good news/bad news

[narfire]

Getting political here, but the pipeline south will go ahead, just need time for a full enviornmental impact study. I hear the people in Nebraska get their water from a huge aquafir below the projected pipeline location. Might have a bit of a relocation but it will go ahead when is all sorted. My son is welding up in Fort Mac and he said the stuff has the consistency of the stuff you use to patch your roof.
For the record I'm not in favor of the gateway project to Kitimat. I think the tar should be refined in Canada somewhere and then piped to the eastern seaboard and as previously stated, get rid of the dependance on Venezuailan and Saudi oil. Both Canada and the US will benifit. Problem is there is huge chinese influence in the tar sand comanies,head of Canada's security agency, for what they are worth, has stated that fact several years ago. The greed of the oil companies figure they will make more by selling to asia. Can't figure why the price the eastern seaboard would pay for the tar sand oil would be different from Saudi oil.
Ok enough rant now back to Fiat..... Putting new floor insulation in
Chris

[SergeantSavage]

Good subject Arana (spider in Spanish, no?). I might have to drive my Spider to work just to save money because my daily driver Jeep Cherokee is a pig. What frustrates me recently is that when it goes down around US$3.10 I feel like it's cheap!! We are getting conditioned to accept it in this way and it's maddening.

[124JOE]

i told all my people on facebook "when i was on it"
on the fourth of july "independence day"
we should all protest at the pumps
just think 100 people at each station
what would the cops do?
yes its illeagal we need a permit to gather
but i cant think a better way to say no

if it catches on,well it sould be a week long thing

what do you guys think?

[courtenay]

Sorry gang - but all of the protesting and complaining isn't going to affect the world price of crude oil. The demand is going to continue to increase as the folks in China and India discover the joys of motoring. The demand for crude and the lack of refining capacity during the peak driving seasons are the key factors that will continue to drive the price of fuel at the pump and there's not a whole hell of a lot we can do about it.

[arana]

too bad the US doesn't have an agency to "promote altenative energy" and "reduce dependence on foreign oil"... and yes, I'm being sarcastic, that is what the DOE was originally mandated with when it was formed 35 years ago. with a budget of $24B a year and hundreds of thousands of emloyees and contractors, does anybody have any idea WTF they are actually doing?

[Kent124]

with a budget of $24B a year and hundreds of thousands of emloyees and contractors, does anybody have any idea WTF they are actually doing?

Collect paychecks, watch porn, and do cocaine and meth when they're not filing fake inspection reports on the Deepwater Horizon rig?. Just taking a stab here.

Porn and Drugs at MMS Office

[azruss]

doesnt help with the spider, but i daily drive on propane. my laden cost just dropped to about $1.63/gallon. yes, i have to pay federal fuel excise tax on top of that. Even if I didnt buy 18k gallons a week and had to pay "retail", i'm still under $3/g.
It does make me think about converting the fiat. BTW. exploring a fuel additive that adds top end lubrication as well as cut CO emissions by 50+%.

[RRoller123]

Thats pretty cool! From your experience, how is the power and performance of a propane-fired engine versus gasoline-fired, in general?

[Jimb]

I still believe the best way to protest is to begin a movement whereby one brand is boycotted. If that got enough publicity then I'm sure more and more people would climb on board.
That would have to impact them to the point where they would lower their prices to attract business back.
Just start by saying no more Shell, or Chevron for example and pass the word.
Jim

[131]

Welcome to the real world, current pump price here for 91 octane is $5.70 OZ/US gallon, more for higher octane.

Thats pretty cool! From your experience, how is the power and performance of a propane-fired engine versus gasoline-fired, in general?

I've got my 2 litre running on LPG (a mix of propane & butane), it costs me a bit over $11 OZ to travel 100 Km, it would cost me about $15.75 to do the same distance on petrol. The way I've got it set up (gas only, no petrol) it runs better than when I had a 34ADFA on the car. Dual fuel is a compromise and you can't get the most out of either fuel.

[mdrburchette]

And this is the very reason I bought my new 500. It takes $20 less per fill up and I get 60 more miles per tank than my Grand Prix. You just can't beat an average of 40 mpg.
As for boycotting a specific brand, here in my little town, everyone stopped using Citgo. The prices were higher than other stations and people were told the owner of Citgo didn't like the US. The stations have had to close. They have billboards on the highway touting American values now, in hopes of keeping their other gas stations open.

[RRoller123]

The problem with boycotting either the refiners (basically Exxon, the 600# gorilla in the US) or the various retailers of gasoline is that they don't set the price other than within a few cents. They have little control over the price as distributed to the stations. The price of gas, oil, corn, wheat, pork bellies, pretty much everything these days, etc. is set by the international commodities futures markets. The drillers have some influence on this based upon how much they pull out of the ground/out of the ocean floor, but they are motivated to drill, not restrict the supply. The price is going up for basically three reasons: 1.) The easy oil has already been pumped, and we are having to move to deep water and to more remote/unstable areas to get it, 2.) Chinese demand growth, and 3.) Indian demand growth. There is a lot of talk of an impending recession in China (WSJ is all over it), which, if it occurs later this year, will certainly lower world demand for a time somewhat and the prices should settle back a bit.

[Kent124]

There is a lot of talk of an impending recession in China (WSJ is all over it), which, if it occurs later this year, will certainly lower world demand for a time somewhat and the prices should settle back a bit.

Modern ghost towns in China are a sign of a construction bubble that is going to pop. When? Who knows but all bubbles pop.

In addition to the supply / demand equation something else to take into consideration is the value of the currency those commodities are priced in: the USD. The more USD there are the less valuable they are.

Take a look at the first chart from this link: adjusted and required reserves.

Even to the casual observer is is clear the Fed has been printing money BIG TIME. It should also be crystal clear why the Saudi's changed their target for oil from $75 / bbl to $100 / bbl.

This does not bode well for inflation at the pump or other commodities.

[RRoller123]

agreed.

[TX82FIAT]

Interesting topic on so many levels. In the US we are fortunate the demand and distrabution network help mitigate increasing costs. We are fortunate that oil is mostly traded in the currency of commodities that is FOR NOW still the US dollar. The printing presses adding 5 TRILLION in debt can have no other effect than to devalue the dollar. This started off with a spider owner wanting to put a few miles on the car but buying fuel in Peru when paid on US dollars costs a lot. Yep, It is going to cost a lot more. We are very lucky Europe is in a similar or worse boat with respect to debt and that China is still dependent on US consumption additiona to drive production and the Chinease economy.

I hate politics so I'm not going to talk about individual people. But consider the following:

The US will not be the currency of commodities trading such as oil for very much longer. The world simplty can not afford it similar to the way the Euro is hurting many European countries. it will be a basket of currencies blended with a new name. As soon as that occurs fuel prices will skyrocket in the US as well.

China will develope its own consumption of goods over the next 20 years.

The US Goverment does not have the political will to spend less than it takes in. Increasing taxes is simply not a mathmatical answer all though it sounds good to the average person who has trouble determining the difference between truly big numbers like 1 million, 1 Billion or one trillion (1,000,000,000,000.) that right... 12 Zeros in a trillion. Another way to look at the national debt is a million dollars from 16 million people. Really, Do you think if we confiscated the wealth of people we could come up with 16 million people that have 1 million or more liquid out of the 300 million. or tax 16 million people at double the current rate for the next 10 years. Nope... the 1% can jot do it. Not even the ultrawealthy have more than 9 zeros in total net worth. So we need to cut back on the programs to the 99% and cut back on our standard of living and the worship at the alter of consumerism. If not the whole system will fail.

So... One of my few luxuries in life is taking the Spider out for a spin. I only need 20 to 50 miles until i feal refreshed and the car has a chance to truly warm up and function. So. i'll put the gas money into my car and enjoy it. I'll work, save and take care of my family. i've set my standard of living below my income so i can prepare for what is coming. This is why i love the Spider and sold the BMW M3 convertible a few months back.

Enjoy your car, be safe and always look a couple miles down the road.