Yet another reason to buy a wood boiler soon!!!

"Lock in pricing" for next heating season's oil is $4.99/gal. here. This cuts my total payback time by almost a year compared to just a month or so ago...even with the recent increases in wood boiler purchase price. But there is this nagging feeling I have that after I pay for the boiler and installation costs the oil market will start dropping!

It's possible that oil will drop. About 7 years ago we had the internet bubble where everybody went crazy thinking .com stocks would always go up. Then we had the real estate bubble where everybody thought housing prices would always go up. Now everybody thinks that gas will always go up. It is easy to imagine that part of the problem is that oil speculators are driving it up. I won't be too upset if the bubble bursts though - I still have to buy gas for my car.

The price of oil is going higher and will continue to do so.
There is no bubble, as much as I myself would love to see the price fall.
It is the simple fact of supply and demand.
China and India have continued to expand at unbelievable spped.
They are now competing with us for oil and this creates higher demand for the same world volume of oil on the market.
We will continue to pay higher and higher cost in the future unless we start using some of our own resources to offset the cost.
JMHO

I tend to agree with Redwood on this. I don't think we have the same situation as 7 years ago........it's a Brave New World now for sure!

Redwood and muncybob have got it right. It's supply and demand. Oil is a finite resource and it is getting harder and harder to find new deposits to replace the fields we have already depleted. We're not running out of oil, but we are getting to the point where the rate that we can extract this depleting resource does not equal worldwide demand. Google "Peak Oil" and start reading - I have been researching this for over five years. You should make your plans/purchases under the assumption that oil prices will double again within the next 2-3 years. Here is a decent primer on the topic: http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php

Hopefully we can look back in 10 years and say something like: "We never would have become energy self-sufficient if it weren't for high oil prices a decade ago."

It's bitter medicine that should give us the incentive to cure the disease.

I did all my cost/benefit/payback calculations 4 years ago when heating oil was "spiking up" to $2.20 gallon. Even then, since my wood is endless and free, the payback was there.

Now it is even more compelling - if it doubles again from here, I'll look like a genius.........but I still won't be able to drive my truck anywhere :>)

It's a completely different paradigm. The internet bubble was basically a lot of hype about products and services people knew nothing to very little about. It turned the stock market into nothing more than a gambling casino. All things like that come to an end thankfully. The housing bubble was again driven by "irrational exuberance" that Greenspan noted. It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that things were getting over built, that financing vehicles like ARM's were from Satan himself, that 5,000 sq ft houses for 2 people were stupid and the thought of everyone having their own McMansion was ludicrous.

Not so with oil. It is the life blood on which all the economies in the world hinge not just ours. In the near future, when it reaches $150-$200/barrel, it will trash the economic engine of the entire world, not just ours. There are countries who will weather the storm better than the US and they are the ones like Germany, Denmark and Austria who have embraced the cost of alternatives in advance of the shock. By avoiding taxpayer subsidy of alternative fuels, alternative electrical generation and sane, conservative use of resources, our country has merely postponed the inevitable and made the shock 5X worse when it comes.

Buy it now while you still have money or are able to get it. Buy it now before steel goes up another 50%. Buy it now while you can still get one at all.

Not to be a contrarian, but I thought I saw a link on this site about oil use and the real reason for the run up in prices. According to the article (I'll try to find the link) there are a number of reasons why oil is high, and none of them have to do with a shortage of crude oil OR that global usage is going up. Amoung the tidbits was mentioned that Americans are using 7% gasoline than last year. The USA currently uses 25% of the worlds supply. China and India COMBINED use 10-12% of the worlds supply. Their usage is up 10%. 7% of 25% is greater than 10% of 12%. In other words, this crap about chinese and indian workers making $0.50 per hour buying and using SO MUCH MORE oil is just BULL. This article also stated that normally, the "refiners" run at 89% of their total capacity until just before Memorial day. They then ramp up refining to 95% of their capacity to handle the anticipated increase in summer demand. You want to know what they did this year? .........They DECREASED refining to 85% capacity. This has created a refined inventory on supply that is artificially tight. And finally you need to read this analyst's explaination as to why commodities (oil and corn/soybeans (which are being blamed for high food prices)) are so high. It has to do with a change in 2006 legislation on how much money one needs to purchase an option and the conflict in interest this makes for companies like Goldman Sachs who make ratings on barrels of oil at the same time as purchasing millions of options on said oil. They say it was going to $100/barrel and bought options for $3/barrel when the price was $70/barrel and then sold the barrel of oil to the refiners at $100/barrel after the self-fulfilling profiecy was attained. They only made $30 on a $3 dollar investment in <3 months. Not bad for an HONEST days work. Then lets make up stories about someone in the middle-east who farted and caused a barrel of oil to jump by $12/day so we can make a little bonus money for this coming weekend I am not saying gas prices are going to come down. The problem is the "experts" have got everyone convinced that there really is a shortage. These "experts" are people who are making money off of all of this crap! No one seems to have a problem with that though. I wish that they taught problem solving skills in the public school system instead of feel-good self-esteem propaganda, but I won't even get started on that one.

Heaterman, any updates on any Euro wood boilers coming over yet ? Specifically the Froeling. I spoke with the Maine Viessmann rep last week and he stated that the Kob might be coming over soon. As a matter of fact they will be installing the Kob (pellet) at the College of the Atlantic, replacing two units (pellets) that didn't work out (new install this spring). He told me to keep in touch.
Will

Viessmann bought KOB. From what I am told by the top brass the large commercial type stuff is available right now on an individually engineered and qualified basis. (You really need to understand the Viessmann mindset to appreciate that statement.) They are making no promises regarding their residential sized units at all as to when or even if they'll be available. I think they are gun shy of the price point they would be at as well as issues with 50hz220V vs 60hz110V current. Then there's liability and they fact that they view the American wood burning market as being wholly uneducated. (think green wood here)

If you do the math, India and China will consume the entire production of Saudi Arabia by 2018 if the rate of consumption growth continues at the same year to year percentage. If you look up statistics from only 8-9 years ago, consumption by those two countries was less than 3% of world wide production. The USA is not in the drivers seat of the world's economy anymore nor do we have any meaningful control over worldwide production or prices. Read it and weep. We are screwed and we've done it to ourselves.


BTW, $4.99/gl will be a huge bargain when Israel bombs Iran's nuke facilities

"BTW, $4.99/gl will be a huge bargain when Israel bombs Iran’s nuke facilities"

I totally agree with you there. I think it will happen.

Everytime I read threads like this I go out and cut down more trees.....

That is assuming they will be able to continue to grow at their current pace, which I find unlikely. A lot of their money still comes from US. The United States is not the only country facing the issues that we are, we don't live a bubble. The entire globe is being affected by the price of oil, AND our "R"ecession. If we do not have money to spend, they will not be able to sell their products. It may take a little time for China's and India's money to trickle to a stop, but it will if the United States continues in this path. Once their money dries up, it will really get bad.

It is in the globes best interest to stabilize the price of oil and get the United States out of the recession. We are a nation of consumers and debtors, but there is a ceiling/wall for everything. If the globe takes too long, and we go too far into this............ we will learn our lesson, and when we come out of it their number one customer may not be buying as much anymore.

Look at the 1920's before the Depression ---> spend, spend, spend
Then the ceiling fell out and once we recovered most people were still cautious and thrifty. If that happens again, world markets will be changed forever.

I do not endorse being a nation of consumers, nor debtors, but as a society we are. As such, we are one of the biggest vehicles driving every countries' economy, whether directly or indirectly.

So if you want another reason to buy a wood boiler, it will help this financial cycle (poor reason, but another reason nonetheless).

How is China and India going to purchase $5/gal gas if the US economy fails (they lose their #1 customer) and they no longer have their $0.50/hr job? You see, they have the same problem we have with ecomomic expansion. Actually, they would be worst off because they can not even come near to the amount of infrastructure as the US has built up. We are buying cheaper chinese and indian goods because of the cheap level of labor. Steel, oil and other commodities still cost the same no matter which dollars you buy them with. They will have to expand with high cost commodities, where we did it under cheap commodities prices. This is why we have the chinese drilling for oil 50 miles off the florida coast (which our environmentalist will not let us have). We can develop other alternatives to oil because we have the money to do so. They need cheap oil more than we do. I think we need to invest in alternative energies, etc which is why I love this site. I am all for alternative energies so that we can all enjoy life. Would there be as much interest in this site if gas was still $1.79? Capitalism works because there is finite resources. Remember survival of the fitest in our evolution classes?

LOL, you'd be a fool to try to understand Viessmann . . .or any German for that matter. But they make good stuff, so do what ya gotta do. Then make fun of them later.

Oh, and sleep with their woman, too ;-) Blonds really DO have more fun