[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')epartment of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that "no one knows" if gasoline prices in the United States will reach $9 per gallon, and acknowledged that the possibility is outside his control.

"I don't think anyone can speculate what will happen with respect to oil prices and gas prices because they are set on the global economy," Salazar told reporters when asked if gas prices could reach $9 per gallon, as they have been in Greece. "Where it will all end, no one knows.

He explained that "what we see happening today are the influences first of unrest in places like the Middle East and Iran, which disrupt the markets and allow the futures markets to play on some of what they see [in] the unrest around the world; and secondly the huge demand that you've started seeing in places like China, India and Brazil."

Salazar touted President Obama's "all of the above" energy policy and the prospect of renewable energy, but warned that "we do not control the price of oil."
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/salazar-no-one-knows-if-us-headed-9gal-gas/499451

[SeaGypsy]

$9 bucks! Big deal! Plenty of places have been paying that already. Hasn't triggered any revolutions yet that I have heard of. Yes it will happen for sure it's just a matter of when. Yes it will make a mess of middle America. Crying won't change a thing.

[Tanada]

Long haul trucking will be a thing of the past and we will go back to rail for long haul and trucks for short haul from intermodal yards to final destinations. That is if we sustain ourselves for very long at those prices, which is open to question. America and to a lesser extent Europe are based on consumer culture and economics, remove the consumers and everything else falls apart.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'L')ong haul trucking will be a thing of the past.

[SeaGypsy]

My guess (as current reigning oil price forecaster 2 years running) is it will get there by 2020 all going well and that America will cope and very well. As long as it's a fairly steady rise (which perhaps 2012 is to go down as the beginning of/ after the post peak turmoil 06/ 08) {much to my chagrin and Cog and Kubs' favour}; this could be by far the best thing to ever happen to the USA. In the longer run. (Read as you will)

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'L')ong haul trucking will be a thing of the past.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dsula', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'L')ong haul trucking will be a thing of the past.

[Timo]

The global effect of $9 gal/gas (for US consumers) realistically depends on the speed at which we reach that level. Even at $4 gal., our transit system is gaining riders, people are biking more, even walking (me). Given enough time, it is human nature to adapt and transition to a new way of doing things. However, nationwide, our rail system SUCKS, and there is no way that it can handle the increase in ridership at even $5 gal/gas. The west bound trains from my city leave at 2:45 a.m., and the east bound at 3:30 a.m.. That's all we've got. Commuters to the big metropolis an hour east of here, SOL. And i mentioned bikes......well, it is spring. Once temps hit the 90s for the morning commute, people won't be so willing to show up to work in a sweaty shirt, and 99% of all employers don't have changing and shower facilities to let their employees get cleaned up after such a hot ride. Cut to the chase, given enough time, yes we can adapt. We will have no choice. But, depending on the speed of that transition, there very well might be some folks who are woefully unprepared, and many of those folk might rebel in unpleasant ways. There's also the regional aspect to consider. Reactions here in the midwest won't necessarily be the same as out on the east or west coasts. Or in Greece, for that matter.

[Pops]

We will see $9/gal eventually, just not at this level of consumption, we consumed about the same as '01 last year I think.

I read a recent poll that said $4 is the level Americans start making changes. That is about $100-120/bbl so about right with what everyone has forecast since I started reading about PO.

Long term – since the US peak, demand has risen faster than capacity regardless of price. The bit about Iran/China/etc is all smoke, the writing has been on the wall for years.

[seahorse3]

I don't see the US making a transition to mass commuter society, like buses and trains. Those are funded by the government, and local gov'ts are going broke. I've read where several bigger cities are actually cutting back on bus service, not increasing it, all at a time when there is more need, not less.

[pfreyre]

Ten years ago in 2002, gas sold for about $1.50/gallon in the US. Gas is currently about $3.70 in my neck of the woods, what will it be in 10 years?

Just for kicks & giggles, lets look at price change from 2002 to 2012. The percentage change from $1.50 to $3.70 is an astounding 147% increase in the price of gas! If $3.70 in 2012 increases by 147%, then gas will cost $9.16/gallon in 2022! Even if $3.70 only increases by a factor of $2.20 (the difference between $1.50 and $3.70, even then gas will still cost $5.90 in 2022 (notwithstanding any sort of Quantitative Easing from the Fed). The American landscape cannot function as designed on $5.90/gallon gas. Pure and simple.

[Timo]

Good point, pfreyere. The more $$ that is spent on fuel, the less $$ will be available for everything else, like food, shelter, and every other consumer gotta-have-it product out there. Shifts in transportation costs will inherently cause shifts in every other sector of the economy, so even if we collectively manage to keep traveling BAU, we'll be wearing fewer, or more raggedy clothes, eating less food, buying fewer iPods, building much smaller houses (or no new houses, at all). In essence, absolutely everything about how we live will change. Given the American appetite for products made in China, we'll be buying less from them, meaning they'll be facing economic turmoil of their own, and on and on around the planet. On the other hand, rising fuel prices will also inherently speed up renewable energy technologies, thus possibly mitigating some of the downward spiral upheaval. Unfortunately, it's just not possible to feed 9,000,000,000 people with batteries, or wind, or solar, or fusion, or coal, or oil, or ........

I know this subject is taboo, but just for the heck of it, imagine the future, given the current levels of our known finite resources, being used by only 2 billion people. We'll either get their voluntarily, or we'll get their involuntarily, via famine, resource wars, plagues, droughts, floods...... We do have a choice in the matter, but humanity is not too well known for making good choices.

[dsula]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pfreyre', ' ')The American landscape cannot function as designed on $5.90/gallon gas. Pure and simple.

[BobInget]

As gasoline prices rise to the point of pain, the 'real gas', (natural gas) will gradually replace gasoline.
Long haul trucking has already embraced CNG (compressed NG) as diesel replacement. Think about it.
NG infrastructure is ALREADY in place across the nation.

http://205.254.135.7/pub/oil_gas/natura ... index.html

IMO, NG pricing, the Lowest in 20 years, has bottomed. Chemical, cement, agriculture, glass, construction industries have already shown vastly improved profits because of new 'tight gas' technologies. Transportation, the biggest oil consumer, is doing catch-up.
I'm the guy who coined the phrase 'bridge fuel' twelve years ago when gas was considered to have 'peaked' here in America. I really did not see shale centered multi fracked horizontal wells coming.
Clearly, my timing was a decade early. Peak oilers and alternative energy advocates are acting like
AGW deniers. True, in the short term, cheap gas, (NG is gas, gasoline is made from crude oil) will slow some alternative energy projects, (see out of the money PV solar, wind) for 'base load' power projects. In time even NG will begin to peter out. Certainly it will return to its old 6 to 1 ratio with crude. This is the case now. http://finviz.com/futures.ashx

There will be jobs galore as we transition to gas and soon after, locally produced, sustainable energy.

[EnergyUnlimited]

I concur with dsula.
Few obsolete symbols of America will be gone, J6P will no longer drive a Hummer, food will go up in price by half but not much more will change.
Consumers will spend less lavishly and their balance sheets may actually improve.
Thrift will become to be a new buzzword.
Air travel and holiday abroad will suffer much.

I can foresee a real trouble at $20 a gallon though.
At these prices something known as general commuting will suffer, suburban folk will begin to lose ability to go around with daily routine etc.
Air travel will become to be a privilege of top 5%-ers, for others it will no longer be an option or once in life adventure.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'I') can foresee a real trouble at $20 a gallon though.
At these prices something known as general commuting will suffer, suburban folk will begin to lose ability to go around with daily routine etc.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', '
')I know yall hate me bringing up cycling as an adaptive response; but at (US2012)$20/gal gasoline, it most certainly will be.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '
')What if a workplace is 20-40 miles away?
Most peoples won't make it by bike and those who do are likely to arrive at work tired and not fresh.

[Ferretlover]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ''')No one knows' if when US headed to $9/gal gas.

[Lore]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'T')ry it on a motorcycle or scooter --- 70-100 mpg and you don't have to break a sweat pumping those pedals.