• Welcome to Elio Owners! Join today, registration is easy!

    You can register using your Google, Facebook, or Twitter account, just click here.

Falling (crashing) Gas Prices

Chaz

Elio Addict
Joined
Aug 29, 2014
Messages
339
Reaction score
658
I will still be saving money even at these prices. My daily driver gets about 19 mpg and is 11 years old right now so, by the time my Elio is ready I will be ready for a new daily driver. My truck will go into secondary service and be used when I need to carry something too large for the Elio.
 

JCar

Elio Aficionado
Joined
Dec 14, 2014
Messages
78
Reaction score
165
Location
PDX, USA
Gas prices will go back up. Even if oil is slow to go back up , they will just added taxes to it. The thinking is you were already use to paying a higher prices. They will go back up one way or another. The time is right for an ELIO. It should be on the road already.

You'd better believe oil prices will rise again, and not by random chance. Short attention spans ignore geology. There have been many price swings since that first big 2008 spike, with a major one right afterward as world demand collapsed. Prices are low right now because of unexpected (but not truly game-changing) U.S. shale oil inputs and slacking global demand. OPEC has not raised its own prices to compensate much and some think it's conspiring tor make U.S. shale non-economical for awhile, since fracking loses money much below $80/barrel. But that's relatively short term stuff either way.

The U.S. shale boom is a temporary phenomenon when you study total recoverable reserves. e.g. the ND Bakken & Three Forks formations that contain about 7.4 billion barrels (per USGS, 2013). That 7.4B comes to only 1 year of sole U.S. consumption at 20 mbpd. Add TX Eagle Ford and other known fields and you get maybe 3 or 4 years; hardly "energy independence." U.S. shale fracking may peak well before 2020 according to various sources. The rate of drilling to keep shale plays viable is frenetic. Those wells peak quickly and only certain prime areas yield much.

Another problem is that kerogen shale (which many confuse with "oil bearing shale" aka "tight oil") may never achieve cost effective ERoEI. It has to be heated as high as 932 degrees to yield actual oil. That's the oil that Dittoheads have been calling "America's Saudi Arabia." Pure hype when you apply actual science and math.

Conventional oil production peaked around 2006 per the IEA, and shale + tar sands oil can't supply global demand once conventional oil flows decrease to a critical level. It makes no sense to waste oil under any price scenario, since there's less in the ground each second. The masses who blindly react to temporary prices are preventing true progress. I hope too many Elio owners don't end up modding them for excessive power. That isn't the vision of the company.
 

AriLea

Elio Addict
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
3,863
Reaction score
9,876
Location
anywhere
The only few questions I have is, is OPEC trying to kill-off the Canadian Tar Sands and the Dakota's cracking productions or are they trying to revive world economy's? Or is it dumber than that?
Are they doing their own cracking now and just want to dump the excess into the market?

Either way, they can't keep this up forever.
 

AriLea

Elio Addict
Joined
Mar 20, 2014
Messages
3,863
Reaction score
9,876
Location
anywhere
Pretty easy to keep the Elio in play. Lower oil translates to lower costs for everything. Just transfer that savings forward into the Elio price. Even just a drop down to $6500 would keep sales estimates up dramatically.
 

Jeff Porter

Elio Addict
Joined
May 20, 2014
Messages
2,086
Reaction score
5,343
Location
Norton, KS; halfway between Kansas City and Denver

Kuda

Elio Addict
Joined
Feb 24, 2014
Messages
2,104
Reaction score
4,750
Location
NC
The only few questions I have is, is OPEC trying to kill-off the Canadian Tar Sands and the Dakota's cracking productions or are they trying to revive world economy's? Or is it dumber than that?
Are they doing their own cracking now and just want to dump the excess into the market?

Either way, they can't keep this up forever.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30468848

14 December 2014
Opec boss: Oil price drop will not prompt supply cut
 

Jeff Porter

Elio Addict
Joined
May 20, 2014
Messages
2,086
Reaction score
5,343
Location
Norton, KS; halfway between Kansas City and Denver
You'd better believe oil prices will rise again, and not by random chance. Short attention spans ignore geology. There have been many price swings since that first big 2008 spike, with a major one right afterward as world demand collapsed. Prices are low right now because of unexpected (but not truly game-changing) U.S. shale oil inputs and slacking global demand. OPEC has not raised its own prices to compensate much and some think it's conspiring tor make U.S. shale non-economical for awhile, since fracking loses money much below $80/barrel. But that's relatively short term stuff either way.

The U.S. shale boom is a temporary phenomenon when you study total recoverable reserves. e.g. the ND Bakken & Three Forks formations that contain about 7.4 billion barrels (per USGS, 2013). That 7.4B comes to only 1 year of sole U.S. consumption at 20 mbpd. Add TX Eagle Ford and other known fields and you get maybe 3 or 4 years; hardly "energy independence." U.S. shale fracking may peak well before 2020 according to various sources. The rate of drilling to keep shale plays viable is frenetic. Those wells peak quickly and only certain prime areas yield much.

Another problem is that kerogen shale (which many confuse with "oil bearing shale" aka "tight oil") may never achieve cost effective ERoEI. It has to be heated as high as 932 degrees to yield actual oil. That's the oil that Dittoheads have been calling "America's Saudi Arabia." Pure hype when you apply actual science and math.

Conventional oil production peaked around 2006 per the IEA, and shale + tar sands oil can't supply global demand once conventional oil flows decrease to a critical level. It makes no sense to waste oil under any price scenario, since there's less in the ground each second. The masses who blindly react to temporary prices are preventing true progress. I hope too many Elio owners don't end up modding them for excessive power. That isn't the vision of the company.

JCar, thanks for the above. I know you know what you're saying, but I know I don't understand a lot of it. Explain please?

Prices are low right now partly due to slacking global demand? Does that mean global demand rate of increase is slower than it's been, or has demand real numbers actually decreased, let's say yr-to-yr?

What is a recoverable reserve? What is mbpd? What is kerogen shale? What is ERoEI? What is the IEA?

Thanks!
 
Top Bottom