Why is gas so expensive?
Gasoline is so expensive because it is based on underlying price of oil. oil is going up so dramatically because there is a basic supply demand imbalance for oil. The large oil fields around the world in Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Venezuela and Nigeria have been declining for many years and we are not finding huge new amounts of oil to replace those huge oil fields. So in general, the supply has been coming down. Meanwhile the demand has been going up dramatically, not only in the US where we still have lots of SUVs and various gas hogging vehicles, but particulate in China, India, Indonesia, and other developing countries. They used to take bicycles and now they have cars or buses. They are building many new factories, new apartment buildings, new stores, and all of this takes a huge amount of energy, so the demand is just going up dramatically at the time that the supply is peaking or coming down and that is why oil has gone up so dramatically and it translates into gasoline. At the local service station, the retail price of gas is partly oil, its a lot of taxes as well; state, federal, and local taxes are a big part of what you pay for gasoline. So, its high and its going to keep going up. The best solution is to have some kind of a fuel efficient car, where at least you can make the most of the gasoline that you are buying.
