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The US EIA doesn't break down the costs to sufficient detail. The Association for Convenience and Fuel Retailing claims that the markup on a gallon of gas is approximately 2 to 3 cents per gallon averaged over a five year period across all retail outlets. Even so, that 2-3 percent markup is not profit. The retailer still has to cover utilities, staff, rent, etc.

It's unusual for gas prices to consistently vary by 40 cents between two stations in close proximity. Most stations will vary by less than 10 cents. The most significant cost variation is driven by variations in rent. Higher traffic=higher rent. The next most significant factor is the retailer's strategy. Some stations will accept a lower margin in the hope they will make money on other products and services. A station with a lower price can sell more lottery tickets, cigarettes, and beer. Those stations make less per gallon but more total sales may add up to the same return on gas.

http://www.eia.gov/energyexpla... http://www.nacsonline.com/your...

Sadly, the PHMSA website's data access has changed recently and the new version is shit. I used to have a handy link to the number of pipeline releases with the quantities involved. Now they only focus on injuries, fatalities, and monetary damages.

https://hip.phmsa.dot.gov/anal...

I also can't link directly to the data on releases, but suffice to say, in 2014, only 22,911 barrels were lost across all onshore hazardous liquids pipelines. This is significantly lower than any of the multi-year rolling averages, so 2014 was a good year. If you weed down to just crude and refined products (excluding things like liquid CO2, biofuels, and other hazardous liquids), it's less than half of the lost barrels.

According to this site: http://www.nacsonline.com/your...

U.S. oil consumption was an estimated 18.77 million barrels per day in 2014. This all has to be transported twice (as crude and as products), but rather than double the number, let's assume only half of it (very conservative) is transported by pipeline. 18.77mbpd*365=6.85 billion barrels transported in 2014.

But I guess it depends on your acceptable loss rate as there will always be accidents in any network. In 2014, in petroleum liquids pipelines onshore, 10,202 barrels were lost out of 6,850,000,000. So a .00015% loss rate. I'd call that pretty darn safe, but maybe your acceptable risk is 0. I hope you never drip the nozzle when filling up your car.

Also, the citation comes from someone who happens to work in pipeline industry, but something tells me you wouldn't believe any evidence presented by someone with first-hand experience.

In 2000, there may be less vehicles. But there were also less gas stations.

False. They were more gas stations then than there are now.

http://www.nacsonline.com/your...

There were 156,065 total retail fueling sites in the United States in 2012. This is a steep and steady decline since 1994, when the station count topped 202,800 sites. (Source: National Petroleum News' MarketFacts 2012)

In 2012 the US used 360 million gallons per day.
http://www.nacsonline.com/Your...
(360 million gal gas) x (33.4KWh) = about 12,000 GWh = 500 Gigawatts averaged over 24 hours.

Lets assume 25% of the vehicles convert to electric only, and they are 4x as efficient (your 25 mpg versus 100 mpge), thats 31 gigawatts

For comparison, the current US electric power production capacity is around 1100 Gigawatts with current average consumption around 500 Gigawatts. Realistically, you never have more than 80% of capacity online, and that last 10% is expensive gas turbines versus cheap coal.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity...

So after some significant hand waiving, and napkin doodling - I estimate that converting 25% of the cars to electric only will consume somewhere around 10% of the excess generation capacity in the US.

Going by http://www.nacsonline.com/Your..., an average gas station pumps 3000 gallons of gas. Or 4400 in CA http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/ga...

3000 Gallons of gas = about 110 MW*H. Averaged over 24 hours = 4.6 Megawatts.
4400 Gallons of gas = about 161 MW*H. Averaged over 24 hours = 6.7 Megawatts.

Buffering would have to be pretty big, considering surges of customers.

And we didn't assume everyone was a theif. No one did anything with the numbers. They just stayed on a sheet on a clipboard. Would you rather we just handed someone a sheet with the last 100 customer's license plates because they wanted it? The numbers were crossed off after the customer paid, and it would take a lot of effort to go back and associate each plate with a credit card.

People complain about this little stuff and then get mad when cities insist on stations requiring all customersto prepay because of all the police reports. Make up your mind people.

>If you can point me to an instance in time when this has not been true, please do so, and back up your arguments with facts.

Well, I'll start with the easy stuff then, shall I?

>quiet diplomacy

This wasn't quiet at all. The catcalls, when I watched the video tape [Thanks for making it, Greenpeace!], were designed to incite violence (thanks Real TV!)... Which would violate another few principles, "to raise the level and quality of public debate." and "non-violent conflict".

Sooo, we're left with research and lobbying. I know another company that used those tactics!

Philip Morris.

With all due respect, you have it backwards. They peg the price per barrel based on the "international market." Their true production cost may be far below that. In 1996 Pemex disclosed it cost them $2.52/bbl. I challenge you to find out how much it costs US domestic producers to extract each barrel. If most of the oil consumed in the US comes from inexpensive sources outside of the Persian Gulf area, then pegging the price high results in a very generous profit margin. Therefore, what oil company in its right mind would want to do anything other than pretend petroleum is a precious, expensive resource on which our very existence as a nation depends?

Petroleum is a cheap, disgusting fluid that comes from the smelly bowels of the earth. Through political trickery, we have been convinced that it is a terribly valuable commodity, for the sole purpose of enriching the men behind the curtain.

Don't peek, now.

It has significantly reduced the wait time to get to the train platform. Many posters have said that saving a couple of seconds isn't important. But, when hundreds of people in line ahead of you each save a couple of seconds, believe me - it is significant.

Not that this has much to do with credit cards. But, it is easy to envision a similar time savings buying tickets at the theater, amusement park and thousands of other arenas where we all have to wait for hundreds of routine, small transactions to complete.

... as Evian is actually owned by Coca-Cola...