Gas Junkie - Gasoline Prices Questions

Question #1:

Wouldn't you agree that...?

Our gasoline prices today proves that the pricing before was artificially inflated?

We're currently paying less than half of what we were paying just a few months ago. I understand the fact that our current cost per gallon is due to our economic crisis, but even when taking this into account the cost shouldn't have dropped quite as low as it has unless the oil companies are taking unfair advantage of the general public during normal circumstances.

When will we, as a people, be able to say no and actually start insisting on alternative fuel vehicles instead of remaining dependent upon fuel source owners who will continue to gouge us indefinitely?
iychick: I actually was thinking in terms of electricity.

SDD: My point wasn't about the ration of gas to oil, but about how both gas and oil dropped so extremely in so short of a timeframe. The very fact that it can drop so far shows how artificially inflated the price of gas and oil was.

Question #2:

How can I pre-pay for fuel at today's prices?

I would like to pre-pay for a year's worth of gasoline in order to lock in today's low prices. Are any major oil companies offering this sort of product or service?

Question #3:

what's with the ridiculously low gas prices?

Obviously gasoline is worth more than what it costs today because the USD is inflating higher from the gigantic bailouts. Not too long ago there were gas shortages in the southeast where gas stations ran out of gas! Demand is still high. And an increasing population, more cars, and new drivers enter the addicting world of driving which drives up demand even more.

Why aren't the oil companies moving fast enough to drive prices high again? Do they finally feel they've made enough money? LOL!

Question #4:

Poll: What is the lowest gasoline price in your area?

Question #5:

Before we bail out the automakers shouldn't the U.S. Congress mandate a G.E.M. Flex green vehicle strategy? ?

In the Chicago Tribune (Obama's Home Town Paper?) we read:

Food vs. fuel a global myth
By Robert Zubrin and Gal Luft
May 6, 2008

In recent weeks, a flood of reports and statements has claimed that the world's biofuel programs—in particular the U.S. corn ethanol effort—is starving poor people around the globe. Even the UN's special rapporteur for the Right to Food decried biofuel production as "a crime against humanity."

It seems so obvious: With so much corn being turned into fuel, food shortages must inevitably result, and biofuel programs must be the cause.

However, that's completely untrue. Here are the facts.

In the last five years, despite the nearly threefold growth of the corn ethanol industry (or actually because of it), the U.S. corn crop grew by 35 percent, the production of distillers grain (a high-value animal feed made from the protein saved from the corn used for ethanol) quadrupled and the net corn food and feed product of the U.S. increased 26 percent.

Contrary to claims that farmers have cut other crops to grow more corn, U.S. soybean plantings this year are expected to be up 18 percent and wheat plantings up 6 percent. U.S. farm exports are
up 23 percent.

America is clearly doing its share in feeding the world. Agriculture is not a zero-sum game.

There are 800 million acres of farmland in the U.S., and only about 30 percent of it is actually being used to grow anything. As a result of the ethanol program, the corn price received by farmers doubled over the last five years, causing a huge increase in the amount grown in terms of acreage and yield.

The increased demand for food from the hundreds of millions of people in China and India rising out of poverty and moving to a more calorie-rich diet affects the price of food the most.

Second is the price of fuel. Higher fuel prices increase the cost of production, transport, wages and packaging, the main cost of retail food. For example, a $3 box of cornflakes contains 15 ounces of corn that cost 8 cents when bought from the farmer.

So, farm commodity prices have almost no effect on retail prices. But the effect of oil price increases can be huge.

Which brings us to the real culprit: the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. This year, with OPEC-rigged oil prices exceeding $100 a barrel, the U.S. will pay $800 billion for its oil supply, and the world as a whole will pay $3.2 trillion. These figures are both up a factor of 10 from what they were in 1999 and represent a huge regressive tax on the world economy.

In this, biofuels have done more good than damage to the poor.

According to Merrill Lynch analysts, without biofuel programs, the price of oil would be about $13 a barrel higher than it now is. A $13 savings for each barrel could save the U.S. $65 billion in foreign oil payments.

So, rather than shut down biofuel programs, we need to radically augment them, to the point where we can take down the oil cartel.

Congress can make this happen by passing a law requiring that all
new cars sold in the U.S. be flex-fuel vehicles that can run on any combination of gasoline, ethanol or methanol. The technology costs only about $100 per vehicle.

By making America a flex-fuel vehicle market, we will effectively make flex-fuel the international standard. Around the world, gasoline would be forced to compete against alcohol fuels made from a number of sources, including not only commercial crops such as corn and sugar, but cellulosic ethanol made from crop residues and weeds, as well as methanol made from any kind of biomass, coal, natural gas and recycled urban trash. By creating such a fuel market, we can enormously expand and diversify humanity's fuel resource base, protecting all nations from continued economic bleeding and, indeed, in some cases, starvation.

That, and not blindly accepting the naysayers' propaganda demanding the preservation of the oil monopoly, should be our course.


Robert Zubrin is the author of "Energy Victory: Winning the War on Terror by Breaking Free of Oil."

Gal Luft is executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.

They are members of the Set America Free Coalition.


In the Journal of Energy Security we read:

China Takes Gold in Methanol Fuel
In 2007 China surpassed Japan as the world’s second largest importer of oil behind the United States. Yet it is not sitting idly by content with increasing oil imports. According to U.S. Methanol Institute President & CEO John Lynn, “China is showing the rest of the world how clean transportation fuels can be made from coal.” Methanol is now a strategic transportation fuel in China and the rest of the world should take note.


Call your senator and demand a GEM Flex mandate.

Question #6:

How can people possibly believe ethanol will solve our gas crisis?

here read this essay i wrote (i know its a bit long, but i chocked it full of facts) and tell me your thoughts

In 1998, General Motors built the first ever Hummer, a car unlike any other in American history, famous for its huge size, low gas mileage, and off-roading. The Hummer was a hit; celebrities and the upper class clamored to buy one for themselves. Little did General Motors know, but the building of this vehicle was the first domino in the trail to the gas crisis today. Now, the Hummer is mild compared to many of the monstrosities Americans sport everyday on the road. However, people are beginning to feel the consequences for their excessive tendencies at the gas pump and blame it upon the gasoline companies. It is not the gas companies fault, it is the Americans’ and yet we still humor the public with the idea of ethanol, fuel made from corn. The entire idea of burning food with machines seems way too absurd to even be considered and yet, cars are shifting to run on corn. This change in energy type is causing a rise in the price of corn, shrinkage of the rain forest, politics to mislead us into delusional ideas, the war on Iraq, and is going to cause mass hunger in 3rd World Countries, just to help the fat American continue to drive his SUV and not change his ways.
“Gas is too valuable to burn,” was a phrase so commonly used by my mathematician/physicist grandfather. During the time he said this, there was no hint at any gas crisis. In fact BP seeing the excess of oil and all the starvation in the world was trying to make gasoline into food, hence their ownership of Purina. It is an entirely different situation in the 21st century; 20 percent of corn crops, our main food source, are being made into ethanol, which only produces 3.5 percent of our gas consumption. Due to this sudden increase in ethanol production, corn is replacing many farmers’ other crops doubling the price of corn in the past two years. So now, 3rd world countries cannot afford corn and are starving. While other 3rd world countries in South America are taking advantage of the prices and cutting into the rain forest to grow corn speeding up global warming. This almost entirely defeats the purpose of ethanol since its creation was to slow global warming.
The truth about ethanol is entirely different from the scams politicians are preaching to the American people. They claim that ethanol burns cleaner and is more efficient than gasoline and that,”everything about ethanol is good, good, good” (Sen. Chuck Gassley). This is total, “dangerous, delusional, bulls**t” (Goodell) that they are feeding the public; ethanol does not burn cleaner than gasoline. Ethanol has a one third less energy density as gasoline (this means you burn more ethanol to get the same amount of energy 1 gallon of gasoline produces). In addition, energy made from corn only has a 1.3-to-1 energy balance making it basically useless compared to gasoline’s 5-to-1 energy balance. The American people are looking to the presidential candidates to fix the energy crisis and all the candidates are saying is to up the production of ethanol to 36 billion gallons by 2022. Even this will not help us considering we burn 21 billion barrels of oil a day as a country and there are 42 gallons in a barrel. This “gas guzzling” habit is not only harming ourselves, but also everyone around us.
Many Americans feel our decision to declare war on Iraq was not entirely caused by September eleventh’s disaster, but for our oil demand. Politicians and the president even stated that Iraq’s oil would pay for the war. Although this did not happen, it is a demonstration of our desperate search for oil and the loss of morals in the process. Our oil dependence has led to the death of innocents in the Middle East. This is insane! Where are our morals? How can we use these occurrences as simply fads in political slogans? Now, the fad of gasoline has passed and energy independence is now a universal political slogan. Politicians such as CIA director James Woolsey claim that growing corn for ethanol is the greatest means in which to fight terrorism. How they drew this conclusion is solely known by the politicians.
In the past year, Congress passed The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which mandated for the consumption of 15 billion gallons of ethanol, but a new bill for the consumption of 65 billion gallons is still being pushed. This is absurd since even corn farmers admit that making more grain into fuel would hurt the global food supplies. The 15 billion gallons of ethanol consumption is also harmful considering that one SUV tank of ethanol contains 450 pounds of corn, enough to feed an average person for one whole year ( Runge and Senauer). Our ethanol craze has led to food riots in Mexico because of the 60 percent rise in price of tortillas. Many animals around the world feed on corn so the cost of pork in China has jumped 20 percent. If we continue, by 2025 it is estimated that 600 million more

Question #7:

Why has the price of gasoline come down, but the price of food does not?

This is really irritating, the food companies tell us they need to raise the cost of food due to the higher cost of shipping costs. OK, we don't like it, but we pay it, now the price of gas is down, but the cost of food remains high? Why?

Question #8:

How much is gasoline where you live and where do you live?

Just curious. Here in WA State (which has among the highest prices in the US for some reason) its around $1.99

Question #9:

Did I hear Rush Gasbag give President elect Obama credit for tumbling gasoline prices?

or is he only giving Obama credit for the stock market crash? Please explain how can he do both?

Question #10:

If you are good at probablity and statistics please help?

A recent gasoline survey said that the national average price of gasoline was $1.498 a gallon. It was felt that gasoline in Texas was significantly lower than the national average. A survey of 10 different suburbs in Dallas, Texas found the average price of gasoline to be $1.294 a gallon with a standard deviation of $0.0526. What is the critical value using alpha = 0.01?

Answer Choices:
A) 1.26
B) 2.33
C) -1.26
D) -2.33

Please answer the question in detail, thanks in advance!!!

Question #11:

What is the current price of Gasoline in the Philippines?

With gasoline in the USA approaching $2.00/Gal has the price of unleaded in the Phils decreased also?

Question #12:

Why have e-85 prices dropped in step with gasoline prices if e-85 is only 15% gasoline?

It seems odd that the price would drop as quickly and to the same extent that gasoline prices have since only 15% of e-85 is gasoline andshould not be so strictly tied to the price of oil. Where I live in Missouri e-85 has maintained the same 20 cent difference from gasoline prices even with the dramatic drop in gasoline prices. This seems odd and I would like to see a viable explanation

Question #13:

WHY HAS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE DROPPED?

IS IT BECAUSE OF THE ELECTION

Question #14:

Anyone know of a good gas/diesel provider for small commercial use?

Mid-Marylandgolf course. Looking for someone besides griffith energy that can provide in the vicinity of 5,000 gal/gasoline -- 2,850 gallons diesel for less than $26,000...i understand that oil prices change and ballpark figures for last year don't necessarily reflect next year's prices, but I'm looking to cut costs!

Question #15:

Why have the gasoline prices dropped so much, so fast?

Question #16:

What are you paying for gas in your area?

I live in S.C., outside of Myrtle Beach, & I paid $1.77 a gallon for unleaded gasoline today. I hope the prices go down even more & stay there. Wishful thinking perhaps?
Warning Hot....Maybe the prices will come down even more before too long. Cross your fingers. Nice to hear from you.
lifeonloan....Those days are long gone. I hope the prices in your area start coming down real soon.
jackdinah....Good for you! It's about time isn't it?
numba & Alankathe....Way to go!
That guy & mudgirl...Hopefully, you'll see some more affordable gas prices before long.
Lara....Good for you! Make sure you keep at least a half tank of gas in your car this winter, at all times. Stay warm!
The Lady...Good for you!

Question #17:

What are your gasoline prices?

It dropped to below $2 in the Albany NY area. What is it where you are.
it would help if you mention the "area" you live i. Don't need your address but it is irevelant if it is just a number

Question #18:

Why didn't/doesn't Bush get investigated for an obvious scandal?

It is no secret that Bush has strong ties to the oil industry. Ok, well since 2000 (when Bush got elected) the prices of gasoline has increased to the highest our country has ever seen. Well why is it that, 2 MONTHS before he is to step out of office, the price of oil has somehow, drastically dropped??

The situation is the same from when he first got into office. Everything is the same. How do you explain this??

Question #19:

Why have gasoline prices fallen so much in the past couple of weeks?

Question #20:

How do you Libs feel about Obama thinking that should put a $1.50 Tax on Gasoline while the price is Low?

Will this get all his health program funded?How do you like the Idea?He thinks this will Green up the Enviroment.What will this do to the Economy when the price goes back up?
He was asked on sixty minutes about Fuel consumption and the dependency.He didn't come right out and say it ,but he hinted that Americans will go back their less fuel conservative ways if Government didn't step in.





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