Fuel oil

[WA1GFZ]

I filled up today at $2.99 / Ga. sucks but at least it isn $4 or $5.

We saved a good amount of oil this summer by turning off the burner during the night and middle of the day when there was no hot water needs.
Just had to remember to turn it off while the burner wasn't running so it is easier on the switch contacts.

[WB2RJR]

So why exactly did the secret people who control the price of oil move it down to $2.99?

[steve_qix]

So why exactly did the secret people who control the price of oil move it down to $2.99?

Think it's supply and demand    The economic slow down will reduce the demand (world wide), and probably more particularly in the developing countries who were feeding the increased demand.

I ran out 2 weeks ago and had to fill up at 3.15 - still nothing like the 4.50+ it was at this summer.

Regards,

Steve

[W3SLK]

I just topped off at $2.79/gal.

[WA1GFZ]

the secret people have oil coming out of their ears and were not banking on everyone cutting back. Don't worry they will reduce supply soon.

[WA1GFZ]

good price Mike. I'm set till Spring now.
A  great solar day today

[K3ZS]

Demand down, dollar up, hedge funds deleveraging-all contribute to it going down.    If OPEC sez they will cut production doesn't mean it will actually happen.    They all back-stab each other and each member of OPEC tries to get market share by not actually decreasing production.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

You know damn well that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney told them to do it from their shadow government headquarters in the basement of an undisclosed Walmart.

So why exactly did the secret people who control the price of oil move it down to $2.99?

[W1UJR]

You know damn well that Karl Rove and Dick Cheney told them to do it from their shadow government headquarters in the basement of an undisclosed Walmart.

I always knew that Wal-Mart was linked to Haliburton, now I have the proof! 
It all makes sense now.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

You can comlain about the price of oil, but still pay it, after all the folks who hear you complaining aren't the ones who can do anything about it.... 

Or you can do something about it... 

Most of us on this board are technically savvy folks.  You could build a gas producer system that would heat your home using almost any solid matter as fuel,  Wood chips, sawdust, dry trash, coal, charcoal etc.  Wood and wood prodcuts being the greenest option (net zero CO2 to the environment). The others would work fine but introduce additional Carbon for those who care about such things. There is a fellow in VT marketing a GP furnace now. A little pricey but the thing is not fussy about what it eats to make heat...

 IF you were really ambitions, you would use the producer gas to run a generator for electricity, use the waste heat from the GP and generator exhaust and Cooling system to heat the home & hot water.  Using the waste heat ups the efficiency remarkably. 
Then you could sell back to the power company. Not much money, but it would be going IN to your pocket and not out.

The down side--- (No Free Lunch)  You have to handle bulk solid fuel, the cost of which would be proportional to the ease of handling.  (pre ground wood chips or coal would probaly be most expensive unless you know a tree service and can get them to drop their chips on you for nada)>

[W1UJR]

Nice idea, wish it were feasible.

If it was that easy Ed, don't you think someone would be selling a million of those units a week?
So far, aside from wind power, almost every "green solution" requires more power into it than you get out.

The real answer is nuclear, but the green meanies won't let that happen.

Capitalism is the mother of invention, if it was that simple, someone would be making big, big money off it.
Unless Haliburton is keeping them from doing it??? 

[W1RKW]

topped off at 2.79 last week.

I've locked in in years passed and always made out good but the last 2 years I did not.  I was fortunate enough to read the tea leaves this year so to speak.

I contemplated locking in this season but did not because I was late to make the deadline and capitulated to the fuel costs.  I guess I lucked out big time.  I'm glad I procrastinated.

[k4kyv]

The real answer is nuclear, but the green meanies won't let that happen.

What ever happened to fission research?  During the last so-called crisis, it was a hot topic, the final solution to the energy problem, but this time round, nothing is even mentioned about it. As far back as I can remember, it has always been something promised for "50 years in the future".  I think I first heard that about 50 years ago.

I just ordered a tank of propane @ $2.59/gal.  It won't give out nearly the BTU's of the same amount of kerosene.  Unfortunately, it is all but impossible to get home delivery of kerosene here.  It was once the most used heating fuel in this locality, but for some reason, people gradually quit using it and went to propane (which is about 30% more expensive per BTU), so now they will deliver kerosene only to filling stations and quick stops, but not to private residences. People still buy it 5 gallons at a  time to use in portable unvented heaters, those things that stink up the entire house.

I had to junk my $750 vented oil heater with permanent outdoor tank, because a $5 part had been "discontinued" by the manufacturer, and no after-market or used piece was to be had anywhere on the face of the earth.  Their response was that I shouldn't be upset because "After all, that heater is over 15 years old".  As if I would likely need a replacement part for a brand new one. 

[W3SLK]

Don said:

What ever happened to fission research?

I think you mean fusion research. Whereby two hydrogen atoms are fused to make a helium atom much the way the sun creates energy. I too would like to know what happened.

[W1UJR]

Don said:

What ever happened to fission research?

I think you mean fusion research. Whereby two hydrogen atoms are fused to make a helium atom much the way the sun creates energy. I too would like to know what happened.

One word, Haliburton.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Don:

It's all but impossible to get #2 heating oil around these parts. There prolly isn't a single residence in this state that uses it. If you're in a rural area here, your heating options are electricity, propane, wood or coal. If you live in an urban area, scratch the wood and coal, but then you have the option of piped-in natural gas.

Bruce: I wholeheartedly support nuclear power. I've recently seen several stories in the press where environmentalists have changed their opinion of nuclear power. But it's been 50 years since the first commercial nukes were turned on and we *still* have no safe long-term national repository for spent high-level fuel. From Eisenhower to Bush. That's a hurdle that needs resolution before nukes are going to be more widely accepted by the public. I once worked for a local electric utility that owned a nuke a few miles from my home. The Fort St. Vrain nuclear plant. While safe, it never worked reliably and it was decommissioned and converted to natural gas maybe 15 years ago. They had a heck of a time disposing of the fuel rods. Storing them long-term on site would have cost a fortune in 24x7 security details. The Federal government was *supposed* to take and safely dispose of the old fuel under contract, but they had no place to put it. Ultimately, the feds did accept the spent fuel which was shipped to Hanford, Washington where it presently sits with some 300,000 tons of other high-level nuclear waste waiting for proper long-term disposal.

Any politician that promotes additional nuclear power without coming up with a solution to the waste is in my opinion, irresponsible.

This is ridiculous.

[W1UJR]

Bill, thank you for your concise, and well thought out reply.

[WB2RJR]

Any politician that promotes additional nuclear power without coming up with a solution to the waste is in my opinion, irresponsible.

Bill,

WOW, I hardly know what to say. That would probably be a great talking point for the empty suit out of Chicago.

Do I have a response?

Sure

because in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order that banned the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the United States.

Reading this might be of interest........

http://www.argee.net/DefenseWatch/Nuclear%20Waste%20and%20Breeder%20Reactors.htm

Can we take these fuel rods that contain all this Plutonium, separate out the Plutonium and whatever Uranium was not used, and make more fuel rods? You bet. In fact, we actually end up with more fuel after the process than what we started with. Why is this not being done?
Plutonium is used in atomic bombs - the fact that it's pure Plutonium-239 that makes an atomic bomb work, and not the other three isotopes, apparently didn't matter, because in 1977 President Jimmy Carter signed an executive order that banned the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the United States. The rationale was that the Plutonium could possibly be stolen, and terrorists might be able to use it to make atomic bombs.
Never mind that in the real world, it is essentially impossible to separate out the Plutonium-239 from the other isotopes in sufficient purity to use it for bomb making. The British tried it, the Russians tried it, the French tried it, and we tried it, but nobody did it very well, even though we had the best scientists and all the money in the world to throw at it.
If you try to make a bomb with such a mixture of Plutonium isotopes, forget about it - it won't work, ever. We're talking about the laws of physics, Greenpeace notwithstanding. Unless you have pure Plutonium-239, your bomb will fizzle. So throwing away all that valuable nuclear fuel to prevent terrorists from making a bomb that won't work anyway is just plain dumb.

I don't know Bill, but it looks to me like your big nuclear waste problem is the result of Jimmy's executive order.

 What say you?

P.S. I have to get ready for the secret meeting of petroleum geologists and oil company big wigs at the Wal-Mart in Rock Springs. We need to figure out how we could have been so stupid as to not realize that if we raised the oil price to $140 people would use less.

It's a tough job figuring out how to control the oil price so we can screw the "littleguy", but what the heck, someones got to do it.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Nice idea, wish it were feasible.

If it was that easy Ed, don't you think someone would be selling a million of those units a week?

Well, I didn't propose it as a solution to save the masses, on that level it isn't feasable.  But for people who would be willing to make some effort and substitute elbow grease and ingenuity for convienience and dependance it would be quiet workable.   It would certainly be no more difficult than heating with a wood stove, more likely easier and a lot cleaner.  

I have one in the works now, so I will put my money where my mouth is...

Google shows millions of hits for wood gasification mostly automotive, stationary would be a lot easier.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

That's a hurdle that needs resolution before nukes are going to be more widely accepted by the public.

I don't know that it isn't widely accepted by the public. We've never had a vote on it. A few wackos have protested and stopped new nuke plants and they are hardly representative of the general public. The country has never has a serious discussion on the subject.

[Bill, KD0HG]

Marty and all:

Jimmy Carter isn't running for political office and it's been how many administrations since?  I recently met him, he's a frail and old man deserving of our national respect as a former president of the United States, as is the current president. Even if we disagree.

Can we shift this thread away from the partisanship now?

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

He wasn't an old man when he made that decision. Stating the facts is not partisan.

[Bill, KD0HG]

How many administrations have there been since Carter, Steve?
Perhaps the blame is on those that *didn't* overturn his executive order?

[WB2RJR]

Google shows millions of hits for wood gasification mostly automotive, stationary would be a lot easier.

Ed,

When my Dad was with 3rd Army under Patton, he met a German farmer who had a truck which ran on the gas from uncompletely combusted wood chips. It had a box with smoldering wood chips and that gas was sucked into the carborator. Wasn't perfect but it worked.

I heard about this many times as my Dad was an E-8 Master Technical Sgt. who job was fixing rolling equipment.

An old idea that works and my please someone if they want to get off the "grid".

73, Marty

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

None of that absolves Carter. Because he made a mistake a long time ago, makes it no less a mistake. As for those who came after, I've never said they weren't to blame. But one must consider the political ramifications of doing so. If a few wackos can stop the building of a nuke plant, consider the uproar if someone like Reagan, well hated by the greenies, would have overturned Carter's order. So, it's not as simple as you make it out.

How many administrations have there been since Carter, Steve?
Perhaps the blame is on those that *didn't* overturn his executive order?