heinrich

To answer the title of the post .. yes, they is

MGW-Fla

Yeah we are a net importer of oil yet they say there is more oil under Colorado than in Saudi Arabia & we aren't allowed to drill in the waste Tundra of Alaska where nothing lives. I just heard last week that even though they won't drill off our coast in Florida inspite of all the other gulf states doing so, that now Castro plans on putting a Cuban oil rig 45 miles from Key West! Probably will have a long "straw" attached to suck out all of our oil!

hacker-pschorr

I just did the math on buying a bike that gets about 50mpg and costs about $3,000 new.

My 10 miles each day round trip to work, averaging 15mph in my 928 (I'm pretty much WOT or stopped during the trip). It will take me over 5 years to make up the difference buying a bike. This is assuming I take it every day from spring - fall. This is based on $4 per gallon

So IMO - buying a hybred is even more pointless, at least in my situation.

Bill Ball

Hacker, I agree, the math even at these gas prices, doesn't justify hasty acts. Of course, if prices continue up, that all changes. For a big V8, especially considering it's 17 years old, my 89 gets surprisingly good MPG, and the SC has not made it worse. When we bought the 99 Durango, which averages 13MPG, gas was $1.20 and we calculated that the cost of fueling it would not be prohibitive. But then the Durango took on a new life when my son got serious about skiing, racking up 15K miles a year just on ski trips, and gas prices more than doubled. Wish I had bought a 4-cyl non-turbo Outback rather than the Durango, but the 928 is fine.

blau928

NO

It's cheaper than the $6/gal in Europe.. Even there, I use much more gas per Km driven,as I drive a lot faster. never has been an issue. If you bought a 928 for gas mileage, you should sell it... It's not the car for you..

My 928 now has 280,000 miles on its original engine....

HTH,

ViribusUnits

The oil under Colorado is oil shale. It is excedingly difficult to get out of the ground, as it's not really oil. One has to heat the rocks, HOT, to decompose the stuff in the rock to get the oil out. As of yet, it may not be cost effective at 50 dollars a barral.

Oil companies got burned bad in early and mid 1980s going after the oil shale. They are hesitent to go after it again. The capital requirements are large, much larger than convitional oil. If the price of oil drops back to even 40 dollars a barral, it becomes a loseing investment for them. All this would take is another even like 1997-98 in Asia. Or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

The oil in Alaska isn't cheap. But at the same time, it's not uber-expensive. In any case, while the reserves in Alaska are larger than anywhere in the lower 48, it's is a drop in the bucket. Personaly, I'd say go for it, but whatever, it doesn't matter eighter way.

The big big deal is the ability to refine sour heavy crude. Virtualy all of the "excess" production of oil is sour heavy crude. This crude requires special, expensive refinery equipment. There are reletively few refineries that are set up to optmize the production of useable petrochemicals, or fuels from it. When light sweet crude production maxed out, OPEC started to open up the taps on lessor grades of oil, but there are reletively few refineries for the stuff, and most of them are on the gulf coast, origionaly designed to hanndle US heavy grades. The hurricanes affected a disproportionate number of refiners for the heavy crude. The price of Arabian heavy crude has not matched the run up in price of US Light.

If we want to push down the price of gasoline, and oil for that matter, the most direct course of action would be best to approve the construction of refinreies for the heavy sour crude. The US's liability, and enviromental regulations however, make it uncompettetive for refiners to build in the US. Europe has reconized that their safty and enviromental requlations discourage refinery construction, and thus subsidize the industry. Personaly, I prefer an import tax on refined oil products, but the effect is about the same. That or just accept that the oil is going to be refined in the 3rd world.

And to keep this on the 928 topic. My 928 is on jack stands, and thus burns no gasoline. If anything I'll drive it more if I can ever get it fixed!

Jim bailey - 928 International

Unfortunately that is true for most.."So IMO - buying a hybred is even more pointless, at least in my situation." In fact the best "Hydrid" vehicle actually turns out to be a Jetta TDI diesel ! no battery pack to replace, no dual drive system, no questionable longevity or resale value and BETTER real world fuel economy.

tv

Virbus - in Canada they are going after the shale in an ever increasing way and it is quite profitable. I do not know if we ever went after our shale in the 80's. SYNM - SYNTROLEUM works on coal to liquids and gas to liquids processes. IVAN - ivanhoe has recently successfully tested a process that converts heavy crude to light. Germany ran part of its war machine on coal to liquid tech during WW II.

The problem is a severe lack of leadership from our pathetic government. The "free market" lives on greed. The head of exxon, POS, just retired with a 400 million $ retirement package. WHY do they want to upset that apple kart with abundant cheap energy?????

Ed MD

I was going to sell the commute mobile, now that its up-to speed and was considering a third 928 as a daily driver....but the 944 having 1/2 of the 928 engine is a lot better on gas, I drive 2500-3000 miles a month, but doesn't have the enjoyment/miles that my 928s have. Also I use the hour commute to make calls and find the times I have driven a 928 to work I get behind on my work because I enjoy the driving so much I don't want to be distracted!!! Ed

ViribusUnits

TV, let me give you a hand there.

Canada is going after "tar sands" or "oil sands." Tar sands is really the most descriptive definition. The recovery costs are significantly lower than that of oil shale that is in Colorado. Even still, it costs more to recover than conventional oil in the lower 48. Maybe more than the cost to recover oil from the deep water projects in the Gulf of Mexico. Also, the resulting oil falls into the ultra-heavy category, even heavier that the Arabian stuff. The result needs even more plants, and more equipment to get the stuff upgraded into a product. The resulting oil is more expensive to recover, and requires more processing, this all equals lower profit margins, until there just isn't enough light sweet crude, or even heavy sour for that matter, to meet demand.

This is very different from the oil shale in Colorado, and such places. Shell has been experimenting with in situ recovery of the oil. A few other companies have been experimenting with other types of recovery. They seem to be having some success, but the process is no where near ready for prime time. The oil produced is a light, often sweet crude, but it is very expensive to produce as of yet. Shell's process might be able to half the cost of production, but it's still way soon to say the issue is solved.

There are numerous processes, and companies that convert heavy sour oil into products. The question is not technical ability, but capital investment, and rate of return. Remember as recently as 1998, oil was below $10 a barrel, IIRC. If it takes 2-3 years to build a fresh site refinery. Any fresh site refinery projects that were started since the recovery in 2003 are not done yet. And almost nothing was being built to handle heavy crude when light sweet was going for $10 a barrel. You can't even recover heavy crude for $10 a barrel in many places, much less sell it, refine it, and still turn a profit! W/o a guaranteed recovery, one can't be sure the oil will stay pricey enough that building a heavy crude refinery makes economic sense.

SASOL is currently the world leader is coal to liquids technology. (They inherited/developed the technology and plants for South Africa's Aparthate period, after getting it from Germany after WWII.) The price that I've heard banded around is that oil would have to sit around 70-90 dollars a barrel for coal to liquids technology to make sense economics wise. SASOL doesn’t really open their books, and operated with a government subsidy. No one really knows how much it costs them to produce oil from coal.

Belive it or not, but one of the largest coal to natural gas plants is in the US, built in the late 1970s, and sold at a complete loss after the natural gas bust by the DOE.

The current price of oil has nothing to do with lack of leadership, and everything to do with the boom bust cycle that comodities follow. Oil busted pretty hard from 1984-1999. It's just started the traditional upswing. Expect to see oil money flow into new refinery projects, heavy crude feilds, ultra heavy crude feilds, tar sands, and even oil shale technologies. Maybe even coal to liquid technology. There hasn't been any point in investing in energy when it was cheap. Now that there is money to be made, investments will be made.

hacker-pschorr

Gas around the world:

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lis...rice.html?2006

Shane

Ha for once my gas is cheaper than down south
It has been right at $3.00 a gallon for just over a year, here on this tiny island. Does it affect my driving? NO
I live less the a half mile from work, and walk.

When I'm on vacation I drive as much as I want to for therapy. However last October my gas budget actually got used up for once. Wonder what will happen this summer when I'm down there?

Jim bailey - 928 International

That is OK Shane now tell us how much fossil fuel it takes to keep that little village going in the Bering Sea ? The price of crab and Polluck can only be going up.

ROG100

Hacker,
I don't know where they get there prices on your web site - spoke to a friend in the UK and they pay one UK pound per Litre - one UK pound = $1.80. 3.79 litres to a US gallon = $6.82/gallon
Ouch - I'm staying here.

tv

Virbus,

Good Info, while it probably made little sense to spend huge amounts exploring for new crude back when crude was 10/barrel refining is a different story. Refining has always been profitable and most oil company experts claim it is regulations that has stopped any new refineries from being built.

If we had Govt. leadership that did strategic planning into alternate sources of energy, grants for research, huge tax penalties on excess profits unless poured back into alternate energy research/development, etc., then we wouldn't be fighting in the middle east so much. The CEO of Suncor said 30$/barrel and they are profitable in the oil sands. There is a small company that is doing something with the oil shale at a profit but the name escapes me.

All you have to do is go back to guys like gary hart who were talking about an energy plan years ago. Gas Lines and shortages regardless of cause and now china and india all point to poor leadership. Utilities are regulated by government and so should Big Oil be, because it is a necessity and the disruption of supply is a huge threat to national security and life.