The sliding $US and the price of Oil

Responding to the original post as an American returning from a dive trip, we opted not to buy the video from the dive operator. In large part, this was the result of not being featured in the film enough to make the expense seem worthwhile. In large part, it was because we had spent over $7,000 on camera equipment to take our own pictures.

Videographers, make sure you have at least one minute worth of footage on anybody you wish to buy your video. Preferably two minutes. I think the desire to buy is much greater when what we are buying is footage of ourselves.

It's funny to think about how much energy and money it takes to get the oil from out of the ground, into a tanker, to the refinery to the service station to your car.

I can see people farming hydrogen just like they grow crops, that is build a huge solar field on their land with wind turbins to release the hydrogen from the water that's put into storage that's delivered by trucks or by pipes to the filling station if it's close by. What this means is that days of a few greedy corporation controlling the power resource will be long gone and it will open up a huge new kind of farming to anyone who wants to be apart of it.

Fuel cells are getting better and better and the cost will drop way down in the next few years as the auto makers start making the cars at mass. Toyota have a car that will go 830km to the tank already, the tank is filled to 10,000 psi and you can place the tank into a burning fire and nothing will happen to it. In an accident it will burn much faster than fossil fuels and it just goes up in one big puff unlike say petrol that leaks all over every thing and hangs around while it burns.

So for the long trips hydrogen stations will be set up and then for the home user on those short day trips a small hydrogen filing station powered by the grid, solar or wind will be setup up to provide free hydrogen and also could be used to power the home.

It's pretty cool that the geedy oil mob keep jacking up the prices as they are only speeding up their own destruction.

IN the next 10 years.....goodbye oil companies.

Responding to the original post on page one...

Yes, the US$ is down, but the EURO is up. OK, there will currently be fewer US travelers/divers but in the meantime the Europeans are taking advantage of the EURO and are traveling much further. I am also noticing many more Russian tourists on my travels...

We all know that oil fields all over world are being controlled by the powers that be. These powers are the ones who control the fuel prices too! These same powers want us all to be moronic, fast/junk food eating, paranoid consumers who just go with the flow of what we are told to do by the powers that be, and of course the media!

There is actually a very interesting theory about the Asian tsunami being created by a bomb, and not a natural disaster as we were all led to believe.

Could this really be true? Google it, read about it, think about it and make up your own mind… Maybe it helps the powers that be gain more control on those oil fields???

I'm now spending some quality time in the western world for the first time in about 7 years. It's horrific to hear people complaining about money, whilst living a life of constantly consuming things they don't really need…

I reckon we all should all get a bike, start to use a bit of pedal power, this’ll help us to get fit while traveling, thus helping us and our planet!

There is actually a very interesting theory about the Asian tsunami being created by a bomb, and not a natural disaster as we were all led to believe.

Could this really be true? Google it, read about it, think about it and make up your own mind… Maybe it helps the powers that be gain more control on those oil fields???

I sure hope Wetpixel does not become a haven for conspiracy theorists!

The Asian Tsunami theory is mostly sourced from a fictional novel by Michael Crichton ' State of Fear'.

I sure hope Wetpixel does not become a haven for conspiracy theorists!

The Asian Tsunami theory is mostly sourced from a fictional novel by Michael Crichton ' State of Fear'.

I believe all theories should be looked into with an open mind before judging them as true, false or what ever...

I believe all theories should be looked into with an open mind before judging them as true, false or what ever...

Absolutely; but one should then clearly decide if it makes any sense or is completely off the wall, and purely based on conjecture of what might be possible. The tsunami theory is clearly one of these theories (whose primary origin was fictional conjecture), that having been evaluated should then be discredited, not left as an open ended possibility.

What I find most amusing (and scary) about most conspiracy theories is how they remain as theories forever, and their secret nature is never definitively exposed. On the other hand my life experience is that any time more than two people know about anything it never remains a secret for long.

Isn't it great that we are all allowed to be individual and have our own opinions? I never said I believed in this or not, just that it's an interesting theory. I love to keep an open mind, rather than being told what to believe by the media hype.

Graham,

I absolutely agree with you, really. Just that conspiracy theorists often have their own 'hype' as well, and we should be just as diligent about discrediting their hype as we are about discrediting the media, large corporations etc. These theorists have often caused great damage, even led to persecution and death of many people in some cases.

Ok I obviously missed this thread and so I'll move it to a more appropriate area where the serious topic of oil prices and the wackier theories can be discussed without affecting the v-i-d-e-o forum.

James - thanks for sharing your insider info. I think you're spot on about US currency valuation as a major factor to oil prices. Most Americans are misinformed. The fed's probably pumped over 2 trillion bailing out the major financial institutions in the last 12 months. Thats before probably another 2 trillion in the next 12 months and before the full bailout of Lehman, Citigroup, Merrill, Freddie, and Fannie. Many OPEC countries are now selling oil based on Euro. They're not dumb, I would't accept dollars either. Currency issues will get worse and probably never correct in our lifetimes.

There's some misinformation about hydrogen fuel and other alternatives. There's been massive progress on using bacteria to product hydrogen. It's considered so viable that hundreds of millions are being invested right now. The other hot area that VCs are investing big money is in using bioengineering and algae to product both petrol grade fuel and diesel with algae.

Had we had the will, for the 3-5 trillion that we will spend on bush boy's wars, we could have easily installed solar on every house in the US plus build out an entire array of windpower across the country plus probably rebuild every school in the country. So it's a bunch of shit that we didn't have the money nor the technolgy.

In the end diving will probably become prohibitive to many and certainly I think dive businesses riding on the margins will have a difficult time staying profitable and in business.

Drew I was going to move this thread a while back but I know how much you like doing it.

Yep the technology sure is right here now....the common people and dynamic small business are going to force the governments and greedy fat corporations to change. Find a good hydrogen company and invest now..although do a background check on them as there are quite a few shonky one's popping up.

Hydrogen for jet fuel...no problems...guess what the USAF runs the MACH 5 X-15 on

Hydgrogen is much more efficient than dirty slow burning fossil fuels and it's not that hard or expensive to make anymore.

I filled the bike up yesterday, 36 bucks....got me thinking about a day were the motor will be electric driven by a fuel cell and the fuel tank full of hydrogen, it would then be non polluting, have instant more power, travel twice the distance, be more quiet....and the best thing is that I could probably fuel it up at home.

I would really love to believe that hydrogen will be used extensively in 10 or 20 years but I don´t. Wagsy: I hope you are right. That would take away some worries etc...

Another problem is the destruction of rainforest in Brazil to grow crops for vegetal oil (I don´t if that is the correct name)...

Here: diesel 1€/liter and unleaded gas 0.97€/liter

The fed's probably pumped over 2 trillion bailing out the major financial institutions in the last 12 months.

The asset side of the entire federal reserve system's balance sheet is under $1 trillion ...

How do you get to $2 trillion?

How do we solve our energy problems?

In my mind, the answer is obvious ... orbiting solar-energy stations that use microwaves to remit their harvest to earth-bound stations and everything runs on the resulting electricity stores.

How long will that take? Exactly as long as we need it to ... the solution will arrive just in time to save the day. If the oil companies are smart (ie not Exxon) they will see themselves in the Energy business and not the Oil business. If Railroad execs in the US in the late 1800's/early 1900's had seen themselves in the Transportation business and not in the Railroad business, the long-haul trucking business would have never been born and the Railroad tycoons would have continued into the 20th century as the Kings of American business.

Somebody will solve the energy "problem" ... but likely entrepreneurs and not the major oil companies ... but you never know.

As a species, we're far too clever to let the situation run completely out of control to the point where we get "un-energied" back into the stone age.

100 years ago, it would have been impossible to imagine feeding a planet with 10 billion people on it. Today ... no problem.

100 years from now, people will look back and wonder what we were all worried about.

Just my optimistic two cents.

I find this pretty amazing talking about sunlight....

The amount of FREE sunlight energy that comes from the SUN in 1 hour is enough to run the whole planets energy needs for 1 year.

If you want to get into hydrogen abit right now for your car Google hydrogen fuel boosters. A simple device that will give you up to 40% better fuel economy.

OK,

I took the bait and did a little googling for Hydrogen fuel boosters and after two pages decided that there was far too much fluff with respect to wild un-substantiated claims, So based on the evasive (or cryptic) explanations that were given I decided to look for a little more concrete info on "hydrogen fuel enhancement" instead. The material I found was much more forthcoming about how the technology works, what kind of results can be expected under certain conditions and most importantly.... was referenced. The link I read is here.

Note this statement;

"Hydrogen fuel enhancement from electrolysis of water can produce fuel efficiency improvements on the order of 4% and similar modest reductions in emissions, and is currently in use in Canada."

I checked their references and the some of the results referenced were generated by ETV (Environmental Technology Verification) program from the government of Canada.

4% or 40%. There seems to be a slight discrepancy. 4% is better than nothing and if you have huge fuel bills because you drive tractor trailers then it's worth it, but I don't think it's going to help the average American balance their check book.

Yup... the X15 was definitely a hydrogen powered craft, and so are all the shuttle craft. But a liquid fuel rocket has very little in common with a jet aircraft and the X15 was no exception. If memory serves me well, one of the X15 engines blew up while being tested on the ground and what happened to Challenger should serve as a sobering reminder hydrogen powered rockets are not ready for the main stream (admitidly, I'd give my left n#t to go for a ride in an X15, safety be damned).

That said, I see no reason why a regular jet liner couldn't run on Hydrogen with little modification. As I understand it, turbines can run on just about anything as long as it's liquid and flammable. Liquid Hydrogen would qualify. The big question is if the plane can carry enough volume of H2.

Hydrogen has a very high energy density per unit mass, but as a liter of liquid hydrogen only weighs 70 grams so it has a low energy density per unit volume. All the credible sources I've checked give liquid hydrogen 1/3rd the energy density of gasoline and jet fuel is even higher density that gasoline as I understand. Therefore, you're going to need to carry 3 times the volume of fuel to make it happen. However, since liquid hydrogen is about 10x lighter than a comparable hydrocarbon I see this as being quite feasible.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not against hydrogen. I don't believe that any of the obstacles that currently bar it's widespread use are insurmountable, but I don't believe it's a magic bullet either. We can transition to it today and you don't need any special knowledge. I can generate it in my basement with a little NaOH (electrolyte) a couple of wires and a DC power source. You can too! It's not rocket science! It's also not cheap!

It's not just about producing Hydrogen, but also processing it. In the very least you have to compress it. Any body out there have any experience with dive compressors and how much it cost's to compress a gas to 300bar? Keep in mind that 27000L (~1000cf) of H2 is equivalent 2.4kg or ~34L of liquid H2. But in reality, storing H2 at high pressure isn't efficient so you really need liquefy it which is even more energetically expensive.

Then you need to consider delivery. Liquid H2 is 20°K (−423 °F/−253°C) is hazardous in it's own right. It's going to require special training, procedures and equipment to be done safely and it takes time and money to put that kind of infrastructure in place.

I do believe that H2 is in our future, but it will be economics that dictates when it is adopted. At this point in time, it simply isn't financially feasible and that is why we don't see it more widely adopted. I don't believe it's because there is any kind conspiracy against it's adoption.

Ahem. In the matter of the initiating post, I have been presented with videos that did not include my wife or me or so little content of us or our friends that there was no question of purchasing the tapes. The state of the USD vs. other currencies DOES impact many of our and our friend’s travel plans. e. g. my wife and I planned two trips to Europe this year. After Touring Austria (no roos here) and the Czech Republic and paying the 56% premium of the EU over the USD, we decided to cancel our Leon & Castile tour this fall. We are going to Banff instead (still paying a premium to CAD vs. USD – ouch). Fortunately, much of the expense is priced in USD. Looking forward to next year and diving in Asia, the packages are price in EUs. I mentally add 60% and think, may be some where else.

The airlines are beginning to punch up their prices. I understand that Singapore Airlines and Emirates, are now restricting the baggage allowance to 20kg out of the UK and they are NO LONGER giving the extra 10kg consession for divers. The price per kg excess is £64 (120USD) just to Singapore, but most of us wanting to visit Indonesia will have to pay more for the second flight. This will mean that Sri Lankan and Malaysia airlines will be doing the same. It will make it difficult to carry our dive kit let alone any camera equipment!! The irony of it is I have a 46Kg allowance for a flight to Calgary next month when 20kg would have been perfectly adequate. Perhaps we will have to fly 2/3 of the way around the world from the UK and use the transatlantic allowance to get to Indonesia with any camera equipment

Roger