How much do you think gas is WORTH a gallon.

[kristopher]

Look at it objectively and consider the amount of work that can be done with the energy in one gallon. Don't discount it because of your desire for it to be cheap, rate it by it's usefulness and the degree of damage tied to it. How much should someone have to pay to use a gallon of it?

[mach2]

1. About 7 euros

...

[ingac70]

2. Bush devaluing of the dollar...

makes it cost around a dollar more than it should.

[sam sarrha]

3. and speculators taking about 34%.. deregulation caused the price to jump.. food is now

deregulated from speculation.. so it will double too.. double again

[GliderGuider]

4. Considering that a gallon of gasoline can replace about 120 hours of human labour

That's even accounting for the efficiency loss of using the gasoline in an ICE.

Gasoline should probably be valued at no less than a quarter what we'd pay a human being to do the same work. 120 hours of human labour at $8.00 per hour is almost $1000, so a quarter of that is $250. So that makes a fair value for gasoline about $250/gallon.

That price would sure help cut down CO2 emissions...

[ingac70]

6. And make sure working people in rural areas starve...

since they won't be able to drive to work.

[Fovea]

8. In Pennsylvania

there are whole farming communities getting around by horse and buggy. If you aint farmin, ranchin, or minin, you will live in town.

Course, most folks are going to be farming in 21st century America. And not on the back of a John Deere.

[ingac70]

12. I'm talking about...

average, everyday people, not religious sects.

There are a few Mennonites in my area, and they bum car rides when the need to go into the city.

[Fovea]

14. I am talking about people

who like food in the winter.

[ingac70]

18. ....

People with 9 to 5 jobs, who live on less than half acre plots, go to the grocery store in the winter.

Hello... modern world!

[Fovea]

26. Goodbye, modern world.

More than 80% of non mineral products are delivered by over the road truck last I checked, about two years ago.

And any job that depends on a truck pulling up to a dock with cargo will be threatened.
As will any company where a significant percentage of key employees must drive to work.

The modern world is completely dependent on *cheap* oil.
The whole point of the panic is that the modern world as defined by the economy post WW2 is over. Like a brontosaur, the hind brain still thinks it is alive.

We are going to re-enter the 19th Century world in many important ways. Most of them will directly affect your career, your diet, and the way you move yourself and your cargo.

If you live on a half acre and work a 9 to 5 job, you may live in the country, but soon you will also work there. Look around for the sorts of jobs that exist within five miles of your home and don't have a truck loading dock.

[The2ndWheel]

22. Most of us wouldn't exist without cheap energy

There is only so much physical reality that we can attempt to control without screwing up the whole thing. And when it does catch up to us, it's going to suck. That's why we have to destroy the planet to save ourselves from it.

[Clear Blue Sky]

10. Not only would it cut down on our CO2 emissions,

but it would put us back a century or two.

No transport of food or other goods. Those who can live off the land will survive, but the rest (95+%) won't.

[GliderGuider]

13. The question was what a gallon was WORTH

Not what having it priced at that point wold do to civilization.

Things will fall apart long before gas gets to $100 a gallon.

[phantom power]

15. Puts a value on geology's one-time gift, doesn't it.

[Clear Blue Sky]

21. Another way to look at the worth is

that it's worth what someone is willing to pay for it. Like a house. I may think my house is worth X, but if the most anyone will pay is 90% of X, then that is what it's worth.

[GliderGuider]

23. Absolutely.

So, given that oil is an international commodity, what is the absolute most that any buyer in that market might be willing to pay at any time into the future? I'd bet it's well north of $200 a gallon.

[Clear Blue Sky]

24. Depends who.

The military would spend $200 if necessary as would big corporations and the wealthy. The average person could/would not. Going to work would be a money losing rather than money making proposition.

[The2ndWheel]

19. Well a couple centuries ago, food and goods were transported

America wouldn't exist if they weren't. Rome wouldn't have existed if they weren't.

What oil did was allow more and more people to live like kings and queens, maybe even better than some of them. Why? Because cheap energy was cheaper than slaves.

And linear time is an illusion anyway. We're still in the same place, it's just different.

[Fovea]

11. The problem with that calculation

is that the next cheapest substitute will suffice.

Since animal traction can replace ICE for several applications, a team of horse or oxen with a teamster can be had for significantly less than the cost of 120 man hours of labor to do the same work.

It might get that figure into the $50/gal range.

[GliderGuider]

17. OK, but $250 is only 30 hours of human labour

And $50 is just 6 hours of work. I think a gallon of gasoline is worth way more than 6 hours of me chopping wood with an axe.

I agree that alternatives should take over well before we regress to sedan chairs and people erecting big stone heads by hand. What point that will depends be on the alternatives available, though.

[SlipperySlope]

27. 120 hours of human labor is $10

I assume the labor will take place in whatever is the most cost effective place. If you are asking laborers to dig a four-foot ditch across your property, then clearly the labor has to take place here. But if I'm your laborers to (for example) hammer balls of iron into thin sheets of iron, then that labor can take place wherever labor and iron are the cheapest.

The international standard of poverty is one dollar a day. Assuming you pay your laborers enough to lift them out of poverty, and assuming they work for twelve hours a day, they are being paid 8.3 cents per hour.

8.3 cents/hour x 120 hours = $10

So, once the wholesale untaxed price of gasoline exceeds $10 per gallon, it starts to make sense to use human labor instead in some parts of the world.

[Fovea]

28. Yes.

six hours with a double bitted axe is back breaking.

But I can cut several times that with a log dolly and a spring return log saw or better yet, a buddy and a pit saw. And I will still be able to raise my arms over my head when I am done.

That is part of what we both agree will happen.

My point is that labor/fuel equivalences are complex, and dependent on the cultural ingenuity applied to tasks as well as applicablity of other sorts of traction. Fortunately, we have a lot of experience and knowledge regarding intensive sustainable agriculture for the developing world from the 20th C.

We can live with a lot less oil than we use without a complete reversion to a pre industrial state. That semi soft landing will mean a lot more if we use it to find the greatest number of best practices and alternatives possible.

The biggest displacements will involve agriculture and food distribution I believe.

[Fovea]

5. I'd ballpark it at around $11/gal

May 2008 dollars.

[SlipperySlope]

7. $250 / gallon

The value of a gallon of gas?

I can put about one ton of stuff in the back of a truck and transport it roughly ten miles using one gallon of gas.

If there was no gasoline, and I had to pay manual laborers to carry one ton of stuff ten miles, how much would I have to pay them?

Depending on your assumptions for how much each laborer can carry, how many hours it would take, and the hourly wage, I think you would find that a gallon of gas could be worth upwards of $250.

In a pure free market, assuming no taxes are assessed on fuel, that is where I would expect the price to end up in an era of minimal supply (if there were no energy alternatives).

Long before that point, however, I'd probably switch to a coal or wood burning vehicle.

[SlipperySlope]

9. N/T

N/T

[phantom power]

16. GG's estimate is interesting. Do you also have an estimate in mind?

[kristopher]

29. I think they are all interesting comments.

The question is one going to individual values and beliefs

I can see the point in every one of the perspectives offered. GG has an interesting take, but under those conditions I'd place the value even higher perhaps, because of the technology behind the engine.

That point is important since, without the proper technology to contain the explosive nature of gasoline, it really has limited use.

The carry a load argument is such a clear demonstration of the value with appropriate technology, isn't it? I was struck by the tactics used to search for survivors in the china earthquake. They had no heavy equipment to lift rubble and tear apart partially collapsed buildings so, working by hand they chose to collapse the buildings, making them safe for rescuers to sift through.

Another measure was the cost of substitution. Again considering existing technology, we have biofuels. Let's say we learn a bit and get to a 2:1 return on energy investment. Then the value could be measured against the labor to produce the energy input.

At 2:1 you need to make 2 gal for fuel to gain one of surplus. So the cost of a gallon of surplus ethanol is worth the energy from (combination of ethanol, wind, solar, and nuclear) that went into its creation. If those inputs are low enough, then the substitution price might be fairly low - IF production can meet demand without sucking the energy from every other activity.

Just the way things are, and what will we pay at the pump? I guess it will top out at $6 and slide back to between $4-5 and sit there for a few years allowing us time to restructure.

I firmly believe the price has more to do with taming the US regarding imperial arrogance and obstructionism on global warming than anything else. I saw a well prepared paper (I think out of India) at the beginning of the Invasion of Iraq that called for reining us in through high energy prices and devaluation of the dollar. It was circulating at some relatively high levels, but I hd sort of forgotten about it until recently.

I recall someone studied under Odum - I'd enjoy hering their opinions.

thanks to everyone, we actually managed a civil discussion.

[fed-up]

20. this week it will cost me a couple of dinners and a lunch or two-stomach grumbling be damned nt

[stuntcat]

25. WORTH..

about 50 cents. It should COST at least $200 though.. not that any amount of money will bring back the animals going extinct lately.

(I've wanted to ask this here for a long time but I was scared, so thanks for asking it!)

[NNadir]

30. So what's this, a paen to gasoline?

A kilogram of uranium contains the equivalent of 600,000 gallons of gasoline.

So what?

The problem with gasoline is not what people pay for it. The problem with gasoline is that damage the waste does.

There are no repositories for dangerous fossil fuel waste, none are planned, and none can be sited.

Dangerous fossil fuel wastes kill. I note that charging $200/gallon for gasoline could not contain its external costs.

Now how much is a fully loaded six shooter worth in a game of Russian Roulette?

High gasoline prices are a good thing. Gasoline is worse than worthless.

[bhikkhu]

31. I know what gas is worth, but what is a $ worth?

One is a limited commodity which performs real work, the other is a piece of paper which may be printed and distributed at will.

Not to make too strong a point, but when dealing with a fiat currency ("backed by the full faith, etc") against a real resource...there's not a great deal intelligent to be said.

[kristopher]

32. You introduced the dollar.

No currency was specified. Your point is really the meat of the OP.

GG bases the price on human labor replaced.

I admit I had a few personal experiences in mind; once I hand-made a knife with just hand tools from a bar of steel. Another time I dug a medium size retention pond with an excavator - and 1.6 gallons of diesel fuel. Yet another time in my life, like everyone around us then, we controlled the weeds around our home with a hand scythe, not a power mower. That little bit of gasoline in a briggs and stratton 3 HP engine was quite marvelous to a little boy with very sore hands when it came along...

Then the thread did move to valuing it against the dollar. That is consideration of the commodity on a world exchange market which has, until recently, reflected very little of the obvious value that several people here see in gasoline.

Average Energy Content of Various Fuels

1 kilowatt-hour of electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3,413 Btu
1 cubic foot of natural gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1,008 to 1,034 Btu
1 therm of natural gas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .100,000 Btu
1 gallon of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........ . . . . .95,475 Btu
1 gallon of crude oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .138,095 Btu
1 barrel of crude oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5,800,000 Btu
1 gallon of kerosene or light distillate oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .135,000 Btu
1 gallon of middle distillate or diesel fuel oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .138,690 Btu
1 gallon of residual fuel oil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .149,690 Btu
1 gallon of gasoline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125,000 Btu
1 gallon of ethanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84,400 Btu
1 gallon of methanol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .62,800 Btu
1 gallon of gasohol (10% ethanol, 90% gasoline) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120,900 Btu
1 pound of coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8,100 to 13,000 Btu
1 ton of coal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16,200,000 to 26,000,000 Btu
1 ton of coke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26,000,000 Btu
1 ton of wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9,000,000 to 17,000,000 Btu
1 standard cord of wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. . . . . . . .18,000,000 to 24,000,000 Btu
1 face cord of wood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... .6,000,000 to 8,000,000 Btu
1 pound of low pressure steam (recoverable heat) . . . . . . . . . ............. . . . . . . . . . . .1,000 Btu

Measurement Conversions

1 short ton (ton) = 2,000 pounds = 6.65 barrels (crude oil)
1 metric ton (tonn) = 2,200 pounds
1 barrel (bbl) = 42 gallons = 5.615 cubic feet = 159.0 liters
1 Mcf = 1,000 cubic feet
1 therm = 105Btu = 100,000 Btu
1 thousand Btu (KBtu) = 1,000 Btu
1 million Btu (MMBtu) = 1,000,000 Btu
1 quad = 1015(quadrillion) Btu or 1,000,000,000 MMBtu
1 kilowatt-hour (kWh) = 1,000 watt-hours
1 megawatt-hour (MWh) = 1,000 kWh or 1,000,000 watt-hours
1 gigawatt-hour (GWh) = 1,000 MWh or 1,000,000,000 watt-hours
1 gallon = 4.524 pounds liquefied petroleum gas
1 standard cord of wood = 8 feet x 4 feet x 4 feet = 128 cubic feet = approx. 4,000 lbs.
1 face cord of wood = 8 feet x 4 feet x 16 inches = 42.7 cubic feet = approx. 1,333 lbs.

[depakid]

33. Matthew Simmons likes to put the question into perspective in his interviews

For instance: "at $100 a barrel, which I still think is a preposterously cheap price. It works out at just $0.15 a cup."

What else can you get for 15 cents a cup? Bottled water? LOL.

"A cup of gas will get a car with six passengers in, with the air conditioning on and go two miles. It's a bargain," he added.

http://www.arabianbusiness.com/512436-oil-could-reach-us300-claims-expert

Personally, I find the energy/labor equivalents to be most revealing, as they require us to focus on work- and what it is and should be worth.