Forums → WEPR → What's with the Gas Prices?!

It's the beginning of the process in which the US government and the world bankers intentionally destabalize our economy to introduce the Amero. The equivalent to the Euro but for North America, possibly even South America in an attempt to achieve one global currency.

Dude the earths resources are not infinite you know thats why the gas keeps rising in price,and of course new millionaires want to make a fortune of the earths resources,earths resources should have never been exposed to us.But it would have happened sooner or later.

One global currency...oh boy, that'd be the day. This would imply that complete globalisation of the major economies had been achieved and a new system with which to calculate the capital worth and GDP of each country has been implemented.

That would also imply, at least I think, that the stage of world politics would have undergone near to apocalyptic changes, at least relative to where we're standing now!

Any way gas is bad for nature,but thats not my problem really i go on foot or use a tram or trolleybus or even a bus.

About oil depleting:

Recently we had Bill Bye the Science guy, give a lecture/presentation at our University and he was saying that we really have so much oil in this earth that it will be a really long time before we run out. It might not be as nice and easy to refine as the oil we are used to, but there is still a lot of it. But thats not the problem he says, the problem is that we need to figure out a way to sustain our growing population while using less energy and resource, because if we continue doing what we are doing it is guaranteed that everyones' quality of life will be impacted significantly.

So even if oil being depleted, global warming, pollution is not convincing enough to invest in improving alternative energy sources, just thinking about what we can do to be more efficient so that we can keep this quality of life, should.

Bill gave us tons of interesting ideas to think about, such as the problems with the technology today that limit us, which we as engineers can and should fix. I thought his presentation was pretty eye opening and enlightening.

I personally think that it is the oil companies that are raising prices. They know that major changes in our energy system are going to come sooner or later, so they are milking us for our money, before its too late. They created a hype, about all of the oil disappearing so that they can take our money. Right now we have no other choice but to buy from them.

Well i heard on discovery channel that we have already drained half of earths oil what would happen to earth if all the recourses would be drained?

Earth would rot from the inside and i don't know explode?
Ok maybe not explode but something bad would happen.

I hate the gas prices by the time I'm 16 the prices will be like 6$ per gallon D:

Very pertinent question, R4in3r5. We know that there are very significant negative effects on the environment from the processes of extracting, refining and transporting oil.

But as for the depletion of the oil itself, I'm not entirely sure. Somebody help us out on this one please?

Some say the oil supply will be depleted in 50 years time.

But this is not necessarily correct - in the 1970's, people said that the oil supply would run out in 2000. Now people are saying that the oil supply would run out within 30-50 years.

A good hypothesis that's been put forward is that the Earth will never run out of oil, people who hold this argument support it with three reasons:

1) Enhanced Oil Recovery techniques - around 20% of the oil will never be extracted.

2) At some point the price of oil will become so high that burning it will not be affordable. It will be replaced with other energy sources, to whatever extent possible, and the remainder will never be extracted.

3) Across geological timescales, oil is being generated at very low speeds.

The demand for crude oil in the world increase by an average of about 1.8% per year from 1994-2006. The demand was highest in 2003-2004, when it increased by 3.4%. Demand for oil is greatest in developing countries.

Oil prices peaked this month (May 2008) with $123 per barrel. Before this, the maximum inflation price was equal to $95-$100, in 1980. Crude oil prices have been steadily increasing in the past few years from about 25% a barrel in mid-late 2003 to over $125 a barrel today (May.)

The most significant increases in crude oil prices happened within the last year.

A price shock is the effect of oil price on an economy. Most European countires which have high taxes on fuels temporarily or permentantly suspend their taxes on fuels as prices rise. This method of softening price shocks is less common in countries which do not charge a lot of taxes on fuel, such as the United States.

-Skyla <3

yup thats why someday the worlds gonna end...........

gas prices are really cheap here.. . but i have to wait till im 18 to drive

I've heard of air-powered and water-powered cars. They're might be a solar-powered car, that everyone might use someday

@ Skyla: What are your sources?

I believe that while technically true, it will be unwise to place much stock in the claim that the Earth will never "run out of oil" for a number of reasons.

1) Oil is a fossil fuel and as we understand it the process of its production by pressure and decomposition is several orders of ten slower than the process of its extraction, as your point 3 implies.

2) We may have more efficient and sophisticated methods of discovering oil now as compared to 50 years ago, but nonetheless even these, and the tools that have the ability to project oil sources, are indicating that we're literally running out of places to look, as well as drying up the sources that we're currently tapping. Oil that we can't reach is also useless to us.

3) The increase in demand for oil and oil-based products (don't forget plastics!) has been significant, especially seeing as countries aim to become developed and this requires industrialisation (in accordance with your information). The most recent example is China- check the annual vehicle sales for the past decade.

All things considered, unless there's some extra-dimensional, eternal wellspring of oil, we'd do well to simply discard this notion (because such a rationale is generally held by those who don't wish to seek alternative sources of energy) and look towards becoming less reliant on oil. Essentially, your second point is what we'd consider highly desirable:

2) At some point the price of oil will become so high that burning it will not be affordable. It will be replaced with other energy sources, to whatever extent possible, and the remainder will never be extracted.

Yes guess will be hell of expensive when us young teens are 20.

That is because the jackass oil companies are really greedy and will in my little theory eventually take over the world.

I think it's just dumb that they raise the gas prices based upon...well how much the company suppling the gas actually wants to charge which is ridiculous!