Have you guys noticed an increase in glow fuel prices as of the last week or two? I was told it was because of the increase in nitromethane prices. A couple of months ago a gallon of nitro could be bought for $49 plus shipping. Best deal I could find Friday was $76 for a half liter. I guess glow fuel prices are going to just what gasoline prices are doing[&o]

Despite popular belief, our fuel does not come from crude oil; it comes from propane. Anyway, RCKen confirmed that China had shut down one of its large nitromethane plants to curb emissions during the Olympic games. This is making it difficult for smaller shops to maintain their fuel supply.

Not only nitro price increases but also freight increases as well pushing the costs of everything.

flynte

That is what I here also. My understanding is ther is only one place in the western hemisphere that makes the stuff and now they are having to pull double duty since China shut down.

$19.99 per gallon of 10% Nitro at my LHS. Ouch. I've stopped using 15% ($24.99 currently).

Time again to get a van and large order together and drive to the S&W "factory".

Wow, $49 a gallon??? You sure about that??? It's $17/gal at LHS here for Wildcat 10% . 15% is $1 more.

I assumed he was talking about the price of "pure" nitromethane to add to his own methanol & castor to blend the fuel hinself at that price.

At $49 for a gallon of glow fuel even I might consider an electric powered model. Lets hope it never comes to that! ;-)

Try staying over here guys $35 for a gallon of 10% glow and over $10 a gallon for gas

lol...sorry

The 10.00 a gal of gas might be here by November. For sure i would say 8.00 by then. Just a guess but have studied alot. We also try to get a bunch of us together and buy fuel in bulk form. 55gal. and a spicket. Fill your jugs at the field.
The guy may be paying that much having it shipped. Cost are alot more for shipping fuel.

IMHO, gasoline at $10.00/gal. would absolutely fold up our economy. The cost of goods and services would be so high that wages wouldn`t even come anywhere close for the vast majority of Americans. I don`t even want to think about what our society would look like with that scenario. Hope we don`t have to find out!

We're already hitting $5.63/gallon here in Canada or $1.49/litre just as discussed three months ago.

At $4.00 per gallon I am currently spending $3,500 per year just to go to work and I drive a 1998 Honda that gets 28-30 miles p/gal.

Gary

Let's hope that we start drilling, and we won't have to worry. I get my wildcat 10% for $13.99/gal.

I just purchased my very first gallon ever of glow fuel - Morgan Cool Power 15% and paid $20 plus tax from the LHS.

Watching the NHRA drag races this weekend they had a story about nitro costs. This past weekend they had to pay $1800.00 for a 40 gal container of fuel. I'm not sure if this was 90% or 100% nitro. They're expecting $2000 with a few weeks. Assuming that was 100% @ $1800 and you mixed it down to 10% RC fuel that would make it 400 gal jugs with $4.50 worth of nitro in each. Then add the other components, jugging fees, shipping costs and profit. One car owner also said he thought the quality was slipping too.

I wish someone would produce the Nitro here in the USA. It would be better quality, and could prolly be fairly competitive in price.

There are 3 factories in the world that produce nitromethane. The one in China, and the other two are here in the US. The problem is that with the plant in China shut down that means there is 1/3 less nitro available now.

Ken

By the time things hit $8.00 there would be so much screaming that the politicos on both sides may FINALLY get off their duffs and start moving us to a hydrogen economy.

Cheap, infinitely replenishable, non-polluting, no-major factory retooling (you CAN run cars on it with non-dramatic changes to the manufacturing process ).... and you can even power heavy equipment, planes, etc. with it due to the high energy/weight ratio.... can you say 150 mpg ( actually it's 150 miles per 2.2lbs of hydrogen... )

BUT you -MUST- have cheap electricity available.... and the only viable source fo an ever increasing thirst for electricity will be nuclear... and everyone's scared of that word.... maybe someday I'll get my Mr. Fusion instead!

We'll still need to drill for oil too... after all you need it for thinks like plastics, etc.

I heard that it was just temporary in china. They are supposed to start back up after the olympics. China is supposed to be trying to hide how nasty their country is while everyone is there. I didn't know they made any here, I heard somewhere it was all chinese.

Ken

I got into this debate with one of our club members the other day. I proclaimed that the shutdown of the Chinese plant was only a portion of the supply chain and that there were US based Nitromethane factories. He claimed that those had shut down and that NO nitro was produced domestically. Do you happen to know where those US plants are?? I'd really like to be more educated on this topic.

Thanks!

I Googled "Nitromethane factories" and could only find a number of Chinese plants and also http://www.importers.com/Nitromethan...-0-177-kl.html . Perhaps not all of Chinas facilities were shut down but just those most offensive and close to Olympic sites.

Alex,
I don't know the exact towns, but the two plants in the US one is in Texas and the other is in Lousiana. One of these plants was damaged and knocked offline years ago (by a hurricane if I remember correctly), but is now back online and working. Lots of people heard about the one plant in the US going down, but most never heard that it was repaired and producing nitromethane now.


Ken

http://news.dow.com/dow_news/manufac.../20061114b.htm This may be one of the plants Ken was referring to. Looks like they got out of part of the market but may still provide to some.

I used to pay $25 a gallon, then the next day it was $35 and the next it was $40 the store owner did what he could to keep prices down but ended up raising them.

dave.