CNN and gas prices
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 - 1:35am
Ok so I saw this on CNN's website. The video says that as temperatures rise, molecules expand reducing the amount of energy produced from gasoline and some other things about how we're getting screwed at the pump. I haven't taken chemistry (general on through o-chem) in a long time so I'm wondering how true this is or is it an attempt to add scrutiny to gas companies by playing on the general population's ignorance?
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/05/27/candiotti.hot.fuel.cnn?iref=videosearch
It's not news, it's
FARK.com!err... CNN.Try this:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_does_temperature_affect_the_density_of_gas...
The short answer is, no it won't change it terribly much.
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True it won't change all the much, but it is enough of a change that in all the cold states gas stations have pumps that correct for the denser gasoline during the winter so they don't loose money. Of course, this isn't corrected during the summer when they make extra money on it. A lot also just depends on how much you put into your tank compaired to how well you think pumps can measure gas volumes.
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What the pumps really correct for is the varying pressure of the vapors. The temperature of the gasoline itself does not change appreciably from season to season, since the storage tanks and most of the piping are hidden underground.
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Yep. Gasoline wholesalers and distro centers have temperature/pressure sensors on all their tanks for this reason... the price per gallon floats as the temp changes. They're almost nonexistent at the retail level except up north, like Zaque said.
Every so often the newspapers here run a story about how badly Florida's getting ripped off by this bit of chemistry, since it's so hot here all the time. I try to buy gas at night after the vapors settle again, so I haven't noticed an appreciable difference.
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But also remember that those guys move thousands of gallons of gas. Probably more in a month than we'll ever need in a lifetime.
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Believe it or not, it is. That said, there are regulations (mostly safety related) regarding how warm it can be stored.
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