does any-one understand why the gas prices keep going up? any-one know what can be done?

Answer 1

VOTE THE DEMOCRATS INTO POWER

I spent the last 3 weeks on the floor in congress and every time oil came up the republicans defended the companies while democrats wanted to impose more laws to keep them in line.

Answer 2

Well, the reason gas prices keep going up could take a while to explain, but I'll try to make it short. It's mostly about supply and demand. With China coming online in the need for oil products such as gas and diesel, the worldwide demand has increased quite a bit over the past 3-5 years. Also, with wars in the middle east, the speculation of a supply problem looms with those setting the price of oil. There is a lot of speculation that goes into the pricing of barrels of oil. The people on Wall Street and financial districts around the world expect the price to go up, thus it does. The shutdown of an Alaskan pipeline isn't going to help matters either. Its all about economics really. Of course some people will look at the record profits of the oil companies and think they are getting ripped off, when in fact, what happens when you sell more of your product??? You profits go up. When you are selling twice as much gas/oil as ever, your profits are going to be twice as high.

What you can do to help is ride a bike or walk, if we can cut demand a little we might be able to see a drop in prices, but that is not likely as the Chinese demand is only going to increase, and the U.S demand will only increase, and eventually here in the U.S we're going to be paying $5 a gallon. I'd say within a year or two really. Or you could buy a hybrid vehicle and support that movement.

Answer 3

The theory of supply and demand that most here talk about is the basis of the problem. Oil takes millions of years to produce and we are steadily increasing the need for it.

There have been a few that have figured out a way to run engines on water. I even saw a web site not too long ago that had a video. But it is now gone along with anyone that was involved with it. Best theory is the Government stepped in.

Rumors go back even to when my Grandpa was young about issues like this. He remembers hearing about someone that got their tractor to run on a mixture of water and gas. Then they dissapeared. The Government came and bought everything and paid them to move and never mention it again.

Why would they do that some will ask...To keep the profits flowing! The "tax" on gas is around 40 cents per gallon right now. plus most politicians have investments in oil. But they can't tax or control Water (or at least they haven't figured out how to). It falls free from the sky!

But as for the price think of all the manpower and machinery it takes to drill for it, bring it up from the ground, shipp it all over the world to refineries to change it into Gasoline and you may realize it's not as expensive as it seems. I see people that will pay almost 2 dollrs for a QUART of water! That's almost 8 dollars a gallon!! How many employees do you think they need to hold the bottle under the tap to fill it up?

Answer 4

There are many factors that affect the price of gasoline. First theere is the icnreased tightening of supllies correlated with global demand. As more countries, especially India and CHina, want oil, the price will go up because only somuch is produced to begin with. There is also the instability factor for oil producing countries. Conflicts in the middle east has a dramatic affect as seen. Russia is fairly stable, but state owned. Furthermore, most Russian oil is going to russia and not out of the country. Then tehre is the issue in venzuala in terms of different political ideologies between Chavez and Washington. Regardless, Venezuala remains a good place to do business because Chavez nderstands he needs western companies to refine the oil. However, he is keen to subsadize his own countries prices and keep South Americs aupplies high before trading with the west. Then tehre are f course the costs of refinery or pipline damage from corrosion or natural disaters like Hurrican Katrina. The biggest problem though can be seen i the mirror. Despite high prices of 3 dollars or more a gallon, people in the US are stilldriving SUV's or high gas using cars. Although a small shift is occuring in the type of cars, it needs to be much larger to affect the price.

Answer 5

This is an extremely complicated issue, but I'll try to sum up the major points as briefly as possible.

The major problem is that oil production is failing to keep up with consumption. Production is limited by a lack of refinery capacity and a lack of new 'easy to extract' oil resources (in other words there is more oil out there but the means of extracting it is on the more expensive end). Consumption is growing at an alarming rate due to huge developing countries like China and India, and due to US consumers refusal to buy more fuel efficient vehicles - they say they want them in marketing research, but they just don't make their actual purchase based on efficiency.

Now the really bad news - according to most analysts even if security issues in the Middle East and production and consumption issues could be addressed this would likely only cause a very temporary dip in the price of gas. From here on in, till we've harvested the last drop the price is almost inevitably going to go up, and up, and up. So, get yourself a fuel efficient vehicle, and walk or bike everywhere you can. In other words, get used to it. Until we find viable alternative energy sources and actually invest in them, this energy crisis is here to stay.

Answer 6

Rebellion against it is the only way. If people stopped driving for everything. Gas prices would go down. Its high becuase gas is in high demand. People forget that they were givin two legs so they could walk. I realize this is not possible for everyone. But if you can see a store from your house and do not try to walk sometimes. Well its that kind of thinking that makes prices so high.

Answer 7

There are many reasons why it is going up. The main one is demand. High energy usage, non fuel efficient vehicles, China's economy growing in leap and bounds, so their demand is way up, The wars in the Middle east.
What you can do is conserve energy where you can, buy a more fuel efficient vehicle or use car pooling or public transportation. Stop buying all the stuff made in China, you are only increasing their demand more. I don't know what to do about the middle east. That has been going on for centuries and it looks to keep going on for centuries more.

Answer 8

Because it can. They want to take us for a ride and are doing so. The only way you can stop this is by boycotting. But that takes too much work from everyone. Until then gas prices will go up until someone takes action.

Answer 9

Because the supply line keeps getting interrupted and the plants cant keep up with demand. Additionally OPEC keeps upping the price on oil.

What can be done? If Ive said it once...ive said it a hundred times. Find a renewable fuel source that it not petroleum based.

Answer 10

Gas price increases are a mix of multiple different political and economical factors. On an economic front, price is a direct result of supply and demand. As production, supply, has not increased in drastic amounts in the past few years, demand has. China has advanced as a global consumer of all fuels, oil, natural gas, coal, etc. As more and more people continue to demand more of a finite commodity, prices will continue to increase.
On the political side, oil is traded as commodities on world exchanges. Large companies purchase fuel (barrels of oil) on world indexes but they are traditionally purchased as futures. A company today will purchase fuel for October. Of course nobody will know what the supply will be in the future so they have to make an educated guess. Factors that influence what will happen in the future have to be estimated on today’s global environment. Issues like the stance of sanctioning Iran, the world's 4th largest oil exporter, may have repercussions on their output. Issues with Iraq's fragile supply system and the ongoing disruption with Middle Eastern wars in Lebanon and Isreal although not directly connected with oil exports says much about the stability in the region. 2 or 3 weeks ago in Nigeria, rebels destroyed a Shell pipeline which shut down a large supply source.

Look at it this way. The more expensive petroleum based fuel is, the better. It won't be long until world demand exceeds supply and people will no longer be able to afford it. As prices increase, attention will be given to alternatives such as coal electric (clean burning hopefully), biofuels (ethanol, biodiesel - don't believe everything negative thing you hear about the feasibility of these programs), and other fuels, although years away, will aid us in developing a domestic source of fuel. We need a renewable non-polluting source of energy, expecially we need a deviation from carbon based fuels which continue to be a detriment to our environment (if you get a chance, see Al Gore's new documentary).

Lastly, incremental price increases tend to happen when "event" occur that disrupt supply or more so make the appearance of a disrupted supply. Issues such as Katrina who forces the close of many off shore gulf drilling and refining plants. Tomorrow you can expect to see prices rise again as BP announced a closure of its Alaskan plant due to possible leakages which was considered secure because it was immune to overseas political issues.

If you hear reports of the governement opening up its strategic oil reserves (a big cave filled by the government with oil) don't be too reassured. The reserve only has about enough oil to supply the U.S. with about one months worth of oil at current consumption. So if there was a real problem, it would not be of much help. But again, price is largly based off of the preception of supply and demand, so it may aid in price soothing, but it is no answer.

In the short term the only factor that will force the price of gasoline lower is a drastic decrease in demand or an increase in supply. Neither of which will happen. So consider prices on the rise until an alternative comes along.

Hopefully that answers your question

Answer 11

Goes up when the cost of provide you with gas goes up i.e. cost to buy per barrel increases, an event occurs that reduces the quantity that can be delivered to the market place etc.... The only solution in the long-term is to source alternative sources and for consumers to change how they buy cars i.e. stay away from the fuel-guzzlers like SUV's etc