Popular

Comments

Subscribe

  • Subscribe

What Is Worse Than High Gas Prices? No Gas Prices

Posted by Sean | Posted under Gas | September 15, 2008

Yesterday was… odd? eery?… I’m not sure the right word.

DW and I went out for a quick trip of groceries and gas. On the way back, we saw a gas station with no cars and no prices. Popular station, no way they went out of business. But we were not planning to use that station anyway, so we continued on. As we get to the station by our house, same thing. Well, almost… they still had the highest grade of premium at $4.09. We have a lot of gas stations nearby, so rather than give in to premium, I tried my luck down the road. Finally, gas-o-line!

Turns out, it was only one company, and only a quarter of their stations. Yet it was the company with the dominant presence in our area, so it registered a bigger impression with us. Maybe I’m too young or have a bad memory, but I can’t remember a gas station ever being out of gas. Much less two on the same trip. It was like being transported into a post-gasoline future, with no Plan B.

Really makes one stop and think about our energy interdependency.

I can telecommute for business, but they need to ship product out.

I can walk to a big grocery store, but they need to ship product in.

Short-term, I can’t get more than two degrees of separation from energy. Which is one degree more than a lot of people, unfortunately. One guy in a rural town said he would gladly pay $6 per gallon. In a worst-case scenario, that is probably an understatement

Like this article? Subscribe to our RSS feed

Leave a Comment

If you would like to make a comment, please fill out the form below.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Comments

6 Comments so far
  1. gas additive September 15, 2008 3:02 pm

    That would be a little odd…I haven’t seen that happen around here yet, but I’m not sure what I would think if I saw that!

  2. Dawn September 15, 2008 3:12 pm

    Wow. I haven’t seen that yet. I wonder, was there a run on gas in your area?

  3. Sean September 15, 2008 3:47 pm

    I think it was just a supply glitch due to Ike. Actually, I saw someone say it was a price issue, i.e. the company let their supply run out rather than take larger losses by restocking.

  4. Miranda September 16, 2008 5:41 am

    Weird. We had a supply truck leak last week on our town’s Main Street. About 800 gallons of gas. They had to shut down the busiest part of town for 5 hours to get it cleaned up.

    That made me think about all sorts of energy related issues — and how we could find less dangerous sources as well as more cost efficient and renewable sources…

  5. Uncommonadvice September 16, 2008 9:48 am

    About 6 years ago in the UK we had the “Petrol Strike”, when all the big haulage firms blockaded the oil refineries and stopped the oil getting out. It was utter chaos!

  6. Jeff September 17, 2008 3:48 pm

    Wow. The gas shortage hasn’t hit anywhere around my area, but I’ve heard that it’s a good idea to keep your tank full for the next few weeks. Scary to think about what life would be like if it all stopped suddenly … kind of makes you want to start a garden or something. At least then you would have something to eat.