Up Your Gas!

**Azull** · 2012-03-23 16:56

3.50 here and has been for about 2 weeks now. The small earthquakes from the fraking is a minor price to pay for slightly cheaper gas.

**Dimmauk** · 2012-03-23 16:58

$70 for a tank of gas on my trailblazer = semester of Canadian college. LOL

**Stumblingdrunk** · 2012-03-23 18:11

Does no one remember $4 + gas during the bush years?

**Woozie** · 2012-03-23 18:27

Originally Posted by Stumblingdrunk

Does no one remember $4 + gas during the bush years?

I remember paying $4.20+ during the Bush years (Summer of '08, I think). Right now it's $3.99, so it's actually slightly better (for now).

**Uzor** · 2012-03-23 18:28

I pay $9 a gallon.

**RKenshin** · 2012-03-23 18:46

Relevant:

**Ashmada** · 2012-03-23 20:09

Fuck you guys and your cheap fuel. ~8.21 $/gallon (super 95) here.

**Jaybar** · 2012-03-23 22:04

My bicycle doesn't require gas :3

But yea shit sucks, I just noticed today the price was 4.55 (west suburb of Chi). Watching as more and more people are carpooling on my campus.

**Sepukku** · 2012-03-23 22:27

I hate $4 gas, I really do, but we live in a world economy, and simply put, the oil production (while not peaked) is peaking, as in the increase of oil production and pumping is starting to round off and not increase at the rate it was once increasing and is starting to approach its limit. Gas usage however is increasing more exponentially as the rest of the world develops and even in already-developed areas (like the USA), gas usage still increases as people drive more and more. To top it all off, Israel-Iran saber rattling and the USA's dickish intrusions into the oil heavyweight region haven't helped.

So to be frank, when someone mentioned, "working as intended," yes.... the economy is working as intended. Many, many people need oil more and more, are not willing to go without it, and production cannot exponentially increase anymore - only linearly. When people say, "fix it," I think they are not recognizing that they are suggesting that the United States be a gigantic rude dinosaur and smash weaker nations to bits and take everything from them and make it so they no longer have roads and cars to use gas on. I like the idea of gas returning to .99-1.25 from when I was 16, but I am not willing to endorse the killing of 1 billion+ people that it would probably take to get gas back to that. I do not have well-developed suggestions as to how to correct the problem, beyond simple ones news commentary has already put forth (such as, "get better usage out of the gas we already use" aka "higher mileage vehicles"), but I do know Obama cannot single-handedly, unilaterally dictate the price of gas, nor can Newt, nor can Mitt or Rick.

**Sepukku** · 2012-03-23 22:28

And if you think China and India becoming driving, commuting nations is a clusterfuck enough, wait til Africa and South America develop over the course of your lifetime.

**Shuvo** · 2012-03-23 23:22

Is this all happening because of the sanctions on Iran? I noticed since about 2 weeks ago the price of fuel has gone up by 20c/litre over here in Australia as well.

Not that it bothers me too much, trains > driving for going long distances.

**kuronosan** · 2012-03-24 00:27

Anyone who thinks gas prices are where the market dictates they ought to be is delusional. The rise of prices has nothing to do with demand and everything to do with money.

**Kryssan** · 2012-03-24 01:39

I remember paying $0.75 for a gallon when I got my license. Nowadays price kinda wafts around $4, usually in the 3.99~4.19 range right now where I'm at.

**Roranora** · 2012-03-24 02:11

Originally Posted by kuronosan

Anyone who thinks gas prices are where the market dictates they ought to be is delusional. The rise of prices has nothing to do with demand and everything to do with money.

yeah p much

Originally Posted by Niiro

Don't forget the chemicals they're injecting into the ground.

"What chemicals?" you might ask.

So would a lot of other people, because its largely unregulated and they have no legal obligation to tell anyone.

hydraulic fracturing is cool though; it's not going to cause sinkholes or earthquakes. Like pretty much any oilfield service, it can be messed up, and then you may have issues. And all service companies and operators are placing frac chemical information on fracfocus.org. Granted, it doesn't have information on wells fractured prior to like 2010, but this information is now available.. save for a few proprietary bits of info.

**Thiefami** · 2012-03-24 02:22

honestly I really havent noticed too much of a pinch. It's always high. I think I saw it around 4.50 in kona town. 4 years back or so it was almost 6 bucks a gallon for a month. Maybe a bit expensive than that actually... I gas up at costco

**Rhyis.** · 2012-03-24 04:00

Whoever invents the magic carpet will make a killing. Shit runs on the power of friendship.

**Jaybar** · 2012-03-24 08:42

Originally Posted by Sepukku

I do not have well-developed suggestions as to how to correct the problem, beyond simple ones news commentary has already put forth (such as, "get better usage out of the gas we already use" aka "higher mileage vehicles"), but I do know Obama cannot single-handedly, unilaterally dictate the price of gas, nor can Newt, nor can Mitt or Rick.

You mentioned several times how the demand for driving seems to be correlated (and in this case a cause) to higher gas prices. Ockham's razor says we should lower our demand on cars! That sure would be nice. I hear China is developing its urban platform on America post 1950, i.e. sprawling neighborhoods. You can bet your ass that gas is going to skyrocket once development proceeds as quickly as it did here in America. If only there was a smarter way to design cities and neighborhoods...

**Siatdiat** · 2012-03-24 09:11

Originally Posted by Jaybar

If only there was a smarter way to design cities and neighborhoods...

I lived in Japan for three years. A very large majority of the population uses trains, and their train system is actually pretty awesome. The neighborhoods there are much smaller, roads are smaller, everything really is smaller and rather that be spread out most things like department stores, malls, and shopping centers are stacked up.

If I wanted to catch the bullet train to Osaka, it was just over 100 bucks, and considering Japan has higher gas prices, not only was that cheaper than driving but it was also much quicker and more comfortable. Today their mass transit is one of the things I miss most about that country.

It may be unfair in some ways to compare mass transit in a smaller country like that to any much larger country, but I still have to wonder why it isn't possible to at least approach the level of utility that they have.

**Sepukku** · 2012-03-24 09:28

True Jaybar, that would help, but the idea of restructuring an entire metropolitan area would be insanely expensive for even one city (one EXTENSION of the already existing light-rail system in my city just cost $600 million, much less building a whole new transportation line, much less deconstructing and reconstructing new buildings anywhere). It pretty much limits you to only newly developing towns being implemented with new layouts. Additionally, most city property is privately owned and you can't force someone to reconstruct and re-purpose their property. The government can only buy property and then once it is theirs, do what they will with it. Buying massive swaths of land to government repurpose or forcing people to repurpose and redevelop their property, either one is still a major step beyond what the government has ever done. Yes the government has bought private property to clear the way for things such as highways, but the scale it would need to be done on to re-design an already existing metropolitan area would be unprecedented.

Additionally, for those who do believe its entirely 100% gouge and not in any way at least partly influenced by the modernization of the world's two most populous nations; what do you want the government to do? They can't tell people what to sell for, nor tell people what is an acceptable profit. I find it ironic that Republicans banter about how Obama is doing nothing and the next Republican president will. Last I checked, Republicans are for lassiez-faire ('hands off' the economy) capitalism and against intrusions on business. Not to mention, they're for small government as it is. What they're asking for is a massively large power play by the government. And one that, frankly, is a little hypocritical seeing as setting an acceptable profit margin on gas/oil is pretty much akin to saying to health insurance companies in the health care reform bill that the insurance companies must spend 80% on health costs and the 20% is limited to advertising, overhead, and then profit (and we all know what the Republicans think of that).

**Sepukku** · 2012-03-24 09:28

Sorry, lagged up and double posted. Mod can delete this one if they want.

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