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But of course, gouging, T. Boone Pickens, and the Bush Administration. :p

Seriously, read this. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13599899/)

It's already up around 10 cents over the past week or so around here.

Funny how public reaction.
Just like the frog in the boiling pot.

Last summer when gas shot from $2.20 to $3.00/g Oh, the complaints! The world was ending and one could really tell by other people's driving habits.
But here we are again, just a few months later almost to the same $ and hardly a whisper, and most folks driving like it's still 50cent/g.

If something should happen where it suddenly shoots up $$ again, good websites like this would no doubt get tons of additional traffic from people seeking information in relief to their own situation. At least some good could come of it!

The surge in demand for ethanol has stretched the rapidly expanding ethanol production and distribution system in the U.S. — and pushed prices sharply higher. Ethanol prices topped $3.50 a gallon last week, more than double a year ago; spot prices in some areas hit $5 a gallon.
This is the second time in a week I've seen reference to ethanol trading in the $3.50 - $5 range on the spot market. That is a good thing for creating a strong incentive to massively ramp up ethanol production, since at least one major producer claimed their cost was around $1.60/gal currently and may improve over the next couple years as they make further efficiency improvements to the process. It's a bad sign for General Motors however if people see E85 selling for $4/gallon, which works out to $6/gge (gallon of gasoline equivalent) since it makes all their flex fuel vehicles look even more stupid. Do you want to spend $4/gallon in a vehicle that gets 11mpg when running E85?

This is the second time in a week I've seen reference to ethanol trading in the $3.50 - $5 range on the spot market. That is a good thing for creating a strong incentive to massively ramp up ethanol production, since at least one major producer claimed their cost was around $1.60/gal currently and may improve over the next couple years as they make further efficiency improvements to the process. It's a bad sign for General Motors however if people see E85 selling for $4/gallon, which works out to $6/gge (gallon of gasoline equivalent) since it makes all their flex fuel vehicles look even more stupid. Do you want to spend $4/gallon in a vehicle that gets 11mpg when running E85?

yikes, if i had a vehicle that got 11 mpg it wouldn't be running at all, no matter what the cost.......yet i am passed by them regularly on the highway....

i don't understand why more people just don't care. i have mentioned the young woman who works in my department.....i am just amazed at how little she cares about conservation at all. and she has a 2 year old that's going to be living in the midst of what we have created. when i mentioned that to her the other day, she said she didn't care. i managed to bite my tongue when she gave me a ride in her trail blazer to pick up my car.....she turned the air on high without even considering opening the windows. she is quite selfish, i guess.

our company's owner was offering to pay for tickets for anyone who went to see an inconvenient truth, because he strongly believes in environmental causes. i bet nobody took him up on it. i couldn't go, but told him i would let him buy me the DVD when it's available. when i urged my coworker to go, i again get the "i don't want to discuss it" answer.........very fustrating, especially when you multiple her attitude by about a billion others.

Honestly, I think it's impressive that demand ever decreased given what I see on a day-to-day basis. My thermometer for whether or not people "get it" is what I see and hear on my daily commute: how much tailgating, how much "gun-and-swerve" around slow traffic, speeding, etc. I'm telling you, it's like something snapped in people between last week and this week. And it's not like Connecticut drivers are feeling price relief. We're still paying $3.11 per gallon, and that's a good deal around here!

What sickens me is that everybody knows what they're doing. Like Laurie's coworker who "doesn't care." Or the Camaro guy who entertained me on the way home yesterday. Or the commuter in the F-150 who practically ran this poor guy in a Matrix off the road this morning because he wasn't making his pass quickly enough. And every single freaking American who buys a Suburban, Tahoe, Expedition, H2, Land Cruiser, Explorer, Commander, or other truck derivative and then commutes alone in it, who has to realize when signing the paperwork that it's going to end up using at least three times as much fuel as a perfectly comfy and adequate alternative.

We deserve what we get. If prices go up after this weekend it's because we did it to ourselves. We need to be smart about it if we want to maintain this great lifestyle of mobility.

In the article, "Overall Demand" especially scares me because 9.5 million barrels of gasoline translates into 399 million gallons per day. And, we all know that it takes much more than 399 million gallons of crude to produce that much gas because gas is only one fraction of the products that a refinery produces from a barrel of crude. There was a good show on Discovery Channel last week about our "Addiction to Oil". Very enlightening. Part of the message was that by our dependence on foreign oil, (driving low FE vehicles), we are literally funding world wide terrorism with American $$.:eek:

Honestly, I think it's impressive that demand ever decreased given what I see on a day-to-day basis. My thermometer for whether or not people "get it" is what I see and hear on my daily commute: how much tailgating, how much "gun-and-swerve" around slow traffic, speeding, etc. I'm telling you, it's like something snapped in people between last week and this week. And it's not like Connecticut drivers are feeling price relief. We're still paying $3.11 per gallon, and that's a good deal around here!

What sickens me is that everybody knows what they're doing. Like Laurie's coworker who "doesn't care." Or the Camaro guy who entertained me on the way home yesterday. Or the commuter in the F-150 who practically ran this poor guy in a Matrix off the road this morning because he wasn't making his pass quickly enough. And every single freaking American who buys a Suburban, Tahoe, Expedition, H2, Land Cruiser, Explorer, Commander, or other truck derivative and then commutes alone in it, who has to realize when signing the paperwork that it's going to end up using at least three times as much fuel as a perfectly comfy and adequate alternative.

We deserve what we get. If prices go up after this weekend it's because we did it to ourselves. We need to be smart about it if we want to maintain this great lifestyle of mobility.

In a few days, we (most of us) will be observing Independance Day. Politicians and civic-minded citizens will speak of those that sacrificed or died so Americans can be free today.... I'm not so sure I like some of the things we have become - rude, whining spoiled brats. The "boat cars" of the 1970's no longer stick out as the gas guzzlers they were - they seem tame these days in both size and consumption.

I agree with brick - better fuel economy is not an education issue. It's a behaviorial issue. There are a lot of isolated, insecure, angry people validating themselves with the vehicles brick listed above and it's irrational. I'm no Dr. Phil, but I'd bet he would say some of the hostility directed towards the non-speeders and hybrid drivers are gas-guzzlers that feel threatened.

Especially when much of the terrorism funded by high oil
consumption is *domestically* harbored...
.
_H*

Honestly, I think it's impressive that demand ever decreased given what I see on a day-to-day basis. My thermometer for whether or not people "get it" is what I see and hear on my daily commute: how much tailgating, how much "gun-and-swerve" around slow traffic, speeding, etc. I'm telling you, it's like something snapped in people between last week and this week. And it's not like Connecticut drivers are feeling price relief. We're still paying $3.11 per gallon, and that's a good deal around here!

What sickens me is that everybody knows what they're doing. Like Laurie's coworker who "doesn't care." Or the Camaro guy who entertained me on the way home yesterday. Or the commuter in the F-150 who practically ran this poor guy in a Matrix off the road this morning because he wasn't making his pass quickly enough. And every single freaking American who buys a Suburban, Tahoe, Expedition, H2, Land Cruiser, Explorer, Commander, or other truck derivative and then commutes alone in it, who has to realize when signing the paperwork that it's going to end up using at least three times as much fuel as a perfectly comfy and adequate alternative.

We deserve what we get. If prices go up after this weekend it's because we did it to ourselves. We need to be smart about it if we want to maintain this great lifestyle of mobility.

thanks, tim, you said it better than i did.....and with the same anger and frustration i feel.