Gasoline May Rise Above $5 a Gallon

[EdmondLeaf]

I like $0.79 per gge of cng and more than 70 stations

 

[Nubo]

I saw a Suburban leaving Home Depot the other day with this bumper sticker:
http://www.desertdogdecals.com/my-carbon-footprint-will-fit-nicely-up-your-liberal-ass" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Funny how the web site brags about donating a % of sales to the wounded warrior fund.

I've been thinking about a bumper sticker to the tune of
"No U.S. Soldier died to propel my car"
Anyone here make bumper stickers or seen any EV sticker that's similar to this?

Philip

Go to Vistaprint.com and you can make a bumper sticker just about any way you like, in any quantity. Once you choose a design, they will do everything in their power to sell you more stuff, but just keep politely declining, and EVENTUALLY they will let you check out and order your bumper sticker.

 

[camasleaf]

In 7 years we will not be able to say that driving ICE is giving money to the people that whant to kill us:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/opec-survival-uncertain-amid-u-152029951.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

China and India will.

 

[RegGuheert]

In 7 years we will not be able to say that driving ICE is giving money to the people that want to kill us:

If that is so, then why did they have to suspend the EPA regulations in order for fracking to take off? It seems as if those people who sell us oil may still want to kill us!

In any case, don't hold your breath. I do not expect the U.S. to ever again be self-sufficient for oil.

 

[dgpcolorado]

...In any case, don't hold your breath. I do not expect the U.S. to ever again be self-sufficient for oil.

Not that I expect it to happen anytime soon, but if electric cars caught on the reduced number of ICE cars needing oil as fuel might allow domestic oil production to be enough for self-sufficiency. One of the things I point out to those who are opposed to EVs is that they should be rooting for MORE EVs on the streets so that more oil is left for them to use in their ICE cars. I think the rational ones "get" it.

However, in "Econ-speak" oil is a fungible commodity so that a barrel of oil purchased from Texas, North Dakota or Alaska means that someone else is buying one from Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or Russia. That means that prices tend to be set by the global oil market and if predictions about sharply increased oil use in emerging markets, such as China and India, prove true, being self-sufficient for oil in the USA will not insulate oil users here from price increases. While being self-sufficient for oil would help the national balance of payments, the idea that it is a panacea for keeping gasoline prices down is utter nonsense because the amount of domestic production would still be small compared to the global oil market.

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

I keep reading reports (actually only the first paragraph or two) of massive new finds of oil in the US, Australia, etc that will "supply the world for decades"

am I to believe they are lying (i do) or exaggerating? (i do) Or should I best believe that the environmental impact would be too severe? (not that oil companies would care about something so trivial)

 

[WetEV]

I keep reading reports (actually only the first paragraph or two) of massive new finds of oil in the US, Australia, etc that will "supply the world for decades"

am I to believe they are lying (i do) or exaggerating? (i do) Or should I best believe that the environmental impact would be too severe? (not that oil companies would care about something so trivial)

Conventional oil is past peak. What is being "found" is unconventional oil, such as tar sands, oil from "tight" shales, deep offshore, etc. This is "oil" that has been known about for decades, but is only recently profitable to extract. Note that in a market, the cost of the highest cost seller needed to "clear the market" is about the market price. The highest cost oil being extracted now is deep offshore oil, about $70 to $90 per barrel. Keeping the oil supply going will likely mean even higher cost oil being extracted.

Now, a key question is what are future costs and prices likely to do? Short term, a decade or so, is very hard to guess. But longer term, there are a couple of potential huge and high cost supplies. The biggest one is coal to liquids. There is a lot of coal known about now, hundreds of years worth even with a growing rate of consumption. And to be blunt, we have no realistic chance to burn it all due to greenhouse gas concerns. The Fischer-Tropsch process was first used in a big way by the Germans in WW2, and later by South Africa during apartheid years. The SA plants are still operating with only very modest subsidies. These would be profitable when compared to crude oil priced in around $130 per barrel, depending on the exact coal available and lots of other factors. China has built some coal to oil plants in recent years as well, and there are several under construction in the USA. All of this leads to a longer term price cap of around $5 (2013 dollars) per gallon for gasoline, without tax and without greenhouse gas concerns. Sure, the price might get higher than that for years to a decade, but is unlikely to stay higher.Note that building a coal to liquids plant doesn't make economic sense, unless the price of oil is expected to rise more.

This is what peak oil looks like. Price of gasoline goes up, from $1 to $5 pretax. Maybe a bit more, but not a lot more. Might spike a lot higher, but isn't likely to stay a lot higher longer term.

 

[DNAinaGoodWay]

Gas dipped to as low as $3.29 here this winter, but lately has crept back up to $3.69.

I know this because yesterday my wife's sister was over, having a glass of wine and chatting, and at some point I looked up from what I was reading when I overheard her complaining how gas was rising again. I said, "oh, is it?", and she got a little huffy, saying with a tone of mild disgust, "you WOULD say that." (She is a Rush and Fox fan.)

But It was an innocent question on my part, I really hadn't noticed. Sometime in these first ten weeks of having a Leaf, I stopped looking at gas stations as I drove around. I used to keep tabs on the price, but now don't even think about it.

I guess some old habits die easy.

 

[RegGuheert]

There is a lot of coal known about now, hundreds of years worth even with a growing rate of consumption.

Here is a recent article predicting the worldwide peak in coal production to be around 2050. It is a very long article and it discusses some other predictions that are out there.

And to be blunt, we have no realistic chance to burn it all due to greenhouse gas concerns.

Agreed. Unfortunately, the penalty for burning coal (or oil, for that matter) lags by so long that we are likely to burn more than we should. Perhaps we have already passed that point.

 

[WetEV]

There is a lot of coal known about now, hundreds of years worth even with a growing rate of consumption.

Here is a recent article predicting the worldwide peak in coal production to be around 2050. It is a very long article and it discusses some other predictions that are out there.

I'm not very convinced that only 5% of the coal is minable. I don't think so. UK, for example, has mined about 27 Gt to date, and total resource estimates range from (from memory, I can't find a reference quickly) 80 GT to 160 GT. And the UK didn't mostly stop mining coal because the seams ran out...

How much is minable? Of course it will depend on the price vs the cost of extraction. The higher the price, the more that can be extracted.

 

[cwerdna]

Gas dipped to as low as $3.29 here this winter, but lately has crept back up to $3.69.

I saw it past $4.05/gal 3 days ago over here. Even many cheap gas stations are past $3.90/gal now. http://www.sanjosegasprices.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; pegs our avg at $4.033/gal now.

 

[RegGuheert]

I'm not very convinced that only 5% of the coal is minable. I don't think so. UK, for example, has mined about 27 Gt to date, and total resource estimates range from (from memory, I can't find a reference quickly) 80 GT to 160 GT. And the UK didn't mostly stop mining coal because the seams ran out...

Sure, but England is land. Most of the world is covered in oceans, so the rate for recovery of coal worldwide should be lower than for England.

How much is minable? Of course it will depend on the price vs the cost of extraction. The higher the price, the more that can be extracted.

That is a common misconception regarding the extraction of energy resources. It has nothing to do with the price. It has to to with Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI). Simply put, if it takes more energy to extract the coal than the energy content of the coal itself, you cannot recover the coal because you would be a net energy consumer instead of a producer. (You might extract the coal for some other purpose besides energy, however, if it is somehow valuable for other purposes.)

The big problem is to distinguish between reserves, which are expected to be produced economically with the known technology and resources, in essence the volume without any constraints. Presently, coal seams less than 50 cm thick, deeper than 1500 m or offshore are not considered as reserves. This is why for the world the volume of resources is more than 20 times the volume of reserves. The constraints are mainly energetic: energy return over energy invested.

 

[WetEV]

I'm not very convinced that only 5% of the coal is minable. I don't think so. UK, for example, has mined about 27 Gt to date, and total resource estimates range from (from memory, I can't find a reference quickly) 80 GT to 160 GT. And the UK didn't mostly stop mining coal because the seams ran out...

Sure, but England is land. Most of the world is covered in oceans, so the rate for recovery of coal worldwide should be lower than for England.

Coal mines in the UK used to go far under the ocean floor. The one of the earliest examples:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bruce_of_Carnock" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Again, UK mostly didn't stop mining coal because the seams ran out, or because the EROEI was less than 1 or some other number. The UK mostly stopped mining coal because imported coal from strip mines was cheaper. A lot cheaper.

How much is minable? Of course it will depend on the price vs the cost of extraction. The higher the price, the more that can be extracted.

That is a common misconception regarding the extraction of energy resources. It has nothing to do with the price. It has to to with Energy Return On Energy Invested (EROEI). Simply put, if it takes more energy to extract the coal than the energy content of the coal itself, you cannot recover the coal because you would be a net energy consumer instead of a producer. (You might extract the coal for some other purpose besides energy, however, if it is somehow valuable for other purposes.)

The big problem is to distinguish between reserves, which are expected to be produced economically with the known technology and resources, in essence the volume without any constraints. Presently, coal seams less than 50 cm thick, deeper than 1500 m or offshore are not considered as reserves. This is why for the world the volume of resources is more than 20 times the volume of reserves. The constraints are mainly energetic: energy return over energy invested.

I'm not convinced that 95% of the coal isn't minable. Currently most resources not classed as reserves are so classed so as the cost of mining is several times higher than the market prices, which are mostly set by very cheap strip mined coal.

 

[planet4ever]

And to be blunt, we have no realistic chance to burn it all due to greenhouse gas concerns.

Agreed. Unfortunately, the penalty for burning coal (or oil, for that matter) lags by so long that we are likely to burn more than we should. Perhaps we have already passed that point.

[tirade on]

Perhaps? In my biased opinion we passed the point of what we should burn roughly 75 years ago. We passed the point of what we can compensate for burning about 20 years ago. Sadly, we are now past the point of being able to fully preserve our beautiful planet no matter how desperately our children and grandchildren try to undo our folly.

In my dreams, oil should cost $1000/barrel, and it should be illegal to mine coal anywhere in the world. In my far more probable nightmares, no future generation of human beings on this planet will ever have a life as easy or as pleasant as ours.

[tirade off]

Ray

 

[DaveinOlyWA]

you nailed it Ray

 

[dgpcolorado]

you nailed it Ray

I agree. My sense of the research is that even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today the higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue climate change for decades to come. Add to that the tipping point where large amounts of methane stored in the oceans or in frozen ground is released by the warming climate and the change could accelerate regardless of additions to CO2 levels.

I view it as a done deal and we should be working on how to live with the change, in addition to trying to keep adding to the problem. Things like moving cities back from coastlines rather than rebuilding them after storm surges, studying how changing rainfall patterns and warming will affect growing crops, and the like. But change comes hard for most people, so nothing will be done, IMO.

 

[ksnogas2112]

you nailed it Ray

+1 My grandfather owned a gas station back in the '50's. When I was growing up he was bemoaning that gasoline needed a $1/gallon tax to invest in alternative energy. This was back in the early 70's. He was right.

 

[GRA]

$4.06 yesterday at my corner gas station. Maybe $4.00 if I looked for the best prices. Anyone know what's been driving the big runup (ca. $.50/gal.) in the past month? I heard about a couple of refinery shutdowns, but IIRC they were out of state so don't think that would affect California. And crude prices have gone up some, but nowhere near enough to cause that big a boost.

 

[TRONZ]

even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today the higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue climate change for decades to come.

The Eco term is "Atmospheric Commitment" and yes, it takes about 30 years! What we are feeling today is what we pumped into the atmosphere in the early 80's. What we are doing today won't be fully felt until after 2040.

Premium was at $4.69 on the westside of LA yesterday. People are resigned to it. The real tipping point for social unrest (Change) won't happen until massive crop failures and people can no longer afford food. There will be blood!

 

[Nubo]

$4.06 yesterday at my corner gas station. Maybe $4.00 if I looked for the best prices. anyone know what's been driving the big runup (ca. $.50/gal.) in the past month? I heard about a couple of refinery shutdowns, but IIRChey were out of state so don't think that would affect California. And crude prices have gone up some, but nowhere near enough to cause that big a boost.

One news account mentioned refineries reducing output as they switch to summer blends but it seems a bit early for that; I thought they usually did this during March.