Top news story tonight here. What’s up with that? In the past few years it seems to always be around this time of year that they claim that gas prices are going to be high this summer. They’ve gotten it wrong most the time.
I just paid $2.05 in North Minneapolis on the way home from Jenny Lid tonight. So I am going to believe them.
(I am also going to start riding more instead of driving)
But there is usually a spike in prices… that’s what caused the news story.
It’s been around $2.00 all winter here…
Last fall it got up to $2.85
For a while, we were getting close to $3.00, but it’s been getting lower constantly, to where we are now in the 2.00+ range. High gas costs are the only reason I do not drive, and rather get rides from friends.
Enjoy that while it lasts. Eventually your friends will figure you out and stop taking you where they don’t want to go. Then the problem will turn into not having enough money. Then you’ll basically spend the rest of your life trying to make that not true.
What are you going to do? Sometimes you just have to drive. You can avoid it some of the time, if you live in a large enough city, you can get by without a car. Otherwise it’s hard to have a choice. Think of the gas price as a form of taxes. In many places, it’s mostly tax already.
In CA at the moment, our “cheap” gas is around $2.00. In remote or urban areas you can easily pay a lot more. If you take the time to watch the fluctuations, you many notice price spikes, in the U.S., around the Memorial and Labor Day weekends. Hmmm…
Here in Austria its 3.21 Euros/gallon or 4.21 USD$/gallon!
…and thats cheap compared to Germany!
I think things can always be worse.
That’s how I look at it…we got spoiled in America b/c our gas prices didn’t follow the standard of living curve for a good 30+ years. It’d be like getting to go to the movies for $3.
I feel very lucky to live in a part of the U.S. where I can still get gas for under $2 (but I’d gladly take it for $0.79 like it was not too many years ago). 
gas prices regulated?
Like Mango said, gas prices in Europe have always been more than twice of the price in the USA. Is that due to taxes there? Or what?
And what are those holiday price spikes about? Aren’t gas prices regulated in the USA?
Billy
Gas floats around $.75 to $.85 Cdn per litre… that works out to $2.26 to $2.56US per gallon. Toronto is a little more expensive usually. It will go up in the summer, as it will next winter, and the following summer. Gas prices always go up.
I find that it tends to be a constant topic for the media because we all rely on the stuff so badly. Imagine what happens tomorrow if there was no gas. Scary thought.
In the UK it’s about £0.84 per litre which is about $6.05 (USD) per US gallon. This is high mainly because of tax.
Then we will finally use the cheap fuels that have been developed.
Afterall, it’s our government that keeps our reliance on Gasoline.
(Guess how many big corporations that will suffer when cheap fuel becomes available…?)
The prices in Europe are a reflection in the changes in thinking.
It forces cheaper fuel developemnet, conservation, and an awareness of our planets fate if we continue the way we are…
(IMO)
I love this topic. What are your thoughts about it?
Have you seen the ‘frenchfry cars’ …?
Powered by used cooking oil from restaurants …?
Normally that stuff is just thrown away.
(after being ‘reguvinated’ too many times)
Supposedly smell like ‘french fries’… but the van I saw didn’t.
It had no odor or smoke at all.
There are lots of ‘alternatives’.
I like that one the best.
Not all of the grease is thrown away. A lot of it goes to making soaps and other household products. Do you suppose enough cooking oil is thrown away to power cars? What happens if we start eating less fried food? Do we start producing more veggie oil just to power our cars?
Realistically, I think that gas electric hybirds are the immediate future of cars (next ten years or so) and Hydrogen will take over after that. Problem with hydrogen is that it’s expensive to produce. That’s where nuclear power plants come in.
Daniel
I want to do that with my car that I need to buy. There’s a McDonalds down the street so it could work out well for me if I had one. Any one know how to do this?? haha.
oh yeah I put gas in today and it was $1.89 a gal
I know a dude who converted a diesel truck to vegitable oil…it wasn’t thay hard. You still have to have a tank dedicated to just diesel though b/c you have to start the engine on diesel then you swith to french frie juice 
That’s not how I meant that to sound/read…
Anyway … I meant it’s ‘rather creative’
Am I right in assuming it’s per the gallon over there?
Here it’s usually around 90c per Litre. I remember when it was steadily sitting on 64c/L! :).
Andrew
We drive a pair of Volkswagens with diesel engines - a New Beetle (47 miles per gallon) and a Passat (38 miles per gallon). The price of diesel fuel here in North Bend, Washington (the location of UNICON 11) is currently $2.75 a gallon, up from $2.01 a gallon January 1. A story on one of the Seattle area television stations this week said that this price increase for diesel fuel was due to the fact that several Canadian oil refineries had shut down. Perhaps they are in mourning over the loss of the professional hockey season . . .
When we purchased our first diesel-powered automobile in 1997, diesel fuel was much cheaper than regular unleaded gasoline. This changed suddenly about 18 months ago.
The cheapest regular unleaded gasoline we have seen in this area is currently $1.99 a gallon. Today’s Seattle area newspapers are reporting that we should expect to see gasoline increase at least $0.25 per gallon in the very near future.