My ideas how to lower gas prices, Will these ideas work or not?

Question

#1 All gas stations will offer ONE grade of gasoline, ( regular unleaded 87 octane )

#2 All gasoline sold in the U.S. will have the same formulation, ( instead of different formulations for different parts of the country due to pollution )

#3 The U.S. Government can offer tax rebates on the lesser amounts of gasoline you purchace to encourage people to use less and to buy more fuel efficent cars. ( for an example if you use less than 200 gallons in a year then you will recieve a $500 tax rebate) but if you use more than 200 gallons you must pay the government $250 and this can be paid for by redistributing and the increased gas taxes.

Answer 1

#1 All gas stations will offer ONE grade of gasoline, ( regular unleaded 87 octane )

no, some engines require higher octane gas to prevent detonation. and forcing people to buy the cheapest gas available won't lower prices

#2 All gasoline sold in the U.S. will have the same formulation, ( instead of different formulations for different parts of the country due to pollution )

well, lower pollution gas ends to be pricier. and if this plan were used, all gas would set to strictest standard, meaning most people will pay more than they do now

#3 The U.S. Government can offer tax rebates on the lesser amounts of gasoline you purchace to encourage people to use less and to buy more fuel efficent cars. ( for an example if you use less than 200 gallons in a year then you will recieve a $500 tax rebate) but if you use more than 200 gallons you must pay the government $250 and this can be paid for by redistributing and the increased gas taxes.

1. 200 gallons is way too low. even at 30 MPG, that's only 6000 mile in a year. 500 gallons would be more feasible

2. the only way i could possibly save that much gas is to buy a new house closer to work. $500 per year is not going to cover that. and it doesn't lower the price of gas

3. again, this won't lower gas prices. companies will become desperate and raise their prices even more to compensate for the lack of sales

we need to do 3 things

1. force gas companies to lower their prices (they're making record profits, which means that a larger percentage of the price of gas goes into their pockets)

2. drill our own oil (north america has an estimated 1 trillion barrels) instead of paying ungodly sums to somebody else

3. develop alternative fuels, and provide the infrastructure to support it. this achieves 2 things. first, we'll have something in place when oil runs out (and it will, sooner or later). second, it's competition, which will force gas prices down to draw more customers

Answer 2

no. supply and demand. you use it, they sell it, at whatever price they want.

Answer 3

Though the thought is nice, the truth of the matter is that the gas companies do NOT want the price of gas to go down. That's why you don't see any gasoline free cars. Many models of such have been bought up and kept away from the average person.

Though in theory this would work, practically it wouldn't. Because just like ciggarette companies, they're not too worried about the consumers as long as the money is still rolling in.

Answer 4

Envirowackos 'own' California they would never agree to 2.

I like the #1.. one grade... I don't know anyone that buys supreme for their car anymore it used to be that way when cars had 8 cylinders but who has an 8 cylinder anymore?

(btw we are up to 4.86 a gallon at the Chevron they have median prices in our town)

btw the electric cars are out there and if you do in town driving your set..All those who want to hit the freeway have to wait a couple more years. Check www.tesla.com for the $109,000 sports car that is all electric and pretty darn fast.

Otherwise take a look for Zap Dealers.

Answer 5

idea 1 and 2 would never work to lower gas prices. honestly, how would they work??

idea 3 is just plain stupid.  most car only get up to 35mpg.  200 gallons would be 7000 miles at 35mpg.  the taxes you pay for the gas itself if bad enough without having to shell out an extra $x*x right out of my own pocket to pay for a "use gas less or pay more" tax.

Answer 6

No, it might work for about two months, but just look at the oil price, that is the real culprit.

Answer 7

yeah i have to admit those are some very good ideas but getting the govorment to go through with them; well thats immpossible, the oil companies make money of it and if they do that then they will loose money i live in canada and the gas here is baught in leters not gallons right it 1.49.9 per leater it sucks!!! if your plans acctualy do get accepted then i will praise you!!! lol good luck

Answer 8

There is no fixing gas prices as they are being inflated by gas companies to make more money. They hold the source, we need the source. Supply and demand.

Don't let media or anyone tell you that you can change it, you can't. Its their system. Research how oil pushed Henry Ford off hemp. Read up how oil is who pushed prohibition to ensure oil took hold as the dominant item.

The only way to win against high gas prices is to leave their system. Being that I was in the auto industry I have left said area. Instead now I deal with horses and ride a horse. Horse eats free grass, doesn't take cash for gas.

Answer 9

#2 would never work

Congress would probably go for it but people would riot in the streets

i have a 12 gallon tank i use a half tank during a typical week

thats over $300 for "normal" driving conditions not counting vacation and recreation. No movies, shopping, social life, nothing.

What this nation needs is to use what many other countries use everyday as a cheap substitute

ETHANE

not ethanol, ethanol hasn't improved anything since its introduction

Ethane is "natural gas"

courtesy of Wikipedia:

Ethane was first prepared synthetically in 1834 by Michael Faraday, applying electrolysis of a potassium acetate solution. He mistook the hydrocarbon product of this reaction for methane, and did not investigate it further. During the period 1847–1849, in an effort to vindicate the radical theory of organic chemistry, Hermann Kolbe and Edward Frankland produced ethane by the reductions of propionitrile (ethyl cyanide) and ethyl iodide with potassium metal, and, as did Faraday, by the electrolysis of aqueous acetates. They, however, mistook the product of these reactions for methyl radical, rather than the dimer of methyl, ethane. This error was corrected in 1864 by Carl Schorlemmer, who showed that the product of all these reactions was in fact ethane.

Its name was made from the name of ether, which at first meant diethyl ether.

After methane, ethane is the second-largest component of natural gas. Natural gas from different gas fields varies in ethane content from less than 1% to over 6% by volume. Prior to the 1960s, ethane and larger molecules were typically not separated from the methane component of natural gas, but simply burnt along with the methane as a fuel. Today, however, ethane is an important petrochemical feedstock, and it is separated from the other components of natural gas in most well-developed gas fields. Ethane can also be separated from petroleum gas, a mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons that arises as a byproduct of petroleum refining. Economics of building and running processing plants can change, however. If the relative value of sending the unprocessed natural gas to a consumer exceeds the value of extracting ethane, then the plant may not be run. This can cause operational issues managing the changing quality of the gas in downstream systems.[1]

Ethane is most efficiently separated from methane by liquefying it at cryogenic temperatures. Various refrigeration strategies exist: the most economical process presently in wide use employs turboexpansion, and can recover over 90% of the ethane in natural gas. In this process, chilled gas expands through a turbine; as it expands, its temperature drops to about -100 °C. At this low temperature, gaseous methane can be separated from the liquefied ethane and heavier hydrocarbons by distillation. Further distillation then separates ethane from the propane and heavier hydrocarbons.

The chief use of ethane is in the chemical industry (usually uses a catalyst to boost up the reaction), in the production of ethylene by steam cracking. When diluted with steam and briefly heated to very high temperatures (900 °C or more), heavy hydrocarbons break down into lighter hydrocarbons, and saturated hydrocarbons become unsaturated. Ethane is favored for ethylene production because the steam cracking of ethane is fairly selective for ethylene, while the steam cracking of heavier hydrocarbons yields a product mixture poorer in ethylene, and richer in heavier olefins such as propylene and butadiene, and in aromatic hydrocarbons.

Experimentally, ethane is under investigation as a feedstock for other commodity chemicals. Oxidative chlorination of ethane has long appeared to be a potentially more economical route to vinyl chloride than ethylene chlorination. Many processes for carrying out this reaction have been patented, but poor selectivity for vinyl chloride and corrosive reaction conditions (specifically, a hydrochloric acid-containing reaction mixture at temperatures greater than 500 °C) have discouraged the commercialization of most of them. Presently, INEOS operates a 1000 t/a ethane-to-vinyl chloride pilot plant at Wilhemshaven in Germany.

Similarly, the Saudi Arabian firm SABIC has announced construction of a 30,000 t/a plant to produce acetic acid by ethane oxidation at Yanbu. This economic viability of this process may rely on the low cost of ethane near Saudi oil fields, and it may not be competitive with methanol carbonylation elsewhere in the world.

Ethane can be used as a refrigerant in cryogenic refrigeration systems. On a much smaller scale, in scientific research, liquid ethane is used to vitrify water-rich samples for electron microscopy. A thin film of water, quickly immersed in liquid ethane at -150 °C or colder, freezes too quickly for water to crystallize. This rapid freezing does not disrupt the structure of soft objects present in the liquid state, as the formation of ice crystals can do.

At room temperature, ethane is a flammable gas. When mixed with air at 3.0% – 12.5% by volume, it forms an explosive mixture.

Some additional precautions are necessary where ethane is stored as a cryogenic liquid. Direct contact with liquid ethane can result in severe frostbite. In addition, the vapors evaporating from liquid ethane are, until they warm to room temperature, heavier than air and can creep along the ground or gather in low places, and if they encounter an ignition source, can flash back to the body of ethane from which they evaporated.

Containers recently emptied of ethane may contain insufficient oxygen to support life. Beyond this asphyxiation hazard, ethane poses no known acute or chronic toxicological risk. It is not known or suspected to be a carcinogen.

Answer 10

#1.  What good would that do?  Either we would all have to use the lower octane level, meaning people whose cars require higher octane cannot drive or get extremely low fuel efficiency, or we would all have to use the higher octane level, meaning wasted money for those of us who don't need it.

#2.  Yes, that would lower the prices in the places that currently require higher formulations.  But it would damage air pollution and people's health.  Is that really worth it?

#3.  Yes, that would work.