Dick Smith looks at Fuel Costs
 

The ABC will screen Dick Smith's “Ten Bucks a Litre” this Thursday evening, 1 August at 8.30pm.

It appears the program assesses and addresses future increases in fuel costs with a significant interest in the future cost of aviation fuel and the impact on our society.

There is also a segment on turning waste into fuel that could be used for aircraft.

Dick Smith's programs are generally very interesting, particularly exploring the impact on our Australian community.

Worth a watch on the ABC.

Looks like an interesting show. Dick Smith seems to have all of the right motivations and I'm looking forward to watching it.

If Dick gets involved, it will end up costing you more.

But, your Safety will be enhanced....
:eek:

:}

If it is produced in Oz, I am happy to pay.

If my pay is at first world rates, I do not expect others in Oz to work for nothing to try to compete with product produced with 3rd world wages paid overseas.

I was intrigued by a current affairs program advertorial on KMart where a middle class customer was over the moon because she could buy a pair of jeans for under $10.00.

I wondered to myself if she would be willing take a consummate pay cut equivalent to the reduction in the price of those KMart jeans compared to a pair of jeans made in Oz.

We are exporting all out manufacturing jobs overseas. We will soon be hit with large increases in gas prices once we start to export Qld CNG to the overseas markets in a big way.

As most of our new power stations are gas fired, this increase in gas cost will flow on to increased cost of power.

We should have introduced a policy, as they do so often in California to set a standard for all of the US, where XX% of new cars manufactured in or imported into the country are powered by CNG.

Why do we export a fuel like CNG and import liquid fuels at ever increasing cost when CNG can do the same job at a lower domestic cost, not one based on world parity.

Don't worry, if this latest potential outback Australian oil find comes to fruition, we will potentially be the second largest oil exporter in the world and might get some pricing relief for a long time.

Im pretty sure there is a very large oil reserve in Oz, the oldest continent, and most was an ocean floor at some time in the past...

as for cheaper if we become a world oil producing power, HAHAHAHA this IS Australia remember, we will sell it cheap offshore, then buy it back at a stupidly high markup. do you think the green groups will allow new refineries? Sydney is in the process of closing down its last refinery as we speak. :ugh:

Rising costs will kill regional aviation
 

XXX, doesn't matter how much oil we produce the price at the bowser will never drop dramatically to many big players making to much money to worry about the little guy.

Its a worry that we are loosing avgas refinery's with shortly only Kwinana producing it I am informed.

Shortly all avgas will be imported so no wonder diesels are becoming popular as the sky will be the limit for the Avgas price pardon the pun:rolleyes: however I am sure JetA1 will be hard on its heels as well.

Best I have paid for Avgas lately in the outback was drum fuel at $4.95 per litre and the average in the bush is around the $3.00 per litre and you have to take the whole drum.

This is mainly due to the fact that it has to be drum fuel and trucked in if they sell small amounts or the only other option for bulk supplier they have to take a full tanker at a time as they are no longer allowed to mix fuel types on the same load for a remote delivery due to contamination issues between fuels.

Farmers/Miners can be claim the excise back for fuel both diesel and UL they can even claim a portion of on road fuels used as well. Why cannot air operators that supply a vital need to the bush get some respite from the increasing costs and be able to claim back fuel taxes for business use as well for fuel?

At the end of the day Aviation is keeping cars off roads so reducing the outback road repair costs, burning less fuel per km than a car so less carbon emissions, and all those good green things yet the powers that be seem hell bent on destroying the reason that kicked aviation off all those years ago, the basic need to service remote and rural Australia.

Cheaper? You're kidding, aren't you? As long as we are tied to world parity pricing, we pay the market rate for oil. And will continue to do so. What I want to know is how the government can justify this country selling gas to other countries at 3-6 cents per litre. How much are you paying for lpg for your car? Why?

Remember in 1974 when big Mal started parody pricing they said there was only enough oil in the world to last 30 years? :8

Isn't there some heaps big oil reserve in south Australia that could be used when we start running out of reserves that are easy to extract.

Major oil discovery in outback SA - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Yes PUT, thanks for the link, exactly the new oil reserve I was referring to earlier.

If they can sort out the extraction issues, Australia will be an oil powerhouse for a long time.

They are able to extract it now if they wanted to, but the profit margin isn't obviously as good as what oil companies are currently able to achieve. Hopefully this will be up and running before we see $10 a litre prices.

Well, here's a diesel / Jet A1 powered C-172 that the Yanks are developing to counter the rising Avgas prices and the availability problem....

Redbird Launches a Diesel Skyhawk Conversion Project - AVweb flash Article

'Redbird Simulations' is the company using the Continental / ex Thielert engine. Operational costs to be published in October.......hopefully....

Cheers:ok:

The Australian domestic natural gas market isn't big enough to justify investment into the exploration and production for the local market only.

If we didn't allow export of the large proportion of our gas reserves, gas would either be really expensive here or non-existent since no-one would bother investing to produce.

Melbourne only gets gas because Bass Strait oil is nearby. If the Bass Strait oil production was any further from civilization, it'd just be flared off, such is the nuisance of it.

Ironic that a 10-buck gas program comes from the bloke who thinks this nation can't sustain a much larger population. Without our resource exports, we couldn't sustain the micro population we have!

There is an old but tested saying "price is what the market will bear"

All the chest beating in the world and wild prognosis in respect to supply interruptions or shortfalls will not change the simple dynamic, it is the market that determines price and availability.

In some ways we are missing the point here. This country is so far down the gurgler deficit wise that any new found wealth will be taken by the fools at the top by way of TAXES to pay for monumental stuff ups in recent times.

The Yanks are spending money faster than they can print it, we are doing like wise via taxes, spending it faster than the buggers can rip it out of us.
I haven't owned ('till recently) a petrol driven car in over 25 yrs, Gas has saved me a fortune!
Aussies love their cars mainly due lousy public transport & vast distances we need to travel so it would be a pure novelty to have a Govt that helped it's own electorate.....God now there's a garden fairy Gnome story if I've ever heard one!
As for avgas?.....Gee only the rich use that stuff so they can pay!!!:E

Australians simply don't look after their own, never have I reckon.

Wmk2

I will not partake in Dick bashing....ok...just this once....YOU ARE WRONG, DICK...AGAIN!

Ten bucks a litre....jesssuus priest! Like he said last night on Sky, inflation will eventually raise the price...as well as wages and everything else. For a start, Link Energy...the guys who have the tenements in SA...can make diesel for $0.60 per litre now. Granted, the taxman will "equalise" that product. Technology will always fill a niche. We consumers will adapt that technology to our everyday lives as the economic argument merges with the reality. At work today we were commenting on how long we will be producing out of Bass Strait. When Long Island Point started in the early seventies, five ships a week exporting crude, now, it is about one a month. Most of the product coming out now is gas. It will still be producing for another thirty years. Short of another giant field off Tasmania...it will only be small fields by comparison. However, we have another five hundred years worth of that dirty brown coal in the Latrobe valley, let alone, an equally as big field that comes down under French's Island as well as south of Bacchus Marsh...this stuff is excellent for turning into diesel, just ask the Germans. If we can keep some of that natural gas from being exported we can convert to liquid fuel cheap, not to mention power the same trucks with LNG. Technology is there, it works, it just needs to be adapted to common usage.

Bloody CO2...hot air...tax! The only reason brown coal is "dirty" is because there is so much of it, no one can be bothered reducing the moisture content. Just burn more of it! Apply temperature and pressure changes the crystalline structure from hydroscopic to hydrophobic, reduces moisture content from about 60% to 18%...technology! Get more energy from the same tonne means less tonnes burnt meaning less bloody CO2. It just isn't sexy enough for the media. But, sorry Dick, hydrocarbons are going to be used for a very long time into the future....unless the taxman artificially changes the economics.

The exploration and production is complete. We have been using gas in power stations for a while now

All we need is a Govt with b@lls instead of budgies or rectangular glasses to legislate that a growing % of vehicles in this country shall be run on CNG. The same as we have to reduce CO2 by X% by 2020. Other countries do it, why can't we?

Additionally, require all Govt (Federal, State and local) purchased vehicles be Oz made and run on CNG. Other than public servants who are required to go off road, no public servant needs a $100,000+ landcruiser to toddle around the city.

Remains of the day..:hmm:









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