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Peak oil has not hit yet. The current price increases are due to inflation of the money supply. When peak oil does hit, prices will really rise. I would think that more railroads and coal powered trucks would reduce the demand significantly.
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I still feel the diesel issue in USA and Canada is pretty politically motivated, as it can be refined cheaper than gas, and it's excessive price is really a killer on the economy (from farming to transportation). Seems to make sense to ration gas and keep diesel flowing on a 'required-to-do-the-job' allocation basis.
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Actually you get both diesel and gasoline from a refinery run and it really doesn't make one much cheaper than the other.
I think there are several reasons for the higher diesel prices in the last year or so...
The high demand for diesel overseas has led to some export contracts so that all the product refined here is not marketed here. The higher retail prices may change this over time.
The requirement for low-sulfer diesel has raised the cost of the final product somewhat.
Refineries in the US use processes to produce more gasoline than diesel because of the market here. Changing the refineries to be more like those in Europe so that there is more diesel than gas from each run is a big dollar change (billions) so it won't happen quickly.
as an owner operator myself I support the shutdown but the the other factor are the companies that give us are work they pocket too much of the money on a set rate for doing and spending nothing. We truckers should also shutdown on them.
example of how the basic rate on a haul is broken down
Shipper sets price and passes it on to broker
Broker takes his percentage and passes it on to trucking company
Trucking company takes thier percentage of rate (alot of times the fuel surcharge)
and any extra expenses that might be incurred with haul,then negotiates a new rate with the owner operator reguardless of whatever factors
Last edited by siboney; 04-16-2008 at 07:34 PM..
Reason: mispelling
so when are the truckers going to raise the price of their services? I figure that if enough truckers go under, the guys that do manage to make it are going to have more work than they can take (supply and demand, price increase in trucking services). I suppose if people cut back on purchasing goods though, work for truckers is going to slow down too. I dunno where it's going. I do know that we're going to see $4.00 gas by mid summer, and if we manage to get a major hurricane, we'll be looking at $6.00 gasoline. I might have to get me a motorcycle.
Do you guys think that using coal for oil might help someday? Here in South Africa 40% of our oil is manufactured from coal by a company called sasol Sasol Internet but still the oil price is going high every month like in the rest of the world.
We also use coal for electricity if we could atleast get 60% of our electricity from nuclear power and use most of our coal for oil we can reduce the price of oil significantly. I hope the world can invest much on alternative energy as they oil price hikes are hurting the poor.
Why not have GE, Bank of America, or Microsoft fund research into alternative energy? They make huge profits with larger margins and any capital diverted would not jeopardize our current energy supply.
Good question. These companies might be investing in alt energy. How would one know? It is not exactly smart business to show your hand in anything that you think is undervalued. GE is involved in energy but they are involved in many ventures that are mundane too. They are a conglomerate. I believe that a company like Microsoft could change their business model if they could bank on making a ton of money from it. Just think how successful companies stay successful. It is not the current widgets and services they sell that has to define them forever.
I think the rest of us should chime in with the truckers and strike and protest everytime we go to the grocery store.
Prices because of fuel are clear out of control/
Coal can run an engine directly. Look up gasification.
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Alternative energy
