Where does your gas money go?

This chart shows where the cost of gasoline at the pump comes from as a percentage. This is not based on biofuel cost, but odds are that it would look fairly similar, since most costs are fixed. A fixed cost doesn't change when the price of fuel changes. Taxes, production, gas station and distribution costs are all generally fixed numbers. For example:

• In Oregon, every gallon of fuel has $0.484 of State and Federal Road Tax on it, regardless of price.

When the price of fuel at the pump is high, credit card fees and crude prices take a larger slice of the pie.

Not shown: where geographically gas money goes. Oregon has zero oil refineries, but several biofuel production plants. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to track where individual gallons of petrol come from - it all gets pooled together in giant tanks before being distributed. That said, according the the Energy Information Administration, the US imports 55% of all petroleum it uses.