what's your prediction on the future of gas prices?

[LTC8K6]

Gas prices have finally made an impact in my car buying decision. Last night I sold my 328xi that was getting 21.9mpg and required premium fuel for a new Focus that should get me about 30mpg and takes regular fuel. My daily commute is 60 miles round trip so the mpg increase and gas price difference should be noticeable.
I'm in the same county as Chicago (NW burbs) and noticed gas prices at $4.69 for regular on my way to the dealership last night.

If those are mostly highway miles, a new Focus should be getting close to 40mpg.

 

[HarryLui]

I figure $4/gallon this year easy. Probably higher in some places. The $5/gallon mark is harder to see as that will cause a lot of pain for a lot of people.

That's what they said about $2 mark, $3 mark, and $4 mark. It's always like this, first time it hit those mark, people bitch a lot about it, then price goes down a little, then 2nd time it hit that mark, people bitch less, then people accept the price as norm, then cycle repeat itself in 2-3 years. We'll get to $5 in less than a year.


We're not at the $4 mark for the first time.

Here's a easy to understand chart.

Here's more like the actual pricing.

 

[jlee]

Yeah, I was going to say that first chart is way off...I was paying over $4/gal for 87 in 2008.

 

[NAC]

Stepping on my soap box:

I believe we have reached, or will soon reach peak production of well oil – the point in time at which we have pumped 50% of the easily accessible underground oil. From that point, we will be able to plateau production, perhaps increase slightly for a while as marginal wells and other sources such as tar sands, shale oil, and the conversion of coal to oil are brought online. And then production of fossil fuel oil will begin to decrease.

I don’t know the timing of those events, but I believe it will all be within the few decades. I believe the decrease in fossil fuel oil production will then continue for perhaps centuries. We wont run out of fossil fuel oil, just every year we’ll only be able to pump a bit less of it.

To replace that capacity, and provide an increase in production – we will need other non fossil sources such as Palm oil and sugar / cane ethanol. However I believe neither of those will be sufficient – the cost is too high. I believe that oil production from algae or perhaps cellulosic ethanol has real capacity to replace fossil fuels.

As to prices – so many variables, and it depends on the advance of technology. If I had to guess – prices will fluctuate vary up and down, with an overall trajectory above inflation for a decade or more, until technology develops a solution which is cheap and plentiful to produce oil, and prices can stabilize and decrease.

I believe that oil conspiracy theories, or that the oil companies are just out to screw us is hogwash. They are making a lot of money because they can produce a commodity for which there is limited capacity and ever increasing demand.

Stepping off my soap box.