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Author Topic: FUEL $$$ WTF  (Read 115250 times)
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Art
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« Reply #50 on: April 13, 2011, 01:01:25 PM »

How about this; we remove all taxing from oil and gas and its drilling and production and set reasonable standards to protect people (not etherial owls, et al (al has been ok)) from getting their health messed up by doing so. Spare me the Exon Valdez and Gulf incidents, stuff happens and it will, unless you do nothing. If you do nothing then find a way to pay 9.50 a gallon and don't whine. If you do something productive there will be incidents just as there are crashes when planes fly. You clean up the messes and get back on the horse if its the best horse you have. We are on a path to do less than nothing now and can change that.
We could also change our automotive fuel to CNG. We know where to find that. . .
Art
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Don
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« Reply #51 on: April 13, 2011, 01:40:15 PM »

We were assured back in the early to mid 50's that by now we would be driving atomic powered cars, each with its own tiny reactor in the engine compartment. Nuclear power plants would be delivering abundant electricity too cheap to meter.

Wonder if those cars would have been made in Japan?
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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« Reply #52 on: April 13, 2011, 04:50:32 PM »

We were assured back in the early to mid 50's that by now we would be driving atomic powered cars, each with its own tiny reactor in the engine compartment. Nuclear power plants would be delivering abundant electricity too cheap to meter.

Wonder if those cars would have been made in Japan?

After the Japan incident you will be lucky to be able to build a reactor on the far side of the moon now.  Too bad really.  The newest designs are way ahead of the game when it comes to safety and cleanliness.  But John Q. Public only knows that nukes are bad...  Ignorance and fear mongering.   Automobiles kill more people in a single year than all the accidents involving nuclear power plants combined ever.  Ditto on the amount of pollution generated.

They did come really close to an atomic powered bomber, having a developed a working atomic jet engine.  Man that would have really given us an edge in getting stuff to orbit as well.
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73 de Ed/KB1HYS
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 "I've spent three quarters of my life trying to figure out how to do a $50 job for $.50, the rest I spent trying to come up with the $0.50" - D. Gingery
K1DEU
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« Reply #53 on: April 13, 2011, 05:55:54 PM »

Roger on the far side of the moon Ed.

        I was very involved in Shutting down a perpetual Reactor in the Tri-cities Schenectady, NY area in the 50's People naturally get overexcited when their pet starts to work and completely ignore the possibility that nothing is perfect. Today the GE Japanese design is used in Vernon, Vermont near Brattleboro is in my local area. If you knew the addictions/habits of some of the security / safety workers and Administrators like I do we would move to the far side of the moon quickly.

There are many safer designs like the French under Charles De Gaulle and Norwegian use which could be copied without expensive copy royalties.  Also understand that Crude Oil companies do not want anyone to compete.

There are many other reasons that somewhat clean H2O will be in critical demand.  73  Dr. John, K1DEU
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« Reply #54 on: April 13, 2011, 09:13:15 PM »

being as clean water is relatively easy to produce, how can you say that we are running out?

When I was in the middle east, I never understood how those folks didn't just use solar distilation to convert the water from the gulf into fresh water. They lots of high energy sunshine 11 months out of the year and millions of acres of land that was completely vacant.  For very low investment cost, they could have had completely solar powered fresh water plants anywhere along the coast and turned most of the desert into oasis easy.     Heck, we could do the same thing in So. California.  There must not be any profit in it I guess.
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73 de Ed/KB1HYS
Happiness is Hot Tubes, Cold 807's, and warm room filling AM Sound.
 "I've spent three quarters of my life trying to figure out how to do a $50 job for $.50, the rest I spent trying to come up with the $0.50" - D. Gingery
K1DEU
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« Reply #55 on: April 13, 2011, 10:19:24 PM »

    Brine disposal is a major problem with California, UAE and other seacoast distillation projects.

  The Oceans have more than Salt in them.   John
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« Reply #56 on: April 13, 2011, 10:43:20 PM »

Ah, those are osmosis type plants, they produce large amounts of very salty brine and require an expensive energy intensive infrastructure. A solar distillation plant could just handle much more water, taking only a small amount out, so the returned brine is less dense & salty. Or you could take out as much as possible and decide that dumping really salty water into the sea might kill a few acres of seaweeds and move a few fish but would provide People with much needed water (I notice that environmentalists are good at telling us what we can't do to solve a problem, but really bad at coming up with an real world, economical, effective solution).
As for the rest of it, yea there is lots of stuff in seawater, but with a combination of settlement and solar evaporative distillation, you could get a lot of fresh water out.  Wouldn't have to be drinking water, just imagine reducing the irrigation load for crops, that would be huge, allowing folks to retain the 'good' water supply purely for human consumption.  If the energy cost was low enough, as in a purely solar powered installation (pumps, heat etc the whole shebang) the real cost is initial construction and maintenance, and a well designed system could keep the maintenance costs reasonable.
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73 de Ed/KB1HYS
Happiness is Hot Tubes, Cold 807's, and warm room filling AM Sound.
 "I've spent three quarters of my life trying to figure out how to do a $50 job for $.50, the rest I spent trying to come up with the $0.50" - D. Gingery
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« Reply #57 on: April 14, 2011, 12:38:28 AM »

Divide by 10 then prices make sense.  Gas is all the way up to forty cents!  Some cars cost $4500.  Sometimes I can get a coke for nickel, sometimes a dime.  I just bought a loaf of bread for a quarter. 

See?  All those numbers work, at least for someone my age.  The trouble is it works for your income too.
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k4kyv
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« Reply #58 on: April 14, 2011, 01:58:22 AM »

Divide by 10 then prices make sense.  Gas is all the way up to forty cents!  Some cars cost $4500.  Sometimes I can get a coke for nickel, sometimes a dime.  I just bought a loaf of bread for a quarter.  

See?  All those numbers work, at least for someone my age.  The trouble is it works for your income too.

Yup, that's just about the prices I remember from the early to mid 50s. Furthermore, a (non-surplus) transmitting triode like the 211 went for $12.50:  $125 in dollarettes, just about what audiophools are now paying for a WW2 surplus 211/VT4-C. It cost 3˘ to post a 1st class letter.  That would be 30˘ in to-day's money.  So the price of postage has actually gone up a little.  You could buy a modest older house for $10K.  You could probably find one on to-day's market for $100K, depending on the area.

That's why, now that congress is on a budget cutting kick, this would be a good time do away with the damnable penny. To-day's nickel or dime (depending on the reference year) is equivalent to yesterday's 1˘ piece. We got by fine with the resolution of payment possible with the penny of years gone by, so we could get by just as well to-day with that same resolution using the nickel or dime. The US mint spends more money manufacturing pennies than it does all the other coins combined. They have to keep making new ones because the things are so worthless that people discard them or squirrel them away in jars, taking them out of circulation almost as fast as the mint can produce them. And after it's all done, the metal in the penny is now worth more than the face value of the coin. I'd bet that discontinuing the penny would would take a bigger bite out of the deficit, than would defunding WWV and public broadcasting.

And while they are at it, they should reinstate the $500 bill.  It would be equivalent to a 1950s C-note. To-day's $100 bill is nothing more than yesterday's ten spot.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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Jim KF2SY
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« Reply #59 on: April 14, 2011, 05:51:04 AM »

We were assured back in the early to mid 50's that by now we would be driving atomic powered cars, each with its own tiny reactor in the engine compartment. Nuclear power plants would be delivering abundant electricity too cheap to meter.

Wonder if those cars would have been made in Japan?

Here's that Atomic Car.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmalon/5086865926/

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« Reply #60 on: April 14, 2011, 08:59:32 AM »

I was making $5 an hour when I bought my house for $30K
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Bill, KD0HG
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« Reply #61 on: April 14, 2011, 09:13:12 AM »


And while they are at it, they should reinstate the $500 bill.  It would be equivalent to a 1950s C-note. To-day's $100 bill is nothing more than yesterday's ten spot.

Interesting comment, Don.

They apparently won't issue a $500 bill because it would make life easier for drug dealers. A million bucks in 100s fills up a small suitcase.

So the big time smugglers are now apparently shipping their money in 500 Euro notes instead of dollars. LOL
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« Reply #62 on: April 14, 2011, 11:48:14 AM »

"  Here's that Atomic Car. "

Is the driver talking on a cell fone??

klc

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k4kyv
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« Reply #63 on: April 14, 2011, 12:19:46 PM »

"  Here's that Atomic Car. "

Is the driver talking on a cell fone??

Or a CB?  See the whip antenna on the tail fin, and that looks more like a hand mic; he's not holding it up to his ear.  Or it could be a Yeacomwood on 75m. That whip looks like one one of those fibreglass rods with spiral wound wire for distributed loading.

Imagine the power he could be running at his home station with electricity too cheap to meter.

And the guy's not wearing a necktie!
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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« Reply #64 on: April 14, 2011, 03:58:11 PM »

with all those pennies squirreled away in a jar, I'm surprised we haven't seen people melting them down and taking the copper to metal salvage yards.  The penny has to be worth more in weight than face value. Consider all the nut cases willing to risk their lives to pull live wires from electrical systems and radio sites. 
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« Reply #65 on: April 14, 2011, 04:13:59 PM »

If you think copper is a good deal look at silver
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« Reply #66 on: April 14, 2011, 04:22:38 PM »

Quote
with all those pennies squirreled away in a jar, I'm surprised we haven't seen people melting them down and taking the copper to metal salvage yards.  The penny has to be worth more in weight than face value. Consider all the nut cases willing to risk their lives to pull live wires from electrical systems and radio sites. 

The penny is copper clad zinc. It only has about 3% copper.

Darrell, WA5VGO
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« Reply #67 on: April 14, 2011, 04:31:07 PM »

With that goofy 'atomic car', changing either the front or rear tire would be a real bitch! Tongue

BTW, here is where some of your oil $$ goes.  This Krautwagon is not stainless, rather done completely in white gold.  Nothing like 'conspicuous consumption', eh?

73DG

PS...I'm half German so have room to talk. LOL


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« Reply #68 on: April 14, 2011, 09:14:33 PM »

The penny is copper clad zinc. It only has about 3% copper.

I can remember when the penny was pure copper. I think they changed over to copper clad sometime in the 60s when face value dipped below the value of the metal.  That extended it a few more decades, but now the copper clad zinc is worth more than face value.

In 1943, they minted a load of steel pennies.  They remained in circulation for at least 20 years, before they were recalled. Now they have taken on some value as collectors items, worth about 12 to 15 cents each in ciruclated condition, and as much as 50 cents or more if uncirculated.  I once had accumulated a big jar full of them, but later cashed them in thinking they would never be worth anything.  I should have held onto them.

There were a very few copper 1943 pennies minted, and those do have considerable value, if authentic.  There are some fake ones out there, where half the 8 has been ground away from a 1948 penny.  It is easy to spot the fake, since the real 1943 date has a tail on the bottom of the 3 that extends below the base line of the numbers.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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« Reply #69 on: April 14, 2011, 10:25:34 PM »

"And the guy's not wearing a necktie!"

Oh, then he must be a CB'er.


klc
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« Reply #70 on: April 15, 2011, 11:57:23 AM »

Beautiful car.

Unfortunately, the cops in CT would shut it down in a heartbeat. They have a law about reflective window tinting and probably car paint too.   On a sunny day that car would look like an arc welder driving down the road... Smiley

T



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« Reply #71 on: April 15, 2011, 12:12:53 PM »

I bought a roll of Steel pennies for $3 about 5 years ago. 
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W1FRM
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« Reply #72 on: April 15, 2011, 02:11:20 PM »


I'm late to this thread, but wanted to add the following ..........

Controlling (lowering) the cost of petroleum products in the US in our lifetime seems virtually impossible, but certainly feasible for our children.  This is based on the simple facts of supply and demand and the reality of a government system that continues to “fiddle while Rome burns”.

The US is the worlds number one importer of world-wide crude oil.  The US imports three times as much crude as the number two nation, which is now China. We cannot possibly make up our total demand by “more drilling”.  We currently import 60% of our crude.  Only 40% is domestic.

It seems to be a seldom mentioned fact that the top two suppliers of our imported crude are Canada and Mexico.  Together, they supply about 22% of our crude.  Our number three supplier is Saudi Arabia at about 9%.  Numbers 4 and 5 are Venezuela and Nigeria, who together supply about 15%. (See Ref 1)

Thus, right now, nearly eighty percent of our crude oil demand is being met by “non Persian Gulf” sources that we should be able to control if we could reduce our demand.

A twenty percent reduction is  a lot, to be sure.  However, when it is realized that the two biggest users of petroleum products are for transportation and heating (not electric power generation).  It is clearly time for our government to back off with petroleum oriented subsidies and give some real meat to helping the development and deployment of all things electric.

Ref 1: http://www.infoplease.com/science/energy/us-oil-imports.html

Guy – W1FRM
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« Reply #73 on: April 15, 2011, 03:08:04 PM »

However, when it is realized that the two biggest users of petroleum products are for transportation and heating (not electric power generation).  It is clearly time for our government to back off with petroleum oriented subsidies and give some real meat to helping the development and deployment of all things electric.

Including full speed ahead development of nuclear fusion, with a program of the same urgency as the Manhattan Project. Unlike fission, fusion does not leave behind the nasty spent fuel waste, and the fuel can be derived from ordinary sea water, not expensive-to-mine uranium.

Of course, safety would still have to be an issue. The Hydrogen Bomb is nothing more than an uncontrolled fusion reaction.
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Don, K4KYV                                       AMI#5
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« Reply #74 on: April 15, 2011, 08:05:56 PM »

Quote
Including full speed ahead development of nuclear fusion, with a program of the same urgency as the Manhattan Project.

I totally agree.  When I say "all things electric" , there are three components of the Electric Energy System;  Generation, Distribution, Consumption.  The Consumption component in the form of Electric Vehicles and  Electric HVAC systems are viable candidates for immediate subsidy funding.

Several forms  of alternate Generation are already here (solar, hydro, wind, nuclear etc.)  Both of these compnents need serious funding to make them competitive and viable.

The above known and proven technologies could free us from the Gulf Oil dependance in a fairly short time if the proper incentives and funding are provided to the appropriate industial entities.

For the longer term, when the world needs to be free from all fossil fuels,  things like the Fusion Reactor are certainly needed and worthy or support now.
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