Hi,

I am driving a Mercedes-Benz E-class (6 cylinder). I've been thinking about why there is actually no 4 cylinder Mercedes available in the US. For ecological reasons I would probably buy a 4 cylinder Mercedes but I also wonder, what my neighbours and friends would say about driving a "smaller" car?!

What is your opinion about that? Would you drive a 4 cylinder Mercedes instead of a 6 cylinder for less emisisons and better fuel consumption?

Also, in Europe they have a lot of Mercedes station wagons. I think they are very roomy and don't look too bad. Would you drive a Mercedes station wagon?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Malanena

 

Hmh, I see your point but what about increasing gas prices and stuff? Don't you think we (Americans) have to rethink in the sense of environment?
So do you think it is really important for Americans to have like the "big badge" that everybody can see what powerful and expensive car they drive?

Any other opinions about that?

What about Mercedes station wagons?

 

That made me laugh, if you look at historical prices you will see that the long term trend has been slowly upwards since the early 1970s and the trend has increased significantly since 2000 and will only keep on rising. No offense intended, but from your comment you sound very out of touch with what is happening in the oil industry and the extraordinary lengths they are going to to try and maintain oil production at current levels from existing wells and the effect of increased demand from industrializing countries like China.

The reality is easy to access supplies are starting to run out, and current capacity is more pushed that a lot of people realize, especially when there is a period of unusually high number of wells being serviced, output per well worldwide is also decreasing. The current untapped supplies are mostly hard to reach and will be much more expensive to drill. Plus there is increased demand from China who will be the economic superpower of this century and will have an insatiable demand for oil that we are already starting to see the beginning of.

Have a look at: http://www.wtrg.com/oil_graphs/oilprice1947.gif

No disrespect but if you think you will be paying $37.90 in 10 years for a barrel of crude oil you are very very much mistaken, unless this recession gets even worse and there is global meltdown.

Now hydrogen cars........(assuming the hydrogen is made using electricity from a nuclear power station and not from gas like most today is of course)......thats a different story.

 

I think anyone who reads your comment knows its you who should get out of your cave and are pretty clueless!

Why have oil prices decreased, ooooooooooh yes thats right, in case you hadn't noticed there has been a world wide recession in the economy a while now, and manufacturing production levels and demand for goods across the world have plummeted, hence demand for oil and the price, has fallen.

You can't just look at prices over a couple of years, e.g. 2000's only (because it backs up your argument and ignore everything from 1900 to 2000 which proves you are wrong when you say prices are on an upward trend) as you do get short term trends, you need to look at 10+ year trends, to eliminate short term fads. You also need to look at the numbers using constant currencies and constant RPIs , which take out foreign exchange rates and price inflation (which your graphs/data do not appear to do), and mean you can actually compare the prices on a constant base.

It makes me laugh that you did not mention the worldwide recession and decrease in demand that has been happening over the last 12 months, and think its simply because of Bush going, seriously things happen outside of the USA!

Also if you had read what I wrote you would see I said that easy to access supplies using wells in the ground today are *starting* to run out. Oil companies are looking at the prospect of having to drill many new wells over the next few years as the pressure in existing wells is now lower or use EOR more. Many of the new wells will be in locations that are harer to reach or will require additional work to get the oil to existing refineries.

A good example of decreasing output for existing wells, is in the US where oil production reached its peek in the 1970s, and is now fallen back to levels of production in the 1940s. Alaskan production using current wells peeked around 1988, and the Prudhoe Bay area (largest oil field in both the United States and in North America), has already produced about 75% of its oil, the reality is pressure in existing wells is falling.

Many wells today are also tapping oil-rim reservoirs, and new (but expensive) horizontal drilling, where the well goes down vertically, then is drilled out horizontally after, is now used to try and get more out of the rim, but there is a limit, and big cost.

A lot of supplies have been estimated to last addition years because of an assumption of using more "Enhanced Oil Recovery" (EOR) techniques e.g. where there is usually gas injection into reservoir which expands and pushes more oil to the wellbor. This is expensive and adds to the price though.

By the way, as you clearly don't know, there is a very big difference between a known supply volume and what you can actually get out of the ground economically without having to drill countless wells. Thats the problem, you usually only get about 20-40% of the known supply out (sometimes up to 65% with more EOR techniques), to get out more the cost escalates to a point where it is not economic today to do so. You will never get 100% out of the ground.

When people say there are 200 or what ever of supplies left, they don't mean volume divided by todays usage per year = number of years oil left, they are making many big assumptions, e.g. are assuming some increases in extraction efficiency in the future, assumptions about peek oil production and consumption being around 2015-2030 depending who you believe and then falling off, and very optimistic assumptions about the decline rate for fields in production (FIP).

You need to remember that we will not just keep on producing then suddenly stop one day, the decline will start to happen over 40-50 years, so again that will cause price to increase. Many supplies are untaped, and have been identified by seismology which historically has around a 10% success rate, in terms of actually getting oil out from a site potentially identified on an economic basis, though new 3D Seismic technology has increased the rate sometimes up to 80% success.

The truth is, for the untapped but identified supplies, we can not be 100% sure about how fruitful they will be and exactly how many wells are needed to extract them, until drilling starts, estimates can be made by their overall volume, but you then have to start making estimates or more normally guesses about how much oil you will be able to physically extract, and oil companies have all too often been....uuhum.... over optomistic about how much they think they will get, which has led to many hefty write downs and re-estimations of supplies over the last few years.

Finally, when oil companies refer to the amount of known supplies, they are cheeky, they are also referring to oil left in closed wells, and fields that its no longer viable to extract from. If you want to get oil out of them in 150 years time, the cost will be sky high.

You should not try and tell me I know nothing about the oil industry, as I have had the misfortune of having to do a few too many financial feasibility projects around production cycles and analysis of bottlenecks in terms of financial cost and required outlay to mitigate for a large Oil company here in the UK that I will not name on here, I say misfortune as they are a pain with ridicules deadlines (though the people at the production stage tend to be nice, even if management above them aren't always).

Reality is, as I said in my previous post, the price will go up in the future, simply because its a finite resource which is hard and expensive to get at. You will be paying more in 10 years for oil, like it or not.

In the short term, the issue in the industry is really bottlenecks in refinery capacity, a good example was 2004-2005 where supply was just managing to keep with with demand, and the idea of a "Big Rollover" was being talked about a lot (where demand for refined products substantially exceeds supply and we start having significant shortages).

It sounds like you subscribe to the idea by Curtis Rist in his 1999 book "WHY WE'LL NEVER RUN OUT OF OIL", with the idea that we will not run out of oil in the near future, as when we start to the price will shoot up so much people won't afford it and will look for alternatives.

As for hydrogen, it will be a viable source of energy, its already proven in space. You say "it takes far more energy to extract than it releases." which is of course true, but if you researched 4th generation nuclear reactors that are being designed now, when built many variants such as VHTR, and LFR have been designed with the idea of allowing the excess heat to do sulfur-iodine cycle hydrogen production.

As the sulfur and iodine compounds are can be recovered and then reused the process is very much sustainable. When fusion reactors are perfected, they too will allow sulfur-iodine cycle hydrogen production but on a much much bigger scale.

For many countries where the average journey is short, they are definitely viable, for example the Honda FCX Clarity has a range of about 280 miles, which is ok for many people who mostly use the car to commute to work or the local train station each day. No good if you drive around a big state in the US though and need a long range as you say. Still a long way to go, but one day, problem is none of the alternatives to Hydrogen are a proven........yet.

 

Straight forward, yes.

I have only owned 4 cylinder Mercedes vehicles. My first one was an inline four cylinder diesel 190D 2.2 (slowest thing on earth besides the 240D) and the next one I purchased was the 190e 2.3-16. Both act entirely different, but I am completely satisfied with four cylinders. For less maintenance, better fuel economy and a lighter front end. Most cars have six cylinders, which is kind of boring. I'd rather have a four banger or an 8 to stand out.

Let it rest in peace with the confused minivan R-class