If you believe that petrol prices are going to get to $8 a litre then you are taking your round Australia trip now while you can still afford the petrol.

On a trip up the NSW coast I was surprised at the large amount of road works, and have noticed that there are a lot of road works in Melbourne as well.
It now takes me 15 minutes longer to complete a 45 km commute than it did last year.

I think people are starting to plan for a big hike in fuel prices, I know I bought my current car because it is cheap enough to throw away when fuel prices get too high, if it has resale value when I have finished with it [and I love my car] - that's a bonus.

Why don't I save fuel now you ask - well for years I caught public transport on principal and public transport users really are treated like second class citizens

plus my car gives me an amazing amount of freedom to go where I want unconstrained by having to ask for lifts or fit into inconvenient timetables or just plain hitch hike [so unbecoming in the mature person]

F.G. and others,
The big swing in oil prices was predicted before the
current run up in prices from $40 a barrel.

A number of books and articles that I have read dating from 2004 say
that the first symptom of peak oil will be high volubility in the oil price.
It appears to be caused by a near shortage occurring and the price
making a large rise.
This has caused poorer countries and individuals in
richer countries to cut back on their consumption.
This causes a fall in the price to a new "stable" price until a
further near shortage occurs and then the cycle repeats, each time
cranking up the price to a new level and dropping out another poor
country and more users in richer countries.

Look at the power problems in Pakistan and a number of African
countries, their power stations run on fuel oil mostly and they are
having problems to pay for the oil. A little while back the Pakistan
government had to pay the power companies fuel bill.

Both City Rail in Sydney and the suburban rail in Melbourne are
reporting increased patronage in the millions a year.
As this has occurred only in the last two years then I believe it
must be laid at the door of petrol prices.

This is a permanent condition and will only get worse.
A stop gap will be plugin electric cars but in the long term, say
15 years, it will be public electric transport or bicycles.

Has anyone else noticed that Virgins share price has dropped through
the floor and Macquarie has sold Copenhagen and Brussels airports ?
They also are not going to bid for Chicago airport.
They are calling it a restructure, well maybe, but I would have
nothing to do with aviation myself.

A nasty in the PC, why would anyone want to do that?
kept me from the thread.
fair enough yabby but in truth why from 147 to 114 so quickly?
In the long run we will be better with new fuels and better cars but we have been used by those making money from oil.

*but in truth why from 147 to 114 so quickly?*

Belly, if you follow commodity markets, those sorts of fluctuations
are quite common. Some are in fact much larger. Its a true Darwinian
"survival of the fittest" out there in commodity land.

I don't think that anyone controls it, I think that there are just
an awfull lot of people, all acting out of self interest. All these
decisions have an effect on supply/demand and price.

Thats why we get these major overshoots in these industries.
For instance rock phosphate, used for fertilisers. Fertilser
manufacturers drove the price down to 50$ a tonne in 2005-2006.
Many miners could not make it pay, so closed down, particularly
in the US. Now there is a spike in demand. So the price has
shot up to 500$ a tonne! Of course the lag time to bring a new
mine on stream is many years, so the price of fertiliser has
increased by 300% in a short time. Alot of farmers are now
wondering how they can keep producing meat etc, as fertiliser
is a major input cost.

Oil is much the same. In the late 90s oil was down to 10$
a barrel, so nobody invested in new oil fields or discoveries.
Nobody invested in oil drilling rigs etc. As one expert
recently stated "we can't just stick a straw in the ground
to suck it out". Very true. Alot of those projects have 5-10
year lag times. In a sense, we are now paying a high prices,
as oil was too cheap in the 90s.

For those interested, there is a page in this weekend's
Financial Review, discussing plug in hybrids. Its all coming
down to massive research in battery storage technology, which
is now finally happening and looks promising. Its certainly
the car of the future, with fuel costs of 2c or so a km.

No doubts about your post yabby it says much the same as I think.
But if fuel becomes a plug in and 2 cents?
What happens to the trillions invested in oil?
And will the self interest of those who control power in all its forms let us of the hook?
In my lifetime I have seen brand new industry's that never existed come to life.
And ones we thought would be with us forever shrink or even die.
But tens of millions of service stations?
We are seeing the very start of a very big change in the way traffic is no longer what it was even a year ago.

Belly,

Your words: "What happens to the trillions invested in oil?
And will the self interest of those who control power in all its forms let us of the hook?"

The fault is not in the self interest of those who control power (particularly electrical power),
but in ourselves, if we get to be underlings and kept on the hook!
For presently we ourselves, at least nominally, control power (particularly electrical power) in NSW.
And NSW effectively dictates the price that most other generators of power in Australia can charge.
Our NSW Parliamentary representatives, on both sides, may be about to sell us all out, Belly,
as you well know.

Where is the ghost of Sir Philip Game?

And before that, where is an Her Majesty's loyal Opposition worthy of the name?

Yabby speaks of 2 cents per kilometre for fuel. Look at this OLO article: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7662 In it Kevin Cox makes this statement: "Ignoring the capital costs, the ongoing cost of running a geothermal power station is about one cent per kilowatt hour. This is at least less than half the cost of running fossil fuel power stations." We could be a spit away from having electric power at something like its cost in Canada, on a sustainable basis. We'll be keeping our cars, don't you worry about that!

Kevin Cox seems to be saying "pay 4 cents more per KwH for electricity and the "privatised" power generation industry can supply us sustainable supplies, at a price unspecified."

Why not have all consumers (including the aluminium smelters) pay 4 cents more per KwH for electricity and continue to own the industry ourselves?

I'm not trying to push Hot Rock in South Australia, good and all as it may look. I understand there are hot dry rock prospects in the upper Hunter, adjacent to the existing generation capacity and distribution network. As we phase out coal fired capacity, replace it with HDR and/or solar pondage.

Read this: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5616#75599