Prayer at the pump

Posted at 9:08 AM on August 17, 2008 by Bob Collins (6 Comments)
Filed under: Energy

Republican congresswoman Michele Bachmann maintained earlier this summer that just by talking about more drilling for oil, the price of a barrel would come down. Now that oil has come down in price, the political debate is whether that's due to factors including Bachmann's assertion, or whether it's the natural order of the marketplace.

But maybe something else is involved, according to a story on the BBC Web site this morning.

People in the DC area have been gathering around the pumps ... to pray.

This week the group returned to the site of their first prayer meeting to celebrate. Singing "We shall overcome," they changed the words of the well-known hymn to "We'll have lower gas prices".

Mr Twyman is sceptical that market forces might be responsible for the lower prices. But he and his prayer warriors have changed their motoring habits.

"We believe not just in prayer - because we believe that faith without works is dead. So we've encouraged people to car-pool more and organise their days more, because it's a combination of faith with these other factors."

The prayer meetings started in April and, as you can read in the story, the advocates think the price has come down because of their prayer. Maybe, but when they started praying, the price of a gallon of gas was $3.299, according to the Department of Energy. On August 11, it was $3.764.

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Comments (6)

To bad it never works for war, famine or disease but it works to lower gas prices. Give me a break.

Posted by Brian | August 17, 2008 11:27 AM

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Or it'll work to rain on Obama's parade but doesn't appear to bring rain to drought areas. Hummmm.

Posted by MomKat | August 17, 2008 12:41 PM

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Sounds like as good a solution as any I've heard so far coming from Washington, DC.

They must have been praying for E85, too, because the prices on that have been pretty good of late -- about a dollar less than regular unleaded in some places.

Posted by Bob Moffitt | August 18, 2008 6:37 AM

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"They must have been praying for E85, too, because the prices on that have been pretty good of late -- about a dollar less than regular unleaded in some places."

What about the hidden costs of E85? You know, the large subsidies paid by the taxpayers to feed "eco-friendly" 15 miles-per-gallon flex-fuel Suburbans? What about the not-so-hidden cost of groceries due to all of the corn making inefficient fuel for inefficient vehicles? What about the recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains? Oh wait, switch-grass will solve that. But the current ethanol refineries can’t make ethanol from switch-grass can they? We better throw billions more tax dollars towards ethanol so we can solve that problem. That way when E85 is 70 cents "cheaper" we can all feel good about ourselves.

Boy, we have a lot to pray for don't we? One might want to pray for this hoax called ethanol to simply go away because it’s not a solution – it’s a tool used by politicians to get votes.

Posted by I'm hungry | August 18, 2008 11:33 AM

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E85 has sold for as much as 17% less than gasoline in some places...and it should since it's highly subsidized.

But I've never seen it at anywhere near $1.00 per gallon less.

Also remember, ethanol only provides 70% as many MPG as gasoline so you'll be visiting the pump a lot more often.

So, how many acres to you have in corn Mr. Moffitt?

Posted by TruthinAdvertising | August 18, 2008 1:12 PM

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"Also remember, ethanol only provides 70% as many MPG as gasoline so you'll be visiting the pump a lot more often."

Careful there.

Using E85 in a standard American engine may result in a reduction in MPG but most consumption of Ethanol is done in a 10% blend with gasoline where the Ethanol is used as an octane booster which actually increased MPG performance.

A lot of people are confused about the energy density of ethanol and believe that because ethanol contains less energy than gasoline, that MPG drops because of ethanol.

This is far from the truth.

Most vehicles tuned for Ethanol, or who use Ethanol in a 10% blend, get a more efficient burn, thus better performance.

Posted by GregS | August 19, 2008 11:59 AM

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