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10-16-2007, 02:34 PM
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Grand Rapids MI
Posts: 742
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I'm in the "use less on the road more in the plane" crowd.
Oh, and hedge it with plenty of energy stocks. I started buying energy in Jan. 04 and have made way more on these than I have spent on energy.
Buy some HAL or XOM and take some of their insane profits for yourself.
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10-16-2007, 03:39 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Boise, ID
Posts: 1,095
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I have a question, and I don't want this to turn into a flame-war on Auto Gas, but if you have a low compression Lycoming (less than 9:1, for example) why wouldn't you use it instead? I know about the risks of vapor lock, so I plan on avoiding fuel with Ethanol in it (simple testers out there for this).
An alternative would be to dilute your fuel mixture with auto-gas, like 50/50 so your valves get the lead benefit, but at a reduced cost. There are also lead addatives for this.
I don't think in most cases that it's a matter of Octane rating, but that of needing lead for the non-hardened valve seats. I plan on using Mogas with my engine, but will follow the break-in procedures and use ONLY Avgas during that period. After that, I will run Avgas only as needed/required for the valve seats.
__________________
Sonny W
Boise, Idaho
RV-7A Flying!
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10-16-2007, 03:52 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Vul, VA
Posts: 316
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How about the ignorance margin of the tax..?
The gov't. will also tack on as much tax as they think we will be willing to pay. At least the oil companies are giving you something for your money....
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Originally Posted by Flyrod
It?s not so much the price of crude oil that concerns me, as much as the ignorance margin that the big oil companies add to the mix. Even if the price for crude oil went to $100 a barrel, the real price for regular gasoline should only be around $3.23 a gallon. Right now we?re paying an ignorance margin in this country that I have seen vary between 35? a gallon and 95? a gallon lately. If it looks like Congress is getting upset and may investigate then the margin retreats. If all is quiet on Capitol Hill, than this margin goes up.
I call it an ignorance margin because the refiners that profit in this country are throwing it in with hopes that you?ll believe it is the cost of crude oil. Most people do not even know how many gallons are in a barrel of oil, so there is no way they can do the math. Big oil is so scared of a true investigation that they had their good friend Senator Stevens from Alaska hold a kangaroo court investigation just before the republicans lost power. Although all the big CEOs were called in before the TV cameras, Stevens used all his power to control the questioning and the agenda to prevent true - hardcore investigation.
A true investigation is only possible now if many citizens get organized and began communicating with their Congress. If you think corporate mainstream media will investigate and look into this for you, think again. I will never forget turning on CNN one day only to see this ditzy talking head trying to convince us like a high school cheerleader that it?s a great thing for the consumer Exxon and Mobil are merging. As an unconcerned and complacent citizenship, we have allowed big oil and others to run us over like a Mack truck. They have seen how easy this was and are considering turning around to check our bodies wallets and jewelry.
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10-16-2007, 04:02 PM
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Santa Barbara, CA
Posts: 1,324
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Exactly!
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Originally Posted by briand
I'm in the "use less on the road more in the plane" crowd.
Oh, and hedge it with plenty of energy stocks. I started buying energy in Jan. 04 and have made way more on these than I have spent on energy.
Buy some HAL or XOM and take some of their insane profits for yourself.
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Between a couple of energy stocks and shorting the housing market, I made enough to fly for a couple of years.
John Clark
RV8 N18U "Sunshine"
KSBA
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10-16-2007, 04:58 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: St. Paul, MN.
Posts: 4,792
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I sure have concerns about the people in the northeast where oil is the dominant method of heating homes in the winter.
I know people sayt hey're concerned; but I also notice people screaming past me on the drive home every night; so they're not THAT concerned.
We can bring the price of oil down tomorrow if we put our minds to it. We just don't want to sacrifice in this country anymore... for anything.
THAT concerns me much more than anything else. We blame everyone but ourselves.
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10-16-2007, 05:32 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Bennington, Vermont USA
Posts: 1,301
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I'd be worried about the cost for heating and powering industry in the short term but high prices will spur inovation and new technology.
I still think however that the price of gas will have to rise significantly higher (10x) to make it's use for personal transport of any kind unattractive.
MoGas in the UK and europe is 3 or 4 times the price in the USA, cars are taxed up the wazu, automatic speed cameras spew fines in the mail and tax dollars are poured into public transport - but the roads are still packed and you can't find a parking space! Humans really value the freedom that personal transport affords and are prepared to sacrifice other things for it.
As for inovation, who noticed the electric Sonex at OSH? It is the very tip of the iceberg.
I wouldn't worry about the price of crude in the long run.
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10-16-2007, 06:19 PM
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: TX & CO
Posts: 465
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PBS did a great show on alternative fuels some years back; there was no magic bullet, and it was going to take many different sources from solar/wind, nuclear, hydro, etc, to help cut into our petro dependence. Ethanol used more energy to extract it out of wheat, corn, etc, than what was produced. It?s practical in Brazil since they use sugar, and get a much larger yield per bushel of that compared to only about 2.7 gallons of ethanol from a bushel of corn. Technology often takes so long to catch up, and thus far, all of the other alternative energy sources are still more costly than the petrol itself, and it takes government subsidies to keep them afloat. Petro based fuels and engines has also had over a hundred year head start. My own guess is that it will take many, many decades before anything looks promising to curb our huge appetite of petro.
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I have a question, and I don't want this to turn into a flame-war on Auto Gas, but if you have a low compression Lycoming (less than 9:1, for example) why wouldn't you use it instead? I know about the risks of vapor lock, so I plan on avoiding fuel with Ethanol in it (simple testers out there for this).
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I think quite a few go with a 7:1 compression ratio for auto fuel, some a bit more. For my hopefully, soon to build future RV-7 project, I?m leaning towards auto gas myself. It should save me $1-$2.00 a gallon sipping ever so slightly more fuel, and I think with the 150 HP engine, I?d also lose about 6 mph over the 160 HP version. I can live with that. One other concern with auto gas that I read on another thread, is that this type of gas loses several points of its octane rating if not used in 30 days. Don?t know if there is any truth in this or not, and if this would be true with regular aviation fuel as well. If this is the case, I suppose one could have some little plastic cans of octane booster for those long stretches where the plane has been idle.
Quote:
We can bring the price of oil down tomorrow if we put our minds to it. We just don't want to sacrifice in this country anymore... for anything.
THAT concerns me much more than anything else. We blame everyone but ourselves.
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I agree. With our cars, if everybody just slowed down with their acceleration, and lowered their top speed a bit, and if many would get on the same page with this, we could easily cut 20% of the petro use overnight. But no, that?s just too simple. We Americans are gluttons for the most part, and it?s just not cool for many to be concerned about this. I don?t understand why everybody is in such a big hurry. I often pull my CRX off to the side to let them by, because just driving the speed limit isn?t fast enough for most people.
wj
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10-17-2007, 08:39 AM
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Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Fort Myers, FL
Posts: 483
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Hedging higher energy cost through stocks works best for the people who need it least. The more you invest in those stock, the more money you have and thus the more you can afford higher price versus a low income family who isn't likely to have any savings.
I lived in Europe, the high cost of gas didn't get people to slow down, but they did buy more efficient cars. European drive those small cars because they want to save on gas. We used to own a Range Rover. If you let the tank get close to empty, it would cost about 800 French Francs at the time to fill up, which at the time was $130 to fill up the tank and that was over 10 years ago! We still went and took leisure drive on Sundays, yet just drive to drive. We also had another car to get around and drove it most of the time.
People only equate their saving at the pumps with current price, we don't aknowledge that if we all use less, price should drop (if other country demand doesn't rise while supply doesn't decrease, and that's a HUGE if).
I still think the price at the pump needs to go above $5 before we start to really feel the effect. Let's say that you're burning 500 gallons a year through your car. If price goes to $4.5 at the pump, we'll complain but it's only $750 more a year. For most people that can be absorbed, it's the low income family that will be hurt. Start going higher, and you'll start hitting more people and that's where you'll start to have issues. Of course, this will play havoc with many other prices because value for almost all goods get added by something whose cost is in part related to energy cost which makes people feel more squeezed.
Don't get me wrong, I'd much rather keep that money in my pocket, but the bottom line is that it's not the end of the world as we like to make it out to be. The sad part is that oil at 88 is still cheap, most say it will go to $100, I wouldn't be surprised to see it go higher, specially is our feds cut again and others don't.
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10-17-2007, 09:11 AM
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Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: York, England
Posts: 381
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I know it's a paradox but in a way high oil prices are a good thing. I thinnk this because here in the UK (and in europe) it has started to concentrate minds on alternative fuels and this is gathering huge momentum.
The governments of the west now recognise the importance of moving away from oil as their main source of engery, for no other reason than it is no longer (was it ever?) a secure source. At last there are political demands (and thefore market demands) for alternative fuel sources so the commercial companies will get their act together and pour R&D money in bucket loads and the results will come.
In the short to medium term oil prices will remain high, but once those oil producing nations realise that their customers have gone elsewhere market forces will dictate that oil prices will have to at least match alternative energy sources.
I predict that within the next fifteen years in Europe more than 70% of cars will be running on hybrid and alternative energy sources! And now in the UK even the "ecos" think the buildign of new nuclear power stations is at least worth debating! I don't really think that the west will allow this (oil) gun to be held to its head for much longer!
Just my take on things. now I'm going to get back to building my seats!
Martin
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10-17-2007, 09:19 AM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: San Mateo, CA
Posts: 1,419
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I too think that higher oil prices are good.
Yes, it will slow down the economy and hurt many folks. But if we keep burning up fossil fuels at a high rate and tossing that CO2 into the air, we'll eventually have far more problems than high gas prices.
By raising the price of oil/gas it makes it economically attractive to develop cleaner energy sources.
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