[Two Bills]

Originally Posted by Bay Kid

We all know the cause of the price increase. Now what are we going to do about change?

Yep!
Pandemic, and OPEC!

[RuthA]

Nice try but shutting down the keystone pipeline and passing extreme regulations against the oil, gas and coal industry doesn't have anything to do with it? Must be nice to be so willfully blind to the real reasons.

[rsmurano]

You can’t compare gas costs here vs anywhere else in the world. Most countries don’t produce gas just import it. The USA has the ability to be a giant exporter of gas along with supplying our country with cheaper gas (look back just 1 year). Everybody knows why this is happening to us here. This process is only hurting the middle class and the poor because when gas goes up in price, so does most everything else

[fgaba1949]

What do you think of natural gas prices in England for this winter ????

Originally Posted by Raywatkins

We are Brits and have to pay about $7.50 per gallon.
We will hopefully be back in TV in a weeks time for the first time in 2 years.
So looking forward to seeing our house again as well as our great friends and neighbours.
When we have to buy gas we will be so pleased at the price.
So we just smile when we hear complaints about US gas prices.

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by Ptmckiou

You don’t gain independence by continuing to rely on Stone Age technology. When we stop using fossil fuels so much, thereby utilizing more modern technology, OPEC will no longer rule our lives. Fossil fuels have gone their way with the model-T. Time to advance.

Fossil fuels are used because they are abundant and relatively cheap. If and when alternative sources of fuels become economically feasible, And cost in the range of or preferably less than the fossil fuels, the trend will be to use them. But realistically America is far from that point and will not get there anytime soon.

We as private citizens oftentimes delude ourselves into thinking that a changeover is a simple matter. And, on a personal level, for many of us such a change consists merely of swapping in the smoke-belching Yamaha golf cart for a glittering new electric version. But even there, the electricity that powers our new toy often is not comes from a plant that produces electricity by--you guessed it--burning FOSSIL fuels!

Even going beyond that: our newfangled golf carts might run perfectly well on electricity but overwhelmingly, America's industry does not. Nor is it a simple matter of replacing fossil fuels with some other manufactured "clean" fuel. take trucking, for example. It is true that biodiesel has been used by the American trucking industry for two decades now. But that is a mix: 80% - 20%, with 80% being a fossil fuel. to move to a higher proportion of clean fuel would necessitate substantial changes to the engines of just about all of the trucks, and in any case increasing the proportion of clean fuel in biodiesel generates problems all its own, such as the fuel refusing to flow when the temperature gets near or below the freezing point. Railway locomotives face the same problems: currently as I understand it locomotives use biodiesel that is 95% fossil fuel. Anything more, and strange things start happening. and a 100% switchover to a supposedly "clean" fuel such as ethanol would require a complete retooling of just about anything and everything that moves: an internal combustion engine designed to burn gasoline or diesel fuel CANNOT switchover to 100% ethanol without being essentially remanufactured.

But let's take a look at that "clean" fuel. We gas up the old Family Truckster with a fuel containing about 15% ethanol and field grand that we are saving the planet. But are we? I hail from an area where producing ethanol for industry is a big (government-subsidized, of course) industry. Ethanol from corn! But what a lot of people don't know is that ethanol production in America is, at best, a 1-1 proposition. At best, it cost us as much to produce a gallon of ethanol from corn as we get back from selling it, with much of the cost of production itself going to fossil fuel use: The tractors of the farmers producing the corn burn fossil fuel, as do the trucks and trains hauling the corn to the plant and hauling the finished product away from the plant. Is this doing the planet a favor? Somehow, I think we are deluding ourselves.

Not only that, the gasoline and diesel fuel is far cheaper to produce than ethanol or biodiesel. An ethanol plant is essentially a huge moonshine still. The corn needs to be processed and fermented, then distilled to produce ethanol, which not only takes a lot of time but which itself has storage problems far greater than that associated with gasoline--ethanol has a far shorter shelf life than does fossil fuels. Gasoline is far cheaper to manufacture because essentially it is not manufactured at all: It is already present in the crude oil, and it is a simple matter with the process of fractional distillation, to set the gasoline, number one diesel, number two diesel, etc., free of the crude oil and sell it.

Ethanol as a reliable fuel source is possible, but definitely not the way we are doing it here in America. Brazil, for example, runs substantially on ethanol fuel, but they get their fuel by fermenting sugarcane, not corn, with sugarcane giving them a return of about 7-1, as opposed to the at best 1-1 return America gets from corn. America simply does not have enough sugarcane to make that viable. We do however have sorghum, which could produce a 2 to 1 return, but there again it would involve a substantial retooling of the production apparatus, from farm to plant, before this is economically feasible.

It is an easy thing to chant mantras about clean-air, saving the planet, etc. etc. Unfortunately, reality intervenes and probably hundreds of ways that the well-intentioned save-the-planet types have never even thought of.

[Petersweeney]

When will people get that electric cars are dependent on coal fired power plants…..ugh

[OhioBuckeye]

Originally Posted by Rainger99

Just came across two gas receipts-one was from 11/9/20-exactly a year ago. The price was $2.20 The second receipt is from 1/22/21. The price was $2.36. Last week it was $3.25. Up 48% in the past year and 38% since January. Glad I am getting about 50 mpg with the golf cart!!

We just went from Texas to Illinois to Ohio Texas was $2.99 - Oklahoma $2.99 - Illinois (Chicago) $3.45 to $3.70 - Indiana - $3.49 - Ohio $3.29. These were just average prices! But by far Illinois was the most expensive. Actually if you look a little bit Texas had gas for $2.91.

[Blackbird45]

We all look for someone to blame.
Over the years we've had one oil issue or another.
I love my country, but we are notorious of ignoring looming problems until they're knocking on our door as a crisis.
Maybe the rising oil prices is a good thing.
It might force the public to demand an alternative.

[Waltdisney4life]

I am hoping for $10 a gallon. You wanted it you voted for it now you got it.

[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by Two Bills

Don't know where you live but Premium is £7.50 a gallon round here, (Tesco's, Witney) that's about $9.80 in US
Mind you, 60% of that is Government Tax. inc. VAT on the tax.
We are being screwed royally!

If you're gonna' be screwed, it might as well be "Royally"!

[mikemalloy]

Originally Posted by EdFNJ

No, blame it on the pandemic and the fact OPEC was literally giving oil away for 18 months.

EDIT: Removed a quote & reference in this reply to a now removed post making that part of my reply moot.

If this were close to true than gas prices before the pandemic would be similar to what we're experiencing now. They weren't.
I'm pretty sure that if I grow my own tomatoes they're cheaper than buying them at a market. When we stopped drilling on public lands we went from home grown to buying on the world market.

[Blackbird45]

When I was young and naive, I watch a 60 minute's interview with the CEO of Phillips 66.
The intro shoot was of this big building with a giant American flag blowing in the wind.
The topic was the shutting down of oil fields and the loss of jobs, because productions was being sent to foreign countries.
I don't remember much of the interview except for one question and answer.

When the CEO was asked didn't, he think he owed loyalty to this country, his answer was his loyalty was to the corporation.
As much as I found the answer distasteful, he was honest and he was correct.
His position was to increase the profits of the corporation.

There are always conflicting issues.
One person wants to save the planet, one person wants cheap prices another wants to create jobs in this country.
Is there an answer where we can have it all?
Beats me.

[Two Bills]

Originally Posted by fgaba1949

What do you think of natural gas prices in England for this winter ????

Very high and going to cause a lot of problems.
Not a lot we can do but pay the piper, and look for alternatives.
On the plus side, UK North Sea gas companies are making big profits from the high world price, just same as US gas producers.
We will also have to try and get friendlier with Mr Putin!

[DeanFL]

.
.
FACTS>

U.S. consumer prices accelerated at the fastest annual pace in more than 30 years as supply chain bottlenecks and materials shortages persisted and gasoline prices surged.

The consumer price index climbed 6.2% year over year in October, the Labor Department said. The increase marked the largest annual gain since November 1990. Prices rose 0.9% month over month.

Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting prices to rise 0.6% in October and 5.8% annually.

"Inflation is broadening out," said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate. "In addition to food, energy, and shelter continuing to post outsized monthly increases, new and used car prices are once again shifting into overdrive."

INFLATION WILL LIKELY GET WORSE BEFORE IT STARTS IMPROVING, GOLDMAN WARNS

Energy prices jumped 4.8% last month, and were up 30% over the past year. The October increase was largely the result of a 6.1% rise in the cost of gasoline.

Food prices, meanwhile, edged up 0.9% last month as the food at home category saw a 1% increase. All food prices are up 5.3% year over year.
.
.

[Jokomo]

Originally Posted by frose

we all what the problem is... watch 6.00$ a gallon by christmas..

Couldn't have said it better myself. But I'm not sure what you typed was what you meant.