In view of the gasoline prices lately, I thought some of you might want to bookmark this:
http://www.gasbuddy.com/

Yew pore folks, havin' ter pay $1.70 a gallon fer gas. Haya in Ingland, why, we gotta pay up $6.50 a gallon. Y'all kin see why we ain't cryin' none fer y'all!

thanks for that wake-up, Cap. I had no idea it was that high.
can others from outside the US add their prices? I'm curious.

Here in Zild, it's the equivalent of about $3.50US a gallon.

New Hampshire - $1.80 regular gasoline at my station - up to $1.92 at some places.

>$1.80 regular gasoline at my station - up to $1.92 at some places.

My heart bleeds for y'all! (Translation: stop your whinging).

today's midwestern whinge: $2.0899 (US)

Last Friday the price here on the Jersey Cape jumped 12 cents per gallon in ONE DAY!!! never saw anything like it.

(I can whin[g]e if I want to)

Haya in Ingland, why, we gotta pay up $6.50 a gallon. ~ Capfka

Mind you, we should remember that the gallon in the UK is about 20% larger than the US gallon:

"The United States standardised on a close approximation to the old wine gallon. It was at one time defined as the volume of a cylinder 6 inches long and 7 inches in diameter, or 230.907 cubic inches. Today, however, the gallon is 231 in³ exactly. Thus 10 US gallons equals 8.327 Imperial gallons. The Imperial gallon is about a fifth larger than the US gallon.
Both the Imperial and United States gallon are equal to 8 pints. However in the US a pint is 16 fluid ounces whereas an Imperial pint is 20 fluid ounces. Thus a U.S. gallon is 128 fl. oz and an Imperial gallon about 160 fl. oz. This means that A US fluid ounce is around 1.8047 cu. ins and an Imperial fl. oz is around 1.7339 cu. ins. So the US fluid ounce is actually bigger than the imperial, although the US gallon is smaller."

Got that?

What I haven't seen mentioned here is the fact that most other countries have automobiles that get 60 miles to the gallon (US or Imperial, I wonder?) or better. I'm not sure what kind of mileage the average US vehicle gets, but I know mine does not come close.

re:What I haven't seen mentioned here is the fact that most other countries have automobiles that get 60 miles to the gallon (US or Imperial, I wonder?) or better. I'm not sure what kind of mileage the average US vehicle gets,

consumer choice. cheap gasoline makes gas guzzlers affordable.

ford (largest producer of SUV's in US) has noticed 'a drop off' in sales the past 30 days.. now they are offering no intrest for 5 years, + a rebate on their biggest SUV's.

some suckers will buy them. and then those of us, who are still buying used, not new cars, will find a greater percentage of vechicles for resale are these same gas guzzlers.

if we had a national policy to set gasoline prices at a realistic level (not just the producers cost, but the cost to environment, and to the military expenditures for 'supporting' oil producing nations,) we too, would be paying $5 to $6 a gallon, and we too, would find it easy to purchase a high milage car.
[end of basic economics rant!]

Why, Dixbie, mercy me, I plumb forgot the difference in the gallons. Say $5.20 a US gallon. Better?

But it WILL be £6.50 a US gallon before too long ...

consumer choice. cheap gasoline makes gas guzzlers affordable.

Not so. Perhaps "the choices of the 90+% of consumers who find whatever the product may be within their *lazy grasp"... but to suggest this is anywhere close to "demand side" economics would be the same as claiming that the lazier you can be the better your "quality of life". I respectfully disagree.

Gas guzzlers make cheap gasoline necessary.

But how much of that is taxes? It doesn't make sense to try to compare gasoline prices unless you factor out the taxes, which are nothing more than government's attempt to achieve some social end. Many places I go I see little decals on gas pumps that tell you how much you are paying in taxes per gallon. Do you left bankers concur that taxation is pretty high on petrol?

When we were in Ireland last summer, I noticed that almost all of the cars were new (perhaps less than five years old), and I seem to recall that someone told me that the Irish Government had in effect bought up all the old cars.

I'm wondering if the very high taxes on petrol funded this effort, which is of course a social desire to have fewer gas guzzlers on the road.

BTW, the little Punto I rented got phenomenal gas mileage. Peggy asked me just the other day why we could not buy one here.

Until our infrastructure catches up to fuel cell technology, the hybrids (props to Toyota & Honda) are the best interim step. Thus spake the driver of the Treehugger.

Honestly, I've never once regretted buying my Prius.

Until our infrastructure catches up to fuel cell technology...


Nah... Until the millions of people that drive realize that they don't need 250 horsepower to go back and forth to work in 25mph congestion...

Nope, until either gas becomes too expensive or the oil supply runs out ...

It doesn't make sense to try to compare gasoline prices unless you factor out the taxes

That's true if you're just looking at the price of gasoline; if you're looking at the cost of filling up your car you dang well better keep those taxes in there.

Hard-up German police buy petrol in Poland

ANANOVA -- Hard-up police in Eastern Germany are dodging taxes by buying their petrol in Poland.

Police spokesman Detlef Lueben said officers in the Oder district of Frankfurt took the step because of rising petrol prices.

One in five patrol cars gets its petrol from a Polish filling station, Lueben confirmed.

Compared to German prices, a litre of petrol costs about 20p less in Poland.

But the move doesn't just save money, it also means police are avoiding paying a special German environmental tax on fuel.

A spokesperson for the mineral oil trading association said a body like the police shouldn't be dodging taxes, the Berliner Kurier reports.

From the Welsh “Daily Post” - some comments from the owner of a small haulage company:

'The hauliers protested that more than 75% of the cost of fuel in the UK went in duty.
Dai Owen, who has been in the haulage industry since 1958, said he used to run 18 trucks on the Continent.
But he said cheaper foreign competition had hit his business.
"They have cheaper fuel, cheaper insurance, cheaper vehicles and use Bulgarian drivers for £40-a-week. We can't compete," he said.'

When I'm driving at speed past a long line of these eastern European trucks I have the odd worry as to whether their roadworthyness checks are as rigorous as ours. Dunno, they probably are, but I do wonder...

Well, dixbie, we know that they ain't. There was an article in the Torygraph a couple of weeks ago about it. Police here are certain that a lot of the eastern trucks are not up to scratch. They quoted a number of deficiencies they typically found - not that I remember what they were, but the general idea was that they are dangerous by British standards. Mind you, the quality of truck driving here kind of pushes the roadworthiness thing on to the back burner. I just about got skittled by a truck pulling out without either looking or indicating this morning. I took his number and rang the company and bollocked their road services manager, but I doubt if anything more will come of it...

Good on yer, Cap - perhaps if enough of us did that it might eventually make a difference. Hey! That pig just missed my 7th floor window!

I just received an e-mail about a one day US gas-price protest boycott this Wednesday, May 19th, when no one is supposed to buy a drop of gas. This library 'puter won't let me copy and paste it for some reason, though. Anybody else get the boycott notice?

yes-- i didn't see any reason to spread the word..
basicly, if you think it will work, don't buy any gas on wednesday the 19th... allegedly, it will make the oil producres unhappy, and responsive to our needs.

Oops, there goes that pig past my window..

Yeah, I got it. I was gonna run it through Snopes, but then decided it wasn't worth the effort.

Jackie - same here. I got a notice about it, but didn't really believe it - and not sure it would do any good anyway. But I didn't take the time to go look at Urban Legends either. I just filled up on Monday, at $1.92/gal US. It'd been as high as $2.05, and today it was $1.89.

I've thought for a long time now that we USns shouldn't be complaining about gasoline prices - we've paid far less for far more than our share for decades.

[End of economics rant}

Leslie

Good point, Leslie (not meaning to get into the political realm or anything).

So to speak.

I think it's important to understand how much it costs you for a gallon of gas or liter of petrol before taxes, because that will give you some idea what the oil companies are making off each unit. My guess is that we in the US may be paying a bit more for the product itself than the people on the left bank, because our government is pretty much in the hands of big oil.

NOT, you understand, that I am in any way implying that there might be an oil cartel out there that is gouging the American public. Heaven forfend.

as a related but a rather twisted thread can anyone tell me how many litres or gallons is in the proverbial "barrel" of oil that we hear quoted daily?

Barrel
A unit of volumetric measurement at 60 degrees Fahrenheit (42 U.S. gallons or 5.61458 cubic feet). Commonly abbreviated as BBL.

That's how many gallons of oil in a barrel of oil. How much of that is gasoline (petrol)?

How much of that is gasoline (petrol)?

According to the second chart on this page, about half: http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/analysis_publications/oil_market_basics/Ref_image_Simple.htm

That seems a little high to me, though.

well(pun intended), we're up over $2.00 now...

>That's how many gallons of oil in a barrel of oil.

and how about the infamous 55-gallon drum, then?

Didn't know about the "day off" for buying gas
- so I did. Half a tank for my Saab, $21 !!!!
Just 19 days ago it was $12 for a half tank full.
Now, over a year ago I said I wouldn't mention it
again but. The posts have gone wide again.
Makes me dizzy whipping back and forth
with the scroll bar.
If I fall off my chair and spill the coffee
I'm suing somebody!

My guess is that we in the US may be paying a bit more for the product itself than the people on the left bank, because our government is pretty much in the hands of big oil. ~ Ted R.

Currently, in London, the price of a gallon (US) of gasoline (petrol, we would say) has reached $5.60 or thereabouts. Just over 75% of that is tax, so we on the left bank are paying $1.40 for the petrol which has to cover all the refining and distribution costs and profit before you get back to the actual cost of a barrel of oil. I don’t know what the US tax rate is on gasoline so I don’t know how that compares. Any offers?

Of course, as AnnaS’s charts show, from that barrel of oil there are various other fractions cracked off for uses many and varied, a lot of which pay better per volume than gasoline. But that’s a whole other story.

It's said we're facing record fuel prices, but I don't think that's true. Does anybody know what recent prices have been, adjusted for inflation? IIRC, 1981 was when we had the highest prices, but I don't have anything handy to back me up.

Edit:
Here's one gas station operator with a sense of humor:

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20040517/capt.caps10105171823.gas_prices_caps101.jpg

How about 1985? Here was my take on it way back then when I was cartooning for a living ...

http://www.bacchus-marsh.com/Files/petrol.jpg

Nice, Phranz. What made you stop... errr... other than the cost of living?

Editorial restrictions. And the high cost of living and the low price of cartoons ...

Ya shoulda jumped over to the political beat... or the op-ed then, eh?