It occurred to me a year or so ago, that I really didn't know as much as I should about the entire process of converting fossil fuels into the gasoline I used to power my car.

In that respect, I figure I'm no different than just about everyone else. Most of us know just about enough on the subject to be dangerous -- or stupid.

And that's unfortunate considering we're paying about $3.29 a gallon for gasoline these days. Anything that costs that much -- and is likely to cost a lot more before we get our priorities in order -- should be better understood by any of us who think we're smarter than the average tomato.

That's what I told myself, anyhow. So I decided to smarten up. I bought a couple books on the subject -- "Oil Crisis," by C.J. Campbell, and "The Future of Global Oil Production: Facts, Figures, Trends and Projections," by Roger D. Blanchard -- and started reading. I just finished "Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence," by Robert Bryce, too.

To be truthful, I was even more ignorant on the subject than I thought.

Even the most basic facts had eluded me, things I'd been wondering about for a few years. For example: How many gallons of crude oil are in that barrel we hear about on TV just about every day?

The reason I've been wondering about this stuff is I was trying to figure out just how much profit the giant oil companies -- ExxonMobil, for instance -- are making on each barrel of crude, which today costs $105.59 (or

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thereabouts).

More than a year later, I know some things.

I know the gas I put in my car Tuesday cost $3.29 a gallon. I know there are 42 gallons of crude oil in a barrel -- I'd always thought those were 55-gallon drums they were filling with petroleum, but I was wrong.

And from those 42 gallons of crude, about 20 gallons of gasoline, 10 gallons of diesel fuel and heating oil, four gallons of jet fuel and about 12 gallons of assorted petroleum-based products (chemicals, lubricants, synthetic rubber, plastics, propane, asphalt, bubble gum, crayons, dishwashing detergent, eyeglasses, deodorant and ink, for example) are produced.

I know the guy who owns the gas station earns about a nickel profit for each gallon of gasoline he pumps. I know the cost of refining a barrel of crude is somewhere between $15 and $30, depending on a whole bunch of factors.

I know crude oil is formed by the remains of plants and animals that lived many millions of years ago, even before the time of dinosaurs. Those remains were covered by layers of mud, and millions of years worth of pressure on those layers turned it into crude. But, hey, I always did know that much.

I know it doesn't matter very much which company you purchase your gasoline from, because the truth is that gasoline from various refineries, owned by different companies, is very often combined for shipment in a common pipeline.

And I've reached the
conclusion that while the big oil companies (and little ones, too) don't help any when it comes to the price of gasoline at the pump -- I can't ignore or forgive the $40 billion in profits ExxonMobil earned last year or the very high federal and state taxes on gasoline -- that price is almost surely more the fault of American consumers than anyone or anything else.

Because we consume the stuff like it was water.

Like any product, the pricing of gasoline comes down to supply and demand. And Americans demand a lot of it, easily more than any country in the world.

I know all that and more after months of study.

But you know what? I still paid $3.29 for a gallon of gas this week.

It's a curious thing -- I know a lot more than I did a while ago, but I don't feel much better off for the knowing.

Columns by Larry A. Hicks, Dispatch columnist, run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: lhicks@yorkdispatch.com.