Gasoline price spikes coming just in time for the election....

http://www.infowars.com/sky-high-gas-prices-in-california-reveal-energy-infrastructure-ripe-for-sudden-collapse/

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALIFORNIA_GASOLINE_PRICES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-07-07-19-01

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California motorists faced another day of record-breaking gasoline prices Sunday, though relief appeared to be on the way.

In its latest update early Sunday, AAA reported that the statewide average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline was $4.655. Saturday's average of $4.6140 was the highest since June 19, 2008, when it was $4.6096.

The four-penny-per-gallon jump Sunday was less than Saturday's increase, which was 12 cents.

Sunday's price, like Saturday's, was the highest in the nation, with the Golden State overtaking Hawaii as the state with the most expensive fuel due to a temporary reduction in supply.

Gov. Jerry Brown ordered state smog regulators Sunday to allow winter-blend gasoline to be sold in California earlier than usual to help drive prices down. Winter-blend gas typically isn't sold until after October 31. Few refineries outside the state are currently making summer-blend gas, putting the pressure on already-taxed California manufacturers.

In some locations, fuming motorists paid $5 or more per gallon while station owners had to shut down pumps in others.

A station in Long Beach had California's priciest gas at $6.65 for a gallon of regular, according to GasBuddy.com. Meanwhile customers at an outlet in San Pablo paid just $3.49, the lowest price in the state.

The average for a gallon of regular was $4.69 in Los Angeles, $4.71 in San Diego and San Francisco, $4.55 in Sacramento and $4.90 in Santa Barbara, according to GasBuddy.com.

The dramatic surge came after a power outage Monday at a Southern California refinery that reduced supply in an already fragile and volatile market, analysts said. The refinery came back online Friday and prices were expected to stabilize in the coming days.

Patrick DeHaan, senior petroleum analyst at GasBuddy.com, predicted the average price could peak as high as $4.85 before coming back down.

and....

Sky-high gas prices in California reveal energy infrastructure ripe for sudden collapse

Mike Adams
Natural News
Oct 7, 2012

If you’re in California, you’re paying sky-high prices for gasoline this week. At some stations, prices are over $5 a gallon. But you might not be aware of why you’re paying this price. The answer may be more than a little disturbing: California’s energy infrastructure is so fragile that a power outage at a single gasoline refinery caused state-wide prices to skyrocket.

Yep, an Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance was knocked offline several days ago by a local power outage. This, in turn, caused a sudden spike in gasoline prices state-wide. This whole fiasco may have been set off by something like a single electrical transformer failing somewhere along the electrical supply chain.

Our energy infrastructure is more fragile than you think

What this really reveals is just how close to collapse California’s energy infrastructure really is. And it’s worse than you think, by the way: California can’t import gasoline from neighboring states because its fuel refining requirements are so stringent due to air quality control concerns.

As Nancy Rivera Brooks, the LA Times editor, explained in a recent interview:

Because we have such a clean-burning recipe for gasoline here, very few refineries make it outside California, and there aren’t pipelines that bring it into California from those refineries that can make it. When something goes wrong, you’re stuck with what you’ve got in your tank.

I bet most Californians had no idea the gasoline supply across their entire state depends on a couple of high-voltage wires feeding a single refinery in Torrance. That’s how amazingly fragile California’s energy infrastructure really is. There are no pipelines from other states! When California’s refineries go out, they’re out!

• A D V E R T I S E M E N T

And given how California is steeped in the culture of driving for hours each day, a loss of gasoline supply is the equivalent of an economic collapse. Without gasoline, in other words, California’s economy grinds to a halt almost immediately. For starters, nobody can get to work!

A reminder to prepare for worse things yet to come…

Despite the fragile nature of systems upon which they depend, most Californians don’t practice anything resembling preparedness. They have no stored gasoline, no stored water, no stored food and virtually no other supplies, either. They live their lives completely dependent on the system, and so they freak out when the system fails. They’ve been told the system won’t fail, but of course it does… sometimes catastrophically.

I know lots of people who live in Los Angeles. When I talk with them, I often ask what their plans are for a “grid down” scenario. The answers I get include things like, “I will try to escape by boat.” Or, “I hope it won’t be that bad.” Some even tell me, “I try not to think about that.” I love my friends, but many of them are living in denial.

And they’re not alone. Most Los Angeles residents have never really considered the reality of the city in which they live. If you think gasoline prices are bad right now from one little power outage at a refinery, just wait until the water pumps fail.

A water crisis would be far worse than a gasoline crisis

Los Angeles is an artificial city built in a desert. There is virtually no natural water supply there. Most of the water used by the city today is delivered using masses of electricity and a complex network of tunnels and pumps to lift an entire river of water 2,000 feet up and over the Tehachapi Mountains. That delivery system is called the California Aqueduct. Click here to see pictures of it.

Where does the electricity come from to power these pumps? Think about it. The Edmonston Pumping Plant has 14 pumps that push water over the mountains. Each one of those pumps uses 80,000 horsepower. These pumps use so much power that a power generating station had to be constructed nearby, just to power the pumps. A picture of that power station appearshere. From the photo, it appears to burn coal, although I’m not 100% sure of the energy source.

If it’s coal, this means that in Los Angeles, using water is the equivalent of burning coal. When you water your lawn, you burn coal. When you wash your car, you burn coal. When you even drinkwater, you’re burning coal. Because of this, the very act of living in Los Angeles is one of the most environmentally-unfriendly activities imaginable. So much for the “environmentalists” who live in L.A. and claim to be living in harmony with the planet. Living in L.A. is, by definition, completely out of harmony with the planet. Los Angeles should not be inhabited by masses of humans. At best, it can naturally support small bands of roaming tribes.

As Navy lieutenant Henry Augustus Wise wrote after visiting California in 1847:

Under no contingency does the natural face of Upper California appear susceptible of supporting a very large population: the country is hilly and mountainous; great dryness prevails during the summers, and occasionally excessive droughts parch up the soil for periods of 12 or 18 months. Only in the plains and valleys where streams are to be found, and even those will have to be watered by artificial irrigation, does there seem the hope of being sufficient tillable land to repay the husbandman and afford subsistence to inhabitants.

What exists in Los Angeles today, in other words, is 100% artificial. Another term for that is non-sustainable. When the water pumps fail, Los Angeles immediately falls into a state of collapse.

Los Angeles is a ticking time bomb for those who are not prepared

This recent gas price blip is but a gentle reminder of the reality of living in or near Los Angeles. This is a city which cannot be evacuated. Too many people and too few roads. As a result, if the water pumps fail, most residents will simply die within days.

To live in Los Angeles is to bet your life on the machines, day after day, and usually with zero preparedness buffer. To live in Los Angeles without a backup supply of food, water, supplies and medicine is truly a suicidal gamble.

Because if fuel prices can hit $5 / gallon virtually overnight, from a tiny little blip in a refinery, what happens in a full-blown economic collapse or grid-down scenario?

Solutions!

The solution to all this? Buffer yourself and your family from infrastructure failures. Have a supply of water, storable food, emergency medicine, emergency fuel and the means for self defense.

If you live in Los Angeles, you are living in a highly vulnerable area. Take steps now to ensure your long-term safety even if refineries fail or something worse unfolds.

Being prepared is being safe!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-10-06/california-gas-price-hits-record-4614-gallon

California Gas Price Hits Record $4.614 Per Gallon

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/06/2012 13:36 -0400

• Exxon

We have covered the great California gas rush in the past few days, and here is the confirmation. According to the AAA fuel gauge report, the average California gas price just hit an all time record of $4.614, and shows no sign of slowing down.

From LA Times:

California’s average gasoline price set a record Saturday of $4.614 for a gallon of regular, up 12.8 cents overnight – but anyone who filled up in the last few days probably isn’t surprised.

Gasoline prices skyrocketed after the Exxon Mobil refinery in Torrance was knocked offline Monday by a power outage. Other lingering refinery and pipeline problems also contributed to the soaring costs at the pump.

Several service stations are charging more than $5 a gallon for regular gasoline. Some have stopped selling gas because they don’t want to pay the high wholesale price, which reached a record Thursday but eased somewhat on Friday.

Saturday’s record, as measured by AAA’s daily fuel price survey, replaces the old record of $4.610 set in 2008. If it’s any comfort, and it probably isn’t, that's only a nominal record because when adjusted for inflation, the old record equals $4.93 in 2012 dollars.

Analysts say prices might begin leveling off next week as fuel traders digest the news that the Exxon refinery returned to service on Friday. But other refinery difficulties and maintenance could keep California’s prices significantly above those in other parts of the nation.

Around the state, Los Angeles drivers were paying an average $4.661, Orange County’s average was $4.650 and San Francisco was at $4.689.

We are about to find just how perfectly elastic gasoline prices are in a state in which people get in their cars to pick up their mail...

and....

investmentwatchblog.com / October 5th, 2012

GAS DOOM:  DIESEL OFFICIALLY HIT $6.00 in California… Watch nation come to screeching halt!

Diesel SHOULD be cheaper. It is less refined than Gasoline.

You can take crude oil… heat it and Diesel will “come out” of the sludge all on it’s own. Watch the truckers who keep this nation in motion stop dead in their tracks.

I know supply and demand… but no deliveries will make fuel even more expensive.

No word yet… from any media… but $6.00/ Gallon for Diesel means truckers will have to pay extra money for the privilege of delivering fuel and good. As in they will actually pay out of pocket for each mile versus make money for each mile.

Also, understand that loads often have pre-negotiated pricing. Added fuel costs aren’t figured in that price.

Gas Crisis: Tweets from around the U.S. ” long lines at gas stations right now!” Panic buying! Fights!

Check this out, our country is acting like a crack addict.

http://www.bing.com/social/search/updates?q=gas%20prices&go=&qs=n&form=DTPSOI&p1=[SocialTweetAnswer%20src=%22tw%22][SocialAnswer%20src=%22tw%22]

From ABC News: Soaring gas prices across California have forced some station owners to shut off their pumps while people change their driving habits or, in some cases, avoid driving all together.

A gallon of regular gas was $5.69 Thursday in Calabasas, while a gallon of super costs $5.89 with cash and $5.99 with credit. Such prices are causing pain at the pump for many drivers who might see an 11-cent increase by later this morning, which means some could be paying more than $6 a gallon.

Watch the video!!