What’s up at the pump?

With spiking gasoline prices, transportation costs to events are multiplying for all fans and participants of sports.

NASCAR itself isn’t strapped for cash — it supplies free, high-octane gas at $6.25 per gallon to its drivers. Those who really feel the fuel costs are drivers and their teams, whose transportation costs to the track are skyrocketing.

Well boo-hoo. Racers still make gobs more money than the average American. We should be more concerned about the little guy who attends races such as the Daytona 500. When many fans used to travel from long distances to watch races on epic tracks, some are now reconsidering.

This also rings true for sports fans who travel short distances to catch a game or race. A recent USA Today survey said one in four adults have recently reconsidered going to a game as a result of high fuel prices.

What’s personally disappointing is the effect this has on the American youth who play sports and need to travel to compete.

Schools in Detroit are forming a new athletic league of schools within 15 miles of each other. But in the more rural parts of the U.S., high schools and colleges are at the mercy of a fixed budget and travel mileage. The rising costs of coach buses and planes will hit sports hard on all levels, pee wee to college, in areas where more travel is a necessity to reach opponents.

The easiest thing for a parent to cut out would be their kids’ extracurricular activities, namely sports. We shouldn’t have to rob youth of their chance to play because of gas prices.

The problem illustrates the fact that the financial burden will always fall on the average American, not sports ownership.

As Americans, we love our sports. But do they love us back?

A barrel of crude oil closed on the stock market above the $120 milestone today. Hovering in the range for a few days, this is the first time in world history that it has closed above $120. Don’t look for it to go down…

Surprisingly, the national price of gasoline went down by a cent in the wake of the crude rise. It’s probably a fluke.

Biofuels, the most viable temporary alternative fuel, may have a scarier shadow side than once predicted. The solution to fill our gas tanks is taking food out of stomachs.

There’s one bit of wisdom to be gleaned from the global fuel crisis: There is no single cure-all for our energy problems.

Every alternative has an upside and a downside, and the same can be said for biofuels.

It’s now undeniable that rising food prices are now linked to rising fuel prices. Granted, fuel costs aren’t the only reason why food costs are rising, but it is a major factor.

Particularly in the U.S., the demand for ethanol pushes up the price for feeding livestock. The same corn for feeding is also the main source for producing ethanol.

It’s not only corn. Any other sugar or starch crop, such as beets or sorghum, can be fermented to produce ethanol. A rise in the cost of a crop used to produce ethanol will affect food markets.

Thus, we have an increased food shortage. And this is not an event that no one has seen coming.

Two University of Minnesota economists predicted in 2007 that increased biofuel production would increase food prices drastically. By 2020, those effects would lead to increased world hunger, they said. The alarming news is that world hunger already hit those projected marks — in one year.

Now, the state of Texas may wage a war against biofuel federal mandates that ask for increased ethanol production. Otherwise, it will cost too much to feed their cows, said Gov. Rick Perry.

Biofuels are leading to increased hunger in our own country and worldwide.

But our backs are against the wall. With so much invested in biofuels, it’s hard to flip a switch and turn your back on a once-viable solution.

The truth is we may have to. We’re going to have to answer to the hungry.

On a related note: A barrel of crude hit nearly $120 today. Joy.

Here’s the bottom line: there’s not going to be enough oil for everyone. Biofuels will only get us so far, and it appears as though the current options on the horizon won’t satisfy our future energy needs.

We can complain about crude oil prices and OPEC as much as we want, but the hard truth worldwide is that there has been an increase in demand while supply has flatlined.

It really goes beyond politics into fact: the world is eating up more oil in the known reserves than it is finding in new reserves each year.

With countries such as China and India developing economically more and more each year, the fuel strain is not going to become any lighter.

Paul Krugman, and op-ed columnist for The New York Times, said it’s essential to not view this as a doomsday scenario, but the United States in particular must now see the need to make some serious changes. We’ll look to our next president to address that major problem.

We’re dealing with a proposed shift to biofuels, such as ethanol, that produce more carbon monoxide and yield a third less energy per gallon than normal gas. Jad Mouwad, The New York Times’ reporter on energy, calls corn ethanol an “imperfect substitute.” Biofuels can be relied upon only in the short term.

The United States really needs to reexamine its approach to energy efficient automobiles. The gas hogs that populate our roads today have gas mileage that is atrocious in comparison with other countries.

Since no clear solution looms on the horizon, we need to take the first step when the prices get too high: start conserving by making changes in our driving habits.

Side note: Some analysts predict the price for crude will hit $125 per barrel this year, up from its current record of $117 per barrel this week. Scary.

The American Trucking Associations are suggesting an across-the-board national speed limit of 65 mph to reduce rising fuel costs.

There’s also the suggestion to set electronic limiters on tractor-trailers to govern the speeds at no more than 68 mph, increasing safety and saving on fuel costs.

A fully-loaded semi going 75 mph wastes 27 percent more fuel than the same weight traveling 65 mph, an ATA spokesperson said.

It seems like a plausible proposal, especially coming from a major trucking organization. With thousands of gallons of diesel fuel combusting on our nation’s highways every day, it might not be a bad option to consider.

Some environmental advocacy groups say that raising the speed limit could have negative effects on overall NO_x emissions. A study from as early as 1995 — when Congress repealed the national 55-mph speed limit — showed that a change to 65 mph would increase harmful emissions by at least 5 percent.

But when Con-Way Freight, a trucking company, said enacting a national 65-mph speed limit would be monumental. Yearly, its company alone could save $3.2 million in diesel costs, as well as reducing CO₂ emissions equal to about 7,000 normal automobiles.

And that’s just one company…

On a related note, we hit a new national gas price record on April 11: $3.365 per gallon.

It’s almost a foreign concept for me to use a bullet point in my journalistic writing, but it’s encouraging to know that, being the shortest way of getting the information across, I’m allowed to use them in my online writing.

“Online journalists must constantly think in terms of different elements and how they complement and supplement each other: Look for words to go with images, audio and video to go with words, data that will lend itself to interactives, etc.”  This is crucial for making online journalism work, and rarely do I think in terms of graphics and sound bites to go along with the story at the onset of writing the story.  Those elements are normally more of an afterthought, and I need to make them more a forethought.

I like the emphasis on tight and lively writing, which should be an emphasis for any short-form journalistic writing.  But at the same time, it needs to be consistently well-written in order for readers to come back — a crucial point given that readers have a plethora of options on the Web that a standard newspaper doesn’t.

It’s still necessary to be writing short blocks of text just like a normal print version of a story.  The statistics showing that readers online read 75 percent of the text, when in the print version readers only read about 20 percent.  The sort of writing necessary to keep the reader’s attention is exactly the style that engages: short, descriptive and easy to read and scan.

Read the whole assignment here.

Here’s a helpful link, courtesy of Cullen Murphy, that maps out national gas prices by county.

http://www.gasbuddy.com/gb_gastemperaturemap.aspx

I really had no idea the West Coast was THAT MUCH more than the rest of the nation, and I’m pretty surprised that the East Coast isn’t as bad as the West…

Iran’s president feels the depreciating U.S. dollar should not be the trading currency for OPEC. But don’t expect any big changes after all the hoopla concludes.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad isn’t happy with the United States. He even detests our DOLLARS.

Ahmadinejad has been urging the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies for years to stop trading oil in U.S. dollars, its currency on the world market.

The depreciation of the dollar in recent years has major oil producers shaking in their boots that they’re going to lose money off a currency that’s losing value.

It makes sense from an economic and capitalistic standpoint to make more money, but to complain about the most profitable business on the globe is ridiculous.

Ahmadinejad now wants a joint bank and a joint trading currency for OPEC. What’s next? An army?

Thankfully, Saudi Arabia, the top oil producers in OPEC, won’t support a switch to a different currency.

Regardless of the dollar’s status, crude oil prices will continue to rise. It’s a shame their profit margins will shrink while they continue to trade with the dollar.

The following blog sites were found after searching Technorati.com and TruthLaidBear.com:

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/

http://voxverax.blogspot.com/

http://www.theoildrum.com/

http://www.saveandconserve.com/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/business/

The state of Minnesota increased their gas tax by two cents on April 1, the first gas tax hike in two decades. Sure, the revenues will be used to support improvements for state roads and bridges, but I cringe at the timing.

Over the past weekend, national gas prices hit a record high in 17 states. It’s just downright scary considering that prices are already 60 cents above last year’s national average.

And we haven’t even reached summer. By that time, the Minnesota tax will increase another half cent. By 2012, a total 8.5 percent tax increase will creep into gas prices, smacking middle to lower class budgets between the eyes.

The crude oil market has gone out of control regardless of our state’s tax increase, and it was easy for the Average Joe in St. Cloud or Rochester to foresee the petroleum demand becoming larger. Americans, on average, spent $500 yearly on gasoline. Today, it’s about $1,300 per year.

With the gap between tax increases, the problem has multiplied.

Our diverse climate requires a strong infrastructure of roadways and bridges for our population to commute to their place of work. With how much upkeep our roads require, the state legislature has dropped the ball in an area that is fundamental to the way we live in this state: transportation.

We’ve seen what happened with I-35 — to say transportation is anything but fundamental is ludicrous.

Twenty years without an increase is too long.

Now the bite will sting worse than it would have if this increase came progressively ten years ago.

It could be poor timing. It seems more like poor planning.