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01 / 05
Gasoline Time Price Now below 10-Year Average

Blog Post | Energy Prices

Gasoline Time Price Now below 10-Year Average

Drilling for knowledge resources creates energy abundance.

Gale L. Pooley —

Summary: The US Department of Energy reported a drop in gasoline prices to $3.05 per gallon in late December, with some locations in Texas seeing prices as low as $2.50. More significantly, the average time price of gasoline has been declining, reflecting an increase in gasoline abundance driven by record-high US crude oil production and innovative drilling technologies.

The US Department of Energy reported that regular gasoline was down to $3.05 a gallon the week before Christmas. You can find gas prices close to $2.50 in Texas and at some stores or other locations.

While the price at the pump is interesting, the time it takes to earn the money to fill your tank is what really counts.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports nominal gasoline prices and average hourly earnings. Dividing one by the other gives us the time price. It is the change in the time price over time that reveals our true economic condition.

Line graph displaying the gasoline time price in minutes between 2013 to 2023

Since 2013, the average time price of a gallon of gasoline has been around 6.34 minutes. The lowest time price was 3.75 minutes in April 2020 when COVID-19 lockdown policies were suppressing demand. The highest price was 9.43 minutes in June 2022 when supply and demand were going in opposite directions. The trend line indicates that the time price will continue to decline, suggesting an increase in gasoline abundance.

US crude oil production hit a record high of 13.21 million barrels per day in September 2023. This was up 88.7 percent from 7 million barrels per day in January 2013.

Line graph displaying the production of US Crude Oil from 2013 to 2023 in Thousands of Barrels

The United States is the world’s leading energy producer of crude oil and natural gas, with over half of the wells on the planet.

US energy entrepreneurs created horizontal drilling and fracking. The major reason the United States leads this industry is because we don’t have a bureaucratic state-monopoly energy company, and people have subsurface property rights. That means that individuals own the oil beneath their feet and therefore have a great incentive to drill.

What’s more, we discover valuable new knowledge every time a new well is drilled. This accumulation of knowledge is really our most valuable energy resource. Note how each rig is “getting smarter.”

This graph highlights an inverse relationship; US oil output has steadily risen since 2005 while the amount of drilling rigs has declined.

This article was published at Gale Winds on 1/4/2024.

New York Times | Energy Production

Draft Executive Orders to Speed Construction of Nuclear Plants

“The Trump administration is considering several executive orders aimed at speeding up the construction of nuclear power plants to help meet rising electricity demand, according to drafts reviewed by The New York Times.

The draft orders say the United States has fallen behind China in expanding nuclear power and call for a ‘wholesale revision’ of federal safety regulations to make it easier to build new plants. They envision the Department of Defense taking a prominent role in ordering reactors and installing them on military bases.

They would also set a goal of quadrupling the size of the nation’s fleet of nuclear power plants, from nearly 100 gigawatts of electric capacity today to 400 gigawatts by 2050. One gigawatt is enough to power nearly 1 million homes.”

From New York Times.

Dialogue Earth | Energy Production

Distributed Energy Is Driving Latin America’s Energy Transition

“Distributed energy refers to a range of technologies that generate electricity at or near the place of use…

Latin America and the Caribbean has seen a huge expansion of distributed energy, driven mostly by Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Chile and Colombia. The region went from just one gigawatt installed capacity of distributed systems in 2017 to 31.8 GW by 2023, the year with the latest available data, according to energy consultancy Onred. Virtually all of these installations use solar panels.”

From Dialogue Earth.

Axios | Energy Production

Ontario Modular Reactor to Be First in “Western World,” GE Predicts

“Ontario officials have given final approval to construct a GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy small modular reactor (SMR) that the company predicts will be the first SMR operating in the ‘Western world.’

Early site preparation is complete and construction will start soon, GE Vernova said. The reactor is expected to be online by 2030.

  • Four total units are eventually planned for the site. All four units are expected to be operating by 2035.
  • The total project cost for all the units would be $20.9 billion Canadian ($15.06 USD), Stephen Lecce, the province’s energy minister, said at a news event. 

State of play: The planned reactors will help meet what provincial officials expect to be a 75% rise in Ontario’s power demand by 2050, Lecce said.”

From Axios.

CNN | Energy Production

Pakistan Pulls off One of the World’s Fastest Solar Revolutions

“Pakistan, home to more than 240 million people, is experiencing one of the most rapid solar revolutions on the planet, even as it grapples with poverty and economic instability.

The country has become a huge new market for solar as super-cheap Chinese solar panels flood in. It imported 17 gigawatts of solar panels in 2024, more than double the previous year, making it the world’s third-biggest importer, according to data from the climate think tank Ember.

Pakistan’s story is unique, said Mustafa Amjad, program director at Renewables First, an energy think tank based in Islamabad. Solar has been adopted at mass scale in countries including Vietnam and South Africa, ‘but none have had the speed and scale that Pakistan has had,’ he told CNN.

There’s one particular aspect fascinating experts: The solar boom is a grassroots revolution and almost none of it is in the form of big solar farms. ‘There is no policy push that is driving this; this is essentially people-led and market driven,’ Amjad said.”

From CNN.