Gasoline Prices - Ouch.

[Eugene]

A 20 cent per gallon jump overnight from $2.899 to $3.099 per gallon for unleaded regular.

Previous price was $2.899 with a short term jump to $2.999 then back to $2.899.

Eugene

[(CUB HUT)]

$ 3.19 in good ole Bloomington In.
They say it not because of the race in Indy.

[Jeff Silvey]

3.20 in central Ind. Someone is making money (NOT ME)
Jeff

[Cdn Country Bumkin]

3.20/gal coverted to liters & Cdn $ would be aprox $0.96/liter, We're at $1.10/liter today in the "southern" cold country
Archie

[Don McCombs]

Jeff,

If you want to know who's making the money, look to the east. The Middle East.

http://www.gridskipper.com/travel/dubai/the-palm-fake-island-frenzy-127440.php

http://www.ameinfo.com/73117.html

This is why your gasoline costs more per gallon than American dairymen get for milk. And they're laughing all the way to the bank.

[Little Indy]

I use Gasbuddy to find the lowest posted prices within a reasonable distance. I would like to see the feds lower taxes by as much as 25 cents /gallon of E85.

I don't own a flex fuel car or truck yet but will storngly consider it when I need a new vehicle. Back in the 17th century the Turks were at the western end of the silk road. But the Dutch and Portugese broke their economic back by sailing around the tip of Africa and finding ports in India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China and so what in Japan. Also the Dutch took coffee from Yemen and began growing it in Java etc. Breaking that monopoly as well. Losing the battles of Vienna (I am grateful to the Poles) in 1683(?) and that of Lopanto Also helped to make Turkey a second class power. IMNSHO E85 would be the same as finding an alternative to the silk road.

Richard

[Carm]

While in England lat week, gas was 99.9 pounds per litre. 3.78 litres per gallon and nearely 2 to 1 exchange rate, that really hurts!

[FarmLadyWannaB]

Heard on the news that here in CT we pay the second highest prices for gas in the country --second only to Hawaii, where I used to live

Today's "wow, bargain" find: paid $3.13/gal. in downtown Hartford. Locally the going rate is ca. $3.24. Problem with those web sites that tell you where to find the cheapest local gas: if you live in a rural area there's no sense in driving 20-30 min. each way to save a few cents, no? Don't a lot of us live in rural areas?

Jocelyn, just wondering

[John(videodoc)]

$90 to fill tank again today. Something gots to change soon, or i may have sell my big ole dodge truck

[FarmLadyWannaB]

We have a Dodge Ram 1500, 8 cyl., and y'all have similar vehicles so you know the terrible mileage it gets. I LOVE my truck and we want to keep it as a towing/hauling vehicle. So a few months ago I went shopping and found the Holy Grail: a $2000 '94 Ford Escort wagon with only 60k miles on it, and it gets 30+ miles/gal. No frills but it's bombproof--just keeps running. Reliable beaters are out there if you do your legwork--better than selling that beloved truck

Jocelyn

[Eugene]

My son just did the same thing. He has an F250 that he drove to work everyday and uses to tow a trailer when moving farm equipment. He purchased a 79 Chev Impala with 112K miles - around $900 total cost. We are expecting the Impala to get around 18 MPG. 18 MPG doesn't sound so great until you compare that to around 10 MPG.

Eugene

[Jack fowler]

I know everybody including myself is shaking their head at these gas prices and talking about other fuels especially ethanol. I know it looks good on that Ford truck commercial when they pull up next to the corn field and fill up the truck.

The bottom line is that it takes about 35,000 BTUs (British Thermal Units) of energy to create a gallon of ethanol, and that gallon of ethanol contains at least 77,000 BTUs of energy.

To my understanding the 35,000 BTUs of energy to create a gallon of ethanol comes from Propane. The energy used to remove the product to make ethanol from the fields is petroleum. The man hours and petroleum cost for producing one barrel of ethanol is $125.00. Our government subsidizes the difference between the costs of one barrel of petroleum to one barrel of ethanol. As you know the U.S. government does not produce anything to make any capital, so… financing comes from the U.S tax payer.

You can look at it this way also... More jobs; which means more people working and spending capital and research has determined that 1 barrel of ethanol (1 barrel = 42 gallons) can displace 1.2 barrels of petroleum at the refinery. In 2005 the U.S. produced 4 billion gallons of ethanol, which equates to about 3% of the country's total gasoline consumption (140 billion gallons per year). This is a small percentage, but a critically important one. Every gallon of ethanol we can make and use means we are less dependent upon oil and more dependent upon clean, renewable, homegrown energy sources.


I work with a man that is from Germany. He is developing his own electric car which is using a small gasoline powered engine to power a generator to charge a set of batteries which will run an electric motor to power a vehicle about top speed of 50 m.p.h. The cost of his project so for is $13,000. This vehicle has no options... A/C, P/S and ECT. This is a quote he said a few weeks ago: “Even after having lived in North America for five years (I’m from Germany) I’m still flabbergasted by the extreme wastefulness of energy use over here. Peak oil probably won’t end modern civilization as we know it, but I suspect that some societies will have a much harder time to adapt to the end of cheap fuel than others.”

Yes, I think we're one of the societies that will have a much harder time to adapt to the end of cheap fuel than others. But as in the past this country has made the rest of the world turn its head because of breakthroughs. I think this is no exception.

As I said in a past post I have made, “personally I believe the only way for most of us (in the short term) to conserve the use of energy which would cost the consumer nothing is: “conserve the way most of us use energy”. The way the America consumer uses energy compared the rest of the world is an outrage and yes yours truly is just as bad. I personally see every morning and evening thousand’s of people that work at a large plant close to my work place, commuting from a neighboring county with mostly one person per vehicle. Just think if half of the commuters would ride together how many millions of barrels of oil would be saved per day. Multiply that times every other city in the U.S. you would have an oil surplus in days.”

Videodoc, FarmLadyWannaB and Eugene wrote about maybe selling their trucks and or (have) replaced with alternative vehicle with a higher m.p.g. rating. Maybe if you drive a long distance everyday and you don’t need the truck you may come out ahead. But if you buy something else to save on total cost you have to add on the cost of purchase + maintenance and the extra insurance. How much savings are you really getting?

I personally own the above brand(s) pickup trucks mentioned. Yes the 1500 Dodge empty (no load) gets 15-17 mpg in the city. The truck is needed and I drive it like I have an egg between my foot and the gas pedal.


If anybody is interested, these are articles friends have sent me in the past:

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/apr2006/bw20060427_493909.htm?


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060707093247AAbZrCx

[Eugene]

Videodoc, FarmLadyWannaB and Eugene wrote about maybe selling their trucks and or (have) replaced with alternative vehicle with a higher m.p.g. rating. Maybe if you drive a long distance everyday and you don’t need the truck you may come out ahead. But if you buy something else to save on total cost you have to add on the cost of purchase + maintenance and the extra insurance. How much savings are you really getting?

In my son's case the 79 Impala will be a second vehicle. Crunching some numbers. The fuel savings based on 20K miles per year, using the Impala for 80% of the driving (commuting to work), would be $2133.34 per year based on $3.00 per gallon. The payback is right at 6 months for the cost of the vehicle, initial repairs (tires), title, tax, license and insurance. True, the actual savings will be less than $2133- per year because of future maintenance, insurance and fees.

[Rudi]

What I find very interesting is that even though fuel prices are higher in actual numbers than they ever have been, they are still much cheaper than they were during the huge Oil/Gas shortage in the 70's... Everyone knows that particular crisis what simply a ploy by the large energy companies to bump up the price. In actual fact, if one looks at the buying power of either the US or the Canadian dollar, we are paying less than we were when gas prices were low in numbers. The ratio of what we spend on fuel compared to what we earn, is substantially lower than what it was 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago.

I have been observing over the past 2 months -- and this is not scientific at all, just my personal observations.. that the number of humongous RV's, SUV's, 4x4's from California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Missouri, Texas, Florida, DC, and everyplace in between and including a few plates from Alaska has not significantly declined.

In NS, they say that tourist numbers are down, but here in NB, they actually seem to be up...

As for where the fuel comes from.. well we all know that the majority of the daily fuel consumption required in the US comes primarily from Canada, bolstered by some domestic US production, some imports from Europe and of course the other OPEC nations, but only about 5% - 7% actually comes from the Middle East..

So, why in God's name are we at $74.00US/Barrel +/- and going up

In North America, we have more than enough reserves to handle our needs IF WE START using those fossil fuels a little more responsibly. I just saw my first Lincoln Pickmeup TRUCK.. For GOD's sake.. like we need another humongous gas guzzling tank that gets what 3 gallons per mile????

3.20/gal converted to liters & Cdn $ would be approx $0.96/liter, We're at $1.10/liter today in the "southern" cold country
Archie

Archie, we are at $1.179 for regular 87 octane... and guess what.. the very same fuel coming out of the St. John refinery is being sold in Maine and the rest of the northern eastern seaboard for a heck of a lot less than we pay for our oil here in NB...

Sooo.... I guess if Em and I drive to Cecil's in New York.. we will actually be SAVING MONEY :!:

Life is how you perceive it to be... Half Full or Half Empty... A Little Dear or Too Expensive..

Pick one and ENJOY LIFE

[Jack fowler]

Rudi wrote:

In North America, we have more than enough reserves to handle our needs IF WE START using those fossil fuels a little more responsibly.

So they say; the U.S. crude oil refineries are running at full capacity and they can not stay up with demand which causes prices to fluctuate. Supposedly the U.S. because of regulations has not let oil companies build new refineries to keep up with demand.

Rudi wrote:

As for where the fuel comes from... well we all know that the majority of the daily fuel consumption required in the US comes primarily from Canada, bolstered by some domestic US production, some imports from Europe and of course the other OPEC nations, but only about 5% - 7% actually comes from the Middle East..

Today, we (U.S) import much of our oil from Canada and Mexico. This is good for us because we have friendly relations with our neighbors, and because the oil doesn't have to be shipped so far. Still, the amount of oil that we can import from Canada and Mexico is limited. By law, Mexico can only export half the oil it produces to the United States.


(Read this and tell me if it isn’t about money. The oil is sold to the highest bidder)!!!

Although the United States is the world’s third largest crude oil producer, less than 35 percent of the crude oil used by U.S. refineries was produced in the United States. Net petroleum imports (imports minus exports) account for 60 percent of our total petroleum consumption. About 50 percent of our petroleum imports are from countries in the Western Hemisphere, with 17 percent from the Persian Gulf, and 19 percent from Africa and 14 percent from other regions.

Rudi wrote:

So, why in God's name are we at $74.00US/Barrel +/- and going up

Other Country’s that never where dependent on petroleum are so now. The U.S. is not the only user like it was in the past. When something happens in other parts of the world that may disturb the flow of petroleum to a country that country, will out bid the U.S. for the product. China has said repeatedly it has no problems paying $80.00 a barrel for crude oil. So… what happens when some idiot tries to launch a rocket or Iran thinks the U.S. is going to attack them, other countries run to the countries we buy the oil from and out bid us. So we get a $.30 price increase overnight. Like I said it’s all about money.

Rudi wrote:

Sooo.... I guess if Em and I drive to Cecil's in New York.. we will actually be SAVING MONEY
Life is how you perceive it to be... Half Full or Half Empty... A Little Dear or Too Expensive..

Pick one and ENJOY LIFE

Like always Rudi, you’re on the money on that one. Someday hopefully in the near future I will be attending some of the Cub gatherings. I have two tractors ready to go!!!