Monday, May 12, 2008

$4 per gallon gas

Today I filled up my car for $3.99 and 9/10 per gallon (thats $3.999). Not quite $4 but close enough. And I felt just fine about it. My car uses premium unleaded, but I get noticeably better mileage and more HP. Plus it's amazing on a percentage basis how much of a bargain premium gas is nowadays, you only need to get 3-6% better mileage for it to pay out (and your car likely will!). But the bigger picture is the fact that we pay relatively little for our gas compared to the rest of the world (especially the developed markets). We could have cheaper gas since the US is sitting on $1.3 trillion dollars worth of oil, but we won't drill in ANWR, which is fine with me but you can't have your cake and eat it too. So we pay higher gas prices, but not that high as the chart below details (Updated last month).

Gas Prices Around The World



As a quick aside: Rising energy prices is going to be a good thing for the future. We aren't too far away from making "green energy" more viable on a cost basis. As traditional means of energy become more expensive, we will be able to invest in solar or wind energy without requiring government subsidies to make them pay out. Once an alternative enery becomes profitable - it will tip.

2 comments:

Dale said...

Not only will it tip, but knowing the power of humans, we'll figure out a way for it to become more and more efficient.

Unknown said...

you are right! But it still hurts like crazy I just paid $69 to fill up last night, including 10 cent discount at kroger!