Gas Prices

[Scott]

If you are going to buy gas, buy from Cenex, that way I can get more profit sharing money

[S_A_Longhorn]

Never heard of Cenex here in Texas...

[Morgbug]

$1.09/liter.  So $4.48 CAD/gallon or $3.81 USD/gallon

Close, were at $1.08. On the way home from work I noticed it went up again today. *******!   

$1.10⁹/liter.  I win!   

Uh, no.  $1.13 this morning

[Darth_Anton]

I just got one of those chain e-mails that actually had an intelligent idea. Since boycotting gas stations for a day would never work, why not boycott Exxon and Mobil for the rest of the year?

I got that e-mail too.  Here's why it won't work:


http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/gasout.asp

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Good points. However, I do wonder how much of a dent theAmerican consumers contribute to the profits? I has to be enough to make some sort of dent.

[JesseVader08]

$1.09/liter.  So $4.48 CAD/gallon or $3.81 USD/gallon

Close, were at $1.08. On the way home from work I noticed it went up again today. *******!   

$1.10⁹/liter.  I win!   

Uh, no.  $1.13 this morning

Sigh.  $1.13⁹ this afternoon.  I really don't want to win this. 

[Daigo-Bah]

This morning on the radio, the host mentioned a stat that an analyst recently came up with.  He said that if America drove 3% less than it does, gas prices would drop .70 average.  3%!!!  That equates to one less mile of driving per day for everyone.

[DSJ™]

[Hemish]

They hit $1.40 a litre here over easter weekend.

works out roughly to $3.92 a Gallon

[ruiner]

This morning on the radio, the host mentioned a stat that an analyst recently came up with.  He said that if America drove 3% less than it does, gas prices would drop .70 average.  3%!!!  That equates to one less mile of driving per day for everyone.

Wow, that's hard to believe. 

I could handle that!

[Rob]

I'd also read that if we could increase our national MPG by 7, we wouldn't need to buy any oil from Saudi Arabia.

Who knows if all these little factoids are true though...  This crap isn't going to stop until the oil is gone and we're having WWIII for the remaining bits of it, or until we get a new source of energy - preferrably a clean one.

[Dressel Rebel]

I read somewhere that either Honda or Toyota was due to put out a car that runs purely on ethanol (made from corn) in 2008.  It's my understanding that existing gas stations can fill a tank with ethanol, rather than regular gas as we know it now, so no major huge modifications need to be done.  I think regular gas right now is about 10% ethanol.  At any rate, pure ethanol will cost about the same as regular gas, but at least the money is going to our very own Midwest in the US of A, and corn farmers, rather than the Middle East.  What will also happen eventually, is that the ethanol development will scare the crap out of the Arab countries and the price of oil per barrel will drop so that we still use it.  Without oil, they're screwed. 

[Rob]

What's the catch?  That sounds way too good to be true.

[Dressel Rebel]

What's the catch?  That sounds way too good to be true.

It doesn't sound like there is much of a catch.  Ethanol is basically corn juice that is fermented.  And we have an endless supply of the stuff.

My Dad tells me you can already modify your car with a few small changes and under a thousand dollars to run on ethanol right now.  The big issue is that we don't have it at fueling stations yet, but it's an easy enough transition to make since the stations only need to change what they put in their tank, and not the equipment itself.

Hopefully then by 2009 we'll pull into a gas station and have unleaded pumps, diesel, and pure ethanol.

[Scott]

Really all you need to change is your hoses in the car, and even that is debateable

Buy ethanol too, that also helps with my profit sharing!

Corn is the here and now...there are many other biomass options coming down the research pipeline that will pretty much guarantee we won't be running gasoline much longer in our cars.

That said, we still need crude oil for lots and lots of things...plastics and chemical stock so while we'll reduce the dependence, it will still be there.  AND...the one thing a lot of people don't realize, you need some sort of fuel to run ethanol plants.  Be it natural gas, coal or fuel oil...

The debate is still out as well as to wether there is a net gain in the manufacture of ethanol.  ie...does it take a gallon of oil to make a gallon of ethanol, including farming, transporting and manufacturing? Most studies point to a small net gain but there are disputing testimonies

[Rob]

That sounds like the catch I was looking for.