Archives: 2008 October

For those who need to closely follow crude oil and petroleum products prices a wealth of data is provided on the U.S. Government’s Energy Information Administration website.

A price history going back as far as 1986 to the present is available for many petroleum products. It is highly interesting to see the range of price movement in these products. If anything the price volatility has increased over the past year as the world has struggled with the financial crisis.

Forecasting prices in the current environment is extremely difficult. Really forecasting has become as much of a guessing game as anything else. Such volatility does not bode well for the future. Intelligent long range planning becomes nearly impossible under such conditions.

At least the Energy Information Administration’s website can give you today’s prices. Good luck on knowing what crude oil and petroleum products prices will be tomorrow.

There’s been a great deal of talk and speculation lately of how high gas prices are literally crippling the American public. It is evident that the middle class in this country is shrinking at a fairly rapid rate thanks to the devaluation of the dollar, unregulated “Big Oil” and OPEC. Many expert economists, along with myself, view the rise in gas prices as a complete and utter scam / assault on the blue collar people of our nation.

If many are conerned by the high gas prices, their actions are not really showing it! Stats prove many are looking into alternative forms of gas like hydrogen, electricity, and water. Only very little have chosen to take advantage of this cheap alternative, though.

For instance, everyday Americans are saving tons of cash per week on gas because they’ve chosen to convert their vehicles to water powered hybrids? Joking aside, this is the fact. It’s been known for years that you can triple your gas mileage and have much healthier emissions with this technology.

Why have you not heard about these cost effective advances to increase gas mileage like mentioned before? When you study history, you will rapidly find that many people who’ve tried to bring this to the public were either bought out by Oil tycoons or silenced once and for all. The global system has created a dependency on oil, making you feel like you must break-away from the grid completely to get other forms of energy that work. This is utter BS!

Biofuels are environment-friendly fuels that can be made from decomposing orgainic matter. They are mainly derived from crops and plants, and can be liquid, solid or even gas.

Bio-fuels are different from fossil fuels in the following ways: 1. Fossil fuels take millions of years to make whereas bio-fuels can be made extremely fast, in a matter of days. 2. Fossil fuels generate huge amounts of pollution. Bio-fuels are comparatively safer. 3. Bio-fuels are renewable sources of energy unlike fossil fuels.

There are four different types of biofuels and they are grouped into four categories. They are 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation biofuels.

The 1st generation come from farm crops and animal fats - vegetable fats, starch, sugar and animal oils. Examples of these biofuels are biogas, biodiesel, and vegetable oil.

The 2nd generation of biofuels are derived from waste biomass. This would include oil, alcohols and diesels made from things such as felled trees.

The 3rd generation comes from algae. Algae can be farmed on a large scale for this purpose, and the fuel that algae produces is usually very environmentally friendly.

The 4th generation of biofuels are those made from excretions of microorganisms. The microorganisms are farmed in large scale reactors and excrete chemicals that can be used as fuel.

Advantages of biofuels include: 1. They reduce the burden on fossil fuels which will one day run out. 2. They are eco-friendly, unlike many bio fuels, and will help reduce carbon dioxide emissions. 3. They can be very cost effective when used correctly.