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Master and Commander
Posts: 1431
| Subject: Gas /NSR
Gas in Maui is 4 buks and In Hana it reached 4.55 a gallon.  Will we mainlanders see this at the pump soon!!!  Time to get out the old Schwinn and polish her up. |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1324
Location: Oxnard, CA | Subject: RE: Gas /NSR
What gets me is some A-Hole politician will make a headline by announcing that gas will be $4.00/gallon by the end of May, and that gives the oil companies permission to raise the price. If that politician would have said he sees a fall in prices, you can bet the prices would fall. |
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1796
Location: Albany, GA. | Subject: RE: Gas /NSR
Unfortunately you have part of the problem figured out. The other part is getting the price high enough to make a profit off alternative fuels. Corn based uses one energy unit to produce 1.3 energy units. Then add in the cost of labor, equipment and upkeep, plus future growth, and you come up with a price above $4 / Gal. Now for Bio Diesel. It pays as long as you get the initial product as a waste. Go look at the cost of a gallon of cooking oil. Now figure in about 20% methenol plus a catalyst. This produces about 15% waste glycerine. Something not adding up? I played with the numbers on Peanut Oil. Why? It's the industry I work in. As close as I can realistically figure it, $7.85 / Gal. Neither Bio-diesel nor corn ethanol are as efficient as patroleum based fuels. Look for about a 15 - 20 % loss on that front. So for a diesel sub to have the same storage capacity, it would decrease it's range by about 20%. Plus you would need to start the diesels on petro - diesel, and shut them down on petro - diesel. Then there is the problem of heating the bio-diesel. You see it has to be hot to work. Good deal, only when there isn't another deal around. See Don, I made it sub related.
Edited by Sewer Pipe Snipe 2008-04-11 2:06 AM
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Master and Commander
Posts: 1455
| Subject: RE: Gas /NSR
The brewmeister has a good knowledge of the biodiesel industry. My company, and therefore me, exhibited at a biodiesel conference and exhibit in Orlando this past February. The talk of the town was how many new biodiesel projects were either cancelled or construction temporarily halted. It appears that the alternative energy money is going to the ethanol production. The venture capital is drying up for the biodiesel industry as the government pulls back tax credits. That reached a peak in November and December 2007. That industry is at the bottom of the barrell right now. It can only go up. The question is how much and when. If you follow all the money in the alternative energy arena it gets rather interesting. I can't wait for the talking heads to connect the dots and it become an election issue. By the way, for comparison sake, it takes 1/5 the money to refine biodiesel than it does for ethanol. The biodiesel refining process is much greener than ethanol production. As the brewmeister said as long as the raw materials are essentially someone else's waste products. |
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Senior Crew
Posts: 186
Location: Chunky, MS | Subject: RE: Gas /NSR
Trees being used for cellulosic ethanol is the long-term answer! 
Seriously, the corn usage for ethanol is gonna have to stop. It's killing the farming profession down here and making the cost of everything we eat go up. We have TONS of young pine trees down in the South that are being planted all the time and cellulosic ethanol is a very viable alternative to pulp/paper use. With everyone going "green" and the economy in the shape it is now, price per ton on pulpwood is very low. Another outlet for tree pulp/fiber would be wonderful! Of course, I am a registered forester so I'm slighted.
Short-term? We are going to all suffer...and many already are.
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 6180
Location: Summerville, SC | Subject: RE: Gas /NSR
Let's face it folks, one of the answers has been and always will be "CONSERVE". Consolidate your driving! It will take many millions of people to quit driving around/cruising and making mulitple trips to the store to bring the prices down. Yes, I know what fat chance means. The American public just doesn't work together anymore. |
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Old Salt
Posts: 256
| Subject: RE: Gas /NSR
We have all the gas we need here in the USA, all we need is the political will to go and get it.......in ANWAR, in deep water in the Gulf of Mexico, in a layer of shale two miles down in three or four of our western plains states. There are an estimated 10 billion barrels of oil + natural gas in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge......by drilling holes and then going at different angles, we can get a lot of this oil and gas without any real danger to the animals or environment. Better we start now, before the price of gas brings the USA to her knees, beholden to the middle east OPEC nations......At the same time, we can add thousands of HAWTs (wind mills)
in the SW and in plains states.......and start building new nuclear power plants instead of coal fire plants......We need to do all this NOW, so we have something by way of a real legacy to leave our children and grandchildren......Instead of beening billions of dollars in debt to people who basically hate us for being Americans.
Tincanman |
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COMSUBBBS
Posts: 3202
Location: Alexandria, Virginia | Subject: RE: Gas /NSR
In the mountains of East Tennessee, we have had independent mini ethanol refineries for years....Old ridge runners have been turning corn into alki-hol for multi-purpose fuel and selling it in fruit jars in quart increments. The bureaucratic gubbermint folks have placed many impediments between refining entrepenures and market distribution. Some of the unreasonable obstructions were illustrated in a 1950's era cinematic documentary masterpiece THUNDER ROAD starring Robert Mitchem...and that locally composed song with lyrics that went..."Roaring outta Harlan revin' up his mill...He shot the Gap at Cumberland and screemed by Maynardsville...and there was Thunder, Thunder over Thunder Road, the Devil was his engine and White Lightnin' was his load..." Tennessee a pioneer in alternative fuels....cooked off in the woods by Combustible Consumables Inc. DEX |
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Gas /NSR
