I was looking around for the breakdown of gasoline, but couldn't find anything more recent than April 2007.

HowItWorks says 50% of the price is the cost of the crude oil, 28% is the cost of refining, 8% is the cost of distribution and marketing, and 14% is taxes.

Today in my town, gas is $3.50/gallon ($3.499 if you buy a hundred gallons), so that would be broken down (if these precentages are still accurate):

Crude oil: $1.75
Refining: .98
Distrib/mktg: .28
Taxes: .49

Plus a few cents for the station owner.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/gas-price1.htm

Sue

US gas price temperature map

Gas tax breakdown by state

Lowest around here is $3.09

contents of a barrel of crude

When we had a fuel strike a few years ago in the UK, it took about a week for me to notice supermarket shortages. Then it was fresh bread - presumably they'd run out of flour.

(80% of the cost of UK fuel was tax, and truckers can drive onto mainland Europe where the tax regimes vary, so the political situation was a bit different to the US.)

"When we had a fuel strike a few years ago in the UK, it took about a week for me to notice supermarket shortages."

All it takes around here is for the news media to say there is a windstorm coming with 60 mph gust expected, and the stores are stripped of bottled water (lots of wells around here), charcoal briquettes, disposable diapers, toilet paper and canned dinners (beef stew and ravioli), and selected other stuff in just a few hours.

One of the main problems is that if the power goes out, the stores usually stay closed, and you can't get anything.

The small supermarket near me goes on generator for basic lighting, the checkers use handheld calculators, store employees wander through the store telling customers that meat is $1/pkg and all the ice cream is free.

Sue

With the rash of stormy weather we had this weekend, we finally lost power last night. I lit all the oil lamps and sat in the warm glow of petroleum light, until the temp in the house started to climb. I eventually cut back to just having two lamps lit. Opening the doors and windows did nothing to cool the house down, as the outside temp and humidity were no better.

Once the power came back on, bot AC units kicked in, and I went back to finishing watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I still have an orange tree full of oranges out back. Will they ever get ripe enough to pick?

Was a good excuse to sit on the back porch and smoke my pipe in the dim light, listening to the rain and the thunder.