Gasoline Prices Continue To Plunge; U.S. Crude Oil Supply At 86-Year High

What is spurring the decline in prices this time???

http://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2016/07/21/u-s-gasoline-demand-reaches-record-levels/#35aac29376c4



Thanks to cheap gas, sales of hybrid and EV cars have plummeted: http://www.autoblog.com/2016/06/03/may-2016-green-car-sales/



Once again, cheap gas means idiots start buying up trucks and SUV's. It never fails. If we gave a flying fuck about the climate, we'd enact taxes that would ensure gas never fell below $4/gal. ever again, and use those tax proceeds to incentivize rail lines, bus routes, and tax breaks for hybrid and EV vehicles. But I have no hope we'll see that happen anytime soon.

Once again, cheap gas means idiots start buying up trucks and SUV's. It never fails.

THIS. This is why I hate it when gas gets cheap. People look short-term, as if low prices are going to last forever, and start buying gas guzzlers again.

nt

There will come a day when oil is used as a quirky, historical adjunct--to run those antique cars, and show people how oil lanterns work, etc. The sooner the better!

I can remember paying four bucks a gallon under Bush and feeling like I was living in Europe!

A lot of us who believed we'd hit Peak Oil saw it as the last brake on human civilization, the only thing left to stop us from consuming the resources of this world.

But now that we've figured out how to frack the shit out of the once-inaccessible hard oil reserves (and deplete precious fresh water reserves at the same time), we've guaranteed our children and grandchildren will get to live a very bleak, painful life as the ice caps melt, droughts and floods seesaw across farmlands, and oceans swallow the cities. Apparently we as a species can't stop burning oil no matter what the consequences are. It's our heroin, and we are about to OD on it.

I mean, really--who wants to pay a guy to come with a truck to your house and pump a flammable fluid into a tank in your basement, IF you could get the same results from our good friend Mister Sun? Energy from solar and wind used to be terribly expensive but those costs are plummeting and making those options HUGELY competitive.

We're also getting smarter about how much energy we USE--LED light bulbs are amazing--I can't believe how much less energy they burn that incandescents or even the squiggly neons (which I was using over in Europe years before they took off in USA).

Battery tech for vehicles isn't quite there yet for long distance driving, but even with gasoline engines, they are getting more and more efficient. I am astounded at the MPG some of these cars get. And hybrid cars do well, too.

I don't like fracking and I am lucky as I live in a state where we don't do that. Water is a precious resource and we shouldn't mess with it. Also, those earthquakes aren't happening outta the blue.

Hopefully we'll get to the point where we are totally onboard with renewable/sustainable modes of providing energy to ourselves.

Many of the peak oil folks I heard from were insisting that we'd be sitting in the dark, freezing our asses off and everyone would DIE, I TELL YOU, DIE!!!

MY POV on oil? I think it is having its last hurrah. Buggy whips on sale--get 'em while they're hot!

It may take longer for China to get with the program, but maybe not, too. If they can make a buck selling solar on a wide scale, they'll get the spirit. And that top-down government will basically whip the shit out of anyone who doesn't play ball. Right now, that coal and oil they use is dirt cheap, so that's how they're rolling, but one day they'll see the utility (and the profit potential) of taking another path.

We don't advance technology so that we can use less. That would be a waste of time and energy. We can use less by using less. We don't need technology to do that for us, not that technology could do that for us anyway. The whole point of technological advancement is to get more access to more stuff for more people.

Like any good corporation, we privatize the profits of the planet, and socialize the costs. The cheaper the energy is for us, the more the rest of life on this planet pays for it, one way or another.

Fracking in various forms has been around as long as commercial oil production has been.

Honestly, I never thought I'd see gas below $3/gallon again in my life.

Just filled my tank for $1.92 here in Jacksonville, Florida a couple of days ago.

I've never gas that low in the middle of summer

is the lowest here in S Pasadena.

Or they do it because they can.

They don't give a rat's ass about the consumers.

Hopefully not this time?

I guess I gotta fire up the Humvee now....

Think of the poor Big Oil exec struggling to pay for their yacht, their mansion, their mistresses and hookers and their golden toilet bowls!

Damn you, you black ninja!

I remember it happening during Obama/McCain in 08

for all the wrong reasons though--the economy was in freefall.

I still wonder how much energy prices and consumer fear figured into the timing of the crash. Borrowing was over-extended and there were a lot of folks who weren't going to be able to heat their homes, eat, and put gas in their cars.

Of course that would be perspective of the privileged who had mortgages and cars to be underwater with.

Prices tend to run above average out here in the middle of nowhere. So we got that going for us.

Every time I see the price of gas fall, I see my daughter's future slipping away as morons around me buy new SUV's and pickups, and the global temperature gets hotter, and hotter, and hotter.

Both cheap natural gas and gasoline are inhibiting the growth of sustainable energy. Fortunately it's a very short cycle in a long history. This bubble will collapse eventually.

The MASSIVE rising middle class in China will more than make up for our efficiency gains over the next 30 years.

It's easy to feel better about one's own reliance on fossil fuels by point to a more egregious example. But in the end, we all either get behind the economic and practical push for alternative energy, or we all share the consequences.

Cheap gasoline does make that push much more difficult. Fracking pushed the world back 30 years+.

2005 Screw f150....I call it my river truck. Needed something to haul the kayaks in.

Of course it sits in the driveway until the weekends, so petrol could be 4 bucks a gallon and not bother us. I figure 1500 miles a year tops.

CT is usually higher than the national average because we have such high taxes, yet still awful roads and bridges.

The store near me, as posted above, had been at $1.85/gal for about 2 weeks now. Wednesday evening it was still at that price, but when I went there Thursday morning it was down to $1.75/gal... Last Fall, it got down to $1.18/gal before going back up.... let's see how low it gets now...

Peace,

Ghost

Or, not necessarily more accurately,

"It's ALL THANKS to PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!"

I love saying that to my very few Republican friends when the subject comes up... LOL