Hot Gas

Beware hot gas.

Gross.

Kinda sounds like a bad chi chin chong movie. Or a memorable evening after takeout at a Mexican restaurant. And I mean memorable. Oh yeah.

What it doesn’t sound like is a serious concern for American motorists.

The idea is that when gas heats up, it expands, so on hot summer days you’re getting less at the pump than what you’re paying for.

Crisis!

When I’m paying for gas, I want a lot of gas. [snicker]

And we’re back to the Mexican restaurant.

I swear, no more fart jokes! hahahha

Because gas prices are so high, there’s a rash of panicky emails and news stories going around about how “You are losing billions of dollars a year buying hot gas!”

Ah-huh. Yeah.

That sounds really bad. Billions blown on hot gas. Dang it that was another joke.

That is until you realize that trillions of dollars of gas are being sold, and when you consider how much of those reported billions are yours, it’s really not that big a deal.

If you’re really that into saving money, there are a lot better ways then buying… cold gas.

Here are my top three reasons why this doesn’t matter.

First, the gas storage tanks that are pumping that gas are underground. And unless you have really deep, penetrating summer heat, the ground’s gonna stay around fifty-five degrees. If it’s really, really hot, yeah it may warm up the gas a bit. But it’s not likely that the fuel your pumping is anywhere near the sweltering summer temperature of the air around you.

Second, there’s the coefficient of the expansion of liquid petroleum based fuels.

The hooey-what of the… what?

It’s about one -thousandth per degree centigrade, or six ten-thousandths per degree Fahrenheit.

And that roughly translates to a change of about one percent volume per ten degrees centigrade, or eighteen degrees Fahrenheit.

Huge, I know.

If you really feel like you’re getting cheated by pumping hot gas that’s expanded one or two percent, just get a cash back credit card you’ll make up the difference. Plus some.

Third, even if you are getting ripped off this summer, and you’re not- well you are, but it’s not from hot gas. It’s from all the gas. [snicker]

Don’t sweat it, you’ll make it back next winter when the temperature drops and you start getting more gas than what you’re paying for.

Personally, my plan for the summer is to give the shaft a big oil and avoid all those stinky high gas prices by using a piece of a hundred and twenty year old technology. [puts on a bike helmet] My bike!

Miles per gallon: infinity.

Doesn’t really matter if the gas is hot or not.

Oh wait. It does matter.

I could drive to the gym and spend twenty-five minutes cycling and then go do some errands nearby to try and save gas, or I can just ride my bike to do the errands. Saves time and money.

If you really feel you’re being cheated by pumping hot gas that’s expanded one percenhahahahah…

(Go) hahahahahahah…

…you’re getting cheated pumping hot gahahahahah…

What’re we in grade school? This isn’t supposed to be funny anymore!

Transcribed by: Jessica W.

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