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kronk wrote:20 years ago: Peak oil in 20 years!

10 years ago: Peak oil in 20 years!

Today: Peak oil in 20 years!

I'll go back to driving my hummer while the lawn mower runs on idle and I turn on all of my sinks on hot....

Haha right, although I read somewhere that the oil levels that the Saudi's were reporting hadn't changed in more than a decade (so, essentially the figures they are supplying are BS). Essentially, they know there regime is screwed the moment the black stuff stops flowing, so they have been doctoring the dip-sticks..

But, in the scheme of things I don't think oil for miniatures matters much.. 15 years from now we could be looking at 'Firmcast', miniatures made from a revolutionary white metal that have a lower quality of miscast than anything seen before

Also, plastics don't have to be made with oil. You can make plastics with corn even.

Aerethan wrote:
in 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina, price of gasoline in the USA went up $.40 per gallon in a week, when the price per barrel only went up $.12, which works out to a total of $.0029 per gallon. I'm pretty sure that the price of Crude oil(which plastics are made from, not refined gasoline) hasn't really gone up all that much compared to a few short years ago. Oil was up to like $130 a barrel, and gasoline here in CA was about $4.50 per gallon. The price of oil is now $86.68 per barrel, putting it at $2 per gallon before refining, and right now the LOWEST cost locally is $3.99(and that one station sells it at cost on principles alone). I refuse to believe that the price of doing business means that Shell needs to charge 100% markup to stay in business.

So what we need to know, is how much High Impact Polystyrene can be made with a single barrel of crude in order to know what the actual materials cost behind plastic kits is.

Also, GW prices were much lower even back when oil was almost twice the price it is now. So saying that more expensive oil= more expensive models doesn't make sense.

Yes, in 2005 there was a peak in oil prices which came down slightly, but is now going back up. However over the last 14 years, oil prices have been generally going up quite dramtically. Now I'm not saying that GW isn't overcharging people with their products but a price increase is going to be a normal thing for anything associated with oil. The other miniture companies will be putting up their prices as well, although perhaps not as much. This graph shows that we are now over $90 per barrel, but back in 1999 we were only at $15 per barrel. That's a big price increase over time.

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pacific wrote:

kronk wrote:20 years ago: Peak oil in 20 years!

10 years ago: Peak oil in 20 years!

Today: Peak oil in 20 years!

I'll go back to driving my hummer while the lawn mower runs on idle and I turn on all of my sinks on hot....

Haha right, although I read somewhere that the oil levels that the Saudi's were reporting hadn't changed in more than a decade (so, essentially the figures they are supplying are BS). Essentially, they know there regime is screwed the moment the black stuff stops flowing, so they have been doctoring the dip-sticks..

But, in the scheme of things I don't think oil for miniatures matters much.. 15 years from now we could be looking at 'Firmcast', miniatures made from a revolutionary white metal that have a lower quality of miscast than anything seen before

It could be true that we are yet to reach "peak oil" but we need to remember that oil is still a finite resource. We can't just keep hoping that we are going to get another 20 years before peak oil year after year. Some day that peak oil will come and to be honest I'm a bit worried just now since both America and my country the UK are randomly starting wars against countries who just so happen to have oil.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aerethan wrote:Also, plastics don't have to be made with oil. You can make plastics with corn even.

If and when we make a viable alternative which at the moment it is not. PLA is usually made from Genetically Modified corn. Not to mention meeting all our consumer needs through the use of grown food isn't exactly a great idea as that will only drive up food prices. GW and other miniature companies wouldn't last very long in this type of environment. Their mini's could be more expensive since they are competeing with food crop, and then they wouldn't sell anything anyway since you'll be spending your whole pay packet on food just to survive.

Also not to mention these plastics are biodegradable, so I would have to wonder about these plastics resilience. Are they easy to break? easy to crumble?

http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/pla.htm

"With increasing demand for corn to make ethanol fuel, let alone PLA, it’s no wonder that Cargill and others have been tampering with genes to produce higher yields. But the future costs of genetic modification to the environment and human health are still largely unknown and could be very high."

According ot this article, plastics made in this fashion aren't very strong and are therefore still researching techniques to make them stronger.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/emergingtech/biodegradable-plastics-made-from-corn/396

"As these plastics are not terribly strong, he worked with other researchers, including Michael Kessler, an Iowa State assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and his research group to reinforce the plastics with nanoclays."

So in essence we are still at the research stage. GW can't exactly justify spending lots of money on this. Especially after finecast being such a failure.

DarthOvious wrote:

Aerethan wrote:
in 2005, right after Hurricane Katrina, price of gasoline in the USA went up $.40 per gallon in a week, when the price per barrel only went up $.12, which works out to a total of $.0029 per gallon. I'm pretty sure that the price of Crude oil(which plastics are made from, not refined gasoline) hasn't really gone up all that much compared to a few short years ago. Oil was up to like $130 a barrel, and gasoline here in CA was about $4.50 per gallon. The price of oil is now $86.68 per barrel, putting it at $2 per gallon before refining, and right now the LOWEST cost locally is $3.99(and that one station sells it at cost on principles alone). I refuse to believe that the price of doing business means that Shell needs to charge 100% markup to stay in business.

So what we need to know, is how much High Impact Polystyrene can be made with a single barrel of crude in order to know what the actual materials cost behind plastic kits is.

Also, GW prices were much lower even back when oil was almost twice the price it is now. So saying that more expensive oil= more expensive models doesn't make sense.

Yes, in 2005 there was a peak in oil prices which came down slightly, but is now going back up. However over the last 14 years, oil prices have been generally going up quite dramtically. Now I'm not saying that GW isn't overcharging people with their products but a price increase is going to be a normal thing for anything associated with oil. The other miniture companies will be putting up their prices as well, although perhaps not as much. This graph shows that we are now over $90 per barrel, but back in 1999 we were only at $15 per barrel. That's a big price increase over time.

http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pacific wrote:

kronk wrote:20 years ago: Peak oil in 20 years!

10 years ago: Peak oil in 20 years!

Today: Peak oil in 20 years!

I'll go back to driving my hummer while the lawn mower runs on idle and I turn on all of my sinks on hot....

Haha right, although I read somewhere that the oil levels that the Saudi's were reporting hadn't changed in more than a decade (so, essentially the figures they are supplying are BS). Essentially, they know there regime is screwed the moment the black stuff stops flowing, so they have been doctoring the dip-sticks..

But, in the scheme of things I don't think oil for miniatures matters much.. 15 years from now we could be looking at 'Firmcast', miniatures made from a revolutionary white metal that have a lower quality of miscast than anything seen before

It could be true that we are yet to reach "peak oil" but we need to remember that oil is still a finite resource. We can't just keep hoping that we are going to get another 20 years before peak oil year after year. Some day that peak oil will come and to be honest I'm a bit worried just now since both America and my country the UK are randomly starting wars against countries who just so happen to have oil.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Aerethan wrote:Also, plastics don't have to be made with oil. You can make plastics with corn even.

If and when we make a viable alternative which at the moment it is not. PLA is usually made from Genetically Modified corn. Not to mention meeting all our consumer needs through the use of grown food isn't exactly a great idea as that will only drive up food prices. GW and other miniature companies wouldn't last very long in this type of environment. Their mini's could be more expensive since they are competeing with food crop, and then they wouldn't sell anything anyway since you'll be spending your whole pay packet on food just to survive.

Also not to mention these plastics are biodegradable, so I would have to wonder about these plastics resilience. Are they easy to break? easy to crumble?

http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/pla.htm

"With increasing demand for corn to make ethanol fuel, let alone PLA, it’s no wonder that Cargill and others have been tampering with genes to produce higher yields. But the future costs of genetic modification to the environment and human health are still largely unknown and could be very high."

According ot this article, plastics made in this fashion aren't very strong and are therefore still researching techniques to make them stronger.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/emergingtech/biodegradable-plastics-made-from-corn/396

"As these plastics are not terribly strong, he worked with other researchers, including Michael Kessler, an Iowa State assistant professor of materials science and engineering, and his research group to reinforce the plastics with nanoclays."

So in essence we are still at the research stage. GW can't exactly justify spending lots of money on this. Especially after finecast being such a failure.

Excellent point.

I was wondering if this was indeed the case, and GW was just being jackass in thier approach to mixing cheaper lower quality resin.


I for one wish they would just take a page out of some of these third parties resin sculpting tech and bite the bullet on the squeezing every last penny out of you. Especially for finecrap.

Just make the darn things out of standardized gaming minis resin- like everyone has already done, and call it a success. People wouldn't mind it if you raise the quality while rasing prices. They are just getting fed up by being peed on and it being called rain.

Once again, I agree with the sentiments here in this point.

I can guarentee that on a per unit basis any rise in commodity prices barely has a 3-5c impact.

Having been a cost accountant in bulk manufacturing if the full loaded cost to GW of making a $50 box set costs more that 80c to $1 I would be incredibly surprised.

Labor and fixed costs would be the primary driver of that and even if all materials went up 50% the actual cost impact on a unit base would be minimal.

fullheadofhair wrote:I can guarentee that on a per unit basis any rise in commodity prices barely has a 3-5c impact.

Having been a cost accountant in bulk manufacturing if the full loaded cost to GW of making a $50 box set costs more that 80c to $1 I would be incredibly surprised.

Labor and fixed costs would be the primary driver of that and even if all materials went up 50% the actual cost impact on a unit base would be minimal.

Yup. On my end I've done a lot or pre and post production work in my younger days, so yes I generally know how much it costs and resources to produce an item.

Im No scientist in the least so please if im wrong call me out.
But cant they make plastic outta Vegetable oil?

hotsauceman1 wrote:Im No scientist in the least so please if im wrong call me out.
But cant they make plastic outta Vegetable oil?

If they really wanted to, they could probably make plastic out of human poo

Well, when that day comes we already have a slew of names picked out for GW to use. "Finecrapst" won't be a joke anymore. Oh, and it'll cost a lot more than anything you've seen before, naturally.