Slashdot Mirror
The Specter of Gasoline At $5 a Gallon
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that gas prices are already at record highs for the winter months — averaging $4.32 in California and $3.73 a gallon nationally. As summer approaches, demand for gasoline rises, typically pushing prices up around 20 cents a gallon. But gas prices could rise another 50 cents a gallon or more, analysts say, if the diplomatic and economic standoff over Iran's nuclear ambitions escalates into military conflict or there is some other major supply disruption. 'If we get some kind of explosion — like an Israeli attack or some local Iranian revolutionary guard decides to take matters in his own hands and attacks a tanker — than we'd see oil prices push up 20 to 25 percent higher and another 50 cents a gallon at the pump,' says Michael C. Lynch, president of Strategic Energy and Economic Research. A sharp rise in the prices of oil and gas would crimp the nation's budding economic recovery would cause big political problems at home for President Obama, who is already being attacked by Republican presidential candidates over gas prices and his overall energy policies. On the other hand, environmentalists see high gas prices as a helpful step toward the development of alternative energy. Secretary Treasury Steven Chu notably said in 2008 'we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe' to make Americans trade in their 'love affair with the automobile' for a marriage to mass transit. In the meantime President Obama is in a bind because any success in tightening sanctions on Iran could squeeze global oil supplies, pushing up prices and causing serious economic repercussions at home and abroad."
we already top that in the UK:(
who where what when now?
Gas prices are already approaching € 2 / liter in Western Europe. What are you guys complaining about ? Get a life !
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
In Europe we already pay around €1.60 per litre, which is almost $9 per gallon. Get over yourselves America. You are 4% of the world population using 25% of it's oil. There's your problem right there.
The idea of spurring development of clean alternatives such as solar-charged fuel cells and the like is very appealing, but these technologies are simply not up to speed yet and likely won't be for at least several years.
Meanwhile, U.S. firms are busily building infrastructure to extract oil and gas from shale deposits estimated to hold 1.5 trillion barrels, or about 5 times the current Saudi reserves of 300 bbls. There's an additional 60 bbls in the Gulf of Mexico and another 30 in Alaska. Fully exploiting these deposits would cause the U.S. to become an energy exporting giant in about ten years, even as the Middle East oil supplies begin to wane, leading to a dramatic shift in global geopolitical priorities.
Environmentalists like Treasury Sec. Chu obviously won't approve of this trend, but the hard reality is that fossil fuels are not going away soon, thanks to technological advances such as "fracking" (hydraulic fracturing using horizontally injected water).
I really don't think it's a good idea for the Treasurer of the U.S. to advocate high gasoline prices. For gasoline to rise above $5 may make sense from the point of view of encouraging conservation and alternative systems like hybrid electric and plug-in electric cars, but in the short term it would cause tremendous hardship to the people. As transportation costs rise, so does the cost of basic necessities such as food, clothing, and daily commutes. Airlines would suffer as well. The economy will probably sink back into recession, and you can just picture Mr. Obama calling the Secretary into his office: "What were you thinking, Steve? It's election year!"
Personally speaking, as a solar buff, I would love to see a massive conversion to cleaner and more efficient methods of transportation and heating/electricity. It would also be nice to encourage more use of bicycles (and even walking) as an alternative to the almighty automobile in the U.S. From that point of view, high gas prices are great.
But when it comes to jobs in an already shaky economy, it's going to be disastrous, and may in fact change the electoral outcome this November.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
One problem is the disingenuous "all of the above" stuff you hear them spouting in the media. Wind and solar are not anywhere near being able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Rather than massively investing in building out wind and solar we should be spending all that money researching ways to make it viable instead of a gimmick designed to enrich campaign donors and their startups' poor business plans.
It's the same with ethanol - it's not viable as an energy source, but it's quite profitable as a political source.
Yet another point of dishonestly is even using the phrase "reduce our dependence on *foreign* oil" when really they mean any oil. This is not bad in itself, but it's also weasel wording to imply they'd like to leverage more domestic oil sources when really, they want nothing of the sort.
We're never going to get anywhere on energy policy until we make honest efforts and have honest discussion.
trade in their 'love affair with the automobile' for a marriage to mass transit.
Mass transit is great until they go on strike.
I took the bus for a long time. It was always a miserable experience (crowded busses, never on time, routes that made no sense, etc..), and this strike was the final straw. Went out an bought a gas guzzling car.. and will probably never use the bus system again.
(Just felt like venting that...)
This is what economic recovery looks like.
George orwell was wrong in that any new words and language patterns were needed. We need no doublespeak. We just define salvation as a pretty word, such as "economic recovery" "lowering unemployment" and then repeat that everything is going as intended towards salvation, time and time and time again. Of course a lot of independent people will put out graphs, essays and arguments that state the opposite. But you're the goverment or some other big, powerfull and connected, so you ignore everything, and paint your own rosy picture. If someone wants a graph, why use real numbers? just fabricate the shit as some kind of bullshit weighted numbers, and repeat the bullshit mantra; salvation is coming, everything is going as planned, our internvetions are effective.
$5 gallon gas prices? claim it's a myth, deny it as far as you can, then blame it on terrorists, speculators and iran. Just never admit that the retards and their friends in charge fucked up severely, at every single point they could.
1) stop the massive systemic subsidies to petro-firms (including tax breaks and hidden subsidies like free/cheap land use fees, etc.)
2) apply a DIRECT user-tax to vehicles, based on their mileage at registration (ie you buy your annual tabs, report your mileage, pay a tax). This would be based on road maintenance costs.
3) tax gas like any other sale.
I drive 100 miles a day, I don't mind paying a user tax on those miles, because I'm using the shared resource of roads. But it's bullshit that they can apply a gas tax (ostensibly for highway maintenance) and then steal that money for other purposes in government, then come back saying the tax isn't high enough.
With a tax code that (depending on who you talk to) is 50k pages and 5 million words long, we really need to stop social engineering in our tax code. It's a crazy idea, but maybe taxes could just be about, oh, covering the cost of government, and not about incentives or disincentives decided by some dude in an office somewhere.
I know, crazy ideas.
-Styopa
Let's stop the influx of "get over it" comments from Europe by removing the taxes from the price discussion. Then we can all equally complain about the cost of refined petrol instead of how much our governments like to add to the fees.
-Xen
Unlike the tiny countries in Europe, the US is a huge place. How would you like to have to drive 150 miles round trip just to see a doctor? Well, there are lots of people here in the states that have to do exactly that. They can't get on a bus or a train, they have no choice but to drive. Again, our country is huge, so expensive fuel has a large impact on everything we purchase because it all needs to be transported around this big country.
What's really mind-blowing is the GOP candidates (except Paul) attacking Obama for both
1) not being tough enough with Iran
2) and for high gas prices (!)
In what universe do they live in where they don't realize pressuring an oil-producing country is going to raise oil prices (and hence gas prices, it doesn't fall from the sky)?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
I've already seen some of my Facebook friends grousing about how speculators are gouging them. They have a hard time understanding how much the world has changed in a decade. Most of it is due to static oil supply meeting rapidly rising oil demand, coupled with extremely inelastic demand for gas. Within a few years we have another billion or so people competing with us for the same barrel of oil.
It's actually hard to speculate in oil, simply because there's no place to store enough to make a huge difference. Most "speculators" are sovereign countries, who are wagering that oil left in the ground today would be more expensive tomorrow.
Iran produces about 5% of the world's oil. If Israel and Iran go at it, the price of oil would go through the ceiling. The price of oil is set by the cost of extracting the last barrel of oil, and tapping those deep-sea oil wells and Canadian oil sands for that last barrel of oil is extremely expensive. If it costs $100 to produce that last barrel of Canadian oil, why would Saudi Arabia sell their oil for $20 instead of $100 too? They'd be leaving money on the table. That's why the last barrel sets the price.
And if a country expects a barrel of oil to shoot up $50 in the event of war, it makes sense to either charge more for pumping it today, or leave it in the ground until the price goes up naturally.
To put this in Slashdot terms, supposed you had a complete set of Babylon 5 collector plates that were worth $100 today, and you expected them to be worth $1000 next year from now, would you sell them now or wait? The smart thing to do is either wait until next year, or require the buyer to pay you a premium today above the $100 asking price. Expectations affect the price. And if you wait until next year, you have reduced the global supply of collector plates on sale, so the price goes up a bit to compensate. Supply and demand also affect the price.
If you're really worried about speculators, buy a Prius, Leaf, or Volt. Last time I checked, no one's been able to form a cartel on sunshine and wind. And if you drive a big SUV, stop whining about how speculators, government, Democrats, or "The Man" is screwing you, and take a long, hard look at how you are screwing yourself.
Mass Transportation in America won't have the amazing effect that people expect that it will. It makes sense in the cities (and in our cities we definitely need more / better public transportation), but the vast amount of Ameicans don't live in cities. We live outside of them, spread across a truly massive country, in smaller towns and villages. Mass transportation simply isn't economically viable on our scale.
It's a similar reason as to why cellular phone prices here are much higher than Europe. You can cover an entire country in Europe fairly easily, so it isn't as expensive to support. Thus, it's cheaper for the consumer. But in the US, it costs a fortune to plop down enough towers to cover even half of the country.
Love sees no species.
You are a liar, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita shows the US at around 10 or lower. But then, you quote Reagan, I suspect facts and figures just enrage you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I hope you all recognise that the prices of gas are being moved up by inflation, not by any increase in demand (demand in US is lower than 5 years ago), not by any decrease in supply (supply is greater now, with the demand being lower, and shale oil came online, there is more output).
It has nothing to do with any speculation on oil prices - speculators only discover the price that the economy sets for the underlying asset in whatever currency that is being speculated in. There are always 2 sides in every speculative action - some bet that prices go up and some bet that prices go down, you don't see politicians come out and blame speculators for LOWER prices, politicians like to take credit for lowering prices themselves, but speculators are always blamed by the politicians for higher prices.
In totalitarian nations (like former USSR), speculators were actually sent to prison, if not worse, all while government was printing billions of worthless paper and fixing prices, which always creates black markets and causes prices in the devalued currency to spike.
USA will not see lower prices as long as the Fed keeps printing, and the Fed will keep printing to prevent interest rates from spiking during T-bill and bond auctions, Feds promise to keep interest rates down for years, and this is done by buying up the Treasury debt with fake money.
I had a funny thread going on here, the guy can't understand basic inflation and that his house price is falling in terms of real money and in terms of his purchasing power, he expects the value of his house to go up, believe it or not.
Real values of the houses cannot and should not go up, the Fed is trying to preserve the nominal values, so money supply is inflated, real prices are falling, while nominal prices are staying up pumped by inflation that the Fed creates. This will cause all nominal prices to go up, but real prices are falling because of under-consumption, but not because people are saving. USA is using less energy than before (even less electricity), this is inconsistent with any recovery, it's not a recovery, people cannot afford to spend. But they can't afford to spend because they are not producing anything themselves, and they are not producing anything, because manufacturing left the country and manufacturing left because money is not good, inflation is killing savings and investment and taxes are historic high.
They'll tell you that taxes are very low based on % of GDP, but that's nonsense, GDP has been falling for 2 decades as real inflation is 11-15%, and so the deflater that is applied to the GDP is fake. USA is in a real depression, not a recovery, not a recession even. This is all done with fake money. The banks' earnings are fake, they are moving Fed's money and Treasury debt around, that's all they do. You can't have real investment credit because there are no savings, savers are being wiped out or pushed out of the country, all while the politicians are using every tool in their arsenal to gain popular vote, it's called class warfare and it's being used against you to destroy your economy.
You can't handle the truth.
The idea that road and fuel taxes pay for the total cost of road maintenance is a persistent myth. It is totally and completely untrue. The cost of road maintenance, construction alone is far higher, add the costs for emergency services dealing with road/car related issues and it goes even higher. Add policing for safety and the costs skyrockets.
Not that we have a choice, we need roads but we ALL pay for them from our ordinary taxes. Money from fuel tax might go somewhere else but that just means money flows from somewhere else to the roads.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The US is not Europe. There is greater distance between our population centers and most of our workers commute longer distances.
Increasing fuel costs are not something we can survive. Wise american politicians are taking it seriously... foolish ones are not. The public are fickle... and if irritated will turn on anyone they perceive as guilty. Such is the nature of politics.
Further, high fuel costs make everything more expensive. It makes food more expensive, it makes raw materials more expensive, it makes everything more expensive.
The net result of all that is that we're going to have to charge more for everything. That means the international cost of many goods will go up.
It should be noted that the trigger for the arab spring was rising food prices also related to fuel prices. Because of these fuel prices the cost of grain will keep going up which means we could get some very large famines throughout the third world.
This is not a minor issue. Fuel prices are high in europe mostly because of taxes... not the actual price of the fuel. When the actual price goes up it will force the european system to increase subsidies to industry to offset those costs... or suffer even worse economic problems.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
The effect of the European tax regime has been to encourage efficient vehicles, and both European and Japanese manufacturers benefit. It also pads the effect of fuel cost, since taxes can be adjusted to slow the rate of increase and so reduce economic dislocation.
When the great American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes remarked that taxes were what he paid for civilisation, he was in effect pointing out that all taxes whatever are social engineering. Small Government Republicans always claim that they want to reduce taxes, but somehow it turns out that as soon as the economy has a bit of slack representatives will vote for pork barrel (your bridge in Alaska in exchange for my bioethanol subsidy). Personally I think it is better if people without an axe to grind work out how to use taxes in a socially beneficial way and politicians only get to vote on it.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I just wish American voters would stop voting based on their pocketbooks and vote instead on policies. Regardless of whether the change is for the better or not, dumping the current president just because the economy is in trouble is short-sighted and more than a little superstitious, like killing the high priest when the crops fail. Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush were not responsible for the economic problems during their terms, and shouldn't have been blamed for failing to "fix" them in less than four years. Likewise with Barack Obama.
But thanks (in part) to campaign slogans such as "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?" and campaign strategies such as "the economy, stupid", voters who don't have firm convictions about political philosophy, or a good understanding of political issues, are brainwashed to think that the president is in charge of what's really a decentralized market-based economy, and that replacing him with someone else will somehow change everything.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Are the high gas prices because Obama decided not to give more subsidies to gas companies? Is it because Obama has somehow magically started a secret war in Iran that nobody knows about but Republican candidates? Or is Obama literally 51% or more of the oil speculators?
I'm all for making your opponent look bad, but I have a hard time seeing how Obama is to blame for current gas prices. Feel free to enlighten me.
The writing's been on the wall for years. If your car gets 35mpg and you live within 15 miles of your job, an increase of $2 a gallon hits you with a whopping $5.80 increase per week -- what's that, a big mac? A latte and a half?
And if you *haven't* got a fuel-efficient car and tried to live where you work or close to transit, given how long we've known that gas prices fluctuate in response to world events, well, you've done it to yourself. Shut up.
Free market, y'all. You asked for it, you got it, and you demanded a house with a lawn and an SUV anyway, and now you've got the nerve to cry about gasoline prices? I believe the french refer to this sort of thing as 'yo problem'.
god is just pretend.
How often do you need to drive from Dundee, Scotland to Poole, England?
646 km seems to be about as far as one can drive in the UK --- that's just 400 miles --- not a terribly long trip by U.S. standards and for me, located in a town which takes advantage of its central location as an argument for businesses to locate here, or do business w/ businesses here, won't get one to more than a small portion of the U.S. (and part of Canada --- New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and most of Ohio, Vermont, and parts of Kentucky and North Carolina --- there are 50 states, and that's not even the original 13 colonies (but includes parts of territories and subsequent additions).
I've hopped in a car and made a solo trip of 900 miles one way in one 18 hour haul (had to finish a shift working, then appear at a conference and there wasn't a convenient airline connection) --- even that wasn't half-way across the country.
When I was stationed in Texas we'd get students in from Europe and the Middle East and they'd have purchased 30-day Greyhound bus passes thinking that they'd be able to see the U.S. on the weekends --- had to explain the reality that if they hopped on a bus Friday at 5:00 p.m., they'd reach the boundaries of Texas just in time to have to turn around to return for class Monday morning (that same 400 mile radius doesn't quite cover all of Texas (but does most of Oklahoma, almost half of New Mexico and small bits of Arkansas and Louisiana (and a portion of Mexico)).
William
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
Check out what the rest of the world pays per litre, look at how far down the US is on the list -- even lower than Canada, which produces the damned stuff.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_gas_pri-energy-gasoline-prices
Now STFU and pay like everyone else -- WITHOUT government subsidies!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I'm an "environmentalist" but the idea of high gas prices being good is crazy to me. The assumption that people will react logically to oil scarcity is so naive. People will actually just fight to hold on to their present lifestyle rather than accept change. Instead of pushing for sustainability or efficiency, what will actually happen is more support for "drill baby drill," oil wars, tar sands development, and the possibility of mass synthetic fuel production.
Living in the suburban hell created during the "greatest generation" when shit hits the fan is going to be no fun. I use sites like walkscore.com to see in my city where the most efficiency can be gained simply by buying a house with significant daily resources in a walk-able distance. What's clear is that the vast majority of my city will be completely ef'd if gas prices double or tripple (real value) and all costs go up substantially. Peak Oil is going to send American cities in the suburbs into a tailspin because all of our cities were built under the pretext of cheap endless oil. I can really only guess what America cities might still function half way, but only guessing any cities that are extremely efficient and have a mass transit culture(NYC/Seattle).
I'm just not seeing any solution to peak oil, I know there are alternatives, but the way our system works in America is that we try every wrong solution first before we even look at the right one. We're going to hit a brick wall and suddenly be out of cheap oil before we seriously look at CNG, E85 (cellulostic, not the corn farce), Coal Oil etc. Even these are fininte resources in themselves (and polluting), but the real issue here is that our society cannot function without cheap private transportation and that system is fueled by one source of energy
It's too late to build smaller cities, more private bike paths, high rise towers. It's over. We have no money, we don't make anything, we spent our wad like a tailor park trash after winning the lotto. We're done. Our cities will not function without private transpiration.
So the question becomes, where on earth is a reasonable place to make a future given the likelihood of sudden oil shortages and price volatility brought on by lack of supply or conflict.
First of all, the reason why gas is at the price it is, is because of Oil companies monopoly control of the market. It has nothing to do about peak oil bull crapola or political issues, beyond the ones of artificially creating shortages.
The energy sector is reknown for creating and building into markets artificial scarcity to jack up prices. It happens all the time. For example, when Enron was around they had people shutting off energy supplies to California to jack up prices. Who cares if little old ladies couldn't afford air conditioning, they got killed outright.
Anyone care? Nope.
Nobody got prosecuted either.
There really is no reason for high gas prices. The earths crust has so much hyrdrocarbons as the Russian's found out, that there is no way we will ever exhaust the supply of hydrocarbons in the form of Oil or Gas.
There is _literally_ oceans of the stuff throughout the entire solar system, so it is abundant and naturally produced.
(No Plants or Dino's required.)
This all has to do with deals made by a few people in the 1950's with the Arab's for Oil. Henry went over and had a discussion with them, and said, "We will not develop the US Oil reserves and we will buy all of our Oil from you. In return, you have to invest some of that money in Federal Reserve notes."
Get it now?
Federal Reserve Notes are valued in Oil. That is how the world works. That is why the US Dollar seems to be almost "Undead" like, because no way in the world, could we wage wars like we are doing in all these different countries and pay for them with a fiat currency.
Secondly the United States has so much Oil, it is almost unimaginable. These evil people have plotted for 50 years to work with environmental groups, government to insure laws are passed so no drilling can happen.
Now ask yourself, why would you not drill on one of the largest Oil reserves known on the planet in your own back yard, yet get the same resource from politically unstable areas? Put it into tankers which are incredibly harmful to the environment if they run aground in the ocean off coastlines, and ship it here?
All when they could be transported much more cost effectively with refineries and local trucking on American soil without gigantic Oil spills every decade off the coastlines from Oil rig platforms or tankers running aground?
Reason: Maximize the value of the Federal Reserve note, and number 2 keep the energy sources away from the people who use them, in a political sense.
(i.e. People complain about the price of Oil, the powers that be are effective insulated because they can say we can't do anything about it, its the middle east you know...blah blah blah.)
What you have is a gigantic transfer of wealth using energy from the masses to the political class with absolutely no accountability.
It is the _perfect_ political system. You get to get screwed, and the politicans and oil companies can set any price they like, and claim it isn't there fault.
No doubt, a war in the middle east just might force them to open drilling in the US. Not for the reasons you are thinking of though. (i.e. political pressure.)
No, you see, by the time they start drilling in the USA, they are going to get probably $8 dollars a gallon for it at the pump.
That would be the ONLY reason why they would open up Oil drilling in the USA.
_GREED_
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I'm a Murican. Gas is now about $4.00 in my area, the northeast. This summer I went to Germany, where gas is $10.00 per gallon, both due to cost and the useless dollar. We rented a BMW 320d, which got a verified 49 mpg on diesel, and still ran hard at autobahn speed that would get me jail time in the US. Most cars in Germany are diesel, 2.0 liter with a manual transmission. We even saw the Chrysler minivans outside a school picking up kids, just like here at home. They all had a diesel. I'd love to buy a modern turbodiesel instead of a Hybrid. There aren't any for sale, save VW/Audi, backordered to 2014, or very expensive MB/BMW. You can get 50 mpg...it can be done...they don't sell those cars here.
According to http://www.petrolprices.com/the-price-of-fuel.html
Price of UK fuel:
With no fees - (UK£ 0.478) per litre = 3.46468209 US$ per Imperial gallon
With retailer/delivery fees - ((UK£ 0.478) + (UK£ 0.05)) per litre = 3.82709653 US$ per Imperial gallon
With regular VAT as well - ((UK£ 0.478) + (UK£ 0.05) + (UK£ 0.2215)) per litre = 5.43259252 US$ per Imperial gallon
And the full price with added fuel tax - ((UK£ 0.478) + (UK£ 0.05) + (UK£ 0.2215) + (UK£ 0.5795)) per litre = 9.63297594 US$ per Imperial gallon
We heard this before meanwhile oil companies were making record profits and politicians were lining their pockets.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
$5/gallon is cheap.
We pay $7.5 a gallon NOW.
We are in Europe. In the so called socialist Netherlands.
Your country was designed wrong.
Gas guzzling cars. (still!) Cities with no real transportation infrastructure other than for cars. Large distances, even in cities.
How well will this work when gas hits $8?
Your cities need to be more compact. As do your cars. See the European and Japanese smaller cars. (small: weight is less than 1.5 metric tons)
Consider a diesel!
Well, you could just try driving cars instead of tanks. I hear they sometimes get a better mpg rate. ;-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Nope! What we need to do is re-enact the damn windfall profit tax but at 100 percent for any profit over 10 percent and start hitting the companies showing these record profits. We also need to change the accounting rules so they can't fudge the books to show less profit. If the money is made and they are basing a CEO's bonus on it, then they need to be paying a tax on it.
I'm going to burn some karma but the IRS needs to tell Apple that they either start spending some of the money they've got in the bank or distribute it as a dividend. Otherwise you're going to loose 80 percent of it as a Tax on excess retained earnings. The same thing MS was told that got them paying a dividend after 20+ years of not paying anything. The shareholders will love them, the IRS will love it because of all the extra taxes and the government will love it because of all the extra income from those taxes that can then be used to fund some other damn pork barrel project.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Gas prices have nothing to do with supply and demand. They have everything to do with deregulating commodities laws on oil and subjecting us to the suits on Wall Street manipulating prices. Hell, they don't even have to warehouse oil, just make a virtual promise to buy in bulk.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
What kind of pot are you smoking. Toyota is the number one car manufacturer in the world. Thus an increase in auto sales would benefit Japan, not he United States.
I have heard this many times, but you are not considering what our current export customers will do when they hear of American protectionism. International politics is a tricky business.
Just in general terms, USA seems to be exporting diesel, which is more popular in European transportation. And a lot of the crude being produced is not necessarily the right kind. Sour crude cannot be refined by sweet refineries, so it makes more sense to export it rather than build a sour refinery.
And there's more to it that I'm not even going to bother with typing. It's complicated stuff.
I can think of a number of ways for Europeans to use more gasoline without buying US cars. I do see American cars here, but they are in the minority. Though that entire concept is a little strange anyway. I think one US brand here are actually Korean cars with US badges on them. And then there are all the issues on where the parts come from, where they are assembled, etc.
I see mostly European makes (go figure) and I would think cheaper gas (or just using more gas) wouldn't change that.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Fuel prices go up. ALL prices go up. Everyone wants more pay so corporate expenses go up so prices go up so the cost of living goes up so everyone wants more pay (repeat ad infinitum)
$5.00/gal is a non-event in the long run. 40 years ago we where whining about 50/gal. 40 years from now we'll be whining about $20/gal. get over it.
What I find REALLY funny is that the people stand outside at the pump and complain about $4.00/gal then go inside an pay the rate of up to $10/gal for coffee, water, soda, etc. $1.20 for 1L of water is $4.50/gal. Remember: this stuff comes out of your faucet for more like $.001/gal.
Shut up, think, make wiser decisions. We'll all be better off.
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
If you don't think the US should sell oil to foreign markets, why do you think Canadians should? Or Saudi Arabia for that matter?
And the rest of the world would be buying millions and millions more US autos making it our number 1 industrial powerhouse again and pouring money into our coffers at such a booming rate that $10/gal of gas looks super cheap.
Why would anybody (outside the US) want to buy US cars? Nobody except US people likes them.
You're correct that the price rise is artificial. It used to be that while unleaded gasoline and oil were traded as commodities, there were limits on the exchange that prevented the sort of out-of-control prices we're seeing. When those regulations were removed, traders were free to drive up prices, and here we are.
The solution to this isn't necessary drilling more. Any undeveloped lease has a lag time of 10 to 15 years before stable production is reached. The tar sands and shale oils in Canada and the Dakotas are amazingly difficult to produce. You don't simply drill a hole and dance around like an 1870's prospector when the oil comes raining down on your head. To get oil from tar sands you have to strip mine the sand, then heat it to a couple hundred degrees until the tar liquifies. Once liquid, you run the tar though the distillation and cracking process like any other crude oil. The kicker is that tar sand oil is mostly heavy ends and is amazingly high in sulfur.
When you talk about ends in oil, that is a measure of quality and viscosity. Light sweet crude from the wells in the Brent North Sea fields is far easier to refine than West Texas crude because the Brent oils already have a low viscosity, are low in sulfur, and have a naturally occurring percentage of light and medium end products like petrol and diesel. In fact, Brent Light Sweet crude is so light that it can be used as six oil, also called bunker fuel which is the main form of liquid fuel for large ships, right out of the ground. This means that Brent North Sea crude requires fewer steps to distil the product you want and will leave less residue products. Less steps means cheaper refining means higher profits.
Tar Sand and Shale Oil require a massive amount of refining. At room temperature, both products are about as viscous as glass and need to be run through the coking process to even get up to the status of a heavy fraction. From there, additional cracking (adding heat and hydrogen to chemically change the oil) is required to produce medium and light ends which are then distilled to diesel and kerosene which can be distilled or hydrocracked to produce petrol, naphtha, octane, or natural gas.
This is why tar and shale are usually left alone until per barrel prices reach a certain level. They simply aren't profitable to extract and refine without massive investment. You've also got all of the sulfur to deal with, and that stuff recombines to form all sorts of nasty products that tend to be highly corrosive and acidic and require a whole new set of industrial processes to convert in to useful products.
The real kick to the testicles in all of this is that the tar sands oil that Canada produces is already on contract to China. The Keystone XL pipeline that is in the news would connect the tar sand fields of Canada to the refineries at the Port of Houston and the Port of Houston would be shipping all of the refined products to Asia.
Should we have laws that say domestic oil stays domestic? I'm not sure, but I do like the idea. The problem with that is that Canadian oil isn't domestic and they produce more than the US. The other problem is that cheap oil is only going to encourage the kinds of things we should be working to prevent. Namely, I hate being able to see the air I breathe.
What I'd really like to see is all of this drilling technology and know-how be re-purposed for harnessing geothermal energy. Less pollution and it all stays domestic.
2008 oil price - $145/barrel
2008 gas price - $4/gallon
2012 oil price - $105/barrel
2012 gas price - $4/gallon
So if market forces = investor speculation and strategic closures of US refineries, then yes, this is clearly due to market forces. Isn't capitalism great?
My understanding of the comments so far: (1) This issue is a sharp rise in the cost, rather than the absolute cost. So the fact that others are already paying more is irelevant. If an item of your domestic budget suddenly increases drastically in cost this hurts. This is especially true, when you are limited in trems of how much you can reduce your use of that item. (2) Other countries are also expriencing these price rises, but it is more painful for americans. It is more painful for several reasons including the lesser density of population requiring more travel, but also the long history of cheap energy, which means fewer alternatives to petrol transport have been developed. (3) There are two seperate sources of pressure of petrol costs. The long term issue of finite resources, and the short/mid term pressures of middle east instability. There is a strong political lobby using these price rises as a platform to remind people of the need to consider alternative energy soureces. There is also a realisation in "The West" of our energy dependence on "The East", and this causes tension.
I guess you don't realize that oil companies typical profit percentage is in the 6-7% range do you? The reason why they make so much money for their shareholders (who happen to be most people with retirement accounts), is that they sell so damn much of what they produce.
Now, if you want to talk about not paying taxes (which the oil companies did), lets talk companies like General Electric (whose CEO is the POTUS econ advisor) who paid $0 taxes in 2010. Or lets talk about Warren Buffets company (Berkshire Hathaway) which owes almost 1B$ in back taxes.
Or is it excessive profits you don't like? Well why don't we hit Apple on the excessive profit margins? Their PM is close to 30% now, 4-5x that of a company like Chevron or Exxon.
Finally, under what law can the IRS tell Apple what to do with their money? Or are we now living in a country where the federal government is the sole final arbiter on corporate decisions?
Although when in power, Republicans don't seem to be particularly biased toward free markets, unelected Republicans are normally pretty rabid about it, and characterize Democrats as being not-free-market-enough.
But somehow Republican candidates, and especially before their convention(!) when you'd think they would be exaggerating their right-wing-ness, are complaining that this one market isn't subsidized enough and is too volatile. Poor proletariat folks are getting pinched by high prices, not receiving their fair share of government-planned wealth redistribution in the form of oil subsidies, boo hoo.
If the convention had already happened, I'd understand it if they tried to appeal to moderates by coming out as left-of-Obama on using government's power to micromanage energy prices. But now? WTF? Shouldn't their strategy be to be quiet on this issue? You know, "freedom is messy" and all that?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
to that which can be explained by gouging. I've never bothered to look, but I assume the graph of gasoline prices are that of an assymetric sawtooth: rapid rises, but slow reductions.
The US is in deep trouble if it can't withstand $5/gal gas.
The rise of US power is closely tied to our natural wealth of oil. The UK based its global power on steam and coal, the US superseded the UK to global dominance on its oil wealth.
-The US was the first and is the largest oil power in history.
-In total oil extracted combined with known reserves, the US contained more oil than any other nation.
-We are still the third largest oil producing country in the world.
-We consume about 50% of the world oil with only 5% of its population.
-The US hit peak oil in the early 70's, prompting the oil crisis and dependance on foreign oil. We no longer were finding new reserves of oil faster than we extracted them.
As the first country to hit peak oil, the US should have initiated policies to reduce our oil dependance, but as we see today we are still addicted.
Our private and government development since the 70's has largely ignored the impact higher gas prices.
The hypocrisy in the oil price arguments are astounding.
-People believe they have a right to cheap oil, a limited resource.
-It is considered impossible for the US to implement a 50mpg standard even though this is common everywhere else.
-Our country has dismantled large privately operated mass transit systems in cities and towns that existed before 1950, while subsidizing free roads, parking and suburban sprawl.
-We fight fuel saving alternatives such as High Speed Rail and mass transit.
-The highway trust fund is going bankrupt. It is unable to keep up with the demands sprawling development puts on new capitol construction, and has never covered maintenance.
-The cheap fuel and car economy has encouraged suburban and rural growth that would not be possible without cheap fuel. Real estate values in these areas will plummet as fuel prices increase.
-User costs such as parking meters, odometer taxes and vehicle licence fees are fought as excessive taxes while governments at all levels need to divert general funds to build and maintain a car infrastructure.
-Federal gas taxes are fixed per gallon and not as a percentage of cost and are lower than most sales taxes. At 18 cents per gallon the fuel tax is 4.5%, lower than sales tax in many places.
-More efficient Diesel fuel is taxed higher at 24 cents.
Of all the speculation about oil, one thing is certain.
The price will continue to go up.
If we don't choose where and how to live without considering this fact, we will suffer the results.
Our government has gone out of its way to subsidize our car lifestyle with the largest public works projects in US history. Its time to ween americans off these subsidies and allow them to bear the full cost of car use and ownership.
The markets will quickly correct the lack of mass transit and sprawling development that has occurred as a result of these subsidies.
If you run the risk of being fired for not showing up on a day when weather is unsuitable for cycling, you still have to own, fuel, and insure a car.
what do you do when your car breaks down? do you get fired? or when there is an accident and the road is backed up forever?
With proper clothing and proper tires a bike is a lot more reliable than a car...
-- the cake is a lie
Both you and the GP seem to have no idea how the world oil markets really work. The big oil corporations make record profits on volume not on price gouging. The people making the killing are the Wall Street speculators investing in oil futures. They typically bring a stable price to the oil companies who would otherwise would potentially suffer from fluctuations in price. They would rather take the guaranteed amount from the speculators than accept potential risk from market fluctuations.
Likewise building a pipeline doesn't really affect the price of gas in the US. It doesn't even affect supply, it just decreases the transportation cost from getting oil in tar sands from Canada to refineries in the US and makes it so that oil companies don't have to invest in building any new refineries (which consequently, would create a LOT more jobs than building a pipeline). These are all costs that only have a modest affect on the price of oil and even then it just increases the supply on the global market more meaning that China could still double demand in the next 10 years and the price of oil STILL goes up!
I worked for a transportation company in a ski area in Vail. We see a fair bit of snow. The two main vehicles in the fleet were rear-wheel-drive vans, and front-wheel-drive Cadillac sedans. Good snow tires were the key here. I like to flatter myself that most of the drivers were pretty good too.
sustainable living
http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
Today's $5 gallon gasoline is 2000's $4 gallon gasoline.
http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx
Gasoline still cheaper than 2008.
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Gasoline cost about 31 cents in 1960.
What cost $.31 in 1960 would cost $2.26 in 2010.
$5 is expensive. But for most people, it's only $1,000 per year they lose.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Or are we now living in a country where the federal government is the sole final arbiter on corporate decisions?
Actually, we are living in a country where the federal government is the sole final arbiter on corporate (and personal) decisions.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Now, if you want to talk about not paying taxes (which the oil companies did)
Really? So how much federal income tax did Exxon pay in 2009?
(hint: the same amount as GE in 2010)
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