Do you really believe that gas prices all over the U.S.A. will reach $4.00 a gallon by this Summer?

Don't live there.

Yes, probably, but it won't directly affect me since I don't drive. It wouldn't surprise me.

No..not necessarily..I'm sure there are places in the upper 2s..right? Maybe?
The average price of gas in Va, is $3.11..but here in the specific area I'm in, it's only $3.09..We save two cents..Take that Northern Virginia..

It wouldn't surprise me.

It's certainly possible but my guess is more like $3.50.

Possibly. I'm sure in large part they will simply charge whatever makes the most profit. They may lose joy riders but make up for it by quadruply charging commuters. Fortunately they probably aren't all in cahoots with monopoly pricing, so they can only charge so much before people switch to price-cutting brands (which is thus also part of that price/volume formula).

Buy the cheapest brands unless politics figures in to your decision. Keep in mind though that they are even ahead of you on that and create fake vendors without the bad political affiliations.

It doesn't affect me super directly since I bicycle, but it will end up doubling the cost of consumer goods like groceries.

Part of the answer here is to improve efficiency of online eBay/warehouse UPS/Fedex/USPS shipping such that it costs less to bypass stores entirely and just send people things like groceries directly through the mail. USPS is already heading there by creating regular packaging sizing. Eventually home delivery will more resemble a conveyor belt.

Corn and soy will escalate in price, and most grocery products include either or both (high fructose corn syrup), and since folks like BP are taking bio-fuels seriously, that's fairly certain. It may begin a political rift between people who use fuel sparingly to keep the cost of living down and those who do not.

No, but I have been wrong before.

I haven't thought about it so I don't know. But I wouldn't be surprised. In SF it's already pretty close. I don't remember exactly what it is right now, but it's up around $3.60 or $3.70, and maybe a little higher for the highest octane. So it doesn't have that far to go to get to $4.00. But as for all over the US, I guess that's a bigger stretch. I guess maybe it would surprise me a little if it was that high all over the US.

Didn't this question plaque us last spring, and the spring before? Screw them butt-holes.

I have no idea. It's over £1 per litre here in the UK, which works out as about $8.35 a US gallon (if I've done my maths right...).

I have no idea. Actually, I think there's a decent chance prices will go down as demand will go down if the global economy slows down.

better fudging not...how come no one is talking about just how much profit the oil companies earned recently??? grr and grrrrrr

This does not constitute any part of my belief system.

Let's see, a US gallon (the only gallon in practical use these days) is equal to 3.785412 litres. $4 US is equal to $3.91 Canadian. Last I looked, it cost $1.15 for a litre of gas, so if Americans have to pay the equivalent of 97 cents a litre, I'm not going to cry about it.

I got $7.57

1 litre costs about £1.05
There are almost 4 litres to a US gallon (1 litre = about 0.26 US gallons).
So one US gallon costs 4 x £1.05 = £4.20.
£4.20 converted to US$ gives about $8.35.

(I feel like I'm doing maths exams all over again! )

I used £1.01 because you weren't specific.
I used US gallon = 3.785412 litres
So one US gallon is £3.82
£3.82 converted to US (1.9817) = $7.57

Ah, the benefits of using accurate figures rather than vaguely rounding up

I am sorry, unless you explain how this directly or indirectly involves me, I couldn't care less.

OMG ...is that a lot? I hear it adds up for you need more than one gallon. Peh.

No, not til next summer.

Gas Prices Head to $4 a Gallon

Bush surprised by the news


By Joe Benton
ConsumerAffairs.Com

February 29, 2008
• Latest Gas Price Round-Up
• Gas Prices Head to $4 a Gallon
• Feds Predict Record Gas Prices for Spring
• New Fuel Economy Standards Signal the End of the V-8
• Senate Passes New Mileage Standards Bill
• Tough Fuel Economy Demands from Senator Clinton
• Consumer Energy Costs Skyrocketing
• Environmentalists Criticize Toyota
• Public Citizen Claims Cheney Engineered Mileage Standards
• FTC Clears Oil Industry of 2006 Price Gouging
• ExxonMobil Dodges "Hot Fuel" Issue, Group Charges
---
• More ...

Consumers may soon face $4 a gallon gasoline as international oil prices settle in above $100 a barrel and the peak summer driving season nears.

"American consumers know these oil prices are an unpleasant omen of events likely to occur at the nation's gas pumps over the next few months," said Geoff Sundstrom, spokesman for travel and auto group AAA.

When President Bush was asked about the possibility of record $4 gas, he appeared to have a blank gaze on his face.

“Wait, what did you just say? You're predicting $4 a gallon gasoline?" the surprised president stammered. "That's interesting," he said, "I hadn't heard that...I know it's high now."

Gasoline prices have more than doubled during the Bush presidency. In 1999, as the oilman-turned-presidential candidate campaigned across the country for his party's nomination, gasoline sold for $1.30 a gallon almost everywhere he traveled.

Those low gasoline prices are history now.

"That creates a lot of uncertainty," Bush said. "If you're out there wondering what your life is going to be like and you're looking at $4 a gallon, that's uncertain."

Record highs

"If current oil prices hold, American drivers should expect to pay new record high prices for gasoline which could easily reach $3.50 per gallon or more by summer. In some regions of the country the average price could approach $4 per gallon," the AAA spokesman said.

The bad news at the pump arrives with declining U.S. fuel consumption and robust domestic production boosting gasoline inventories to their highest levels since 1994. Gasoline sold for less than a dollar a gallon in 1994.

The average national price for regular unleaded gasoline is now $3.16. One month ago the average price was $2.98 and one year ago regular gasoline sold for $2.41

Regular gasoline sells above the $3 mark in every state except Missouri and New Jersey. Regular gasoline sells for an average price of $2.98 a gallon in Missouri and $2.97 a gallon in New Jersey.

The most expensive gallon of gasoline in the country is found in Bethel, Arkansas for $4.94. The cheapest gallon is found in Lakewood, Colorado for $2.81.

Here is a look as some gasoline prices from around the country in the ConsumerAffairs.Com Gas Price Round Up.

Texas: The average retail gasoline price in Texas is two cents shy of a new record for the state at $3.07 a gallon. The all-time Lone Star statewide record high is $3.09 a gallon, according to the AAA Texas gas price survey released today.

Seven of the eleven Texas regions AAA checks for average gasoline prices set new record highs this week.

San Antonio gas prices rose 8 cents to an average of $3.03 a gallon. It is the lowest average price but a record for San Antonio.

Texarkana once again has the state's highest average at $3.14 a gallon, which is also a record.

"Record crude oil prices above $102 a barrel propelled pump prices to new highs this week," said AAA Texas spokesman Rose Rougeau.

California: Price increases at Southern California gas pumps came fast and furious this week in an earlier-than-usual spring price run-up, according to the Automobile Club of Southern California's Weekend Gas Watch.

The statewide average for gasoline is $3.44 a gallon, 5 cents short of the record price set May 9, 2007.

The highest average price in the state is found in San Francisco where regular gasoline sells for $3.60 a gallon, 3 cents short of the record set May 11, 2007.

The average price of self-serve regular gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach area is $3.37, which is 16.9 cents higher than last week, 24 cents more than last month, and 57 cents above last year.

In San Diego, the price is $3.43, which is 17.9 cents more than last week's price, 31 cents above last month, and 60 cents higher than last year.

On the Central Coast, the average price is $3.53, up 16.8 cents from last week, 26 cents above last month, and 56 cents more than last year.

In the Inland Empire, the average price is $3.39, 17.6 cents above last week, up 29 cents from last month, and 57 cents higher than last year.

"Californians are used to seeing gas prices rise quickly in the springtime, but this three-penny-a-day level of price increases is usually seen in March or April," said Auto Club spokesperson Jeffrey Spring. "San Diego is already within seven cents of its all-time record price, Santa Barbara is within eight cents, and most other areas are within 15 cents of breaking records. Oil industry analysts are saying that this spring's price spike is primarily being driven by investors bidding up the price of wholesale gasoline and oil."

Florida: Gasoline prices have set a new Florida record of $3.24 a gallon. $4 a gallon gasoline could be reality by May, a AAA spokesman said.

"We think it is a very real possibility, unfortunately," said Gregg Laskoski, spokesman for AAA Auto Club South in Tampa.

One month ago regular gasoline sold for $3.04 and one year ago the average gallon of gasoline statewide was $2.43.

The spring price run-up, typically when prices are highest, comes from refiners switching to more expensive blends as the summer driving season starts.

Now a gallon of gas costs $3.31 in West Palm Beach-Boca Raton.

"If we are looking at anything that remotely resembles what occurred last year from March through May, we could be looking at much higher prices," Laskoski said.

Doubling the cost of your groceries?

Our agriculture/grocery requirements won't drop in a recession. We might see more Netflix, less theater, and more dehydrated grocery products. Amazingly, while most grocery costs have doubled in the last decade in LA, soda and breakfast cereal have remained stable. Apparently consumers won't stand for artificial inflation anymore. During the earlier gas crunches of the decade, night life on the boulevards died around here, but it seems to have mostly returned (people couldn't hold out indefinitely?) Bicycling is actually gaining ground here and I hear auto sales are at all time lows.

The potential for global catstrophe is strong, with an industrialized China competing for use of our already strained agriculture as fuel, but I'm not too worried. We can manage to adapt just in time with wind, tidal, and solar. I'm hoping to get into those industries myself in a few years, working my way up to atomic particle streaming for hand-held replicator devices. The biggest puzzle piece we need now is transnational power delivery with minimum transmission loss. Oil/H2 freighters powered by kites may actually be more efficient than masers and superconductor cables.

As is though, I think it's already too late to rebuild a sweat labor infrastructure for places like LA. Katrina was a lesson in how non-liquid our rebuilding resources really are, When HUD and Habitat pointed out that we couldn't increase plywood and tar paper production to fill emergency construction demands.

The other real issue is of course water. This planet has always lived on recycled water, but we need to step up the assisted degree of such as we move further away from living on the river banks. Alas, water recycling also translates almost directly into increased fuel demands.

I think the most promising route is city-state skyscrapers lined with hydroponic farming and total water reclamation, surrounded by wind/solar/tidal feeds. Commuting from home to factory, office, school, the mall, grocery, and entertainment would be done by elevator. Renting a car for a trip would be more like renting a plane or boat is now. Considering though that our metropolis's are filled with 50 years old skyscrapers now, changes will be slow to come unless we simply retrofit. They won't happen before oil peaks out, even if we radically redesign our new-construction infrastructure model this instant. For a place like LA this means tighter logistical control, making sure employees live near work, and replacing the sprawl of stores with online conveyor-belt-like postal delivery; or people moving out of the big cities entirely. Agriculture, ports, and factories are the physical anchors we need to congregate around to reduce distribution and commuting, but we already do for the most part, except for all the suburbs.

Tighter pricing would influensce that (supermarkets reflecting exact local distribution costs), though 'what the market will bear' will probably continue to reign instead.

All told, I think our only timely survival option is to create new energy sources. My vote is making a ground tethered sattelite launcher and robots to build nuclear reactors on the moon. Iron smelting and ceramic firing up there would be a hitch though. That tether would also have to plumb water up there for interrim solar hydrolysis processes. Even that plan is far fetched, and I think solar powered H2 generators in the mid--east is the first route to go, besides local jet-stream and gulf-stream kite turbines. I think diverting agriculture to fuel is a huge mistake. Solar based nano-ceramic-mettalurgy (growing building materials like crystals on-site) would be real useful around now.

Lastly, it's absurd that we even have dumps in this age. I foresee robots with RFID chip scanners picking through all our garbage for recycling, perhaps starting at household dumpster locations to monitor individual garbage practices. Currently we aren't informed if it's efficient water/fuel usage to rinse a jar or can, or just recycle it dirty. Did you see The Island, in which the toilets monitored dietary concerns? I think that's where we're headed unless we have another dark ages, which frankly is easily possible within a century if no one with global power and vision steps in to change things. Bustling efficient civilizations have died in the past over the simple inability to rebuild infrastructure to reflect weathar changes. Running low on oil while the population increases is fairly comparable. We've come to rely on it for food, water, housing, clothing, building materials, construction, business, manufacturing, entertainment, commuting, and distribution. The average American will use 9 living rooms of oil for travel alone. It had to run out eventually.

I have heard (not sure if it's true) that lighting is our main use of fuel. If so, we could just get up at sunrise and tell ghost stories at night, live a slower life. I got a new fridge which actually cut my electrical bill in half. Alas, my gas bill doubled now that coals is taking the place of diesel electric generation. I'm not too happy about tearing apart our beautiful mountains or drilling Anwar either. It's an indication that we just go for desperate stop-gap measures and in fact do lack any powerful compasiionate visionary leadership. That model of infrastructure development will drive us back into the dark-ages when we run out of stop-gap measures. Things will get awfully tight if we plan to run the world on bio-fuel. It sounds green, but won't be if we have to tear out the last rain forests to plant crops, and beef up global warming. It was already clear two centuries ago that we couldn't sustain ourselves on bio-fuel when we moved from firewood harvesting to coal mining for the factories and home heating.

Living off the land isn't going to happpen. For So. Calififornias 40M residents to live off the land at 5 acres each would require another 63,000 of our 40,000 arable square miles already producing global agriculture.

Here's a useful article http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2006/10/23/brazilian-... which states "For California to replace 10% of its current petroleum consumption with ethanol, California would have to convert 50% of its existing farmland to grow biofuel crops. Not a chance." The way I try to demonstrate it, I ask people to envision plowing through a ready to harvest cornfield everywhere they drive.

I do have plans for a solar steam moped though, and most of the parts gathered to build it. Alas, I almost only travel at night.

My original comment was more about the short-term. The economy has been slowing (if not going into recession). This means that demand for fuel will also go down, which means the price of fuel will go down, in the short term. High-priced fuel has been driven by increasing demand for it, but that demand is driven by a booming global economy.

Long term, it seems likely that supply of oil will not be able to keep up and may suddenly go down, so oil prices will go up. Other sources of fuel/energy will become more economically viable, but energy will cost more than it currently does. The 20th century will have been a time of cheap (oil-based) energy, the future will not likely be that way. The transition to expensive energy may be painful. It's hard to say. People are good at adapting. In the long run, the change may be healthy, who knows. It all seems like a natural cycle to me. Populations expand and contract based on available resources. Still, political upheaval could happen (unhappy people precipitate political change), and that could do far more damage than lack of resources.

There you go!

No it does not surprise me at all and now look we have to dig deeper into our pockets this is really screwing us
real bad and Bush could really care less who he screws

Yes it will keep getting worse to gas up the car and cost us everything we have all because of our oil rich
President Bush

Wars could be a problem, otherwise I just see starving the poor as a likelihood in the absence of new cheap energy. Possibly though we could adopt to far less energy consumption even if not going back to the stone ages, and not having resources for home-steading.

This age of oil was quite brief even within recorded human history, but we've never had 7 billien people to feed before either.

I was watching the Blue Planet Tides and Coasts program. After all that equisite amazing beauty, the extra on the state of ocean life was heartbreaking, much resembling the peak oil issue. It was bleak to learn that the new fish I've been eating are because they've resorted to deep sea fish, having exhausted the old favorites. Apparently our fishing methods resemble bulldozing millenia old living corals, and though we've exhausted half our large sea-life, still 1/3 of the catch (15/16 for shrimp) is tossed because it's not what they're packaging at the moment. Already 1/4 of our fish is farmed.

It makes sense that eventually we have to run out of resources &/or leave them alone for posterity, and starve; if not now, then when we reach a population of 800 billion. It's starting to occur to me that perhaps we've already overshot our sustainable population mark.

I was referring to the short term on gas too. I think we'll see the cost of things like groceries double in less than five years. I doubt joy-riding accounts for a high share of fuel usage. {worth writing a survey on though}. If the recession is so bad that people stop working, we're into an entirely different sort of social restructuring problem.

I don't know. I wouldn't mind much. Less people on the roads doing all this unneccessary driving.

Probably.

Could be - it's up to $3.45 now, a 40 cent increase in less than two weeks. It is however just a conspiracy to further line the pockets of the oil companies with enormous wealth.

> I am sorry, unless you explain how this directly
> or indirectly involves me, I couldn't care less.
>

It involves you if you drive a car and have to pay for the gas.

It involves you if you pay for any of the following: food, water, housing, clothing, building materials, construction, business, manufacturing (commodities), entertainment, commuting, or distribution.

So unless everthing that you use comes from elves who feed off rain-watered apple trees in your yard, who fly around the world to gather materials, it affects you. India will be less affected because more of their lifestyle and industry is built around local human labor than machines.

Before coal/oil based industrialization we lived with hand-crafted clothing, shelter, furnishings, toys, appliances, and such built to last several generations. Today we would call things built to last bad for the economy, but that's because we're employed marketing and distributing goods now rather than actually making them (with the exception of entertainment, and even then the media itself is mass produced if not delivered digitally).

I don't drive a car, and when I do, I don't pay for my own gas.

You don't drive anything? How boring.

I drive plenty, but none of is mine.

If I did, why wouldn't I "really" believe it?