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The Almighty Buck

Journal Interrobang's Journal: $3.53/gal*, 33M people, 5 time zones -- you do the math 29

Journal by Interrobang
*(91.3 cents/litre)

Since I've been in a fairly cranky mood lately, I'm getting a little annoyed with Americans griping about high gas prices. Their gas prices are hovering right around $2/gallon, and they think they've got it bad.

Pre-emptive Aside: Before anyone gets literalistic on me and posts a comment to the effect of, "But Interrobang, $3.53 Canadian is only $2.82 US..." let me remind you about the folly of working exchange rates on home-currency transactions. That is, if I buy gasoline here in Canada using Canadian dollars, and I want to compare that cost to someone buying gasoline in the US, using US dollars, I need to be looking at relative buying power, and not at the exchange rate. In which case, the ratio is close to 1:1.

Even I, the non-driver, am starting to notice the impact of rising fuel costs. Seems like I can't go to the grocery store anymore without spending $30-50, and, while I'm not living on lentils and rice to save money, I'm not exactly dining al fresco on champagne and caviar, either. (Yick, on both counts.) In general, I buy a lot of ingredients and unprocessed foods (the screed about every damn packaged meal having milk products in it is elsewhere, I think), or semi-processed foods, like canned beans and tomatoes and stuff.

Nevertheless, my food bill has increased by about half in the last couple of years, and I'm starting to notice understocking and shortages. I've also heard of shortages hitting other industries (this one in particular worries me). As Perfessor Multigeek would say, "It's definitely happening."

I think the time to contract our lifestyles somewhat is definitely upon us. It's about time we collectively started to adjust our manner of living, voluntarily, before we get reamed by a huge, involuntary shift and collapse. I'm not, at the moment, tremendously confident that the shift and collapse won't happen, but I think if we've collectively adjusted our lifestyles a bit to compensate for rising fuel prices, it'd hit us less hard.

Some things we can do are:

Walk, bike, bus, and train more, and drive less;

Live closer to our workplaces (I've got this one nailed; I work from home);

Start gardening in a marginally useful way (even Perfessor Multigeek, who lives in a Manhattan apartment, manages this, so those of us who actually have backyards and stuff need to get off our asses);

Invest in some way (money, time, sweat equity) in alternative energy;

Buy locally, wherever possible.

Of course, it would be really, really easy to make this switchover completely if we all had $100K/a in income, access to a nearly-infinite amount of resources, and so on, but this isn't a zero-sum game. Even small adjustments will make a big difference in the long term.

Tangential Note: Given the link above, those of you who are considering emigration had better decide within about the next five to ten years or so, and either go, or stay, because I suspect travel is going to become much more difficult and expensive. That said, if you are one of those people who really wants to see distant, faraway places, now's the time...

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$3.53/gal*, 33M people, 5 time zones -- you do the math More

$3.53/gal*, 33M people, 5 time zones -- you do the math

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  • The cost of US gas (at least in the midwest, which is usually the cheapest gas in the US) is hovering around $2.50. I'm guessing the West Coast is about to, or already has passed the $3 mark.

    Not that I'm complaining. I just roll with the flow. Just wanted you to know that we were griping about $2 a couple years ago... now its about breaking $2.50...
    • I was remarking on the prices given by the people who were making the comments. I have no idea, generally, where they live. They seem to come from all over the place. Lots of Texans, but otherwise, I'm not sure.

    • Re:FYI (Score:2)

      by ces ( 119879 ) *
      Today's average is $2.69 in California, $2.59 in Washington, and $2.44 nationwide.

      Bizzarely the pricing follows no real rhyme or reason. Two stations with the same company only a mile or two apart have among the highest and the lowest prices of any stations in the Seattle area.
      • I don't know for sure what it's like today, but back in the late 1970s and early 80s, my dad owned a gas station. The station owners (who were essentially franchisees, like a McDonald's) had a lot of freedom to set prices -- they bought the gas from a wholesaler (if they were under contract to a national company like Chevron or Amoco, they of course bought gas from them), then marked it up however they pleased. Local price wars were thus common -- and are what eventually drove him out of business (though in
  • if you guys would have just let Bush KILL everyone standing on top of the oil we'd all be paying .25/GAL now!

    *ducks*
    • Oh, you mean like, Alberta? An awful lot of the US' oil comes from there. Tell you what... I'll let Bush kill all the Albertans if (and only if) a) I get to be the Premier of the newly-repopulated Alberta v.2.0, and b) he'll leave the rest of us the fuck alone. Deal? *grin*
      • Oh... you don't read Drudge do you? Damn... yeah well it, hmm... see the thing of it is we, uh the USA... we kinda... well we killed everyone in Alberta last week and installed blinder [slashdot.org] as Premier. Terribly sorry.
      • Hey! don't forget Alaska and California! The West Coast uses mostly domestic crude from one of those two states as well some crude from Alberta.

        Oh and if we kill everyone in Alaska and California I get to be Governor of Alaska and Dayton gets to be Governor of California.
    • There still wouldn't be enough refineries to process it.

      There's Oil out there. Just not enough infrastructure here to handle the demand.
      • You think closing 900,000 bpd of refinery capacity in the US since 1995 might have something to do with that?

        While I know crude supplies are tight (and likely to only get tighter over time) this recent "crisis" in gas prices smells a lot like the West Coast power "crisis" of 2001.
        • You think closing 900,000 bpd of refinery capacity in the US since 1995 might have something to do with that?


          No! No, I don't think closing refineries has ANY correlation to the U.S. not being able to refine enough crude fast enough!!

          For my next act of moronic defiance, I will rail against how I don't believe in gravity...

          /Would like to wear more finery
          • No! No, I don't think closing refineries has ANY correlation to the U.S. not being able to refine enough crude fast enough!!

            Next question: are the refinery closings part of an effort by the oil majors to drive up retail prices by creating shortages or is this due to other factors?
            • I tend to take a non-tinfoil hat view;

              Suckers couldn't manage their way out of a paper bag, let alone manage a business, and shut down refineries as a cost cutting measure. Those crock zuckers can't think past next quarters share holders meeting...

              Are they profiting now? Hell yes. But I don't attribute to malice what is EASILY explained by incompetence and the need to keep the stock up.

              • No research has been done to support this; however a little bit of EDGAR diving for 8k and 10k filings should be more than enough to show a trend that would lead to this line of reasoning.
              • I'd lean toward your POV especially since prices were very low for most of the 90's forcing cost-cutting measures in order to boost profits. As well as the large amount of capital that was required to comply with new environmental regulations.

                Also I've seen more than enough examples of corporate stupidity to know that it is at least part of the explanation.

                However what tempers this view somewhat is a history of collusion in the energy industry over price-fixing, market manipulation, and other anti-competiti
  • I don't think things are going to "implode", so much as infrastructure costs are going to rise. JIT supplying got you caught with your pants down? Sucks. Aging infrastructure can't keep up with demands? Uhm, build new infrastructure? I don't know what to tell you. Either do more with less or get more.

    There are two possible outcomes; companies pay that cost out of their profits or pass them on to consumers. As price increases get passed on to consumers, buying locally becomes a more attractive op
    • I was just complaining about produce shooting from prices under a dollar to damn near $2 in two weeks, and so on, with no other rational reason other than that gas is up over the 90-cent-per-litre mark again. This is, granted, cheap, by European standards, but unfortunately, we're now paying the price for hugely decentralised development. IIRC from conversations with Tomble, London, Ontario's (my home city) land area is larger than the entirety of Merseyside, with considerably fewer people. Don't even ge

      • don't think I said "implode," did I? I thought I said "contract," which is entirely different.

        My bad, then. I REALLY DID read 'catastrophe' from your missive, but I'll blame my lack of reading comprehension on reading too much code.

        The Lilacs seem to have taken to the clay, but again it isnt so much the soil as it is the plants being able to work with my schedule. Which isn't the most forgiving. However, others "less land endowed" are more than welcome to work my soil. I'll keep the potato plan in mind
  • I don't know if its a hair brained conspiricy or not, but there IS some logic behind it.

    [peakoil.org]http://www.peakoil.org/ [peakoil.org]

    Basic idea is the demand is going to exceed the supply that we can possibly get from the Earth. Of course as that starts to happen, some serious shit is going to go down.
    • No, it's not a hair brained conspiracy. It's a theorum that states, crudely, that there's a finite supply of oil, and there is a point where oil will stop getting cheaper and start getting more and more expensive.

      And don't believe the "no oil apocalypse" misinterpretation. As oil becomes more expensive, other sources of energy become comparatively less expensive -- when the $/watt of biomass or nuclear-hydrogen drops below the $/watt of crude oil, you'll see a sudden and massive switch.

      I expect that by th
      • I expect we'll more likely see synfuel from coal first. The US and Canada have a HUGE amount of coal.

        In recoverable reserves alone there is over 100 years of coal left even if coal were to replace all other hydrocarbons and energy demand were to keep rising at the current long-term trend.

        Of course there is that pesky global warming problem but I doubt that will slow things down at all.

        Also this is not to say that there aren't huge gains to be made in efficency and conservation too.
  • Over in Krautland, I just paid €1.34 for a liter of super (98 octane) gasoline.

    That translates to about US$6.30/gal.

    Crymeafuckenriver.

    By the way, what you're talking about is purchasing power parity or PPP, which is indeed rather more interesting than mere exchange rates. The Economist has a tongue-in-cheek (yet surprisingly accurate) model, the Big Mac Index [economist.com], which (duh) compares prices of Big Macs around the world when indexed to exchange rates. The index shows how currencies are (theoretically

  • I like alternative energy sources. How do I invest? ;)

    Does the fusion reactor [slashdot.org] count? It is meant to turn sea water into energy. The idea that a very small amount of sea water can power a city. The problem is that the sea water will actually disappear.. does it mean we'll eventually run out of oceans?
    • We could always import ice from the Oort belt. Assuming, of course, that we hadn't all spontaneously combusted thanks to all the O2 loose in the atmosphere.;)

      That will be $40 billion USD, comrade. Shall you be paying with cash or cheque?
    • We still have no idea if fusion is ever going to be a practical way of producing electricity. I do hope it pans out but it is still at least 20 years away.

      OTOH fission is pretty well understood techonology that works today.

      Still in either case you have the problem that you are generating heat (steam) and electricity. So you can use this to power the grid and for things like industrial process heat but it doesn't do much for running cars or airplanes.

      In addition wind power is getting pretty practical, though
      • Still in either case you have the problem that you are generating heat (steam) and electricity. So you can use this to power the grid and for things like industrial process heat but it doesn't do much for running cars or airplanes.

        That energy can be used for creating hydrogen or hydrogen-like substance for use with fuel cells and stuff. So it might solve the cars problem (I think you implied that latter in your comment, but just to make sure).

        Oh - and the by-product of fuel cells is water, so it can be retu
        • That energy can be used for creating hydrogen or hydrogen-like substance for use with fuel cells and stuff. So it might solve the cars problem (I think you implied that latter in your comment, but just to make sure).

          Hydrogen is a horrible energy storage media, mostly because it just isn't dense enough, even in liquid form (which brings its own problems of cyrogenics).

          Besides there is this really huge infrastructure built around liquid hydrocarbon fuels. Changing it out all at once to support hyrogen just is

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