According to Phil Flynn, Vice President and Senior Market Analyst at Alaron Trading, gas prices nationwide have been recently reduced about $.05 per gallon and he says this is just the beginning. He predicts that gas prices could go down to $3.50 a gallon by Labor Day (Sept. 1st).
According to CBS2′s article,
“We saw a substantial drop in the price of crude oil, which it appears gas station owners were in a hurry to pass on to consumers,” said Phil Flynn, Vice President an Senior Market Analyst at Alaron Trading.
“So often we hear gas prices rise like a rocket and drop like a feather, this time, they’re starting to drop like a rock and that’s a good thing,” Flynn said.
That’s partly because demand is down about 4 percent from where it usually is. Many people have put the brakes on driving this summer because it costs too much.
“We could see $3.70 in the city and if we get really lucky, maybe $3.50 by Labor Day,” Flynn said.
Yes, there is a fine line between educated speculation and full on media whoring, but does Phil look like the kind of guy who would simply say what we all want to hear, just to get his name in the news? Ok, don’t answer that.
Expert: Gas Prices Dropping Like A Rock [CBS2]
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@AD8BC: whoops!
* Development — These things take time, I’m talking about both vehicles and infrastructure (piping hydrogen to hydrogen stations, installing natural gas compressors in homes so you can fill up there.
* Early adoptors — New technology will cost — a lot — and you need the rich folk to buy them first and spark demand. We certainly don’t want to make people have to get really bad car loans, do we?
* Need the technology to stick — at the Breakers mansion in Newport, RI, when it was built so long ago, the lighting was half electric and half gas because the owners didn’t know if electricity would “catch on”. I would hate to buy a hydrogen car and then, alas, it doesn’t catch on. If I had to buy a new technology car, I would keep my old gas guzzler around just in case.
@Bladefist: Please tell me why alternate energies are BS. Can you provide a link that supports your assertion that all alternate energy forms are energy negative. The only one I agree with you on is Corn based ethanol. What about all the others?
Here are a few of mine [[www1.eere.energy.gov]]
[[www.awea.org]]
[
@Tmoney02: Well, like a hour after his speech it dropped. Everyone, pretty much figured it was his speech. But it *could* have been something else. The point I was making is, oil can jump up or down on a whim. And the only important oil news of the day was Bush’s speech.
@Puck: Well generally most degrees are trash. But the fact remains, I p0wned you guys in science.
@Bladefist:
There isn’t any debating with you & when people try you resort to ad hominem attacks & logical fallicies instead of refuting your or their points. Either way you are going to push your agenda, ignore factual information & valid points, so why bother?
@ARP: I never said anything about ‘negative’ energies. So I don’t provide references for things I don’t say.
We’re all misunderstanding bladefist. It’s not that he’s talking out his ass, or intentionally confusing issues, or spreading complete FUD; it’s just that he’s taking the long term view. In the long term, entropy increases and the universe dies. Kudos to him for seeing the big picture.
Small picture people like you and me, concerned only with, say, the next millennium or so, might say that solar energy is renewable for our purposes, as are wind, geothermal, and various biofuels. And we might say that coal and oil aren’t renewable, merely because it would take millions of years to renew them. But that’s because we’re stuck in the short term.
Clearly, if only the rest of us were college grads, we might be able to comprehend this.
@Bladefist: First, congratulations on graduating(?)
Why don’t we call oil what is is then? A temporary, albeit long term, solution to providing dirty energy for the world. In this case the term renewable doesn’t stand for some kind of cold fusion reactor, as you’re insinuating, but for harnessing energy that’s already present in the world anyway and most people realize that as the case, its just a term. Yeah, that would just be horrible, Mother Nature doesn’t have very deep pockets and that would certainly offend repubs. As for calling it expensive, yeah, oil is SUPER cheap, I know what you mean. Its only a few million to find an appropriate place to first test drill and then actually decide on. Then, its only a few hundred million for an oil rig that produces at its peak for a year or two and is worthless after 12 or so. Plus the cost of shipping and refining the oil and then shipping the finished product, that stuff is so cheap. The real cost of alternative energy, and most things, is the R&D. I’m sure oil did and still does spend billions to try to get this process down, I’m just too busy right now to look into it.
The real problem is the only people getting any kind of money for new energy sources are universities, which are often one project of many the investigator is involved in. Plus you’re basing all your advances on underpaid and overworked grad students. You’re right, currently this stuff is expensive, but give it as much money and half the time as oil has had and we’ll see what it costs and how efficient it can get. But that will never happen because when it comes to alternate energy we need it NOW, but when it comes to oil(ie offshore drilling) 15 years from now is fine and dandy.
@ratnerstar: I never created FUD for saying the sun was going to burn out. Merely pointed out, it was not renewable and the term was being misused.
You can’t create new FUD, bladefist, only transfer it to different forms.
@Puck: Almost forgot, that comment is pure win.
@Bladefist: In that case oil is renewable too. Once the sun burns out and supernovas destroying the Earth there won’t be any more oil either, therefore oil is renewable energy also, according to you, and therefore must be some kind of terrorist..err socialist..err democratic ploy.
@crabbyman6: @ratnerstar: @Jaysyn: @Puck:
Please stop the personal attacks. If you have something important to say to my arguments, say it. Personal attacks will get you banned from here, fyi.
@Bladefist:
BF: “Electric cars are inefficient.”
ARP: You mean as far as their range and recharge times? Yes they currently are. But we’re making huge strides and efficency is increasing much faster than the evolution of the ICE. If you’re saying the physics of electric cars is inefficient, I have to disagree.
BF: “That said, if we adopted them, the grid wouldn’t be low at night anymore, everyone would be charging their cars.”
ARP: Right, that’s the point, we’re simply using up execess capacity. As I mentioned, we might have to produce more as I don’t think there’s that much excess capacity.
BF: “If we are still on coal, that would bring us back to global warming.”
ARP: Which you think is a scam, but regardless: A centralized coal plant (using modern scrubbers) produces a lot less GHG’s than all the individual ICE engines. So while, its not ideal, its much better than what we have. Also, see above on alternate grid energy sources. It’s similar to power generation- what’s more efficient, a large oil power plant or a lot of little generators. It’s the large centralized power plants that are more efficient. Same goes with the pollution control.
@Bladefist: I never attacked you, I don’t know what you’re referring to. If you’re referring to your degree, you brought it up on your own, I was merely congratulating you as I assume you wouldn’t bring it up if it weren’t recent instead of bringing it up in an attempt to make personal attacks on someone yourself.
I sincerely hope this is not true. The Los Angeles traffic problem is not going to solve itself, and high gas prices might just be the trick.
@Bladefist: “I never said anything about ‘negative’ energies. So I don’t provide references for things I don’t say.”
My bad: please support the following:
BF: “Forget about Alternative energy. It’s not going to happen. It doesn’t even exist yet.”
ARP: Wind and solar power exists right now. Tidal and wave power are coming on-line. Also, of course it won’t happen if its not supported. That’s not logical.
BF: “Expensive ways to harvest inefficient energy that protects the earth from an unscientific crisis.”
ARP: Wind and Solar are nearing par with Coal and NG in terms of total costs to produce. Electricity is much cheaper to power cars than gas (5X less in costs per mile). While you may not believe that global warming exists- from a pollution perspective, would you rather live next to a solar array or next to a coal plant?
I should follow my own policy re: feeding trolls. Have fun, guys.
@ARP:
That is a good point. Since we can’t efficient/at all store energy. I’ll admit, I don’t know the cost effectiveness of the KWH and gas, and the cost of the cars. I’ll research that. What I do know is, Americans aren’t going to adopt them, because most people are used to their SUVs and people like horsepower. However, some of the gas/electric hybrids are a step in the right direction.
@crabbyman6: You are mocking me in a way to make people who haven’t read my comments think I am foolish. You are bringing absolutely nothing to the debate.
@Bladefist:
Awesome argument. I’ll take that as you concede.
@Bladefist: I think the points made in the post do bring something to the discussion (I strain to call this a debate as many comments are made without reference, including my own since its not a scientific publication). I see you’re going to ignore those though and focus on one thing since they’d be too difficult for you to dispute.
For wind/solar you have to use up a ton of land. It’s not cost effective. Also some people say (i dont fully agree) that the wind turbines are loud, and the solar panels reflect bright lights and heat. In other words, people are complaining.
I personally support tidal.
@ARP: Well this is my last post on this debate since its not about gas anymore really. We can debate in private message if you want.
Here is a caller from Rockport, MO, a town that runs on wind.
I know its Rush Limbaugh, and I know people will think its biased, it probably is. But read the interview. I’ll wait for my Rush Limbaugh attacks.
[www.rushlimbaugh.com]
@Bladefist: The caller is not from Rockport. My bad.But still a good read.
@Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy: I love you people who blame everything on the greed of oil companies.
@Bladefist: Atmospheric measurements say that global warming exists, and a little deduction can help us strongly infer that global warming is caused by humans.
@Bladefist: You’re hilarious.
@ARP: “Our dollar is worthless right now. A certain administration caused or contributed to this by reducing the interest rate in response to every economic problem.“
1) Bush has nothing to do with the FED.
2) Goodie for them for decreasing interest rates every time the economy slows down. I see the FED passed macroecon 101. How about you?
@Bladefist: Yes, except that you’re only speaking in absolute terms. If you want to take the layman’s approach (the only approach that will work on the population en masse) you have to devise terms that work on a low logical level. If you know that current oil methods are unsustainable, while other sources, wind, solar and the like are sustainable, you brand the sustainable one as renewable.
Could this be solved by calling them sustainable and non-sustainable energy sources? Yes. Does the average deep south American truly understand sustainability? Probably not. So to get votes in the south, democrats need to speak in terms they understand.
(Any of this is not personal dogma, just hypothesis… don’t flame me for assuming this is how I feel on the issue.)
For equal time, are Democrats promoting technologies that are inefficient and not cost-effective? Yes.
Food for thought. Why not take all the money we’re spending on developing alternative energy sources like ethanol and give it to France in exchange for their safe nuclear technology and techniques? Isn’t something like 2/3 of France and 1/2 of London powered by France’s nuclear technology? And I may be misinformed (thanks 20/20) but I thought they had a method of storing spent rods in a pool for ~50 years to avoid a Yucca Mountain sort of situation over there.
@cf27: If you believe that oil companies have that much control over their prices, then why is gas not at $6.00 a gallon or $10.00 a gallon. If oil companies could just increase profits by increasing pump prices, then why did they ever let me buy gas at $0.79 a gallon (in 1999)? They would have made a lot more money charging me $4.00. Why would oil companies ever reduce prices?
I strongly believe that Big Oil has a lot of room to inflate/lower pump prices. If they aren’t able to, and interested in, keeping pump prices as high as the market will reasonably bear, then how else did Exxon earn profits of over $40 Billion in 2007?
@heavylee-again: The same way Change Bank does so well — sheer volume.
Conversations in PA and OH (and other places) are to vote out all Republicans, because – Republicans = Big Oil profits.
I suspect that is part of this reason to hope gas prices drop – but it will need to go much more below $3.50 to make a difference in people’s perspective.
Media whore. HAHAHAHA!
@Bladefist: Are you trying to tell us that Bush and company are responsible for the price of oil going down? That’s absolutely absurd. Dana Perino herself was hesitant to claim any responsibility for the fall in recent oil prices, and you can bet that every politician in Washington would take credit for good circumstances if it was at all possible that they might be responsible. No, the recent fall in oil prices has to do with Americans not being able to afford gas and buying less, thus increasing supply. It has nothing to do with Bush releasing restrictions on off shore drilling.
I’ll tell you the motivation for Bush releasing restrictions on off shore drilling…wait for it …money. He’s an oil man for gosh sakes, along with his friends and presidential sponsors. They all want to sell as much oil as they can to a WORLD MARKET as they can while the price is high. Do you actually think drilling off of Americas coasts will produce oil for America? No, It’ll be in China before the week is out. Personally, I would wish that we keep as much oil as possible close to ourselves for the day when it gets really valuable.
@Bladefist:
Nuclear is more expensive than most other energy sources, including wind.
[blogs.tnr.com]
One company is getting out of the business of building nuclear plants and instead is investing in clean coal plants.
[www.tulsaworld.com]
And regarding lifting the drilling ban, according to this report by this administrations EIA, completed at the request of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, drilling in the ANWR would lower the price of a barrel of oil by a whopping, wait for it, a whopping $0.75 per barrel! That’s $0.75 as in 75 cents a barrel savings.
Here is the EIA report. The cost statement is in the last paragraph of page 6. You’ll have to cut and paste it as the link wouldn’t work. “http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/anwr/pdf/sroiaf(2008)03.pdf”
As T. Boone Pickens, an oil man and (former?) supporter of this president says, “we can’t drill our way out this mess”.
Why lower fuel prices, when you can raise them to compensate for the loss in demand? Its time to make fuel $20 per gallon because will take time to adjust infrastructure while life goes on, so anyone in the fuel business could jab users in the face a few times and make big money.
See how much offshore drilling helped? If you don’t give them what they want, you should expect them to get angry and raise prices. You have to give them what they want, or else. Always give in to corporate interests, its part of your enslavement.
@Bladefist:
I think the reason that people “can’t just be happy” is because that’s really not very smart. That is how conservatives deal with reality in general; temporary fixes. Gas prices too high? Gas tax holiday baby! Everyone party with the $40 you’ll save! Economy going down the shitter? Everyone have $600! Everyone happy yet? Everyone happy now! Ignore the larger problems with our temporary boost of happy!
The Republican party is stuck in the ’80s. They think another bump or line will get the country through the bleary eyed, 5 in the morning crash bad times, while the Democrats are trying to get the country into rehab.
who cares what the state of the nation is? Success is dictated by stock prices.
@Bladefist:
Wind turbines are loud. So are the solar installations that they’re installing in various places in the southwest. The problem is not so much that they are loud, which they are, but that there are many of them all in one place, and that place happens to be out in the middle of nowhere. Land isn’t really the issue, because there’s tons and tons of vacant land. It’s the people that are already near or on the land.
I’m with you on the tidal or wave power installations, which have that advantage and many others.
I’m going to have one hell off a laugh when we have an alternative at the pump to oil, and prices fall like the world trade center.
@heavylee-again: Of course each oil company keeps their prices as high as the market will reasonably bear. But, that’s true in every industry. When you sell something, you want as high of a price as you can get.
However, what the “market will reasonably bear” is based on the laws of supply and demand. Do you know what would happen if Exxon were to reduce their price below what the market would bear? Answer: there would be shortages. Sure, prices would be lower, but you would have to wait in line to get gas, and some people would have to do without.
Exxon made a lot of money last year because a lot of people wanted to buy gasoline and the petroleum industry only has the capacity to provide so much.
You haven’t answered my question — if ExxonMobil is artificially keeping the price high to boost its bottom line, then why didn’t they also do it in 1999? Why can’t they boost it up to $6.00 a gallon and make even more money?
In 2007, Exxon made about 10% on its sales, which is about what they made in 2003 and every year in between. $40B profit sounds like an awful lot, until you realize that their sales were about $400B.
The bad news is that by then the dollar will equal about 25 cents compared to today’s dollar. My guess as to why? Grocery shrink ray accidentally hits the commodities market and Fort Knox in a tragic attempt to shrink the size of chicken eggs.
I don’t think that Americans will suddenly start spending more, even if gas does go down in price, given the current economic woes.
@Bladefist: What speech? According to THIS, the announcement to lift the offshore drilling ban occurred on 14 July. Ten days ago. What happened to oil in those ten days:
NOTHING! Until the 15th. An “immediate” reaction? An A -> B thing? Uh, no. According to the timestamp on the DU thread that linked the MSNBC article, Bush made his announcement not later than 10 AM on 7/14, and oil stayed high until at least 10:30 AM on 7/15. Finally, as soon as Bush made his announcement, Congress threw ice water all over it, saying Hell would freeze over before they follow suit. So no reaction. Didn’t happen.
What did happen? Reduced demand and investigations into the shenanigans that pushed oil to nearly $150 in the first place, that’s what. You think we just kept driving our Hummers all this time as if nothing had happened? Wake up and smell the Maxwell House.
Still not low enough for me at $3.50. Bring back the good ol days of 2.50 a gallon.
@Bladefist: you delude yourself. how does this impact oil what so ever? it’s removal does nothing. i guess the indians and chinese woke up that day and used less gas.
@Bladefist: at least we won’t be renewing the republicans going forward.
Time to increase the gas tax to make sure that it does not fall below $3.50 a gallon. How? By getting rid of the tax of x amount per gallon and instead making it a percentage on sales, just like every other tax. Its time to stop feeding Chavez, Suadia Arabia, Iran, and all the other oil crap holes out there. Drill here (off shore is useless, too expensive, too dangerous to the environment and too slow) and keep the windmills, solar, and fart power going.
I was in Victoria Texas all day today. The price dropped twice while I was there. When I left it was $3.66
Yay! I’m *sure* this means my milk will again reach its expiration date sans chunks.
@cf27: “If you believe that oil companies have that much control over their prices, then why is gas not at $6.00 a gallon or $10.00 a gallon. If oil companies could just increase profits by increasing pump prices, then why did they ever let me buy gas at $0.79 a gallon (in 1999)? They would have made a lot more money charging me $4.00. Why would oil companies ever reduce prices?”
I think that oil companies were charging 97¢ a gallon in 1999 due to Sadam selling oil at below market prices on the black market (maybe some extra with that UN “Oil for Food” deal). He sold oil this way after Gulf War I to rebuild his cheesy palaces and buy Uday more sports cars. I believe that this is one factor why we went to war in Iraq a second time. The Saudi’s were mad that Saddam had been messing with the prices for so long and needed to remove him.
Anyone ever wonder why oil went -UP- after the US took over Iraq? If Saddam had not been underselling the oil we probably would have seen $3 per gal (USA) back in 1999 or 2000. And why Saddams undercutting affect everyone by lowering prices? Well, the other “legal” oil guys then have to lower prices or else they don’t sell any oil because everyone flocks to the lowest seller. A while back I read that the bulk oil business is pretty shady with oil trading hands and being sold several times even while it is the tanker on the way to the refineries…
Yeah, right! I could also grow a set of big floppy ears on my sack and star in a remake of Dumbo.
@Bladefist: I p0wned you guys in science.
Your internetz license needs to be revoked.
You have said in this thread the electric cars are “inefficient” and that hydrogen cars are the only alternative technology that even comes close.
You are exactly wrong about both, and you couldn’t possibly be MORE WRONG.
Let me take a second to explain it to you. First of all, electric cars are inherently more efficient than cars that use a combustible fuel, whether it be gasoline, diesel, or natural gas. Or for that matter cars like the BMW 7 series hydrogen car, which is capable of running on either gasoline or hydrogen by combustion. [alternativefuels.about.com]
If you don’t understand this, you don’t understand physics. Let me direct you to the Tesla Roadster (an electric car) website for an explanation which depicts wheel-to-wheel efficiency in km/Mj for several highly efficient cars: [www.teslamotors.com]
What you will learn rather quickly is that electric engines are always more efficient than combustion engines. Gasoline engines are about 30% efficient. Diesel engines are about 40% efficient. [en.wikipedia.org] But electric engines are far more efficient, more in the range of 80% or more (it gets complicated when you start talking about loads, etc.,.). The Tesla engine for example, claims 85-95% efficiency. [www.teslamotors.com]
Okay let’s say you’re not talking about combustion engines, but you’re talking about fuel cells that use hydrogen to create electricity like the Honda FCX Clarity. [automobiles.honda.com] These are the kinds of cars most people think of when they talk about hydrogen cars.
In that case, the hydrogen needs to be extracted and stored. This takes energy, i.e., electricity. It is far more fuel efficient to just put that electricity straight into the car. Especially when you could be getting that electricity from a PV panel on the roof of your garage.
So you’d rather use electricity, in order to get hydrogen, in order to put it back into a car, in order for it to become electricity again to drive the car? You, sir, are a genius. Certifiable. Einstein’s legacy is in jeopardy. Michio Kaku should be calling you up any minute for an interview for his show.
P.S. You said the sun only “transfers” energy. Huh? You do know that “the sun is a mass of incandescent gas — A gigantic nuclear furnace where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees….” Don’t you?
/rant
@stevejust: Ah, I love TMBG!