A regular reader asks if I can post a chart of gasoline prices over my lifetime. Of course. In fact, I can do better:
I was born right in the middle of that warm postwar summer of ever-declining gasoline prices—which ended abruptly in 1973 with the first oil embargo. And then again in 1979 with the second oil embargo. And again in 2002-08 during the Iraq War. And again in 2011 because of turmoil in the Middle East. And then finally yet again in 2022 thanks to the Ukraine War.
Will gasoline ever get down to $2 again? Probably not. OPEC countries need a higher price than that to avoid bankruptcy. But it will probably recede to $3 one of these days.
I feel as if my whole life I’ve been aware that we are running out of oil and part of that was assuming that the price was going to go up. Obviously, we are now dealing with the crisis of climate change and have an obligation to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels so we have even more incentive to end our dependence on gas. But throughout the period that Kevin points to I’ve also been listening to people bellyache about the price of gas over and over again when the price goes up due to a shock or a disaster of some sort. It’s tiresome. It’s never been the huge crisis people always say it is and even so it should motivate people to support the use of alternative energy. And that chart shows that the price of gas has been remarkably steady, adjusting for inflation, ever since 1930.