Gas Prices

AcroBoy

AcroBoy

Line Up and Wait
Joined
Jul 18, 2008
Messages
649
Display Name
Display name:
Jim N
Anyone concerned about the recent predictions that mogas prices will exceed $5.00/USGal within two years? The current differential for avgas seems to be $1.50-2.50/gal, so avgas could easily go up to the 7-8 dollar range, or higher.

At this rate, my small engine Baron will likely cost somewhere between $600-800 an hour, nearly what it currently costs to run a King Air.

I see this resulting in an even bigger decrease in flying, and a more rapid demise in the availability of avgas. It will probably end up like private flying in Europe, where gas is already nearly $10/gal and only a very small segment of the population can afford to fly.

Sure, we can all fly champs or cubs, or learn to soar, but this ultimately even further limits family flying on weekends or the ability to take short trips. How many flight schools offer TW training in planes like these, and how many mechanics are still competent in maintaining wood spars and tube and fabric airplanes?

We as flyers should be pushing the EAA, AOPA, and the manufacturers to lobby to help keep avgas prices under control and available before it gets so expensive or completely unavailable. Let's face it, with the current economy and job market, the public and congress are not going to be too sympathetic or supportive of a bunch of perceived rich guys and their expensive hobby when everyone else is worried about cost cutting and keeping their job.

We need to do something now before our opportunity to fly goes away completely!
 
Keeping it available is certainly in our interests, but I am profoundly skeptical that anyone will subsidize our avocation by artificially keeping avgas prices low.
 
I'm confused. How can EAA or AOPA help with gas prices?
 
I agree, but it seems like EAA, AOPA, Garmin, etc could all be doing more lobbying to insure market growth. In ten years we will all need to burn jet fuel or fly tube and fabric planes out of rural fields. There will be no middle ground and no avgas.
 
I just think it's amusing that the steady increase in gasoline prices this time around haven't been accompanied by outrage at the President's failure to prevent same.
 
I don't think the mogas prices are even all that high, to be honest. Its been $2-3/gallon for years. Price of everything else has risen.
 
Mogas is well over $3.00 in my area.

When demand increases I don't think $5.00 is out of the question.
 
dmccormack said:
I just think it's amusing that the steady increase in gasoline prices this time around haven't been accompanied by outrage at the President's failure to prevent same.
Click to expand...
Plus this illustrates the failure of th "Cash for Clunkers" vehicle replacement campaign using the 'reasoning' that it would retire older gas hogs with more fuel efficient vehicles.

What it was was a "disguised" stimulous to the banks who do the lending for vehicle loans and got folks who really couldn't afford a rapidly decreciating asset (brand new car) and couldn't afford being in debt out of their paid for car and right back into car debt/bondage.

Comparing what I see around me as I drive, and comparing the types of requests I get for replacement parts (I own/operate an auto/truck recycling facility and used parts supply yard), very little has changed toward operating vehicles that consume less fuel.

I agree changes are needed to reduce consumption in the auto sector, but it needs to be more behavioral (more ride share, more mass transit use and very big incentives to use both) than pushing a change of equipment.
 
The key is not less demand, it is more supply. Economies need to grow, a growing economy needs more energy. Nothing wrong with conservation and energy effeciency, but we need more DOMESTIC supply of energy.
 
Anthony said:
The key is not less demand, it is more supply. Economies need to grow, a growing economy needs more energy. Nothing wrong with conservation and energy effeciency, but we need more DOMESTIC supply of energy.
Click to expand...

We're heading down the SZ route, I suppose, but I concur, and would add I don't care if the energy comes from holes in the ground or recycled peanut butter -- just don't artificially prop up prices to benefit one well-funded faction (yeah, ethanol).
 
dmccormack said:
I just think it's amusing that the steady increase in gasoline prices this time around haven't been accompanied by outrage at the President's failure to prevent same.
Click to expand...

Let's not put this into the SZ

(just a request)
 
The main reason mogas is going up is the demands for oil coming from China. They have the money to buy it, we have to borrow from them if we want to have our government buy and subsidize it. That is not going to happen for at least a while.

Blaming it on Obama or Bush is a waste of time, it will not change a thing.

The bright spot is that Chinese scientists and aircraft manufacturers are working hard to make electric airplanes a reality. Already I think they have one that will fly for as long as twenty minutes or so.

We must keep shopping at Wal Mart to insure that our Chinese friends continue to earn our dollars. With our money, their research can continue.

On a more serious note, on the news the other night, some expert was predicting mogas to be at $5.00 gal. by 2012. In San Diego, it is now $3.32 gal.
Avegas, a few weeks ago was at $5.17 gal at KMYF. The price of avegas has already impacted how much flying I can afford to do. I'm lucky to get up once a month now. But then, I'm a self employed picture framer, not much demand lately for what I do. At least I am staying somewhat busy.

John
 
John Baker said:
The bright spot is that Chinese scientists and aircraft manufacturers are working hard to make electric airplanes a reality. Already I think they have one that will fly for as long as twenty minutes or so.
Click to expand...
It's already a reality and it stays aloft for more than 20 minutes.

http://yuneeccouk.site.securepod.com/Aircraft_News.html

On Saturday July 30th, at the World Electric Aircraft Symposium at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture, Erik Lindbergh, founder of the Creative Solutions Alliance (CSA) and grandson of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, announced the winners of the Lindbergh Electric Aircraft Prizes (LEAP)
The prize for Best Electric Aircraft, awarded for the best example of a practical electric aircraft in any category – Experimental, LSA, or Certified went to Yuneec International in recognition of Yuneec’s accomplishments in the design and engineering of the E430, an aircraft with significant commercial potential. With attention to production and market considerations in addition to a compelling design, Yuneec’s efforts have resulted in an aircraft that could make possible practical, sustained electric flight
Click to expand...
Denver must be in a cheap gas zone. I could swear I filled up yesterday and it was in the $2.75 range. I think the reason that there is not the outcry about gas prices this time is that they were already up there once before. The problem is that gas prices are pretty volatile. If they would just stay within a certain price range people would get used to whatever it is and it wouldn't be big news every time they went up or down.
 
AcroBoy said:
Anyone concerned about the recent predictions that mogas prices will exceed $5.00/USGal within two years? The current differential for avgas seems to be $1.50-2.50/gal, so avgas could easily go up to the 7-8 dollar range, or higher.

At this rate, my small engine Baron will likely cost somewhere between $600-800 an hour, nearly what it currently costs to run a King Air.

I see this resulting in an even bigger decrease in flying, and a more rapid demise in the availability of avgas. It will probably end up like private flying in Europe, where gas is already nearly $10/gal and only a very small segment of the population can afford to fly.

Sure, we can all fly champs or cubs, or learn to soar, but this ultimately even further limits family flying on weekends or the ability to take short trips. How many flight schools offer TW training in planes like these, and how many mechanics are still competent in maintaining wood spars and tube and fabric airplanes?

We as flyers should be pushing the EAA, AOPA, and the manufacturers to lobby to help keep avgas prices under control and available before it gets so expensive or completely unavailable. Let's face it, with the current economy and job market, the public and congress are not going to be too sympathetic or supportive of a bunch of perceived rich guys and their expensive hobby when everyone else is worried about cost cutting and keeping their job.

We need to do something now before our opportunity to fly goes away completely!
Click to expand...

Understand why gas is going up. The price of oil is rising. Why? Well, oil is traded in US dollars. The US dollar is loosing value because the government is printing dollars to pay debts. The more dollars printed, the less value the dollar becomes.

The OPEC members are discussing using another currency to trade oil in. If this happens, look out. The Russians and Chinese have already agreed to do trade (not oil) using their own currency. Many more countries want to dump the US dollar as a reserve currency.
 
Everskyward said:
Denver must be in a cheap gas zone. I could swear I filled up yesterday and it was in the $2.75 range.
Click to expand...

Denver is a cheap gas zone. Between there and AZ last week, I saw nothing below $2.87 and most is over $3 without hitting the high priced stations at the edge of town. The highest was $3.31 for generic unleaded, not the spendy stuff at the edge of town. That stuff was $3.63 at one place.

The economy hasn't recovered from the last time they did us in the rear end. It's about to get bad.
 
With this guys technology and a few federal guarantees on equipment loans and a new homestead act, for federal land in Az. and N.M. we could be energy independent in 3 years.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ValcentProductsInc#p/u

watch all his vids

Forget ANWAR, drilling is easy, getting it south is a 25 year project, and the pipe line is only capibile of 2million barrels per day, we use 80-90 milion barrels per day.

Algae is easy, it is here now, and it has no draw backs like being in the food chain. or using land to grow fuel when we need it to grow food, it uses CO, and produces O2, by-products open a whole new market of food for us, and cattle.
 
There probably is a fair amount of oil available within easy reach of the US, but I think there is a moratorium on new drilling in the gulf or off the coast of California. Anwar the same. Demand is higher than ever from China and India. Prices will only continue to climb to the $ 7-10/ gal range unless we open up more exploration and production.

If not, it will end private flying as we now know it.
 
AcroBoy said:
There probably is a fair amount of oil available within easy reach of the US, but I think there is a moratorium on new drilling in the gulf or off the coast of California. Anwar the same. Demand is higher than ever from China and India. Prices will only continue to climb to the $ 7-10/ gal range unless we open up more exploration and production.

If not, it will end private flying as we now know it.
Click to expand...

Could be a good reason to accelerate our non-dependence on oil... and leave oil/gas for the things that absolutely need it.
 
Woodstock, I agree completely. However, there are a lot of 520 and 540 engines out there that just need the octane. Electric and diesel are not close to real implementation. Turbines are the closest option, but still very expensive- most entry level turbines are 750k. A TBM probably is around $800/ HR, and a King Air around $1200.

So, we can go back to Lsa type planes like cubs or champs, or spend over a million for something that burns kerosene. Unfortunately, there will not be much in between for the majority of the rest of us.
 
Aww. Poor 'Mericans. We Canucks, who provide the majority of the oil you use, pay far more for gasoline here. At out little airport we sell 100LL for $1.39/litre, which translates to $5.25 per US gallon, and we're the cheapest around. At many airports its $1.75 or more ($6.62/gal). Mogas here is around $.98/litre or $3.70/gallon. A third of the price is taxes.

It hurts. We take the stuff out of the ground, for Pete's sake. And our dollar is on par with the US$. And our standard of living is a bit lower, with lower wages overall. I would bet that Americans have the cheapest flying in the entire world. The prices I see quoted on this forum for rental of a 172, say, are lower than anywhere here in Canada.

Dan
 
To Be Very Clear: Prices of fossil fuels have very little to do with supply and demand. Chart the monthly averages on monetary exchange rates against the dollar and the European blended trade indexes, the COMEX and the NYSE index and look at the trends. Fossil fuel is a traded commodity, and as such, is an investment vehicle used by traders as both a hedge and a speculative item. Don't kid yourself about drilling moratoriums, refinery capacity shortfalls, domestic vs imported crude stock...NONE of those situations that we know about is by accident folks, none of them. Prices of oil you see now are just plays against the future, and the players bet both sides of the equation, which makes it lousy for the end consumer (us) and great for those who can afford to speculate.

Trust me, I know about this stuff..I live it every day
 
Tom-D said:
Algae is easy, it is here now, and it has no draw backs like being in the food chain. or using land to grow fuel when we need it to grow food, it uses CO, and produces O2, by-products open a whole new market of food for us, and cattle.
Click to expand...

It is a truly scary thing when I'm agreeing with Tom, but agree I will. Microbes can do amazing things. They can break the dinitrogen chemical bond, the strongest in the periodic table. They can grow in distilled water. They can eat oil spills.

Anything that can eat oil can make it. And we have the tools and knowhow to genetically engineer the wee beasties. Want to solve the energy crisis? Microbes will do it.
 
DutchessFlier said:
To Be Very Clear: Prices of fossil fuels have very little to do with supply and demand. Chart the monthly averages on monetary exchange rates against the dollar and the European blended trade indexes, the COMEX and the NYSE index and look at the trends. Fossil fuel is a traded commodity, and as such, is an investment vehicle used by traders as both a hedge and a speculative item. Don't kid yourself about drilling moratoriums, refinery capacity shortfalls, domestic vs imported crude stock...NONE of those situations that we know about is by accident folks, none of them. Prices of oil you see now are just plays against the future, and the players bet both sides of the equation, which makes it lousy for the end consumer (us) and great for those who can afford to speculate.
Trust me, I know about this stuff..I live it every day
Click to expand...


I would agree with most of this expect the promise of FUTURE SUPPLY and FUTURE DEMAND do play a part in CURRENT PRICES. The markets discount these back to Present Value and if there is the promise of more supply that helps reduce current pricing. Also if they forecast the economy to heat up that will also effect PV. So there are supply and demand pressures on pricing.
 
steingar said:
It is a truly scary thing when I'm agreeing with Tom, but agree I will. Microbes can do amazing things. They can break the dinitrogen chemical bond, the strongest in the periodic table. They can grow in distilled water. They can eat oil spills.

Anything that can eat oil can make it. And we have the tools and knowhow to genetically engineer the wee beasties. Want to solve the energy crisis? Microbes will do it.
Click to expand...

Green Algae is but one of the multitude of micro organisms that we are using to meet the future demands.

Development of a algae farming industry, could solve many of Americas problems, the fuel crises is the biggest but farming would provide jobs, a whole new market for the needs of the farmer, the profits of the farmer would cycle through the whole country, causing a ripple effect to help the economic recovery.

I do not see any down side to this.
 
Tom-D said:
Green Algae is but one of the multitude of micro organisms that we are using to meet the future demands.

Development of a algae farming industry, could solve many of Americas problems, the fuel crises is the biggest but farming would provide jobs, a whole new market for the needs of the farmer, the profits of the farmer would cycle through the whole country, causing a ripple effect to help the economic recovery.

I do not see any down side to this.
Click to expand...

Environmental impact?
 
Bob Noel said:
Environmental impact?
Click to expand...

Not only is there not likely to be much environmental impact, but in colder climates the ambient heat around electrical plants can be used to grow them. Such so called "biodiesel" has been used already to power vehicles, and I think aircraft. As it stands there are strains of algae that can accomplish this, and I be they can be tailed to make the synthetic compounds we want most. They won't be as cheap as pumping the stuff out of the ground, but they will be cheaper than most other forms of energy. Microbes are orders of magnitude more efficient at capturing sunlight than anything we can come up with.
 
It may not be that the gas costs more, it could be that the dollar buys less.
 
steingar said:
Not only is there not likely to be much environmental impact, but in colder climates the ambient heat around electrical plants can be used to grow them. Such so called "biodiesel" has been used already to power vehicles, and I think aircraft. As it stands there are strains of algae that can accomplish this, and I be they can be tailed to make the synthetic compounds we want most. They won't be as cheap as pumping the stuff out of the ground, but they will be cheaper than most other forms of energy. Microbes are orders of magnitude more efficient at capturing sunlight than anything we can come up with.
Click to expand...


So the reason ExxonMobil hasn't jumped on this is....?
 
dmccormack said:
So the reason ExxonMobil hasn't jumped on this is....?
Click to expand...
http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/energy_climate_con_vehicle_algae.aspx

Meeting the world’s growing energy demands will require a multitude of sources. Biofuel from algae could be a meaningful part of the solution in the future because of its potential as an economically viable, low emissions transportation fuel.
Together ExxonMobil and Synthetic Genomics, Inc. (SGI) announced in July 2010 the opening of a new greenhouse facility to enable the next level of research and testing in our algae biofuels program.
Click to expand...
 
Bob Noel said:
Environmental impact?
Click to expand...

The environmental impact is a positive one, simply because the algae uses CO and produces O2,

with countries cutting the forests of the world that produce most of the Atmosphere's O2 by the square miles per day, we need every thing we can grow to replace the O2 you breath each day.

there is no down side to the Algae fuel project.

It is estimated that 5 acres of Az, N.M., and So.Cal, could support a family at today's prices of oil.

Solent Tech. believes that 10% of the government land in Az. and New Mexico could support the nations oil demands. With all lands available to grow algae in full production oil could be the nations larges export. and increase our GNP to the plus side of the ledger.
 
Tom-D said:
You must remember the oil companies are not going to grow the algae, farmers will. just as the local meat market doesn't grow the meat, farmers do. and America has always done great on a Agra industries based economy
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what your point is. They will have contract farmers to grow algae just like they have contract drillers to drill wells.
 
Tom-D said:
The environmental impact is a positive one, simply because the algae uses CO and produces O2,
Click to expand...

um, wouldn't the land to used (or water) displace something (plants and animals) that are there right now? Wouldn't that be an environmental impact and wouldn't it need to be addressed?

I'm not arguing about the net benefit wrt CO2 (I assume, not CO).
 
Bob Noel said:
um, wouldn't the land to used (or water) displace something (plants and animals) that are there right now? Wouldn't that be an environmental impact and wouldn't it need to be addressed?

I'm not arguing about the net benefit wrt CO2 (I assume, not CO).
Click to expand...

Actually, algae and other microbiological cultures can be grown in 3 dimensional media, making far more efficient use of land than agriculture or any other use. Moreover, they can be grown anywhere there is water and sunshine, which includes many places unsuitable for alternative usage.
 
steingar said:
Actually, algae and other microbiological cultures can be grown in 3 dimensional media, making far more efficient use of land than agriculture or any other use. Moreover, they can be grown anywhere there is water and sunshine, which includes many places unsuitable for alternative usage.
Click to expand...
I understand the water can be (mostly) recycled so sunshine is really the only need.

I have no evidence to support this but I suspect the corn/soybean lobby may be holding this back. Biodiesel is made from corn or soybeans and ethanol from corn. There's no subsidies/tax breaks for algae as there are for corn or soybeans.

Edit: Another advantage of plant oils (including algae) is they can be "cracked" into the compounds (and gasoline) that we get from petroleum for the most part. A downside is the plant oils are acyl glycerides- these are cross-esterified with methanol to make the biodiesel fuel. I think the methanol comes from natural gas; we get a bunch of glycerine as a by product. Glycerine isn't particularly nasty, but we only need so much skin softener. I don't know how much work is being done to convert the glycerol to something else (maybe methanol?) that we could use.
 
Last edited:
I know someone who makes his own biodiesel from old cooking oil which he collects from restaurants. I forget exactly what he says it costs him but it seems like it's less than half of what he would pay at the pump.
 
Everskyward said:
I know someone who makes his own biodiesel from old cooking oil which he collects from restaurants. I forget exactly what he says it costs him but it seems like it's less than half of what he would pay at the pump.
Click to expand...

Last I knew, it was around 70 cents a gallon. I looked into it, in passing a while back. There is a commercially available rig that could be purchased that was an all in one type thing. By the time you bought all the stuff, in my computations, it would take about 100,000 miles to break even. IIRC. Might have been double that. That was based on something like a VW diesel Jetta that gets about 50 miles per gallon.

You can also get a rig that allows you to burn straight vegetable oil (SVO) without doing all that other stuff. But again, the initial purchase price makes it not as economical as one might think.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
Last I knew, it was around 70 cents a gallon. I looked into it, in passing a while back. There is a commercially available rig that could be purchased that was an all in one type thing. By the time you bought all the stuff, in my computations, it would take about 100,000 miles to break even. IIRC. Might have been double that. That was based on something like a VW diesel Jetta that gets about 50 miles per gallon.

You can also get a rig that allows you to burn straight vegetable oil (SVO) without doing all that other stuff. But again, the initial purchase price makes it not as economical as one might think.
Click to expand...
I don't think that the equipment he had to purchase was very expensive but I could ask. My impression is that you filter the oil then put some additives in it.
 
Everskyward said:
I don't think that the equipment he had to purchase was very expensive but I could ask. My impression is that you filter the oil then put some additives in it.
Click to expand...

Well, it is a tad more complicated than that. If it is true biodiesel there is alcohol added to it, glycerin removed from it and some other processes that I can't remember right now.

OTOH, using Straight Vegetable Oil is basically a filter and use type operation, but it does take some specialized equipment on the vehicles to use it effectively.

BTW, I am sure the Bio process hardware can be put together piecemeal for a lot less than the commercially available rig.
 
Last edited:
Yep, you can put your own system together fairly inexpensively for cooking biodiesel (google "Girl Mark biodesielbiodiesel") I researched it a few years ago - hmmm, that was the last time diesel went over $3.25 and it did it again here last week. The problem I see now is that waste vegetable oil (WVO) at restaurants has gone from a waste to a commodity. Suppliers are now contracting removal of the WVO as part delivering new oil, or recycle companies have tied up the supply. It looks like it's gotten pretty difficult to obtain a regular, but small volume of WVO for an individual processor.

There is (or was) a WVO co-op in Boulder that one could join - might be the way to go.

Edit - re: google above .... geez, I guess you have to spell "diesel" right ... oh wait, no you don't - google handles fat-finger typos just fine... :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top