Jump to content

Gas Prices, etc. ....


oldbuckster

Recommended Posts

CNG (compressed natural gas) cars have been available for many years but have not caught on with the public.

Honda has made a CNG Civic for the last ten years.

300 mile range per fill up (about $18 at commerical CNG stations)

Less engine maintainence, 500K mile engine life

For additional long term savings and convenience, you may forgo fillups at stations altogether.Honda's "Phill" system ($4K, but about $1k after gov incentives) lets you use the much less expensive gas utility to your home to fill up the tank for under $5.

The CGN car costs about $6k more, and the home gas system another $1K, but then you get to drive 300 miles at a time for $5 a tank.

Break even point for commercial fill ups:

Normal high mpg car costs 10 gallons of gasoline to go 300 miles,
that's about $40. So a $22 differential for each tank of 300mi means
the break even point is when you have driven 7000/22 fill ups ... 318
fill ups. 95,400 miles! About 8 years.

Break even for home "Phill" ups:

Normal high mpg car costs 10 gallons of gasoline to go 300 miles, that's about $40. So a $35 differential for each tank of 300mi means the break even point is when you have driven 7000/35 fill ups ... 200 fill ups. 60,000 miles! About 5 years.

Of course, if the price of oil keeps going up the break even points would come sooner...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

CONSERVE, make them eat their oil ................. can't say it enough ............ CONSERVE .................

I get the conserve part fully, and I agree, and I try to conserve. I am not so sure I get the "make them eat their oil" part?

If political economics may be ultimately reduced to carrots and sticks, maybe the "make them eat their oil" part is a stick: threatening to adjust and fix the export price of food from the US in proportion to the price of oil.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

CONSERVE, make them eat their oil ................. can't say it enough ............ CONSERVE .................

I get the conserve part fully, and I agree, and I try to conserve. I am not so sure I get the "make them eat their oil" part?

If political economics may be ultimately reduced to carrots and sticks, maybe the "make them eat their oil" part is a stick: threatening to adjust and fix the export price of food from the US in proportion to the price of oil.

E X A C T L Y ! ! ! !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Make them eat their oil ................. simple, if we conserve and don't use, They will pump and have no place to sell it, let them eat it !!!!! No, we would rather complain than conserve ........ We've known for 30+ years theses days were coming, shame on us .............. I wish I could write what I really feel, but that would bring a LOCK OUT real fast, so this will have to do ................. CONSERVE .............

Link to comment
Share on other sites

all i know is that I just $3.18 for regular unleaded at AM & PM which is usually one of the cheapest around. Ridiculous, I took a very short trip this weekend and spent $90 in gasoline. Maybe I'll get one of those Can Am Spyders...those things look like so much fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

all i know is that I just $3.18 for regular unleaded at AM & PM which is usually one of the cheapest around. Ridiculous, I took a very short trip this weekend and spent $90 in gasoline. Maybe I'll get one of those Can Am Spyders...those things look like so much fun.

If the $3 is that's the right number you typed in...........uh.......it IS the cheapest price around or anywhere else in this country for that matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest srobak

in the last say 6 weeks or so, have seen 5 smart cars in Chicagoland where up until then I had not seen a single one.

As of last night, this is now up to 6.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like this thread and agree with OB. Conserve. It's that simple, reduce demand and the price will fall. The disclaimer being our conservation could be offset by others usage.

Futures markets perform a valuable service. To blame futures for oil prices makes little sense to me. The price is a result, not a cause. The reason a cup of coffee doesn't cost a different price every month at McD's is because somebody in the background is using the futures market. Ditto for many other food and energy products. Just because most folks (meaning us) are buyers of oil (or gasoline), and the price is high does not allow one to ignore that sellers (i.e. Shell) are able to invest since they have the ability to ensure high returns for a period of time into the future. Futures also offer the opportunity to buy at prices too low relative to the fundamental value. Sadly, given the overall economy, the commodity markets have been the shelter for surplus funds somewhat negating the usual swings in both directions; hence, a bull market.

Corn into ethanol to me is a non-starter. Humans need to eat the corn. Ethanol plants are like cogen plants. Takes tax breaks to work.

The best part to me, is that simple things that made no sense a couple years ago, like installing panels and selling power into your local grid will begin to make financial sense. Prices will drop rapidly if there ever is enough demand to get critical manufacturing volumes. Ditto for tankless heaters and all the junk Mother Earth News professed for decades. And I'm not particularly green, but it's going to happen. Wind, solar, etc.

I'd imagine the oil comapines today see a problem. People will turn them off. They likely are concerned about the price internally because they know with their current model they cannot sustain returns to investors (read your 401k). They have a problem, we have a problem. We let it happen to ourselves and we will also fix it. The solution will cause their current model to change. How many of us will complain when they mothball a refinery due to weak demand? Yeah it might not be for 5 years, but if I was them, I'd be reluctant to make infrastructure capital investment today.

Frankly, I'm more appreciative we have abundant land/food/water, even tho we already squabble over water. I'd take good ole USA with vast land and food resources over oil. We will always need food and water. Oil will be replaced.

Odd to say, but Brazil has their act together now and look where they were 5-10 years ago. They have similar resources and have done much better at managing energy dependence, not to mention foreign policy. Wanna point a finger ... I'd start with our litigation system - that's what screws with our costs IMHO.

Keep in mind the same companies making all the money will have to spend it somewhere. Maybe they will buy condos/business/homes in the USA. The oil company making "huge" profits will dole a lot out as dividends. That's not a bad thing.

Here's my favorite green thought -

post-27947-1381937453264_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...