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Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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We're running $3.85 most places, some higher than that. Now that I am taking the bus to work, I fill up about every 2-1/2 months. Two miles to the park & ride.
With an android t check news and e-mail, the time goes by fast, and I get the benefits of walking a mile at the other end. My employer subsidizes the bus pass but even if i paid the cost would be less than the gas and other expenses of driving.
Mostly though, it's nice to thumb my nose at the oil companies. At least until the weather gets really cold.
Some of the reason why gas prices are consistently higher even when oil prices are lower recently has to do with the quality of the oil we are buying. More and more of our oil supply is coming from poorer quality reserves like shale oil and tar sands. When they refine the lower quality oil there is less of the "good" octane string hydrocrabons that go into making gas.
In the past this was less of a factor as well as there were additives like TEL and MTBE that were used to inflate the octane rating of the gas and allowed us to use lower concentrations of octane mixed with larger amounts of other carbon chains like butane and heptane. Since TEL and MTBE have been attacked for their polluting properties and largely replaced with ethanol, we need more octane chains to make gas.
So, we need more octane to make gas since we have largely banned the use of additives that had large pollution impact. The oil we are getting is of lower quality than "Middle Eastern Light Sweet" and we get less octane out of each barrel. Put them together and gas costs more even when oil prices are down below $100 a barrel.
I was in Dallas a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't believe gas was selling for $2.99 a gallon since it was $3.70 in when I left CA (where I live.) I looked up the national gas price map and it only seems to be that cheap right around TX.
There is no damn good reason why gas should be high.
I just paid $3.99 for a gallon of milk at a convenience store that is selling regular unleaded for $3.23 a gallon. Fountain drinks, the 16-ouncers, are $1.29. That's $10.32 a gallon, and it's half ice.
Buy bottled water in 12-ounce bottles, and see how much that is per gallon.
Think about where gas comes from. Miles underground, cracked in a very expensive refinery, shipped half way around the world to a station a few blocks from your house, all taxes included, cheaper than Coca Cola (water, corn syrup, carbon dioxide, artificial flavor and color).
Think about where gas comes from. Miles underground, cracked in a very expensive refinery, shipped half way around the world to a station a few blocks from your house, all taxes included, cheaper than Coca Cola (water, corn syrup, carbon dioxide, artificial flavor and color).
My car drinks a lot more gas than I do milk. Coke is a bad example because it's often sold as a loss leader to draw customers into the store. It's not hard to get a gallon of Coke for $2 to $2.50 ( two 2L bottles.)
I just paid $3.99 for a gallon of milk at a convenience store that is selling regular unleaded for $3.23 a gallon. Fountain drinks, the 16-ouncers, are $1.29. That's $10.32 a gallon, and it's half ice.
Buy bottled water in 12-ounce bottles, and see how much that is per gallon.
Think about where gas comes from. Miles underground, cracked in a very expensive refinery, shipped half way around the world to a station a few blocks from your house, all taxes included, cheaper than Coca Cola (water, corn syrup, carbon dioxide, artificial flavor and color).
There is no raw material cost for oil/gas. It just has to be removed from whatever it's in.
OTOH I just bought two liters of Icelandic Glacier water for $2.50 at a convenience store. I seldom buy bottled water but forgot to bring the filtered refrigerated tapwater from home. I find it hard to believe that a liter of glacier water can make it from Iceland in a nice plastic bottle for $1.25.
Up here in "tarsands land" (it's called oilsands unless you are a tree hugging environut.. then you call it tarsands) gas is over 4 bucks a US gallon. its called TAX...coming soon to you as Obamasiah will need to pay for all that free healthcare.
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