Gas Price Relief?

[Linguofreak]

All this BS about sticking it to the "greedy oil companies".

Those oil companies aren't holding back technology in order to make money;

This I agree with. I suppose you could have some kind of cartel system where the companies agreed to certain measures to keep gas prices high (such as holding back tech), but the kind of greed that leads to such agreements also tends to destroy them.

My beef with the oil companies is not so much any big theory of some massive conspiracy, but more that they, acting individually out of selfishness, are being slow about reacting to increases in oil prices, simply because at the moment it allows them to make better profits. Eventually, of course, oil will reach prices high enough that consumers are no longer willing to foot the bill for gas, and the oil companies' profits will drop, and *then* they will start trying to bring oil prices down.

if such a magic substitute for oil existed they would all be racing each other to see who could market it first. Not only would it make them a huge pile of money, it would also improve their poor public image, which is propagated by people whining about them "making profits", which is, of course, what they are in business to do after all.

The problem comes when they make a profit at the expense of others. A healthy economy is one where most transactions are strongly win-win. If people become too willing to screw each other over just to make a few more bucks, any economy will eventually sink. I think that Americans, and Westerners in general are becoming too used to the easy life and too willing to screw each other over to find the easier life. Part of where this shows up is in the way the oil companies are acting now, but it's a problem that extends farther than that. And of course, it's not just a Western problem either. The Middle East is perfectly willing to screw us over to make a buck, crude production in general is declining, and China and India are coming into the market and creating more demand.

You may think that oil is more expensive, but in fact it is not. Your money is just worth a lot less, mainly because it's completely fake and is not backed by anything. A pound of silver today buys about the same amount of gasoline as a pound of silver did 40 years ago, but because of inflated fiat currency that pound of silver, and the gasoline you can trade for it, cost a lot more.

True and false. Yes, the dollar has inflated. But oil is still more expensive in inflation-adjusted terms than it has been in the past. Rising demand + wavering supply + tensions in the area that produces the supply + greed all around = a greater percentage of your paycheck (whether you measure that in 1968 dollars or 2008 dollars) goes into gas.

I also wouldn't say that fiat currency is backed by nothing. It is (more or less) backed by the economy of the issuing nation. The problem comes when that economy isn't worth what you think it is, which is why I don't like the credit-happyiess of the American consumer, (or the deficit-spending happiness that comes from Congress engaging in Democratic spending and Republican taxation), since willy-nilly credit has a way of creating false wealth.

Silver (or gold, or oil, or cow) backed currency doesn't really help here, because the supply or demand for the backing commodity can change and the government can always lie about how much of the backing commodity it has (or if you're actually making silver coins, it can cut the coins with other materials). Commodity-backed and fiat currency are essentially the same in that you are taking something and using it to represent the value of your economy. If the supply of the currency rises (whether it's gold becoming more plentiful on account of a gold rush or whether the government is printing more dollars), or if the value of the economy shrinks, prices rise, because it takes more of the currency to represent a given segment of the economy.

The only way to get out of this representationalism is to go back to barter.

 

[Coolhand]

Even in the US a big portion of the cost of fuel is tax though... In the UK it's taxed very heavily, so when the cost of fuel goes up the governemt also makes more money. The cost of fuel is also driving up the cost of food, which i all taxed too, so the government is also making money from the rising costs of everything... Surely if they dropped the taxation rate it would lower the end cost to the consumer and still make the same amount of revenue. Still, we've got a war to fund in the UK, to secure oil supplies and all those new nuclear submarines, US aircraft and a new gigantic aircraft carrier we're buying to do the job...We're all paying heavily for our "war of terror", whether thats the rising cost of fuel or cauliflowers or the lives of our troops.

 

[GregBurch]

Take a deep breath. THINK.

1. You cannot pay $300 and run your car on water. The world doesn't work that way. Every morning, look in the mirror, and say to yourself: "Today, I will be skeptical of ideas that are too good to be true."

2. "Greedy oil companies" are in the business of developing petrochemical fuel sources. Don't expect oil companies to be the source of solutions to hydrocarbon fuel prices, any more than you should expect the owner of a liquor store to be the source of treatment for your alcoholism. Looking to oil companies to solve the current energy crisis is childish, wishful thinking. If you think nationalizing these companies so they will work "for the people" is the solution, look at the per-unit production costs of any of the state-owned oil companies, and compare them to Exxon's or BP's. They typically spend two to three times the amount that the "greedy oil companies" do to deliver a unit of energy, and that's with the advantage of usually controlling reserves that are easier to produce from. I make my living in the energy business. This is the truth. Wishing it wasn't is a fool's errand.

3. The price of gasoline is high because a) all the low-hanging fruit has been picked, i.e. all the shallow, shore-based reserves have been discovered and developed, and b) because 3 billion people in China and India are swiftly joining the club of citizens of the developed world. Tax rates have very little to do with any of this. Wishing it were different is looking for an easily-blamed boogie-man and sticking your head in the sand.

4. We are THERE in terms of the technology required to switch a huge portion of our automotive fleet to all-electric power. And we can generate all the electricity we need at low cost with nuclear power. Making this switch only requires real political leadership, instead of the pandering pimps who currently run our governments.

With all due respect to the nice folks on this forum, you really need to take a step back and look a little more clearly. And consider that even reading this forum is probably a pretty good filter for intelligence; a good estimate would be that the average Orbiter forum member would be at least in the top quartile of intelligence. But these really simple facts seem to hide behind a veil of wishful thinking. I'm afraid this doesn't give me much hope for our future ...

GB, THHotA

 

[reverend]

Take a deep breath. THINK.

1. You cannot pay $300 and run your car on water. The world doesn't work that way. Every morning, look in the mirror, and say to yourself: "Today, I will be skeptical of ideas that are too good to be true."

I agree with everything you said Greg, except this part, and I'm not in total disagreement. You are correct that you can not spend $300 to run your car on water the same way we run on gasoline. This is obviously impossible... What I, and thousands of others are doing here is basically converting their gasoline powered cars into electric cars. But instead of using Batteries to drive electric motors (which would be more efficient, but lots of work to take out the combustion engine of the vehicle) and instead, we're using the battery power to extract hydrogen that's already supercompressed in the the form of water.

This isn't 'running your car on water'...

This is taking your gasoline powered internal combustion engine, and adding hydrogen and oxygen to the mix to provide more bang with less gasoline. The energy source is battery power. We can ofcourse use an alternator/generator to recharge our batteries... But surely one would run out of battery power well before running out of water.

I think it's time people stop questioning the ability to save gas with a system like this. You're right that there's alot of smart folks on this forum, I don't get why more people don't think this makes a ton of sense...

 

[Urwumpe]

I think it's time people stop questioning the ability to save gas with a system like this.

Scientology says: We think it is time people stop questioning the ability of Scientology to heal people with mental illnesses.

China says: We think it is time people stop questioning the right of china to claim Tibet.

I say: I think it is time. For example to look at Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookie living on the moon Endor...it does not make sense!

You're right that there's alot of smart folks on this forum, I don't get why more people don't think this makes a ton of sense...

Because: 100W taken from your engine and used for electrolysis means only 40W gained by burning the hydrogen+oxygen mix inside a car. 60W are lost as heat or in inefficient chemical reactions inside your electrolysis tank or during combustion. It does not make sense.

You would be more effective by just letting your engine boil the coolant water for driving a steam engine instead of cooling it in a radiator.

 

[reverend]

Because: 100W taken from your engine and used for electrolysis means only 40W gained by burning the hydrogen+oxygen mix inside a car. 60W are lost as heat or in inefficient chemical reactions inside your electrolysis tank or during combustion. It does not make sense.

The 100W is not coming soley from the burning of gasoline however. 100W is coming off a battery, not the engine... The alternator for recharging, some power comes from gasoline, some power will come from burning of hydrogen, but also power will come from momentum, and a little bit from gravity I would assume too. It may not be able to maintain a full charge on a battery, but it should be able to keep it up to run for quite a while between recharging.

I've seen cars with stereo systems that draw 30+ Amps and the alternator can keep up, so why couldn't the same 30+Amps be used for making supplimentary combustible gas, and have the engine keep up the same way?


I guess the proof will actually be when I have it installed on a car to show a reduction in gasoline usage. It still all makes sense in my head...

 

[Missioncmdr]

I guess the proof will actually be when I have it installed on a car to show a reduction in gasoline usage. It still all makes sense in my head...

Wait, wait, wait. You have not even installed it on a vehicle yet? Your previous posts seemed to have implied that you had.

 

[Urwumpe]

The 100W is not coming soley from the burning of gasoline however... Some power comes from gasoline, some power will come from burning of hydrogen, but also power will come from momentum, and a little bit from gravity I would assume too. It may not be able to maintain a full charge on a battery, but it should be able to run for quite a while between recharging.

Gravity does only give you energy, when you lower the potential energy of the car - drive down a hill. This is a pretty limited solution.

Momentum needs to be generated first and can then be used as power storage.

Also, the power you gain from burning the hydrogen is 40W of 100W used for splitting the water. Or to be more correct -60W. that are 60W which you would need to take out of the battery for compensation.

I guess the proof will actually be when I have it installed on a car to show a reduction in gasoline usage. It still all makes sense in my head...

It does not make sense in mine - actually, i think with just injecting water into the cylinder you might have more effect when it comes to power generated.

But as long as you have no engine working and no measurements done - it is a fantasy story to me.

 

[sts-107]

This I agree with. I suppose you could have some kind of cartel system where the companies agreed to certain measures to keep gas prices high (such as holding back tech), but the kind of greed that leads to such agreements also tends to destroy them.

…There is such organization called OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) they are the main "tap". Basically they regulate main crude oil output and as i recall a month ago, said no increase needed, because demand is covered. They cannot increase it any further since crude oil resources are limited.
There are a majority of reasons for boosted price. Some of them may be disruptions at oil terminals, refineries etc caused by a whole array of different events (looking back 2 months up to this day, may it be minor events, but they happen on daily basis) then you have speculators they move the market as well, OPEC is just one of them. This is just a fraction, there are other influential elements, I am not going into details. Oil tightly linked to basically everything, - its the energy sector, manufacturing sector, utility services, etc. And at the end of the day consumer have to pay the price, people however tend to spend less, this in turn results lower CPI which is your “readily available” inflation indicator.
However there is a possibility that current crude oil price period can be just a bubble, and closer to December 2008 or Jan 2009 there can be a “slight” retracement. But before that the price without any shadow of doubt can tick up to USD 180, Goldman Sachs said even to USD 200-250.
Some one asked about the USD above, basically it moves inverse to WTI crude price, currencies are tightly linked with commodity prices.

 

[reverend]

Wait, wait, wait. You have not even installed it on a vehicle yet? Your previous posts seemed to have implied that you had.

No, not yet (From my first post: "Next project will be to actually outfit a vehicle with an even bigger hydrogen generator than you see in the video above I ordered some parts today...")


What I have done is to build a PVC Cannister that holds 18 stainless steel plates wired together. The video I posted shows the gaseous hydrogen/oxygen output of the cannister I built. I will be testing this cannister on an idle vehicle today, but not an actual driving test.

 

[Zeehond]

No, not yet (From my first post: "Next project will be to actually outfit a vehicle with an even bigger hydrogen generator than you see in the video above I ordered some parts today...")


What I have done is to build a PVC Cannister that holds 18 stainless steel plates wired together. The video I posted shows the gaseous hydrogen/oxygen output of the cannister I built. I will be testing this cannister on an idle vehicle today, but not an actual driving test.

Your project will not work. The gasoline run engine charges the car battery, so the energy in the battery is not free. Using it to provide more power to the car is like putting a windmill behind a propeller in an airplane and hoping that windmill will provide energy back to the propeller with some kind of mechanism. It will never provide more energy than it takes and so it will cost energy.

 

[Linguofreak]

Well, you can always use the hydrogen and oxygen you get from the water to store energy rather than produce it. Question is whether it is at all more efficient than just using existing battery technology to store that energy.

 

[Urwumpe]

Well, you can always use the hydrogen and oxygen you get from the water to store energy rather than produce it. Question is whether it is at all more efficient than just using existing battery technology to store that energy.

Most likely not - the processes of splitting water and burning the resulting gases again are each not as effective as creating electrical power with a generator and storing it.

 

[Face]

I agree with everything you said Greg, except this part, and I'm not in total disagreement. You are correct that you can not spend $300 to run your car on water the same way we run on gasoline. This is obviously impossible... What I, and thousands of others are doing here is basically converting their gasoline powered cars into electric cars. But instead of using Batteries to drive electric motors (which would be more efficient, but lots of work to take out the combustion engine of the vehicle) and instead, we're using the battery power to extract hydrogen that's already supercompressed in the the form of water.

This isn't 'running your car on water'...

This is taking your gasoline powered internal combustion engine, and adding hydrogen and oxygen to the mix to provide more bang with less gasoline. The energy source is battery power. We can ofcourse use an alternator/generator to recharge our batteries... But surely one would run out of battery power well before running out of water.

I think it's time people stop questioning the ability to save gas with a system like this. You're right that there's alot of smart folks on this forum, I don't get why more people don't think this makes a ton of sense...

Hy reverend,

I think I don't really get your idea here. Do you want to:
a) Use electrical power generated by a gasoline powered internal combustion engine to generate hydrogen and oxygen out of water to fuel the very same engine?
b) Use externally generated electrical power to generate hydrogen and oxygen "on-the-fly" to additionally fuel your gasoline engine?
c) Increase mileage by additionally using hydrogen and oxygen generated by electricity from the car's battery?

regards,
Face

 

[Salamander]

would an osmosis engine count as "water-powered"?

 

[Andy44]

Check this out:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article4133668.ece

I'm not sure you will be able to make enough oil using this method without running into the same kind of problems ethanol does, but it is amazing tech nontheless; it's even "carbon negative".

Even if it is a smashing success, the greenies will manufacture another reason to hate it. They won't be happy until we are living in caves and dying down to a small population.

 

[MJR]

In the state I live in which is Oklahoma, we have the lowest price in gas in the nation. It is $3.87. That is still a lot of money to be paying.