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10-20-2007, 06:17 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Bennington, Vermont USA
Posts: 1,301
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rph142
....... If you told a farmer on manhatten 150 years ago that 6 million people would some day live on that island he would say thats insane...there isnt enough room for their horses! Well technology changed and i think the same is true for the global energy problem.
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That hits the nail on the head. All the nay sayers assume that the status quo is some how perfect and has to be preserved. They ignore the creative energy of FREE people to adapt and develop solutions to the problems that life continues and will continue to throw at us. It is why we have a standard of living far ahead of that our great grand parents ever imagined. The EAA and RV builders are a geeky, hobbyist embodiment of that spirit.
Drill deeper oil wells, extract oil from tarry sand, tame nuclear energy, harness the waves and wind, develop better methods of storing and applying electrical energy, reduce the rolling resistance of tyres and the drag and mass of moving vehicles. The list is endless, as yet unimaginable and a source of satisfying and productive endeavor for generations to come. The sky isn't falling - but beware of the scolds and bureaucrats, Nobel laureates though some may be!
Last edited by jsharkey : 10-20-2007 at 07:31 PM.
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10-21-2007, 05:10 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Bennington, Vermont USA
Posts: 1,301
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RV505
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I do hope not - surely we're collectively better than that.
Otherwise it's welcome to the Thunder Dome - Two men enter.......
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10-21-2007, 09:46 PM
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Monroe WA
Posts: 1
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Other side of the coin
Nobody is more upset about rising fuel prices than me. It has hit the pocketbook pretty hard and certainly has curtailed my driving.
On the other side of the coin, it has also stimulated significant changes in our market, many for the good. Most of the current LSA designs were initiated in Europe as a result of the high fuel prices they've put up with for a long time. Now that the US market is catching on, it has sparked dozens of new designs; some of which are quite exciting.
While the LSA designs are purposely held to modest performance (by RV standards) it doesn't mean that designers aren't likely to push the envelope past LSA criteria. There exists pretty impressive designs that already deliver very impressive speed and fuel performance. Then there are other innovators like Monnett, who are working on electrical propulsion.
So while I complain about the high fuel prices, filthy rich oil execs, complacent citizens and non performing congress as I kick the dirt, I'm thankful that there are others who see opportunity and are actively doing something more constructive.
...if only I'd bought oil stock I could have bought me that new engine by now!
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12-05-2008, 07:12 AM
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Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Maple Grove, MN
Posts: 2,333
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Headline from Foxnews.com:
Oil 'May Dive to $25 Next Year'
"Crude prices may crash to an unthinkable $25 a barrel in 2009 and gas prices could fall below $1 a gallon, experts say"
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,462284,00.html
__________________
Alex Peterson
RV6A N66AP 1700+ hours
KADC, Wadena, MN
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12-05-2008, 07:24 AM
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: 8I3
Posts: 3,564
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I think low prices will be here to stay, because everyone has learned their lessons on hedging fuel contracts. The futures market is in a condition similar to the housing bubble, with lots of investors buying on margin, and now they've lost their rear ends big-time. I know guys who are in the trucking industry who are waiting for things to bottom out and they'll buy on contracts enough fuel to last them a couple of years. Can't imagine that it would be any different for the avgas suppliers.
__________________
Please don't PM me! Email only!
Bob Japundza CFI A&PIA
N9187P PA-24-260B Comanche, flying
N678X F1 Rocket, under const.
N244BJ RV-6 "victim of SNF tornado" 1200+ hrs, rebuilding
N8155F C150 flying
N7925P PA-24-250 Comanche, restoring
Not a thing I own is stock.
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12-05-2008, 07:48 AM
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Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Walnut Creek CA
Posts: 513
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Dang!, I knew I should?ve bought that V17 Abrams troop transport SUV with optional on board drill rig and refining platform to haul my ShihPoo puppy to and from the park in. Now that gas is cheap im sure they will sell like hotcakes again?. Seriously though, this cheap gas is going to ensure we drive right off a cliff when the well suddenly runs dry. The world is still burning 80 million + barrels a day. Of course I wish my plane was ready so I could burn this cheap gas!
__________________
Rob Holmes
www.myrv3.com
N59LG
The minimum number of planes one should own is one. The correct number is n+1, where n is the number of planes currently owned. This equation may also be re-written as s-1, where s is the number of planes owned that would result in separation from your partner.
- Veluminati
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12-05-2008, 08:50 AM
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Mandeville, Louisiana
Posts: 179
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Buy a big tank and fill it up
Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketbob
I think low prices will be here to stay, because everyone has learned their lessons on hedging fuel contracts. The futures market is in a condition similar to the housing bubble, with lots of investors buying on margin, and now they've lost their rear ends big-time. I know guys who are in the trucking industry who are waiting for things to bottom out and they'll buy on contracts enough fuel to last them a couple of years. Can't imagine that it would be any different for the avgas suppliers.
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Don't bet on it Bob.
Oil exploration finds have been below oil usage since the early to mid 80's and that gap continues to widen, despite improvements in exploration technology.
Oil usage while slowed a bit in the short term will continue to rise as China and India continue to raise their standard of living.
The giant reserve in Saudi are well past their prime with no replacements in sight.
Who knows when, but rising prices are inevitable.
Read "Twilight in the Desert" by Matt Simmons.
__________________
Dale Lambert
RV-6 Flying, XPIO360 Catto 3bld AFS3500EE
'68' C177
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12-05-2008, 08:56 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Coshocton, Ohio
Posts: 315
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketbob
I think low prices will be here to stay, because everyone has learned their lessons on hedging fuel contracts.
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Bob, if you worked for me, I'd have no choice but to immediately schedule you for a "random" drug test!
Nobody learned during the 70's when the Arabs stopped shipping crude that we needed to change our ways, and crude going back down to $25 will reinforce that opinion yet again. I've been telling people for over a year that we would see $40 crude again, and nobody believed me. Actually made more than a few flying hours worth of avgas in side bets! At the same time, I think we'll see $125 crude again. It may take a year or two, or five, but it will get there.
And I agree with you 100% that businesses will be smarter with their energy purchases. But when you consider that of the 9,477,000 barrels per day of net petroleum imports from last WEEK alone, 8,933,000 barrels per day went into finished motor gasoline (not diesel for trucks, nor diesel for big iron turbines, not heating oil, not even avgas). And small service and delivery trucks notwithstanding, business consumption of energy is not my worry.
It's the everyday guys and girls out there driving by themselves in either the small, fuel efficient commuter, or the big honkin F350, to go the 80 mile round trip to work every day, that hold our fate in their hands.
I can honestly say I'm not very comfortable with that! 
__________________
Dave Durakovich
CFIG, AGI, COMM SEL, VAF# 133
RV-4, N666PR, Finished (Well, at least flying)!
RV-6 - Adopted an orphan!
Detroit, MI
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."
Henry Ford
Last edited by ddurakovich : 12-05-2008 at 09:37 AM.
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12-05-2008, 04:50 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Estacada, OR
Posts: 787
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This recent drop in oil prices is going to hurt in the long run because the cheap & easy oil has mostly been found. Future oil will be expensive oil. We won't suddenly run out, however, because as supplies dwindle prices will rise.
Here's food for thought. As of 2004, the US was the third largest producer in the world. The US had over 500,000 wells while the rest of the whole world had only 380,000. Most of the Saudi oil came from just 1,500 wells. Does that mean that the US used to have most of the world's oil? Probably not. What it means is that there is a lot more oil to be had when the rest of the oil producing world develops as intensively as the US. And it won't be cheap oil. Oil per well will be small compared to the past, but technology will enable producers to more thoroughly exploit each well.
A recent Forbes article tells how Saudi Arabia is using hi tech to increase it's proven reserves substantially. There is a control center that monitors and controls each well from a central location and they can adjust production from that control center--engineers have the current price of oil on displays in front of them at all times. They are using technology to extract a higher proportion of the oil present from each well--you can't get every drop, but they are getting closer than they were 10, 20 years ago.
And note that reserves are defined by what can be extracted at a given price, so as the price has dropped, reserves have dropped, so keep that in mind when you see discussions of world oil reserves. When the price goes up, reserves will go up.
There are so many unanswerable questions about oil that predictions are highly questionable. For how long do we want to be shipping dollars to Iran and Venezuela so we can have oil? Will we make a national policy change that takes us away from that? A few years ago, would you have predicted that a company in India would be producing and selling a car for $2,500? Tata Motors now makes such a car. So demand will rise as they sell those cheap cars throughout the third world. 20 years ago, who would have predicted a turn around in India's economy, leading to a boom, a result of a change in government policy to less regulation (previously the only car you could buy in India was Indian produced--now the market is open)? We think we know that demand will increase substantially, but maybe not, maybe only for the next several years. What if there is a breakthrough in battery technology that would allow you to drive 200 miles on just electricity? How would that affect demand for oil? Or for electricity? How many of you, last July, predicted the oil price drop we have recently seen? Who even heard of such a prediction by a so called "expert"? Who would have made the connection between the housing bubble and oil?
Predicting oil prices and supply is such an iffy thing that no one, absolutely no one can do it reliably--as those speculators who were left last summer with commitments to buy $140 oil learned the hard way.
__________________
Richard Scott
RV-9A Fuselage
1941 Interstate Cadet
Last edited by RScott : 12-05-2008 at 04:59 PM.
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