CountryPlans Forum

This site has some charts worth thinking about...

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Hi John:

   Yes.......the charts are thought provoking.......oil effects the prices of........ everything.

   ebass

An interesting realization is for all our experimentation with renewable and alternative power sources, nobody yet has been able to build such things as PV solar panels using all PV generated power.

The alternative power industry itself depends on dead dinosaurs. As does everything else including the food supply.

 John:

  If an extremely efficient PV panel were to be manufactured and used in the manner which you've described, I wouldn't be suprised to see that technology marketed for maximum profit, in a piecemeal style similar to what computer manufacturers do......

   Regarding dead dinosaurs, let's face it.......
our society, has grown up on, and remains addicted to oil.....how many of us will voluntarily give up our cars?
  How I wish there were cheap, simple, painless solutions to the issues you raise..........

ebass  

One of the reasons I keep hoping people will look at Tony Wrench's How to Build a Low-Impact Round House (can also read Christopher Day) is that he--and some other British (Welch?) authors seem to be thinking about low impact as a way of life.

Hey, I joke about "10 miles for a cup of (bad) coffee."  Actually it's about 7, round trip, unless that little store isn't open, which it often isn't.

I'm not walking the walk.

Unless you want to be either a mystic or a hermit you have to swim in the waters you find yourself in.

None of us are walking our talk. I use and waste energy that I know I could do without. Modern life will adjust, but only when it has to. In the mean time we can all just put on a happy face  ;D and enjoy the bounty we have been given.

Anything else is too depressing.

Absolutely, John.  It's why oil use has actually gone up since gas prices nationwide passed $2.05 for regular.

In the last week and a half I've been to Memphis once, Jackson twice, and Nashville once.  Although one of the Jackson visits was coming back from Memphis when I'd gone a different way.  

The quilts of Gees Bend exhibit in Memphis was pretty wonderful, though.

the Nashville trip was very nearly a total waste, though.

Many of us geezers remember the gas lines of the early 70s and are suprised prices havent been worse.The November ?04 national geographic article on oil was informative.  It is prudent to minimize personal consumtion of oil and a good habit to be getting into.

Worse than some of this, is that I read somewhere that the rising price is not due to the cost of oil going up - it is due to the decline of the dollar.

You can only print so much play money before people want more to pay for the same thing. ;D

John brings up an interesting point-- my propane ran out yesterday- what do I do - finish the wood gas generator - start a methane digester - use renewable resources???

No - I grab the phone and call the propane truck-- I am so ashamed that I am so irresponsible  - unfortunately - not. :-[

my 13 year old son and I have been seperating water into Hydrogen and oxygen using a small photo volt sun pannel.  I have a way to compress it and get it into a tank, propane cylinder.  Does it make any sense to feeed this into the air intake of the car motor?  I would expect a little more power.

I have an old 4 cylinder engine out in the shed for a test run.  So it would be gasoline, air, and hydrogen and oxygen.

Only if your air intake is too big?

(same as putting too big a jet in the carbs)

I would play with it with a small engine first- check the problems with hydrogen before you use it on a good engine.  I have only studied a little about using it.  If you are making it from water instead of fossil fuel, at least you are ahead of the oil industry. ;D

Please keep us posted on whatever you are willing to share regarding your experiments.  Be careful :)

As Amanda says, fuel air mix is already ideal on a running engine so if you add more fuel you need more air.  Ideally you would find a way to run with a hydrogen/air mix.  Wood gas generator uses a home made manifold- 2 pipes with independent butterflys so you can adjust fuel/air independently.  Could go through your other carburetor- start on gas- have a shutoff on gas line then switch to hydrogen with gas off and carburetor open - regulate then with homemade manifold and experiment with proper fuel air mix.  Hydrogen can cause embrittlement in metal.  Don't know the extent if you are burning it.  Where's a girl learn about this stuff Amanda ???

One way to conserve and support the probable future of agriculture is to seek out and patronize local farmers who are using sustainable agriculture.  Food that's locally produced and without petrochemical fertilizers/pesticides and fuel are bound to be cheaper - or at least a lot better for you! Besides which, they'll be the only game in town when we can no longer afford to have fresh produce air-freighted in from S. America every night!

Have a look at http://www.brokenlimbs.org/index.html

We have a thing called slo-food dinners to counteract fast food-- definitely much better.  They do them as a benefit for the local public cinema.  The boss lady said the difference is from something like $.09 to the farmer to about $.90 per dollar going to the farmer if you buy direct besides being able to get the good tasting non-
GM food.

Every one needs to start their own garden too.  Even if in a pot in the apartment.  My daughter-in-law was here the other day.  She had never seen a carrot be pulled from the ground to eat.  Wait until I tell her that milk doesn't come from cartons! :o

I was going to say something evil about milk not coming in cartons, but then I remembered that I loathed the Ayrshire (think brown and white Holsteins, now very rare) milk we used to get, pasteurized but not homogenized, from a local dairy.  I liked to say hello to the cows when we went by.  Blue milk is worse than carton milk.  

Hanger on at a few friends' garages, taught mechanics for the clueless for the YWCA a couple of times, and after that I was a parts person at the local import parts place for a couple of years.

To answer that question.

 trying to convince owners of major fuel guzzling power boats that those days are  all but gone is to stare straight in the face of denial .much of my adult life has been spent on boat design and construction,the power boats after the turn of the last century were quite efficent by todays standards.I think design there will go full circle.  I had told myself I would go back to boatbuilding when fuel hit the roof as this would create opportunity. As one chapter ends others will begin.

For power backup I'm running a Marine 3500 watt generator with a single cylinder Volvo MD5A water cooled diesel.  Hot water goes to radiant heat tubes in cabin adobe floor.

It was also used as an efficient boat power plant - probably won't satisfy the horsepower lovers, but in a pinch would probably run on vegetable oil.

 Glenn Im suprised you havent put an oven on the exhaust manifold to bake lunch. That engine will serve You well. As a society we are energy gluttons for sure, I dont bother preaching it as prices will eventually catch the herds attention.Lake cumberland where we are building our cabin has houseboats 85 feet long by 18 foot wide, one with a helicopter and untold numbers of big cubic inch speed boats, cruisers etc.90% of there owners goals could be met by something much more efficent ,as it really dosent take much energy to move mass through water.

The oven on the engine exhaust trick I used to do with a welder- nice hot meals.  Then later as we "advanced" the old exhaust oven gave way to a microwave in the truck tool box.  Now I'm too lazy to carry food and settle for a half upset stomach and occasional food poisoning at the fast food joints in the big cities when I have to go there to work. ;D

Glen I here you I can toast a sandwich with a rose bud.The price of oil will affect everything but There will be opportunity created in solutions

know this is off topic, but thougt some of you purist would find this interesting. i have a 2yr  old girl who i wanted to switch to soy milk,  the peditricin was all for it, so i switched. i have a1 yr old little boy, i take him to a male ped. when it came time to stop nursing, i asked about the soy. he advised against it. large amounts of soy may surpress  testerone levels in children. besides, the studies aren't out yet on soy milk. he told me that although soy is organic, it is also syntheically processed. whole milk is still in it's natural state. but i have concerns about the antibodies and hormones. organic whole milk might be alright if it weren't  $5/half gallon. see the crap they throw at us new parents!!! my husband's solution....  to nurse longer, i say sure, if he wants to induce lactation himself!

opps!! sorry for the previous misplaced message!!! i didn't  see page 2 and thought there was some dicussion about dairy still going. sorry to intrude with thoughts of lactation  :-[

Since we were there once I don't see any reason to worry about the page number changing.  Lactation and the induction thereof, all part of building a happy country home.  As far as peak oil goes, if large corporate farms are unsustainable due to lack of or cost of oil we may all have to go back to the family cow or goat.  There -- we are back on the subject. ;D

I had one son who  was allergic even to mothers milk.  We used Similac but found out it was not well fortified with proper nutrients so he was short on calcium - weak bones, teeth, etc.   We found that goat milk would have been a better choice as many children with allergys won't reject it. :)  We found the following method to be the best and easiest way to manage handling the dispensation of lactation. ;D

(http://www.rotten.com/library/medicine/bodily-functions/nursing/goat-suckling/goat-suckle.jpg)

Don't forget Heidi by Johanna Spyri!

(Clara who was fed goat's milk one summer)

Some people not too far from us are starting to make goats cheese.

I have goats, and chickens (and am getting ducks and geese) -- in large part because of concern about the future, and Peak Oil is a large part of that concern.  I really think that little houses are only part of the equation.  We need to all be learning to grow as much of our own food as possible, and it won't pay to wait until we have no choice.  There's a major learning curve to gardening and keeping livestock; there's soil to build; buildings to construct for housing the animals; feed to raise for the animals; equipment to obtain (now, while it's still fairly inexpensive); skills to learn in things like milk handling, cheesemaking, soapmaking, saving seeds, feeding the animals correctly so they don't die on you, and so on.  I've got a head start because I was raised on a farm, and have had dairy goats for most of the last twenty-two years, but even so I sometimes worry that there won't be enough time to get everything done that needs to be done.  

And to get this back on the topic of housing, we live with my grandmother in her new manufactured home -- no solar heat or hot water, no wood heat . . . . I have bought a hand pump for the well, and have a bike and cargo trailer for it.  But I do wish this house was designed and set up for living off the grid.

Kathleen, in Southern Oregon

I think you're right Kathleen.  Maybe it will hold together for a while - maybe it won't but one thing that is for sure -those who have learned the skills of self sufficiency will be much better prepared to take care of themselves.  The city people will be totally unprepared and you can bet they'll be headed to country cousins if possible.

With only a 3 day supply of food in most stores, all it will take is a hiccup in the system for things to start coming unglued.  Fuel, farming or transportation - take your pick- one broken link is all it takes.  We better learn to take care of ourselves, by ourselves. :-/

Here's an interesting book on making alcohol fuel adjustments. Has anyone worked with this?

Does cars running on corn really make sense?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0915216434/countryplanscom/002-4122960-5926408

Maybe using the corn to make hydrogen through a fuel cell is a better option:

http://www.newstarget.com/000937.html

I don't know how much sense it makes to run cars on ethanol, i.e., to raise huge crops of corn (sugar cane in Brazil, IIRC, soy for diesel fuel) to fuel our current lifestyle.

But it can be done.   At least until oil gets so precious that the other things that get to come from oil price the whole idea of large personal transportation out of the market--or it takes sooo much acreage to raise fuel that we are we are unable to feed ourselves.  It would probably be a better idea to start thinking about alternatives to large personal transportation--says the person who drove 60 miles each way this morning to deliver some tomato plants that I'd forgotten to take up on Friday.

 :-[  oops!
I've just started a book, The Long Emergency by James Howward Kunstler, about what happens after peak oil.  Thirty pages in, it's really interesting.  I did enjoy his (historical) take on suburbia, The Geography of Nowhere.

His idea is that a lot more than just our transportation patterns are due to cheap oil.

Back in the 80's Judith Moffett was writing a series of short stories for Asimov's Science Fiction in which the aliens come, wonder why we are ruining this perfectly nice little planet.  After a nuclear power meltdown that kills lots of people, they give us an ultimatum--think Local, solar, no petroleum driven lmuch of anything.  They were collected in a book--I don't remember that the stories contained the details of the ultimatum, the book did--Ragged World--which I occasionally go back and read.

Thanks for the lead Amanda; here is a recent article by James Kunstler in Rolling Stone. I expect it summarizes the topic and perhaps the book.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0413-28.htm

This is a good concise overview of the issues and potential "solutions" :-/

Here is another 21st century "solution":

(http://www.countryplans.com/images/oil-c.jpg)

Gee, when I worked in a truck factory, we always wished there was a better way to move cabs around the plant.

Now I know!

Thanks!

Same Kuntzler, same title as the book.

Easier for me to send to people this way, though.

I finally finished the article myself. Not very optimistic is it?  :P

While probably not nearly as cataclysmic as Kunstler suggests, the changes most Americans will undergo are also much larger than most of them expect.

We are talking something more than just having to pay a few bucks more to fill up the Lincoln Navigator.

There is already an association! This from the ASPO:
http://www.peakoil.net/

Interesting thread
A couple of years ago on a trip home to NZ, I noticed that one of the major Methanol producers was dismantling its plant. This was quite a wakeup call for me, so I started doing a little research.

Taranaki, my home province, is the center of New Zealand's oil, gas and petrochemical industry and therefore of major strategic importance to the country's economy.  Gas, mostly from the Maui and Kapuni fields, is piped to the 80-hectare methanol complex at Motunui, where it is converted into about 2 million tonnes of distilled methanol. A further 520,000 tonnes of export-grade product was manufactured at their smaller Waitara Valley plant. It seems that these fields are now running dry.
The gas from these fields is also used for several electricity generation plants in NZ. These to are on the way out. Recent newspaper reports suggest that there is about three year's supply left to be tapped. Although, if you look at oil company literature it's saying something completely different.

There have been some recent small discoveries in Taranaki- the onshore Kahili gas and Surrey oil fields are said to be complimenting the more major developments of the offshore Tui and Maari oil fields, and the Pohokura gas field.
The Pohokura one was interesting in that, after spending around 9 million on a new plant, they turned on the taps and there was no gas. Not sure if they have figured that one out yet.
If you look at oil company activity you will notice that the major companies are merging, or buying each other out, they're not spending money exploring, it's not good business to put money into dry holes. Smaller outfits take on most of this exploration.

An interesting sidelight of this exploration is that it seems to be driving the housing market in Taranaki. If you take a close look though, this oil and gas activity is quite small and should not be having that much effect. On closer inspection of local newspaper articles, you notice that they are mostly reported by real-estate agents. Speculators drive most of this activity.

A recent article I penned for the local paper, on the benefits of bike riding also pointed out the peak oil issue. It would seem, judging by the feed back that most folk don't give a toss about how much oil they waste. They don't mind whinnying about the price but change their lifestyles, not a chance. They'd die first.  
jonesy

Thanks for the down under perspective, jonesy.

This is most definitely a global issue. And ostriches all around the planet are more than willing to stick their heads in the sand.

There are lots of examples of human (and animal) societies that ate their seed corn rather than make even simple lifestyle changes — Easter island, the Vikings starving on Greenland because they wouldn't eat fish or learn from the Inuit.

Is this part of what we're waiting for ???

http://komotv.com/stories/38525.htm

Anyone start planting a winter garden yet-  I don't think a Bandaid will fix this and since our government is run by oil/corporate interest's don't look for much price relief in the near future-- my opinoin - which my wife tells me I think everyone is entitled to.

Here is what I was referring to above - a quote from that famous person--

QuoteI think you're right Kathleen.  Maybe it will hold together for a while - maybe it won't but one thing that is for sure -those who have learned the skills of self sufficiency will be much better prepared to take care of themselves.  The city people will be totally unprepared and you can bet they'll be headed to country cousins if possible.

With only a 3 day supply of food in most stores, all it will take is a hiccup in the system for things to start coming unglued.  Fuel, farming or transportation - take your pick- one broken link is all it takes.  We better learn to take care of ourselves, by ourselves. :-/

[quote author=glenn kangiser

Anyone start planting a winter garden yet-

    Yes we did , just this AM . re-tilled yesterday . And  Jonniece ( Grandaughter from Chi. )&  I did just that . Planted spinach , lettuce , radishs .  Took some pics with the new digital camera , in hopes ,#1 We don't get frosted out . #2 I can email pics to her when it grows . # 3 Some day I'll figure out how to post  :-[  Learning curve  :o HTBH  ;)PEG

Don't forget that a hoop greenhouse is very easy to build and relatively cheap -- rebar stakes in the ground  12 feet apart -18' to 20 '  pvc - hoops - poly over the top - or double poly and a small blower piped in between poly layers  to make a slightly insulated more wind resistant one.

http://www.westsidegardener.com/howto/hoophouse.html

Am I cruel to have no sympathy for a Suburban driver? The truckers I can feel for, but they should just be passing the cost to the rest of us.

I'm not sure what they think is going to happen. If oil costs (made up figures) $60 a barrel, and therefore it costs $3.00 a gallon for gas, the only way gas gets cheaper is if the government subsidizes it, which just means we end up paying for it anyway.

Boy, Greenbank-- am I glad my wife drives a Mercedes SUV. ;D  It does get 20 miles per gallon though. :-/

I also agree - if we want the big car we have to pay the price - but being a cheaper product- why are the truckers being made to pay more for diesel ???

I also drive a Kenworth conventional crane/welding truck.  Over $300 for a tank of fuel to run about 3 days hurts -even if you try to pass most of the cost on-- guess we better hope we get a handle on the middle east pretty soon, eh ???

Glenn, I have an old F250 I use for hauling and general errands in the rain when motorcycling is too miserable, so I'm not able to stand proud on the "non gas guzzling" front.  ;)

That said, I knew when I bought it that it pretty much sucked at using fuel, and at $3 a gallon it will cost me $150 to fill up both tanks. I almost perversely like the high fuel prices because it provides a powerful incentive to use it wisely. (Article today in the local paper says our waterways are most threatened by car exhaust, another reason to like high fuel prices, again, in a perverse sort of way.)

A lot of folks own vehicles like Suburbans and Durangos and use them 98% of the time for single-person commuting. I have zero sympathy for them--as you said, it's a choice. Maybe I'm just a horrible person.  ???

Here's what it will cost you, the Average Person, to run a brand-new 2005 Suburban. Average price: $45K (!). Tax will bring that to about $50K here in Washington. If you finance 40K of that over 60 months at their 2.9% rate, the monthly payment will be $710. If you drive 15,000 a year at an average of 16mpg, that's $235 a month at $2.99 a gallon. Insurance is probably about $100 a month. So that's over $1000 a month for wheels. Wild. And at the end of those five years, the residual value will be pretty poor, too.

Heck, at $235 a month for gas, that Suburban driver in the article could save enough in gas in six months (if they switched to a 30mpg car) to buy something like my beat up but reliable old F250 and keep it around for those times you need a hauler. Not glamourous, but then neither is the Suburban. Heck, split the cost with the neighbor, and share it. I've often been the only one of my friends with a full size truck, and I'm happy to let them use it for what it's good for.

And maybe I'm weird, but I'd just as readily pay the concrete guy extra if gas shoots up as I would if concrete gets more expensive. Why would I expect him to eat a cost he has no control over?

This has got to be good news for railroads. They are far thriftier with fuel per pound/mile than trucks.

Edit: I found a fascinating discussion of passenger transport in the 20th century, and the fuel efficiency of various types of transport:

http://www.lafn.org/~dave/trans/energy/fuel-eff-20th-1.html

Railroads are still king of freight, but the case for passenger railroads isn't so good.

Hey Glenn,
Ya reckon you got problems! I got a whole fleet to run.
http://users.tpg.com.au/jonsey/countryplans/fleet3.jpg

Plus the sports car
http://users.tpg.com.au/jonsey/images/yellabike.jpg

And the old ladys runabout
http://users.tpg.com.au/jonsey/images/e-bike3.jpg

jonesy  ;D

Last night it took $28.00 to fill up my honda civic!

10 gallons! OmG!

I am soooo. glad I traded in my Nissan Frontier truck that got 18MPG last October for the new Civic that gives me 39MPG.
 
 4 years ago I could Fill up my wifey's Civic for $11.50.  

I still miss my truck..

The civic does not like to carry 5- 80 pound bags of concrete!


(http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_mar2003/GasPrices2003.jpg)

Jonesy - at the price of air, how do you manage to keep that fleet running ???

By the way - the government is succeeding on charging for air now too-- studys for variances and permits for wind generators in some California areas are $2000 or more --for a wind generator that doesn't cost that much -- seems some bureaucrats and whiners deem them unsightly.

You should see the stink the rich and powaful are raising here about Nantucket and wind power.  I can't think of a time on Nantucket where it wasn't windy....seems like a no brainer to me but what do I know....

http://www.capewind.org/

http://www.capecodonline.com/special/windfarm/

All my power for this property has come from wind and solar for over 3 years now.  PGE -Power company is not allowed here except to trim trees under the neighbors line which crosses my property.

Why can't they see the light?  -a little  joke there-  :-/

I guess I must be public enemy number 1 with my evil 7 foot blades spinning recklessly in an unsightly manner across the skyline.  There goes the neighborhood. No dead birds yet - either that or the cat eats them - in reality more birds die crashing into clean windows than are killed by generator blades.  Besides only the stupid ones crash into the blades -- law of survival of the fittest - we could eventually create a superior strain of bird that is impervious to wind generator blades.  ;D  :o

Assuming that some of what Kunstler will come to pass in the next decade, what should one do to prepare?  A few years ago I had a conspiracy theorist neighbor who advocated food hoarding and a garden.  Food hoarding sounds impractical for something potentially a few years away, but as someone else mentioned there is a learning curve to gardening so starting a garden now makes sense.  Also, if everything requiring oil for manufacturing (e.g. PVs) will be harder and thus costlier to manufacture maybe it'd be good to hoard them.

Neil

Can't see much point in hoarding food. Sooner or later, it will run out, or someone with a bigger stick will come and take it off you, Better to acquire and hoard knowledge, much more valuable. That makes you useful to the guy with the big stick.  And, don't forget feet will still work when the oil runs out. ;D
jonesy.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
    Chinese Proverb

Learning gardening now will be a resource you will use for the rest of your life.  Drp  irrigation or mini sprinklers on a timer is another resource that will keep you from having to worry about watering if you are short on time.

Glenn,
Any danger of a detailed look at your solar BBQ. Maybe a short essay on how you built it and how it works.
jonesy ;)

Actually I just used my parabolic trough for heating my hot tub.  It is just a 4 x 8; sheet of mirror stainless with a parabolic frame to focus it at 30 inches - we put the steaks in a barbecuing holder and held them down under the focal point a bit.  I think there are other ways that may work better.

There is a program on the Internet that will give you the lengths of lines to lay out the parabola.  The thing that makes the parabolic reflector work well is that all rays from the sun are considered parallel since we are so far from the it.  /These rays are then collected by the reflector and focused on one point creating intense heat.  The parabola does this -  a half circle will not focus the rays in the same manner.  This is hot enough to boil water and set paper on fire.

Here is a site with quite a bit of information.

http://solarcooking.org/plans.htm

I have a box type cooker and was thinking of building one along the lines of the Nelpa Solar Panel Cooker with a hotplate. This mainly for use as a BBQ. Solar cookers are worthwhile here as we get good sun, about 300 days a year. When I get time, I will post some stuff on mine to the web page.
jonesy.

Hey Glenn, you solved my problem. Now I have an excuse to fish more! And if I can't cook what I catch I can always revert to eating them raw...hey you Californian's eat raw fish and call it sushi, guess I can acquire a taste for it too! Problem solved!
Now all I need to do is start hoarding fish hooks, line and plastic worms. Wow, this really is an informative site!
(Jonsey, you think gouna would make sushi?)
Okie Bob

Be careful you don't get worms, Bob.  Warmer water fish many times have worms -I don't know about freshwater -but ocean fish do - a friend showed me - a coiled up worm- actually many- older fish having more-- about the size of a pencil eraser just under the skin of the ocean fish we caught.

Cooked worms won't hurt you and taste much better. ;D

Hadn't thought about parasites, thought freshness was the reason why sushi quality fish was called sushi quality fish.

Gardening--organic, water-wise, thinking about plants that will take climates different from your current one--hotter, drier, colder, wetter, who knows.  Sounds like a good idea.

Current oil outlook from a Whitehouse insider.  Seems slightly biased but I guess he should know.

http://thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=3499

Note: UK site links back to US site with non-energy related material.

Here is the start of price controls on gas.

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/usworld/news-article.aspx?storyid=43128

Some of us remember how well that worked during the Carter years. Basically you substitute high prices for long lines. It can be seen as more democratic (we're all equal in a gas line) but I don't see the current administration going down this road.

If I sent that Truth Seeker article out, it would be under the heading Conspiracy Central.

If Republican governors (and the rest of them!) are whining about not having a National Guard to call on, it's (probably) not to repress uprisings, but to work like mad during fires and floods.

Of course they might get called on to keep order if gas goes to $6.00 a gallon.  And they have been used for airport security this century.

It will be interesting to see if Hawaii can have both wholesale price controls and fuel suppliers.

It seems there is a real gap between the cost of oil and the finished product say $65 per barrel wholesale to $180 or so wholesale - maybe more counting the cost of engine oil.  I guess .50 or more is tax though. Also that the cheaper to make fuel - diesel now costs more than gas - possibly because it has more energy in it and they want to capitalize on that.

How hard is it to convert a gas engine over to Propane?
What the cost of propane vs. gasoline dollar for dollar in mileage?

Anyone?

I'll share what I THINK I know ... never having made the conversion myself,  I used to work in a place that had a fleet of fork lifts and other production vehicles ... some gasoline, some converted to propane,  some electric.

The conversion is fairly simple on engines that are off-road, with carbureted type intakes.   (I don't know what is envolved with the newer fuel injected OBD11 controlled emissions, i.e., onroad vehicles.)

You can start by conversing with your local propane supplier.  They usually have all the info you need ... and you can bet they have already converted their fleet.

The "upsides"
1. The burn is cleaner ... so much so that the crankcase will almost never sludge at all ... the oil stays much freer of particulates.   Therefore, the engine tends to wear longer.
2. I believe the exhaust is not as toxic as with gasoline ... but still toxic.

The "downsides"
1. Obviously fuel suppy is an issue.  If you have a tank "at home", you have to make sure all the hiway taxes are paid for .... lotsatrouble!
2. Now you have a pressure vessel to maintain.  Some states/municipalities have issues with propane tanks on onroad vehicles ... have compliances to be met.
3. You can expect to lose power with most conversions.
4. Propane doesn't want to vaporize in extremely cold conditions ...startups may be difficult unless the tank is warmed with aux heat.

The relative cost depends on the market ... I have no idea if it makes sense or not, but its an interesting question.   I think propane has a lower BTU value compared to gasoline per pound,

I had well drilling rigs running on propane - or should I say propain.  It was clean  -engines lasted long- If I wanted to do it, I would do it on an old carburated rig- new one with injection would probably be next to impossible.  Starting was sometimes a real contest.  Probably could have been better but I didn't care for it.

Propane is like running premium - no ping- lower power a bit as I remember.

WE ARE SAVED. !!!

The president is releasing oil from the strategic reserves.  Oil prices are falling.  Don't the oil people around the world know we have strategic reserves we can call on when the prices get too high or we have a problem ???

We have 700 million barrels stored in underground caverns, and we only use 20 million barrels per day.  That will last us forever.  "We will not be held hostile."  (Pardon the presidential quote - hope it's not a copyright infringement).  

Please don't do the math.  It will only make you feel insecure.

Of course some of that is in caverns in Louisiana where they might be a wee bit inaccessible right now.

Everybody I ran into today was thinking, what if, and can we afford to go--to Memphis (where there are both gas panics and refugees), to a party in Nashville, even if we take the motorcycle?

I'm on this odd guy's mailing list.  He claims that when he was working for Chrysler, a fair number of vehicles were built to run on any combination of fuels from straight gasoline to pure alcohol (E85)--something about CAFE standards being set for pure gasoline.  So you could get into the distilling business.  He's putting out a book and a DVD, he writes helpfully!

I'll post the list if enough people want it.