There are several recent "penny" stocks on the market for companies ready to try. That's all I know.


roadster with a stick

 

I have an answer to your & Zeracer's questions above about C.C. limits!
In most cases it's total BS but, according to the retail manager I spoke with we nearly did the same thing.
Everytime you charge gasoline at your nearby, friendly C-store your C.C., whatever it might be, has a limit placed on it by the C.C. processors. This limit is usually $50 - $100 preset by the processor (I can already hear the collective brain beginning to see the answer!). If you pump more than this you've "exceeded" the preset limit & the retailer will be held responsible for any monies exceeding that preset limit if your C.C. card is maxed! That's why you can pump twice using the same card! The preset limit is for each transaction.
For example, let's say you have a Visa card with a $5000 limit & you've already darn near maxed out the card & have $30 left on it. You go to the Gas Flood C-store down the block & pump in $50. Since you've exceeded the limit on your card the retailer is held responsible for the remaining $20 plus the normal 6% per transaction fee. It doesn't matter whether or not the processor gets his $20 back from you (not to mention 'exceeded limit fees' plus whatever punitive crap they'll charge you for). The odd part is: if you continue to pump gas the "second" time you just keep exceeding the limit but the retailer is "protected" by the processor because you didn't exceed that transaction's limit.
Is this the most bizarre reasoning you've ever heard of? The C.C. processors aren't losing a dime - they'll get their money out of you one way or the other. Well, unless you declare bankruptcy. Understand that this BS is decided by the credit card processor not the credit card company itself (not that they couldn't step in & say something about it. Their hands aren't clean, either). That's why, when you ask your bank or card people about it they blame the retailer. Well, hell yes! How much money would you decide to lose before you place limits on each purchase?
Depending on just where your retail operation is located & whether or not you've been burned several times by this would dictate whether or not you, as a retailer, would choose to place limits on each purchase.
Yes, we have been burned but no, we think that it's just poor customer service especially when it takes more than $50 just to fill up an average car (the SRT took $51 last fillup right before Mem. Day, a new record).
There you have it!

 

Sooooooo...
When gas and or diesel gets to $5.00 a gallon (yes, very likely this summer) most of us will not be able to fill up our tanks on one try unless we are driving the JD lawn tractor or a Harley.

That just about sum it up?

Thanks Kurt. I can't do a damm thing about it but at least I know who to be mad at. The poor clerk is still going to have to hear me rant.

roadster with a stick

 

Hi, Franc!

Yup!
And the best the poor clerk could offer would be not to use your credit card. Or debit card.....same difference.
We have one processor for all credit cards we allow & they dictate this insane policy. And, they all set these limits so it doesn't matter if you go with company "A" or company "B".
I don't want to come off sounding like our company has these high standards unbeatable by the "limit retailers". We could very well do the same thing starting tomorrow depending on just how much we start losing. We don't make much in gas sales, the money is in inside sales. We make only a few cents per gallon (honesty, I've seen the spreadsheets!!); more when the price starts dropping. With the credit card fees on top of trying to keep up with the station down the street our gas margins suck.
So, please come inside & buy a Snickers bar!
Or better yet, a six-pack!!

 

This crisis is permanent, unlike the 70's. We, those of us in the US, use too much oil. If you saw Krammer on the Today show this morning you know we have to change. We use 25 barrels per capita. India and China use 2 and are trying to move up to 4. We use 25% of the worlds oil for 5% of the population.

I'm looking at a scooter, and parking the Crossfire for the summer.

My son-in-law bought a Yamaha R6, which will smoke a Crossfire in any category, yet gets 56 MPG.

 

Not exactly. We are reaching our peak point of what people will pay and use. One of these days it's all going to burst...much like the high tech stocks did and prices will level out. It will get worse before it gets better.

 

My work truck holds 35 gallons of $5 diesel. I DO NOT wait for the warning light to come on before I fill up. I buy gas nearly every noon at a place that sells great burgers and chilidogs, and my lunch costs less than if I stand there re-squeezing the pump handle to top off the tank. Besides that, I usually have a pleasant chat with Fran as she makes my lunch. I'm just making the best of a bad situation, I guess.

 

There are still some serious issues w/ hydrogen though. One, the stuff slowly corrodes most of the metals currently used in cars. Two, it's very light & will seep through most metals so we'll have to be using polymer or ceramic gas tanks eventually or we'll fill up one day & have it gone the next! Three, there is no infrastructure yet in place to deliver hydrogen nor is there likely to be within the next several years. Four, no giant lobbying groups exist or should I say, no groups as large as the farmers! Five, it takes a bunch of energy to obtain the hydrogen in the first place because it doesn't occur naturally.
Now solar, that's a whole different thread & I've expressed my opinions on that subject enough already!

 

In 1973 I took a cross-country trip and drove 11000 miles in two weeks, I think I averaged around 17 mpg with a 360 V8.
I remember paying $.25 a gallon in Amarillo Texas, and $.50 a gallon in a small town called Lee Vining Calif.
Can you imagine taking the same trip today in a car that averages 34 mpg. and finding a gas station in Texas selling fuel at the "bargain" price of $3.50 per gal. and then having to pay $7.00 a gallon in Calif?
All things being relative of course.

 

I think the cheapest I ever paid for gas was $.48 in 1975 when I first started driving.

I use to subscribe to Consumers Reports and one issue in late 90 or 91 was bemoaning that cars manufacturers had forgotten about the previous gas crises and were back to offering large, poor mileage land barges like the Town Car. CR actually had a valid point since Desert Shield/Storm was occuring at that time and gas had gone up to $1.49.

 

The first hydrogen filling station is going to open in CA this month. Think it still costs a lot more to produce H2 than gas, and many times more to build a filling station. Maybe it will reach PA in about 20 years.

I work with He2, and it is nearly impossible to contain, leaks everywhere, even through seemingly perfect welds. H2 is even harder to contain, it is the smallest molecule and will be impossible to use commercially.

 

Brent, I've never heard that one before! Now THAT'S funny! The visual is killing me !

 

Plus, like a lot of other gases, it will have to be transported & stored in high pressure tanks which just makes matters worse! I can't imagine what happens when the retailer suddenly discovers the H2 he just purchased & filled his tanks with has magically disappeared overnight because of a teeny, tiny bad weld somewhere. Polymers and/or ceramics could work but how much will it cost & can the retailer recoup his investment quickly enough to justify the cost of installation.
Solarfire, if you have some comments on why hydrogen is feasible I think we'd love to hear them! After all, if you work everyday with alternative energy sources you might be Da Man! I mean, I get the fact that it's only emission is water vapor, essentially zero pollution, but H2O vapor is a greenhouse gas, too.

Brent, I'm still laughing over the land barge thing!!

 

In the first place, I don't want to live like most people in India. High rates of poverty and disease and little opportunity to be better than the caste you were born to.

Secondly, how's the heater in your son-in-law's Yamaha? the AC? And where does he put kids and groceries?

I'm not embarrassed or ashamed about how well we live. My Grandfather used very little energy other than his own back untill the 50's. Not on the grid until 1948. Had a small tractor in '46. Cut firewood all summer to heat the house and hand carried water from the well every day. We used an outhouse until 1964 and were able to farm all of 180 acres. He worked his *ss off.

Now one man can do ten to twenty times that. This thanks to the productivity provided by technologies than use non human energy. It is why we are the most productive society on the planet despite having so many of our citizens retired or on welfare.

Better than 20% of our citizens don't work for one reason or another and yet they live in comfort and eat well. They don't have to cut 20 cords of firewood to stay warm thru the winter or milk cows for cream in their morning coffee.

I suspect, neither do you.


roadster with a stick

 

What are the risks of transporting and storing hydrogen? How will the hydrogen be contained or controlled in the event of a crash of a hydrogen powered vehicle? Will comprehensive training be necessary to educate drivers on the proper way to fuel and operate their hydrogen cars?

I think that developing a hydrogen powered car will be relatively easy compared to the above questions. I also think that if anything will kill the concept, it will the government under the fear that terrorists will have easy access to a wide spread explosive.

Kurts, I call large cars and trucks land barges and tuna boats. I also have a hard time calling a SUV an SUV since most are decidely not sporty.

On the topic of SUVs, in San Diego yesterday one ran off Hwy 15 S., just north of Hwy 8, and ended up crashed on an adjacent street and the driver was killed. Found out this morning that the driver was the son of the person who started up the aircraft maintenance shop I work at. Not a happy day today.

 

Sorry to hear about that, Brent. My condolences to the family.

Hydrogen based fuel cells would help eliminate some of the more explosive issues with using it in our cars. The rest of the issues? Very valid!

 

Fuel cells and electric vehicles are still not much farther along than 10 years ago. Despite all the headlines, no major breakthroughs have happened.

But oil costs the same to pump out of the ground as it did ten years ago.
It just cost four to five times as much at the pump.

All the good intentions aside, the issue is hot because we are paying four times as much for gas. The long term answer may be hydrogen, it may be electric, in may even be, dare I say it, Ethanol. But we need a short term solution to the price of fuel today.

Someone posted this in another thread, I just can't find it. Punch holes in the ground here. We need to decide to compete with the Arabs and the Hugo Chavez's and any other entity that wants to steal our money. Congress just has to let go of the idea that we can win this gas war by fiddiling with currently unviable technologies while the folks who pay their salaries go broke.

We need to tell the environmentalists that they can cut all the firewood they want, poop in compost toilets, and ride their bike to work. In the real world, people have to eat, cool their homes and factories and drive to work in the cars they have. We need to punch holes in the ground here and get the nozzle, from overseas, out of our tank. And out of our wallets.

Trust me. Bambi will be fine.


roadster with a stick

 

I think the plug-in electric hybrids will revolutionize the automotive industry. The plug-in Prius and the new Chevy Volt will be coming out in late 2010. The big advantage of these cars is they can go about 40 miles on just the batteries. After that the gas engine comes into play, but you’ll still be getting about 50 mpg in the hybrid mode.

The bottom line is that most people drive less than 40 miles per day and they will basically have an all electric car. They can charge it overnight in their garage, with the standard 110 volt plug. The cost per charge will be about $1.00.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Volt

From another article:

"Because it will have both an electric and a gasoline motor on board, the Volt will be a hybrid. But it will be like no hybrid on the road today. Existing hybrids are gasoline-powered cars, with an electric assist to improve the gas mileage. The Volt will be an electric-powered car, with a gasoline assist to increase the battery’s range."

 

I personally think the oil market is being manipulated in many ways. Auto makers want to sell alternative vehicles that they have sunk billions into. The politicians do not want to interfere with free enterprise. The Green tree huggers want all green house gas emissions to stop altogether. Why would oil companies if supplies are tight not want to build more refineries? The profits are enormous what do they do with the money? Give it out as dividends! So if we were really in a significant crisis wouldn't someone do anything about it? The political environment created the last oil embargos, which resulted in the gas crisis of the 70's, which I remember well. As far as I remember there has not been any shortages to date since then. You can buy all the gas you want for the price that is set. Annyway this is just the ramblings of an old fool. New administration things will change, they always have.

 

I have posted articles about the Volt. Two points, 2010 is two years away and production will be limited. Most cars will be destined for Ca as they have mandates.
I don't think Americans should have to wait two or three years of $4 and$5 per gallon fuel and hope the Volt and the Prius and Motorcycles will put pressure on the oil market.
The price of oil i s very high right now because of speculators inflating the market. And the market will sway wildly in response to rumors and fear about global and local conditions. At the moment political unrest, weather, rapid growth in the far east are forcing prices up. Nothing is pushing it down, not even a glut of oil on the market. When was the last time you saw gas lines at the pump?

I would humbly suggest this idea. That the knowledge that we would begin drilling here in America, as we develope alternative technologies to rid ourselves of the stranglehold of foreign oil, would just as rapidly send prices the other way.

Foreign producers are killing the goose thinking China and India will make up the difference. So far they are right. The goose should quit b*tching and figure out how to feed itself.

roadster with a stick