In the 1976 movie “Network,” the news anchor Howard Beale, sopping wet and on the edge, invited viewers to stick their heads out their windows and yell that they were mad as hell, and they weren’t going to take it anymore.
To listen to our audience, all Fuel Freedom has to do is poke our heads into the modern window to the world, Facebook, and hear people venting about what they’re mad about. Lately, that’s the price of gas.
When we posted yet another rising-gas-prices story to our Facebook page last week, we asked our followers to tell us what gas prices were where they lived. More than 70 people chimed in, from all over the country, to let us know. ($3.87 in Pasadena, really?) They also shared their unvarnished feelings about the impact that the recent price spike has had on their family budgets.
I followed up with one of the mad-as-hellers, Ann Kooi of Pahrump, Nevada. Her husband Larry drives 150 miles round-trip, east to North Las Vegas and back, for his job as a heavy-equipment mechanic. He has to fill up his Kia Soul every other day, bringing his total gasoline bill to almost what it was last year before prices plummeted, roughly $75 a week.
“When the price of gas goes up, it hurts us bad, big time,” said Ann, 59. “We rob Peter to pay Paul.”
She and Larry, 60, know it would be easier to move to Las Vegas, but they feel they’re priced out of the market. They had rented an apartment in the city for $500 a month, but Ann says their rent went up and they couldn’t afford to stay.
The price of gas in Nevada averaged $2.826 a gallon Tuesday, up from $2.219 a month earlier, according to GasBuddy.com. Nationally, it was $2.453, compared with $2.060 a month earlier. It has to be said that prices were much higher one year ago: $3.45 in Nevada and $3.463 nationally.
But the average national price for E85 ethanol blend, we should point out, was just $1.96 on Tuesday, according to E85Prices.com.
It’s the volatility, the unexpected price shock, that makes it impossible to predict how much cash you’ll need to get to payday. And consumers everywhere are frustrated by the multiple factors, and lack of warning, that went into the latest spike.
“They find every excuse in the book to raise the prices. And they keep us in limbo, and we can’t get ahead, no matter how hard we try,” Ann said.
Tell us your story about what the rising price of gas has cost you, and tell us what you’re prepared to do about it.
If you want to be profiled in a “Share Our Story” post, send your contact info to [email protected].
U.S. is running out of room to store oil … is a price collapse next?
For the past seven weeks, the U.S. has been producing and importing an average of 1 million more barrels of oil every day than it is consuming. That extra crude is flowing into storage tanks, pushing supplies to their highest point in at least 80 years.
Senate fails to override Obama’s Keystone pipeline veto
A bipartisan majority of U.S. senators were unable to reach the two-thirds majority required to undo President Obama’s veto of the Keystone XL pipeline on Wednesday. The vote was 62 to 37.
One source of funding could end for climate change-denying scientist
Funders appear to be backing away from a prominent climate change denier who may have failed to disclose that his peer-reviewed articles were funded with grants from petroleum companies.
Hermosa Beach easily defeats oil-drilling measure
In what could be a modern-day record for election turnout in the SoCal city, Measure O was going down by a vote of 79 percent to 21 percent, at last count.
Yossie and NRDC’s Lehner: Lower oil prices needn’t slow EV sales
The last two years’ experience with electric vehicles proves that clean fuel technologies can compete with oil, and the continued strong sales of the last few months prove it, even at oil’s new price.
Share your story of gas-price outrage
/in Economy, Over a Barrel Blog, Updates from Fuel Freedom lhall /by Landon HallIn the 1976 movie “Network,” the news anchor Howard Beale, sopping wet and on the edge, invited viewers to stick their heads out their windows and yell that they were mad as hell, and they weren’t going to take it anymore.
To listen to our audience, all Fuel Freedom has to do is poke our heads into the modern window to the world, Facebook, and hear people venting about what they’re mad about. Lately, that’s the price of gas.
When we posted yet another rising-gas-prices story to our Facebook page last week, we asked our followers to tell us what gas prices were where they lived. More than 70 people chimed in, from all over the country, to let us know. ($3.87 in Pasadena, really?) They also shared their unvarnished feelings about the impact that the recent price spike has had on their family budgets.
I followed up with one of the mad-as-hellers, Ann Kooi of Pahrump, Nevada. Her husband Larry drives 150 miles round-trip, east to North Las Vegas and back, for his job as a heavy-equipment mechanic. He has to fill up his Kia Soul every other day, bringing his total gasoline bill to almost what it was last year before prices plummeted, roughly $75 a week.
“When the price of gas goes up, it hurts us bad, big time,” said Ann, 59. “We rob Peter to pay Paul.”
She and Larry, 60, know it would be easier to move to Las Vegas, but they feel they’re priced out of the market. They had rented an apartment in the city for $500 a month, but Ann says their rent went up and they couldn’t afford to stay.
The price of gas in Nevada averaged $2.826 a gallon Tuesday, up from $2.219 a month earlier, according to GasBuddy.com. Nationally, it was $2.453, compared with $2.060 a month earlier. It has to be said that prices were much higher one year ago: $3.45 in Nevada and $3.463 nationally.
But the average national price for E85 ethanol blend, we should point out, was just $1.96 on Tuesday, according to E85Prices.com.
It’s the volatility, the unexpected price shock, that makes it impossible to predict how much cash you’ll need to get to payday. And consumers everywhere are frustrated by the multiple factors, and lack of warning, that went into the latest spike.
“They find every excuse in the book to raise the prices. And they keep us in limbo, and we can’t get ahead, no matter how hard we try,” Ann said.
Tell us your story about what the rising price of gas has cost you, and tell us what you’re prepared to do about it.
If you want to be profiled in a “Share Our Story” post, send your contact info to [email protected].
Gas prices spike in California, for many reasons
Orange County drivers, excited about cheap gasoline just a few weeks ago, are suddenly feeling the pinch as prices reverse course, rising 43 cents a gallon in the past week and more than $1 in the past month.
Consumers are not happy about it.
(Photo: David Sommars, on Flickr)
Mary Bono: ‘All of the above’ means renewables too
Although “all of the above,” as a slogan, was mostly created to bolster the domestic production of oil and gas, “all” meant then what it means today: A diversified energy policy that harnesses all that we have to offer.
Ethanol Producer mag highlights Fuel Freedom’s work
Long term, Fuel Freedom Foundation believes in an “all of the above” strategy, including EVs. In the near term, the group believes one way to give consumers fuel choice is converting existing cars to use gas, ethanol or methanol.
Can exports rescue ethanol?
/in Environment, Over a Barrel Blog wtucker, newleaf /by Arctic LeafAs the Renewable Fuels Association’s National Ethanol Conference convened in Dallas last month, the outlook for ethanol appeared grim. The Environmental Protection Agency still hasn’t issued set the Renewable Fuel Standard for 2014, and ethanol manufacturers have been left in limbo.
On top of that, ethanol producers still are dealing with the months-long drop in oil prices. Even though Brent crude has been rising again of late, hovering around $60, it’s a far cry from the $115 it traded at last June. The overall price swoon has driven down ethanol stocks, along with those of oil companies. Warren Buffett has unloaded his ExxonMobil stock, which seemed to have been a bellwether for the market in general. Yet if the oil-price drop increases the consumption of gasoline and the 10 percent ethanol requirement holds, ethanol sales could actually go up while the price remains the same.
No one really knows what’s going to happen as long as the EPA keeps delaying new guidelines for the RFS, which will mandate the total amount of ethanol that should be sold in the coming year. The problem has been that, as demand for gasoline slackened, and the required amount of ethanol blended into the nation’s gas supply steadily rose, the ethanol threshold approached the 10 percent “blend wall.” Government testing has shown that virtually all vehicles model year 2001 and newer can run safely on ethanol blends up to E15, but the impact on older engines is still unclear. Christopher Grundler, director of the EPA’s Office of Air Quality and Transportation, apologized for the delay and said the EPA might be issuing its decision on the RFS in the next couple of months.
Yet no one at NEC seemed terribly bothered by the delay. Why? Because the ethanol industry is starting to boom with demand from abroad. “Who needs the RFS? Who needs the EPA?” Tim Worledge wrote on The Barrel, a blog of the Platts energy-news service. “We’ve already proven we can make the stuff … now it’s time to take it global.”
Ethanol exports are not limited the way oil exports are, so there’s no restriction on what can be sold abroad. Many countries don’t limit ethanol additives to 10 percent of gasoline, so there’s plenty of room for opportunity. “There are some persuasive arguments around this [the export] solution,” Worledge writes. “Bob Dinneen, the near-legendary head of the RFA [Renewable Fuels Association], cited 61 countries globally that have biofuel mandates in place. Target them. Grow the economy at home and target the locations in the world where opportunities remain — the “explosive growth” of China and India is an opportunity, says Dinneen, while Pedro Paranhos, vice president of Eco-Energy, pointed out that the US has already supplanted many of Brazil’s traditional export markets, with the only markets proving immune are those where quality and feedstock issues give Brazilian outflows an advantage.”
The international market is indeed just beginning to show signs of a demand for American ethanol. “The burgeoning firepower that the US ethanol industry can bring to the global market could yet see further pressure heaped upon the rest of the world’s ethanol products,” Worledge continued. The industry, he said, should be “looking to the world’s markets to insulate yourself from these political uncertainties,” i.e. the EPA’s delays on the RFS.
One potential problem is that the U.S. is trying to crack the European market just as the European Union is beginning to worry about whether biofuel production is really all that good for the environment. The debate is raging right now in the European Parliament. But even if Europe decides to set aside some land as off-limits for growing plants to process into biofuels, such restrictions could actually clear the way for the import of American-made ethanol. That would create a huge market opportunity for the U.S. industry.
One way or another, it seems too early to write off the possibility that ethanol will be able to reduce what the countries of the world must buy from oil-producing nations in order to power their transportation.