We went out yesterday and I saw that gas prices are up tp $2.65, I had just read that gas prices by the ed of the month could top $3.00. I know we went through this last year around this time. We all know we have enough oil for our gas prices not to be going up. Do you think we are paying high gas prices because this is how they are getting the bail out money back?
What is your gas prices in your area and why do you think our prices are going up?
Your thoughts?
Opinions only!
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The last I looked, like on Wednesday, it was about 2.69, I think.
Our prices keep bouncing around. Last week it was $2.65, as I passed a station yesterday it was $2.79. Of course, it is always higher when my tank needs filled, just my luck! lol Prices will go higher for the summer, so they catch the people traveling. I feel sorry for students and older people on fixed incomes. I don't get to see my daughters as much as I'd like, because they 'save' their gas for college. We live 100 miles apart. I don't see the prices going down anytime soon. They know people will pay whatever it is.
This is ssad but true we will pay what we have to just to get to work or where ever we need to go. My DH is now carpooling and like he said it saves on gas and wear and tear but you have to wait for your ride.
I wish gas prices would go down and stay down..
That sounds about right for our area. They do tend to fluctuate quite a bit. As far as getting bailout money back, I don't think so, unless the gov has cut some secret deals with the oil companies. I do transcription, and I often type the financial reporting calls for different companies. If you take a look at some of their balance sheets, their profits are ridiculous.
It seems to happen EVERY year at the time when the weather is getting nicer because they know the season for travel is coming-I really think it is as simple as that=THEY just want us to think it is more complicated!!
When they went up before, they went too fast. They came back down enough to stop everyone from compaining so much and have gone up more gradually. They absolutely will be back in the $3-4 range and then even more. I don't know that it is for the bailout, I think it is just a matter of greed.
Quoting momsrock13:
It seems to happen EVERY year at the time when the weather is getting nicer because they know the season for travel is coming-I really think it is as simple as that=THEY just want us to think it is more complicated!!
I agree. It happens every spring..then they will go higher in the summer. More ppl are out and about and traveling.
They will go back down in the fall. They always do.
For the life of me I can not understand why we dont go green..... Oh.. yea...... its all about $, power & control :-(
I want one of these!!! But I want a pretty, stylish one (lol)
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Gas is expensive. Old vegetable cooking oil from restaurants is free. A car can actually run on either. So why aren't more people ditching petroleum and running on peanut power?
"[Making the switch] couldn't be simpler," said Patrick Kuhn, who converted one of four trucks at his company, Charlotte Moving Truck Rentals, to run on vegetable oil earlier this year.
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He said his customers love it and constantly choose the veggie-powered vehicle over his others. "I never see that truck anymore," he said.
But while Kuhn's truck may be a hit, for many people life with a veggie car might not be so easy. And although this alternative fuel may be cheap and clean, there simply isn't enough of it to make a big dent in our gas consumption.
Kuhn said it cost $3,500 to convert the truck to veggie power, which can be done to any diesel engine. That includes adding a fuel tank in the back (which has a heating element inside it, because the oil needs to be kept hot to burn), fuel lines up to the engine, as well as a filter and a valve set and toggle switches so the driver can choose between running on vegetable oil or on conventional diesel fuel.
For the sake of convenience, he buys used restaurant cooking oil from a dealer about an hour away - the same guy, actually, who installed Kuhn's veggie fuel system.
Kuhn pays the supplier - who collects, filters and delivers the oil - about $1.50 a gallon. That compares to the $3 a gallon he said he'd pay for diesel.
"These trucks, they're not Honda Accords, they consume a lot of fuel," he said, "It pays for itself pretty quickly."
Kuhn is part of what Lee Briante, a spokesman for Greasecar, the largest purveyor of veggie fuel conversion kits, says is a growing market segment.
"In the first few years it was, I don't want to say hippies but...now it's folks doing it for the economy of it," said Briante.
Indeed, the economics of veggie oil are even better for a car than they are for a truck. Briante said the car conversion kit, available online and similar to Kuhn's system, costs about $800.
The mechanically inclined can install the system themselves, or it can be installed at one of two dozen Greasecar-certified mechanics nationwide for another $600.
But Briante said that the government regulations requiring fuel sellers to be licensed would make it hard for most people to keep their veggie-cars fueled - few people would be lucky enough to have a guy nearby who can top off their tank the way Kuhn does.
Instead, many people fuel up by forming a relationship with a local restaurant, which leaves its old cooking oil out back in 5-gallon jugs for the user to collect. (Restaurants usually have to pay to get rid of this oil, so proprietors are often happy to do so.)
Another downside: Users have to strain the oil to clean out the old French fries and such, before they pour it into the tank.
"The infrastructure really isn't in place," said Briante. "My mom's not going to want to do it."
And since there just isn't that much vegetable oil available to power cars, it's unlikely that there will be ever be a push to build this infrastructure.
Briante said there are about 100 million gallons of waste restaurant oil generated annually. That would only replace about 0.07 percent of the 140 billion gallons of gas Americans use each year, and that's assuming everyone switched from gasoline to diesel engines. Using new vegetable oil - not the used stuff from restaurants -raises similar scarcity questions.
One environmental group, which declined to be identified, didn't have anyone to comment on the prospect of veggie oil reducing oil dependency or clearing up the air, calling it a "non-issue."
But that doesn't mean veggie cars won't get more popular or become easier to operate.
"With $3 diesel, I don't think it will take long before someone realizes 'hey, there's money to be made in this,'" said Kuhn.
We actually went DOWN.. I can't believe it! It was 2.55 on Friday now it's 2.43!
Newbie/Just introducing myself
- dana63
on Mar. 15, 2010 at 7:13 AM