing to tighten their belts and sacrifice. The president should ask the oil industry to do the same.

We need to do more to conserve fuel or face tougher choices such as steep price increase or even quantitative restrictions.

Automobile efficiency is the ballgame of energy security of the country.

You save most fuel by lifting and coasting in the heavy braking zones at the end of long straights into slow corners.

Tourette's is involuntary in that it is impossible not to do. And it's torture to know what you're doing and not be able to stop it.

Let's give people more incentives to get fuel efficient vehicles.