Video: Gas prices to hit seven-year low this Thanksgiving

In a rush to drive to Thanksgiving dinner, and an opportunity to ridicule #YourSJWNiece on politics? Be sure to stop in at the gas station on your way out to visit the family, because the cost of road travel will be at a seven-year low. In many areas of the country, gas may drop below $2 a gallon. In Kentucky, it’s already there:

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The last time gas prices fell to this level, the country was in the middle of a financial-sector meltdown and feeling the first impact of the Great Recession. Fox’s Matthew Rocco reports that a global glut of oil is fueling the steep decline in gas prices. So much for Peak Oil, eh?

After a lull, gas prices are back on the fast track heading south. The national average for a gallon of regular gas has dropped eight cents over the last week to $2.06 on Tuesday morning, according to AAA. That is far below the $2.80 a gallon that drivers paid on average last Thanksgiving.

The national average is on the verge of falling below the $2-a-gallon mark, which has not happened in more than six years. At the current pace, it might happen by the end of Thanksgiving weekend. …

A global glut has fueled a sharp selloff over the last 16 months. U.S. oil prices, which touched a high of $108 in July 2014, settled at $41.75 on Monday. Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released data showing that U.S. crude inventories rose to 487.3 million barrels, the largest stockpile for this time of year since 1930.

Analysts initially believed that gas would reach an average of $2 a gallon closer to Christmas, but persistently low crude prices changed their outlook.

It’s looking good in Louisiana, too. KNOE’s expert says there are other factors as well. People are not traveling as extensively by car as in the past, and auto technology makes more efficient use of fuel. However, those are long-range arguments for predicting that gas prices will stay low, not an explanation for the steep change in pricing seen over the past few months:

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So what did happen to Peak Oil? Forbes’ Christopher Helman explains that access to the easiest-to-reach oil may have peaked, but technological advances make that a moot point in the long run, using a Thanksgiving metaphor to explain it:

Kids are inherently Peak Turkey theorists. They’re pessimists when it comes to the real work of making real food (which ain’t chicken nuggets). They’re content in the notion that once the big meal is over the turkey is done. It takes years to learn that leftovers is where the fun it at. Turkey clubs, turkey chili, turkey casserole, turkey enchiladas, turkey and rice stew. There’s so many leftovers that we’ll be dining off that carcass for a long time.

Obviously, this is an analogy to petroleum. The peak in conventional easy oil may very well have come in 2008. But technology has proven that there’s a whole lot of meat left on the bone, especially in the United States, where we first started carving up the petroleum turkey more than 100 years ago.

You know the story: the Great American Shale Boom unlocked the bounty within deep source rock — like cracking bones to get at the delicious marrow inside (beef, not turkey, of course). In the process, our frackers ushered those Peak Oil theorists onto the bone pile. In the past five years the U.S. has doubled its oil output. In 2014, non-OPEC producers (primarly the United States) added 2.4 million barrels per day to total world supply — an unprecedented performance.

And we were just getting warmed up when the Saudis put their collective foot down and said: “No more of your turkey stew until all our breast meat is gone, damnit.”

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Maybe that’s something to explain to #YourSJWNiece if she picks a bone with you over the holiday dinner.

Or maybe you can just smile benevolently and ask her to pass the peas, knowing that she’ll have to eat turkey stew for the next several days, or else move in with her parents. Either way, it should make for a very happy Thanksgiving for all of you.

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