Oil price forecast

[ghmorris]

This looks like a very good reason for owning a mechanically injected diesel like a Deli. Wouldn't be surprised if prices go up on all older diesels as long as they are in good shape.

WVO looks more attactive all the time.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ ... nergy/home

George

[FalcoColumbarius]

Ouch.

[Adam]

I can hardly wait to save that much money, it'll pay off the purchase of my van and WVO system in no time.

[DelicaMark]

But ghmorris our little diesel vans really aren't good on fuel consumption. I am already paying $1.29/l, which is 7cents/l more than regular gas, here on Vancouver Island. I have actually started to consider selling my van because it is now costing me more than my 2004 Nissan 4X4 CrewCab in fuel....of coarse I did save about $14,000 in selling my old truck and buying this van. $14,000 will buy a lot of diesel! But, for the people that buy these thinking that they will save any money in operating costs, I say you are completely out to lunch.

I mean the above in a constructive way not in an angry way.

-Mark

[Adam]

But ghmorris our little diesel vans really aren't good on fuel consumption. I am already paying $1.29/l, which is 7cents/l more than regular gas, here on Vancouver Island. I have actually started to consider selling my van because it is now costing me more than my 2004 Nissan 4X4 CrewCab in fuel....of coarse I did save about $14,000 in selling my old truck and buying this van. $14,000 will buy a lot of diesel! But, for the people that buy these thinking that they will save any money in operating costs, I say you are completely out to lunch.

I completely disagree, but in an equally constructive way, not in a dickish just disagreeing because I can way Although I have been known to do that to, but usually that is just at parties after a few drinks.......anyway I digress. I gave away my 1995 GMC Safari van for a Delica b/c the price of gas was killing me. The 100L tank on the GMC was only lasting 10 days. That move ended up saving us 50% on our fuel bills when diesel was less than gas, even adjusted for todays prices we would have saved 15-20%. As summer warms up and the Americans pull out of Iraq the demand for diesel will decrease and I expect it will fall below the price of gas again. Considering the fact that they are a 4x4 van that seats 7 from the early 90s they are pretty good on fuel.

If you want to mitigate the higher diesel prices you should consider joining the Island Biodiesel co-op in Victoria. The price of biodiesel is steady at $1.15/L. I'm running b50 in my main tanks and it has worked out great so far.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Necessity is the mother of invention. As fuel prices rise ~ so will the inspiration to refine biofuels ~ and a diesel engine is the perfect machine platform to work from. There are people out there refining WVO so that it does not smell like a barbeque and runs more efficiently in the motor. I think we got these machines just in time.

Falco.

[ghmorris]

Ditto.

I think we moved to mechanical-injection diesels just in time. The ability to run WVO is a big deal. I just had a conversation a few minutes ago with a friendly local restaurant, and their big concern was not the price of disposal, but the fact that the disposal company provided a racoon-proof container as part of the deal. Interesting...

Our Ranger got around 20mpg, our Deli gets about 27 in similar driving. The Deli doesn't do 4-lane well, getting around 23 once you bump up the cruising speed to 120-plus, but the Ranger was just as bad when you had your boot in it. We pay a premium for four wheel drive but that's life.

Our Ford Fusion got around 30 on a good day, our 'new' 89 Benz gets about 41 under the same conditions.

My son and I are seriously looking at WVO, possibly including a Dieselcraft centrifuge/dewatering rig.
http://www.dieselcraft.com/oilentry_wvo.html
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc/eve/forums/ ... 011761/p/1

My personal issue is lack of desire to negotiate WVO recovery deals with local restaurants. I'm happy with everything else involved with producing usable fuel, just don't want to haggle over recover deals...

George

[ghmorris]

BTW, to put fuel savings in context, I do about 55k KM per year split over two vehicles, and my son Ken does closer to 80k KM per year. Purely a function of where we have to be within our 19,000 sq KM service area on any given day.

Payback on even 'reasonable' fuel savings is a big deal for us, as is longevity in our vehicles.

For those doing typical KMs per year, fuel savings are not going to be nearly as significant in your ownership calculations. OTOH, we really need our stuff to run, all day, every day, so we don't want to be too far out on the bleeding edge and get bit by an unexpected bug...

George

[EnviroImports.com]

you could buy a bio diesel processor and make your OWN diesel for around the 20-30cents a liter.
Im taking orders for a load of them right now.

[ghmorris]

Good point.

My concerns with biodiesel are as follows:

I still have to negotiate a deal for WVO, which is the part I least want to do.

Then I have to work with a fairly unpleasant cocktail of lye and methanol, and end up with a glycerine disposal problem.

What do most people do with the glycerine that is left over from biodiesel production?

I recognize the advantages of burning a fuel that is not nearly as temperature sensitive as WVO, but am concerned about the additional steps required in getting a usable product.

George

[The Pinkfingers]

Get into hypermiling. That will cure your gas woes if you can stand the road rage of the other drivers around you.

[BCDelica]

What about cracked/thinned VO? People have been doing things like this, slightly different - same idea, since B4 WW2. Maybe longer, can't remember.

[EnviroImports.com]

well buying wvo isent a problem, you would have a harder time deciding who to get your oil from, as all restraunts have to pay to get rid of it, so if your willing to take a few jugs of oil per week then thats less they have to pay to have taken away,
Its certanly not a fix for everyone, but for those who have some spare time, have had enough of paying what we pay at the pumps, and want to actually make a difference, well you have two choices as I see it for diesel to get off of pump fuel wvo or bio diesel.
After spending ALOT of time and Alot of money on building wvo systems, I find that it still comes down to human error, even with a computer on the wvo system and an alarm beeping away that its left running on wvo, the overide button gets pushed and the oil turns cold and thick in the injection pump. Ive seen it MANY Many times.
For me I am going to be fueling my house on bio, and fueling my vehicles .
each person has to decide what is right for them.

[coach]

High gas prices, no problem....ride a bike.

This one is for sale....it's faster than my Delica....as long as I'm having a good day.

[JMK]

Did anyone catch Nova on PBS yesterday? The prognosis for biodiesel was discussed, interesting program.

I was wondering about the eventual availability of WVO if the future unfolds as the report predicts. I read one guide where the person said they used a total of 10 restaurants to supply 40 gallons per week. So I thought of that in terms of my own situation were I to embrace this technology in future. Because I live in a tourist town the per capita number of restaurants is skewed. With a population of roughly 10,000 and 100 restaurants, I'd be in good shape with about one restaurant to 100 people. In a place like Victoria, it is saidto be one restaurant per 1,264 people.

So it would appear that in my location, at the moment I'd probably be in demographic heaven with regards to collecting the WVO I may need. But roughly based on the figures above, it would seem that my town would support 10 of us locally if we were to decide to go with using WVO from restaurants. I found a figure of 265 restaurants for Victoria which claimed to be the second highest per capita in Canada. A few seat of the pants calculations would indicate that cities like Victoria then would support 25-30 people in terms of their WVO needs. So with the potential for restaurants to support less than .01% of the population in terms of a WVO supply, I was wondering what the future may hold for this?