Saturday, June 2, 1973 THE SUMMER DAILY Page Five Gas shortage looms as vacation season begins f By BOB MONROE Associated Press- Writer Like the unwelcome thump of a flat tire, the reality of the gas shortage now begins to bear on the minds of motorists accustom- ed to driving as though there were always more fuel tomorrow. Warnings went out early that drivers who took to the high- ways for the Memorial D a y weekend might have to shop around for gas to get home. MOST OF THEM made it be- cause there are still huge quan- tities of gasoline available. But the locked service stations and gas rationing encountered by many underscored that the sup- ply is not quite enough. Demand for gas has been in- creasing seven per cent a year, and traffic counts continue to grow. At the same time, many major oil companies say they do not have enough crude oil and have begun allocations to deal- ers based on 1972 sales. "Not many months ago we were hounded by salesmen want- ing to sell us fuel. Now you have to scrounge all over the place," says Ray Alderson of Yellow Freightways in Kansas City. TRANSIT OFFICIALS seek bids for fuel and get no replies. State troopers in Florida h a v e been ordered to cut back mile- age. Taxi drivers in a Des Moines, Iowa, fleet have been told not to turn on their air con- ditioners. The effects of the shortage have been felt or feared for weeks by many whose livelihood depends directly or indirectly on motor fuel. But there is little evidence that car owners have curbed personal driving. Most drivers contacted in an Associated Press survey s a i d RELIABLE ABORTION SERVICE Clinic in Mich.-1 to 24 week pregnancies terminated, bV li- censed obstetrician ovnecolo- gist. Quick services will be ar- ranged. Low rates, CALL COLLECT (216) 281-6060 24 HOUR SERVICE they did not plan any change in driving habits or vacation plans. The question is whether they will have to. "I COULD SELL about twicz what they're allocating to me, ' notes Norman Smith, a Texa.o station operator in Littleton, Colo. "I guess I can give fill- ups to my regular customers, but I'll have to limit the rest to 10 gallons." A handful of stations were lim- iting customers to five gall s over the weekend. Many inde- pendent and major stations have cut back hours or closed Sun- days. The Office of Emergency Pre- paredness last week reported F8" of the estimated 220,000 stations in the country were closed for lack of gas. Another 1,863 were threatened with shutdowns, the OEP said. GENERALLY, the independ- ents are most affected. They cap- tured a quarter of the market over the past decade by buying surplus gas from major oil com- panies and selling it at 2 to 1) cents a gallon less than t h e standards. One federal official calls them "a very helpful competitive spur." Under a voluntary alloca- tion plan that the administration announced three weeks ago, the major oil companies were urged. to "share the shortage" among their stations and the independ- ents. At least one industry leader has urged the allocation program be made mandatory. Support for such a move comes from Ed Kiley, vice president of the American Trucking Association. "CONGRESS HAS to decide who is and is not going to get petroleum. And unless something is done quickly, we might not have enough fuel to continue es- sential trucking services," Kiley said. Win a Free Game M-Pin Bowling 40c per game UNION LANES_ Similar warnings come from re- presentatives of the construction, airline and railroad industries. Industry sources say the short- age is essentially the result of limited supplies of crude oil and limited refinery capacity. "WE'RE RUNNING every bar- rel of cruel oil we can get in our refinery," said Gulf Oil Corp. President James E. Lee. "To my knowledge, nobody is holding back products and hiding it some- where. Where would we hide it?" An opposite view is voiced by California Assembly Speaker Bob Moretti, a Democrat. He notes that U.S. refineries operated "at less than 75 per cent capacity last year" and listed record first quarter profits this year. Is it coincidence that the short- age occurred "during a period when the oil industry is pressing for the Alaska pipeline, relaxa- tion of other environmental safe- guards, resumption of offshore drilling . .. and preferential tax loopholes?" he asks. WHILE THE debate goes oa, Illinois officials have set up a hot line for farmers needing fuel. An Iowa gas tank company is selling more storage tanks to farmers than ever before. Rep. W. R. Poage, (D-Tex.), chairman ofithe House Agricul- ture Committee, said hearings have made it clear that the fuel shortage threatens to "severely curtail crop production." Ie has urged the administration to take stronger measures. Lack of competition in bids for bulk fuel supplies forced L o s Angeles County to accept a lone bid for gasoline at a 67 per cent increase. THE CITY ,of Long Beach, Calif., which gets 1,20I barrels of crude oil daily as royalty from wells on municipal property, has threatened to beat the squeeze by refining its own gasoline. The Southern California Rapid Transit District, which carries nearly 500,000 passengers daily in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, received no bids when it advertised for 14.5 million gallons of diesel, The driving crunch lies ahead this summer, and no one is sure what will happen. Some indus- try analysts predict the short-" age will last into the mid 70s be- cause it will take that long to expand refinery capacity. SEN. HENRY JACKSON (D-Wash) talks about the gas shortage at a Capitol Hill press conference yesterday. Jackson spoke in favor of the Emergency Petroleum Act of 1973, now pending before the Senate. Some industry leaders have suggested that Congress must act quickly to regulate the distribution of gasoline, Methanol: An answer to the gas crises?2 By PRESTON McGRAW UPI Staff Writer So far, methyl alcohol has hardly been considered as a lubstitute for gasoline. Why haven't other energy experts looked at it? "I don't think they have put two and two together yet," Rich- ard Davison said in an interview. "I don't think people have re- alized we can have our cake and eat it too, We don't have to make any great economic sac- rifice to get it, either." DAVISON and W. D. Harris of the Texas A&M University chem- i c a 1 engineering department made a study of methyl alcohol - or methanol and came up with surprising conclusions. They found it has a higher oc- tane rating than premium gas- oline and probably could be sold cheaper. Compression, ratios of automobiles using it could be raised, giving the automobiles more power. F PTTER'S GUILD ii alJ une 3 9 A.-3 .M. 201 Hill Street Ann Arbor Methanol can even be mixed with water in certain amounts without lowering efficiency or performance. THERE ARE drawbacks, but none insurmountable. One draw- back is that methanol is hard to start in cold weather. Davison thinks this problem could be solved with carburetor or mani- fold heating, or an additive, to increase volatility. Another methanol problem is toxic vapors. Davison said that higher latent heat characteristics of alcohol reduce vaporization and also of toxic fumes. "Methanol can be made from coal at a cost of 81 to 10 cents a gallon. Reglil'sr gasoline now is about 14 cents at the refin- ery and premium is around 15 3 4 cents. "T HEORE TI C A LY, mile-ige is 55 per cent of what you get with gasoline. But if you took emission control de- vices off, this should rise to 60 per cent. So at these prices, methanol already competes with premium gasoline. NOW 5HOWING ! IN ERNEST LEHMAN'S PRODUCTION OF EDWARD AL 'BEES *Fuin UF=.SATURDAY and SUNDAY Modern Languages Building. w $1.25 Cont. Friends of Newsreel 7:15& 9:30 P.M. Also Starring mu iaoundac. © The iranataa etac. GEORGE SEGAL- SANDY DENNIS ' Screenplay by ERNEST LEHMAN Directed by MIKE NICHOLS Produced on the Stage by RichardSarr and Cinton wider i Music Alex North - PRESENTED BY WARNER BROS.