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Saturday, August 13. 2005Record Gas Prices
About a year ago when gas prices in Canada have started to rise rapidly my friend and I were trying to guess when they will exceed the $1 per liter mark. After some discussion we've mostly agreed it would not happen till 2006 at the earliest. Alas our predictions were proven false, as the picture below shows today, August 13, 2005 the $1 mark has been surpassed.
 Given that $1 for a liter is a physiological marker for many people, it would be interesting to see what impact it would have on the quantity and type of cars seen on the road. Perhaps it would finally reduce the need for city dwellers to purchase giant fuel guzzling SUVs and similar type vehicles, but only time will tell. One thing's certain however, fuelling up your car will be much more of a hit on your wallet, just a month ago I could relatively easily fuel up for mere “0.80” cents a liter. A 20% increase in such a short time is highly noticeable and most unwelcome. **NOTE** For those of you who don't use the metric system or don't know latest conversion from US to funny money (Canadian Dollars) here are some stats. 1 liter = 0.264172051 gallon 1 USD = 1.1971 CAN 
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That's still cheap. In Germany it's aroung 1.2€ - 1.3€ per Liter, while 1 € is around 1.4 - 1.5 CAD / 1.2 - 1.3 USD.
...but remember that the surface of Canada is about 10,000,000 square km., while the surface of Germany is 360,000
 Granted, most of the driving is probably still within the same distances, but it's not uncommon for Canadians to drive 50-60km and more each way to work every day.
This is not too uncommon for Germans, too.
And while I think that you can drive relatively fuel-saving at 60 miles per hour (rough guess) most Germans have to drive most of their time through cities or crowded highways near cities with stop-and-go. No, I absolutely agree with Sebastian on this, if anyone has to whine about fuel prices, it's the Germans 
The thing is that in north america majority of automobiles are much larger and subsequently less fuel effecient then the one in Europe.
On my first trip to Amsterdam last year I was quite shocked and surprised to see a plethora of "tiny" cars that make North American "minis" and "compacts" seem huge. Another thing to keep in mind that in most North American cities cars are absolute necessity. The public transit system is either very poor (reliability and speed) or limited to city core. Taking Toronto as an example there are many places in the city you simply cannot get by bus of subway and those that you can get to would require a multi-hour trip.
Cheap is relative, without a doubt gas prices in EU are higher, but that has been the case for a long time if not always. The main thing is the big jump in a very short period of time, which makes it highly visible.
The 1$ limit was reached early this summer in Montreal. It was actually announced at 1,13$ yesterday.
http://radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/Economie/nouvelles/200508/12/004-essence-intervention.shtml (Sorry, it's in french)
yeek, that's nasty. I went to check how prices fair in other provinces at it looks like that with exceptions of Albert and Saskatchewan just about all of them are over $1 now.
On CBC Radio earlier this week I heard some woman crying (literally) about how gas prices were making it hard for her to keep driving her SUV.
To that I say "HALLELUJAH!" Let the prices rise to $4 a liter! As long as gas is cheaper than water, there will be no incentive for fuel-efficient vehicles / public transit / cycling, no incentive for the development of real communities (instead of 'burbs that require a car for groceries / school / entertainment), no incentive to purchase locally-grown produce, and no reflection of the real cost to the environment that our combustion-oriented society produces. (so says dan, now stepping off his soapbox and getting ready to drive 2.5 hours north to a cottage for a week)
You are an IDIOT! You attack a women who drives an SUV, yet you are missing the big picture. Which is that we "the people" are getting royaly screwed. Prices are increasing on EVERYTHING from milk to furniture, EVERYTHING these days costs more. And you don't get a break or a special treatment even if you would to drive a car that runs on water! Your main problem is people who drive SUV's. My main problem are dumb people like you who accepts these high prices and even wants them to increase more!
they topped $1.03 in Calgary yesterday too... thats sad considering that this is where it all comes from.
as for anonomous post... Dan is right... the High prices suck but it has more to do with demand than supply... only solution to lower prices is to find a way for consumers to lower demand... go to this link if your really want to know whats all behind the high price... http://cloudofidiotgas.blogspot.com/2005/08/gasoline-price-for-dummies.html
It's not clear to me who you want a break from... if you're driving a car that runs on water, then, well, I guess you're still paying $1 / liter if you're pouring bottled water into it, otherwise you'll be paying a couple of pennies per tank. Sounds like a break to me.
We pay more for everything when gas prices go up because we pay for things like milk that is trucked in from hundreds of miles away at central treatment plants, or strawberries from California, or kiwis from Argentina. Note my third paragraph: I argued that high gas prices will discourage demand for goods transported over long distances for precisely this reason. And I believe that discouraging this demand is a good thing because it will reduce the amount of wasted fuel and exhaust gases that result from these purchasing patterns. If anybody is "screwing" you, it is you and the choices that you make everyday. So stop screwing yourself, take some responsibility, and give yourself a break: bike, take public transit, or drive a fuel-efficient vehicle whenever possible, and try to purchase locally grown and manufactured produce and goods. Simple enough, but a fairly radical change for a society built on the principle of "give me convenience or give me death" (to quote one of the Dead Kennedys finese albums).
I do question why the price of Canadian gas is rising as we are a producer and not an importer of oil. We ship 2,700,000 barrels of oil a day to the U.S. It seems to me that we should just stop exporting and selling it and use it in Canada to reduce our gas prices. Certainly the other oil producing countries are keeping their prices down.
Gasoline price for dummies
http://cloudofidiotgas.blogspot.com/2005/08/gasoline-price-for-dummies.html
I guess, there is a small error, it has increased 25% from 80 cents to 1 dollar.
Does it suck? of course but in the big picture its not a real shocker. Are we still making the same salaries as 1960? no they've gone way up, so it makes sense that if companies have to pay higher salaries they have to raise gas prices to compensate for it.
Inflation is a fact of life and gas is not immune and I bet if I researched gas has gone up less than inflation.
I'd buy the inflation argument if it was a progressive couple of % a year, which has been happening already. In the last 10 years the price of gas in Toronto has more then doubled. It is the 20-25% jumps in less then a months time that freak me out.
Regarding inflation and gas prices, an interesting chart:
http://www.randomuseless.info/gasprice/gasprice.html
yea lately its been nuts for sure, it seems to go up 5% a month around here. I'm paying $3.00 a gallon now compared to roughly $2.00 last year
 I found this article from 2000 http://slate.msn.com/id/1004904 anyway, yep it sucks
Funny thing is, here in the US, most of our large cities are the ENTIRE SIZE of your ENTIRE COUNTIRES !!!!
Example, here in LosAngeles, it you can go over 83 miles from one side of the county to the other before you run into SanDiego, or another county. Also, LosAngeles is almost 10.5 million people right now !!! That's more then most small European countries put together !!! And talk about the distance, I've traveled all over Europe, Germany, France, The Netherlands, etc... you can hoop skip and jump from one to another in a short period of time. Hell, you guys use 1/3 the fuel we do, so of course it'll be less......higher volume.......cheaper...... Get the point! Not to difficult now is it? |
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