Amazing! It is not enough that George Bush is on a lone rampage to ruin this country in some people's minds but now it is a worldwide conspiracy too... I am sure it is all Bush's fault just like everything else in people's lives is... How are those hemmorhoids he caused ya'll to have? Are they getting better or is he making them worse?
It is just total horse crap that no matter what you make a thread about the same people have to turn it into the same old political discussion.
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01:22 PM
Raydar Member
Posts: 41135 From: Carrollton GA. Out in the... country. Registered: Oct 1999
Originally posted by Songman: ...It is just total horse crap that no matter what you make a thread about the same people have to turn it into the same old political discussion.
I just let 'em rant, and don't comment.
I have resolved to quit arguing with idiots. I have found that they'll attempt to drag you down to their level and then whip you with experience.
[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 09-14-2006).]
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01:26 PM
Fastback 86 Member
Posts: 7849 From: Los Angeles, CA Registered: Sep 2003
Gas is down here, too. Moving on campus helped me a lot, I drive the car a lot less now. Also, theres a very cheap station right next to my work, and work is only 15 mins away. Just got lucky, I guess.
On the other hand, and it makes me feel kinda old to say it, but when I started driving, gas was $1.32, so I'll be impressed when it gets back into that terrirtory.
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03:57 PM
Songman Member
Posts: 12496 From: Nashville, TN Registered: Aug 2000
I remember when I started driving gas was just under a dollar. It was just teetering at under and over 1$ and I would refuse to fill up unless it was under a buck......... now I laugh at that.
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04:16 PM
Raydar Member
Posts: 41135 From: Carrollton GA. Out in the... country. Registered: Oct 1999
I remember 50 cent regular gas when I was younger. It was around 70 when I started driving. Gas is not that expensive given the inflation over the years. I feel the problem is the sudden increase that has crippled the markets and the average household budget. If prices had risen slowly it would not be such a big deal but we have kept those prices artificially low for years.
Right now cheap gas is about 2.70 around here. On average my Girlfriend and I have a 700 dollar a month gasoline expenditure. I am now driving my four cylinder coupe at 33 mpg to save money.
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06:49 PM
PFF
System Bot
$Rich$ Member
Posts: 14575 From: Sioux Falls SD Registered: Dec 2002
The cheapest here for 85 octane is $2.69 a gallon. This particular gas station used to be the cheapest around here, but while every other gas stations prices fell they stayed the same at $2.79 a gallon for 85, I guess they realized they couldn't keep gouging people and expect them to keep gassing up there.
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04:42 AM
jstricker Member
Posts: 12956 From: Russell, KS USA Registered: Apr 2002
People blabbering about about the price of crude and pump gas being related to elections should at least do basic research.
1. There is not and has not been any crude shortage. OPEC and The Entire global oil industry have said so for some time. 2. The global price per barrel has nothing to do with U.S. wants or whims. It is however being affected by a couple types of investors new to oil trading that are hoping to capitolize on, and likely even cause, problems they can make a buck from. Even OPEC has looked at those prices and essentially said WTF is going on. 3. You are paying the price of adding Ethanol to fuel. Ethanol blends cannot be shipped in the pipeline system. Adding ethanol is a huge expense.
The Corn Lobby has given you want many of you wanted... A renewable fuel source. Never mind that is it an extremely impractical one for much of the nation. Fortunately the days of Gasoline are in decline now that Diesel has been cleaned up and "Euro" Diesel engines are crossing the pond. Cleaning up Diesel is one of the few things USEPA has done right in years. These engines now make up more than half of all new vehicle sales in most of Europe with numbers increasing yearly. I'm hoping I can keep my Fiero running long enough for these to make some decent market penetration. At that point I'll get one and look for sources of Biodiesel blends. Even on straight crude diesel, the euro engines do better than gas for MPG what still means less oil needed.
Like ethanol, butanol is an alcohol compound, but with four carbon atoms instead of two. DuPont says the different chemical structure of butanol gives it several advantages over ethanol, including tolerance to water contamination, which makes it more suitable for transportation via pipeline.
That one fact alone means Butanol will do away with the rail/truck shipping required for Ethanol. Shipping Ethanol is not only expensive but puts a major dent into the oil savings claimed by the Corn Lobby. Even the Corn Lobby should be looking at this as you can use corn among other things to make it. Far as I can tell you get more of it and can use more of the plant instead of just the corn Kernals. That means less waste and pre processing.
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10:09 PM
ryan.hess Member
Posts: 20784 From: Orlando, FL Registered: Dec 2002
Originally posted by theogre: 1. There is not and has not been any crude shortage. OPEC and The Entire global oil industry have said so for some time. 2. The global price per barrel has nothing to do with U.S. wants or whims. It is however being affected by a couple types of investors new to oil trading that are hoping to capitolize on, and likely even cause, problems they can make a buck from. Even OPEC has looked at those prices and essentially said WTF is going on.
Gas/oil prices have a 60% fear markup. I think the latest round of price decreases have been reductions in fear. Less worry that Iran is going to shut off their supply, and most importantly less worry about hurricanes.
I mentioned this in another thread, but when Dr. Grey made his adjustment to the september hurricane forcast, oil prices fell by 3 percent! Now that everybody sees there will be no hurricanes making US landfall this year, oil is falling like a brick
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10:13 PM
Sep 16th, 2006
fierobear Member
Posts: 27103 From: Safe in the Carolinas Registered: Aug 2000
Gas/oil prices have a 60% fear markup. I think the latest round of price decreases have been reductions in fear. Less worry that Iran is going to shut off their supply, and most importantly less worry about hurricanes.
Wait, I thought this was about the elections? Geez.
[This message has been edited by fierobear (edited 09-16-2006).]
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01:24 AM
Scott-Wa Member
Posts: 5392 From: Tacoma, WA, USA Registered: Mar 2002
That one fact alone means Butanol will do away with the rail/truck shipping required for Ethanol. Shipping Ethanol is not only expensive but puts a major dent into the oil savings claimed by the Corn Lobby. Even the Corn Lobby should be looking at this as you can use corn among other things to make it. Far as I can tell you get more of it and can use more of the plant instead of just the corn Kernals. That means less waste and pre processing.
Is that a pipe dream or a reality in the making... that's the question. Replaced gasoline 100% with no changes, raises mileage, cleaner burning... No more NOx or SOx?
But downsides... It's over $6 a gallon in 55 gallon drums... about the same as race gas. $3.70 by the barge load... ummm... that's way more than gasoline even after the taxes... and you haven't hit retail markup. The big claim is to be able to drop that to 85 cents thru this new process, hydrogen spinoffs, and using the waste as feed for cattle. Think we have enough cows to eat the waste if instead of producing the 350 million gallons a year... we produce the 500 BILLION gallons that is used in gasoline now?
So the market needs to drop cost by a decimal place to be competative at the retail level, and needs to ramp eventually to about 1000x it's present level if it's going to replace gasoline.
I'm curious about the side effects of this fuel, considering it's a solvent... will it require more gasket redesigns? Does burning it create any new types of pollutants compared to gasoline? Will it do bad bad things when the combusted cases interact with catalytic convertors as presently designed?
It looks like if they can get production yeilds up as the one site claims and cost down, it's a win win win. The other question is if there is a better crop to start with for the base ingredient like beets, soy, rapeseed? Something with lower impact on the land, higher yeild per acre, maybe more crops per year... maybe hemp.
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12:05 PM
PFF
System Bot
Sep 20th, 2006
m0sh_man Member
Posts: 8460 From: south charleston WV 25309 Registered: Feb 2002
So why did gasoline go down so much? From a friend...
quote
There is a lot of reasons. If you watch the US news outlets, you'll only hear for investors with a vested interest and they will say that oil is going down because the Iran and Israel situations have calmed down. That is absolute bullshit. The Iran situation hasn't calmed down at all. Iran told everyone to **** off. And no one has been able to explain how Israel and Lebenon have anything to do with ****in' oil prices...
There is one reason and one reason alone that oil prices, and thus gas prices, have gone down. Supply and demand.
Oil supplies are at RECORD highs. They are so high that Iran had to lease 14 oil tanker to store oil because their land based tanks are 100% full. Saudi Arabia is in the same situation.
Just look at the Alaskan Pipeline. It was, and still is, shutdown for over a month. So if supply lines are sooooooo ****in' tight, why hasn't the price of oil way up? Because there are no supply issues right now. The market has been in Contango for over a year now and speculators are slowly trying to cut their losses...
The really good news. This isn't over! None of the major oil hedge funds have pulled out yet. When the first one does, this whole thing is going to come crumbling down. I still still stand by my prediction that oil is going to hit 40 bucks before the end of the year. Hell, I think 30 bucks is attainable.
Cliff notes: 1. Oil got too high because of ****in' speculators. 2. Speculators have over extended themselves and the price they paid on the futures market isn't being covered on the spot market. 3. Speculators are selling at a loss and the oil bubble is on the verge of bursting...
4. You ain't seen **** yet!!
Also:
quote
1. There is NO TAX on Ethanol. In fact, there is a $0.51 SUBSIDY on every gallon of ethanol that is mixed with gasoline.
2. There is a $0.61 tarriff on ethanol from Brazil. This is because Brazilian ethanol, which is made from Sugar Cane is about 10 times cheaper than ethanol made from corn.
3. Ethanol is a pathetic joke. Ethanol made from corn is flat out MORONIC. For every unit of energy you put into the manufacture of Ethanol from corn you get 1.2 units back. When you use sugar cane, you get 8 units back. When you use cellulostic processes (which are not currently practical) you get about 20 units. Oil, refined into gas gives a return somewhere north of 100 units. I'll have to go look up the numbers to give you the exact figures....
4. Ethanol has a lower energy density than gas. So using E85 WILL drop your fuel economy by as much as 25%. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/byfueltype.htm can give you the exact mileage comparisons on vehicles that run on E85.
5. The 10% ethanol blend we are using right now (as mandated by Congress) caused gas prices to spike by as much as $0.40 per gallon higher earlier this summer. Right now, the wholesale price of Ethanol is right now is about 3 bucks. That is costing YOU $0.30 extra per gallon of regular gas with a 10% ethanol mix. That is before any profits are added in.
I could spend all day pulling any arguement for ethanol apart. But I think Ed Wallas does a much better job in this BusinessWeek article.
There's no market manipulation in gasoline, no, not at all. It's as open and honest and manipulation free as the electric market was in California a couple of years ago. Pure supply and demand, no gaming the system, nope, not one bit of that.
Trust the oil companies, they only have the best interests of the nation and its people at heart.
JazzMan
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09:41 AM
Old Lar Member
Posts: 13798 From: Palm Bay, Florida Registered: Nov 1999
Coming through Ga today at exit 5 on I 75 $2.019/gal. We found lots of gas from $2.059-$2.199 throughout Ga. I get back into Florida and its $2.319 in Jacksonville (I 295) and $2.439 here in Palm Bay. Its coming down.
There's no market manipulation in gasoline, no, not at all. It's as open and honest and manipulation free as the electric market was in California a couple of years ago. Pure supply and demand, no gaming the system, nope, not one bit of that.
Trust the oil companies, they only have the best interests of the nation and its people at heart.
JazzMan
I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not. But it is simple supply and demand right now. Not the election crap that some people believe.
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11:02 PM
Sep 25th, 2006
USFiero Member
Posts: 4877 From: Everywhere and Middle of Nowhere Registered: Mar 2002
Not only that, but they may be realizing that at a certain price point, other sources of oil and alternative energy become economically feasible. Shale oil, while not profitable at $20/bbl. could certainly be competitive at $75 - $100/bbl. If the oil prices go too high, there will be more options and people will use other sources.
OPEC only has it's hold as long as their oil is the cheapest available. They don't have all the oil, just the bulk of the cheap oil.
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