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Gas has hit yet another all-time US High.
Hypermilers are risking their lives for 70 MPG.
El Paso (EP:NYSE) just hit a five year high.

Investing in Energy: Spiking energy prices push El Paso to five year high

Wayne Gerdes has a few tips for you today. Wayne runs a website called cleanmpg.com, wherein he plays host to a community of loonies that champion “hypermiling,” the art of squeezing every last erg of energy out of a gallon of gasoline.

An idea from the site: Always park at the highest point of a lot facing toward an exit, so as to allow gravity get your car moving again. I don't recall seeing any tips as to how to reliably assure your self of this position.

Perhaps emptying a bag of marbles and marking where they ain't with a piece of yellow chalk? Do be careful not to get run over by some inattentive lot patron who just wants to get to the dry cleaners before they close.

I used to park my '66 Mustang on hills, so as to use gravity to jump the engine. But then I got a job, and could afford to replace critical parts like starters and mufflers. Now, I usually choose to park in whatever empty spot I can find that is not next to an enormous SUV likely to bash my car with it's coffin-sized doors.

Another idea from Gerdes and crew: Follow directly behind Semis on the highway, so that they will suck you along. They note that you should try for a one-second following distance precisely off the right rear corner. This way, the driver can see the panicked look in your eye just before you suffer a horribly painful death.

Finally, they suggest that you try turning off your engine at highway speeds. This technique, called “pulse and glide,” is fairly easy to do with one of the new hybrids.

The other 98% should be aware that your power steering, automatic transmission and brakes would all fail when you do this. But you would get really, really good gas mileage right up to the moment when you hit the roadside Jersey barriers.

Gerdes claims that his compadres have saved 60,982 to date. Why has this arcane art of risking ones life so as to attain gas mileage as high as 70 MPG suddenly become so intriguing? Because gasoline just set the all time State-side record today.

As per the queen of gas prices, Trilby Lundberg, the pain at the pump surged to a record nationwide average of $3.07 per gallon, up two bits over the past fortnight. I can hear the critics whine already: “Blah blah blah: we hit records every year now, and nothing blows up.” What matters, economically speaking, is not so much the awesome peaks as the grinding plateaus.

The previous record of $3.03 per gallon was set on Aug. 11, 2006. It's still May and we are already into uncharted territory. If this high was the short-lived spike apologists are making it out to be, than we could simply avoid it by gassing up some other day.

But these are not singular events. In 2004, gas never crested $2.50 a gallon. In 2005, it stayed above that critical threshold for 14 weeks. In 2006, it was 28 weeks. This year, we crossed that line six weeks earlier, and show every sign of staying over it for the duration.

And it is impacting folk's everyday routines: 46% of responders to the latest AP-Ipsos poll said that they expect spiking gasoline prices to cause them severe financial problems, up from the 30% reported in June of 2004.

Is the sky falling? Naaah. But hard choices are being made, choices that are permanently reconfiguring the blue chip landscape.

To paraphrase an infamous stump speech: “Hear that sucking sound? That's the sound of energy companies like Chevron (CVX:NYSE) and Exxon Mobil (XOM:NYSE) siphoning great gobs of cash away from car makers like General Motors (GM:NYSE) and retail outlets like WalMart WMT:NYSE).”

With a fire hose!

Fortunately, one end of that fire hose leads to your bank accounts: As of this afternoon WOW readers' El Paso calls (purchased some two weeks ago) are up 83%.

***

Adam Lass is the founder and manager of the WaveStrength Group, and is a contributing editor for Taipan Financial News. As the creator of WaveStrength's proprietary analysis system, Adam's expertise has shaped a franchise of successful investment newsletters and services, including WaveStrength Options Weekly and WaveStrength Apex.

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Related Resources
Clean MPG: Drive yourself crazy saving gas.
Gas Prices: Pump prices surge to new record.
AP/Ipsos: Poll quantifies pump pain.