TUCSON, Ariz.(KGUN) — Higher gas prices can also have an impact on items that you use everyday. Derek Lemoine is an energy and environmental economics professor at the University of Arizona. He says oil is integrated into more of our daily lives than you might think
“The price of oil drives the price of gasoline. It's traded in a world market, it's not just how much oil the U.S. uses and makes. It's how much oil the whole world is using and making at a time. Not only do we have increased demand as the economy comes back from COVID, but we’ve also had various supply disruptions including Russia a major oil producer,” Lemoine said.
As a matter of fact, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are over 6,000 products made from oil, including everything from plastic ice trays to iPhones, toothpaste, medicines, clothing and fertilizer. Experts say prices on everyday items related to oil are expected to go up in the coming weeks.
"Plastics are coming from oil, oil has its tentacles all throughout the economy and all the prices in the economy are going to adjust to that. Heating oil comes from oil, propane, butane can come from oil to some extent,” Lemoine said.
Lemoine also says when gas prices go up electric cars become more attractive and can have an impact on plane tickets. When it comes to the issue of pricing for electricity, it's not affected.
"In the 2000’s people started downsizing from SUVs, that part of the market crashed because oil prices went up,” Lemoine said. "It's directly related to them being more expensive to drive, it's also the time when hybrids took off. One thing that’s not directly affected as much is electricity prices. We don’t use much oil for electricity in the United States. We use natural gas, renewable coal some nuclear."
LINK TO PRODUCTS MADE FROM PETROLEUM:
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