GasHole: The Documentary About Gasoline Prices, Lost Inventions and Alternative Fuels

GasHole is an American documentary film about the price of gasoline, the history of the oil industry, and the alternatives to petroleum that Americans have been promised and denied over the decades. It was directed by Scott D. Roberts and Jeremy Wagener, narrated by the actor Peter Gallagher, and finished in 2008, when U.S. pump prices were climbing toward their all-time high. The filmmakers toured it around the country that year, it won an award at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival in 2009, and it reached a wide audience on DVD in 2010, which is why reference works often list it as a 2010 film.

The film combines interviews, archival footage, congressional hearings, news reports and computer animation. It mixes well-documented material, such as testimony by oil executives before Congress, with far more speculative stories about high-mileage inventions that were supposedly bought up and buried. This article describes what the film covers, how it was made and received, and then sets its main subjects in context: the history of U.S. oil dependence, the gasoline price spikes of 2005 to 2008, the persistent legend of the "100-mile-per-gallon carburetor", and the real record of biodiesel and ethanol as alternative fuels.

At a Glance

The two published running times differ, probably because different cuts were in circulation; this article does not try to resolve the discrepancy.

How the Film Came About

A letter to the editor

According to a profile of the filmmakers in The Modesto Bee, republished on the film's website, the project began when gasoline had reached what was then a high of about $2.20 a gallon. Scott D. Roberts, an actor who divided his time between Los Angeles and Turlock, California, read a letter to the editor from a Manteca resident, K. D. Kunde. The letter described a 1940s Buick Roadmaster that had been kept at the naval airfield at Crows Landing, whose inventor claimed it was water-injected and got 100 miles per gallon, and who said he had sold the patent to Shell on condition that he not build any more.

Roberts called Jeremy Wagener, a Los Angeles writer-director he had known since 1999, when Roberts acted in Wagener's directorial debut, a film called Chicks, Man. The two tracked down Kunde, who appears in GasHole. They also located a 1946 patent registered to a man living about 20 miles outside Modesto, and found an engineer who agreed it might improve fuel economy. GasHole was the first documentary for both men.

Production

The Bee profile reports that the filmmakers shot in Washington, D.C., Texas, Arizona, Nebraska and California, and conducted close to 30 interviews with historians, engineers, scientists, inventors, alternative-fuel producers and users, legislators and government officials. No oil company representative agreed to comment on camera, a point also made in Variety's review. The film was self-financed apart from a small outside start-up investment, with the filmmakers using personal money and credit cards for equipment and travel. Roberts said he switched from driving a large truck to a Honda Civic during filming.

Peter Gallagher, best known at the time for the television series The O.C., narrated. According to the Bee, the actress Melinda Clarke suggested him for the job, and he recorded the narration in two days.

Release strategy

Rather than wait for a major distribution deal, the filmmakers organized a grass-roots tour of nearly 50 cities, with the world premiere at the Turlock Community Theatre. Part of each screening's proceeds went to local charities, mostly environmental causes, and screenings included a question-and-answer session. Press clippings collected on the film's website include coverage from the Turlock Journal, the Lincoln Journal Star, The Modesto Bee, Fox television stations, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during 2008. A clip was shown at the Rage for Justice Awards on May 17, 2008, an event that honored Senator Barbara Boxer of California. Variety's critic reviewed the film at a screening at the Riverview Theater in Minneapolis on June 10, 2008. The film was later distributed on DVD, and is now available on several streaming services.

The filmmakers described their aim as storytelling rather than activism. Variety's review identified them as Republicans, and Wagener told the Bee that "It's not a liberal or conservative idea; there is right and there is wrong." Roberts put it more bluntly: "I'm not a tree hugger, but we should all be able to drive what we drive and get 200 mpg."

What the Film Covers

Presidents promising energy independence

GasHole opens a recurring theme with archival footage of American presidents, from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush, promising to reduce the country's dependence on foreign oil. Variety's review mentions speeches by Presidents Nixon, Ford and Carter and an excerpt from a 2006 speech by President Bush calling for reduced oil imports from the Middle East. Wikipedia's summary notes that Nixon is shown saying he wants to "break the oil companies". The repetition is the point: each president promises independence, and the share of imported oil keeps growing.

The history of the oil industry

The economic historian Les Manns of Doane College in Nebraska guides viewers through the history of Standard Oil, its court-ordered breakup, and the later price shocks, from the 1973 Arab oil embargo to Hurricane Katrina. A Doane psychology professor, Brian Pauwels, discusses how oil companies manage their public image and how the media shape public opinion about prices.

Stories of buried high-mileage inventions

A substantial part of the film is devoted to claims that inventions capable of very high fuel economy were developed and then suppressed. These segments include:

• the water-injected 1946 Buick Roadmaster described in Kunde's letter, said to get 100 miles per gallon;
• Tom Ogle, a young inventor from the El Paso, Texas, area who claimed in 1977 to have built a "vapor" fuel system that achieved around 100 miles per gallon in a large American sedan, and who died a few years later; the film presents the El Paso Times headline of May 1, 1977, "200 Miles on 2 Gallons of Gas";
• a 1977 book by Shell scientists reporting that a 1947 Studebaker achieved 149.95 miles per gallon.

Reviewers noted how these stories are framed. The Lincoln Journal Star's critic, L. Kent Wolgamott, wrote that the film implies, without stating outright, that oil companies were responsible for the deaths of inventors, an implication he regarded as unproven. Wikipedia's summary of the film states that it "does not make any effort to ascertain the veracity" of the Buick claim and other such facts. These stories are examined in detail later in this article.

Hurricane Katrina and congressional hearings

The film uses footage of the congressional hearings held after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the national average gasoline price passed $3 a gallon for the first time. It covers Shell's decision to close a California refinery, which Representative Nancy Pelosi criticized, and Chevron's 2005 comments on refining capacity. Variety singled out as the film's hardest-hitting material the passages on how oil executives posted record profits after the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. The film also discusses reduced domestic refinery capacity and the Iraq war.

From a May 11, 2006 House Energy Committee hearing, the film shows Representative Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, questioning ExxonMobil's investments, and the committee chairman, Representative Joe Barton, stating that "global warming is off the table" while he was chairman. Representative Sherwood Boehlert, a New York Republican who chaired the House Science Committee from 2001 until his retirement in 2007, is also interviewed.

Money and politics

GasHole presents figures on political donations by oil companies since 1990, reported in the film as about $49 million to Democrats and $150 million to Republicans, roughly a three-to-one split. It also shows protesters with placards reading "Oil $$ Out of Congress". An unnamed interviewee questions whether it is wise to have a president and vice president who both came from the oil industry.

Gas prices

The film charts the rise in the average U.S. gasoline price from $1.47 a gallon in January 2001 to $3.12 in May 2007, an increase of about 112 percent in a little over six years.

Rudolf Diesel and biodiesel

The film recounts the death of Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, alongside Ogle's, and promotes biodiesel as a practical alternative. The actor Joshua Jackson, known from Dawson's Creek, appears as a biodiesel user. Variety noted that the film promotes biodiesel enthusiastically but does not explore the debate over ethanol in much depth.

An optimistic ending

According to the Bee profile, the film ends on a hopeful note, encouraging viewers to consider hydrogen, biodiesel or ethanol and to press governments and oil companies for answers. Wagener told the paper that the filmmakers did not blame oil companies for making profits but believed some of their practices harmed the environment and the economy.

Critical Reception

GasHole received modest but mostly favorable attention from regional and trade critics.

• Variety (Rob Nelson, June 2008) called it a "shrewdly produced and principled docu" that raised concerns about Big Oil greed, dependence on foreign crude and the environment. The review said it ran "smoother than 2006's wobbly investigation" Who Killed the Electric Car?, found some of its points "obvious and infuriating at once", and singled out the material on post-9/11 and post-Katrina profits. It also noted that the 35mm print, blown up from digital video, looked "light on color".
• The Lincoln Journal Star (L. Kent Wolgamott) called the film timely and highly informative, especially on how oil prices are set and on biodiesel, while criticizing its implied murder accusations.
• The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Duane Dudek) was more critical, writing that the film had the pastiche style of a work assembled from other sources at the expense of original reporting.

The film won the Spirit of the Independent Award at the 2009 Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival. Wikipedia records no other major awards or wide theatrical release.

Context: A Century of Oil Dependence

GasHole is a short, partisan-in-tone film about a very large subject. The sections below give verified background on the main topics it raises.

Standard Oil and its breakup

Standard Oil, founded by John D. Rockefeller and partners, dominated American oil refining in the late nineteenth century. On May 15, 1911, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that Standard Oil Company of New Jersey had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 and ordered the trust broken into 34 independent companies. Several of the successors grew into major firms of their own, including Standard Oil of California (later Chevron), Standard Oil of Indiana (later Amoco) and Standard Oil of New Jersey and of New York, which ultimately recombined as ExxonMobil. GasHole uses this history to argue that the industry's concentration and political influence are long-standing.

The 1973 embargo

The oil shock of 1973 is the event most of the presidential speeches in GasHole respond to. In October 1973, during the Arab–Israeli war of that month, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries announced an embargo on oil exports to countries that supported Israel, including the United States. Libya proclaimed its embargo on October 19 and Saudi Arabia and other Arab producers followed the next day. The price of oil rose from about $3 a barrel to nearly $12 by 1974, an increase of nearly 300 percent. The embargo was lifted in March 1974.

In the United States, President Nixon told Congress on November 7, 1973 that the country should aim for energy self-sufficiency by 1980, an initiative known as Project Independence, and on November 27 he signed the Emergency Petroleum Allocation Act, which authorized controls on the price, production, allocation and marketing of petroleum. Self-sufficiency by 1980 was not achieved, which is the gap between promise and result that GasHole's montage of presidents dramatizes.

The price spikes of 2005 to 2008

The film was made in the middle of the steepest run-up in American gasoline prices in modern history. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis give the key points:

Hurricane Katrina initially affected about a quarter of U.S. crude oil production, and the Minneapolis Fed reported that 10 to 15 percent of U.S. refinery capacity was shut down for the first few days after the storm. Even at $3.07, the post-Katrina price was slightly below the inflation-adjusted record of $3.12 set in 1981. The July 2008 record of $4.11 stood as the nominal high until June 2022, when the national average passed $5; adjusted for inflation, contemporary reporting noted that the 2022 peak was still below the 2008 one.

The EIA has also published a useful rule of thumb about how crude prices pass through to the pump: a $10 per barrel change in crude oil typically moves retail gasoline prices by about 24 cents a gallon within roughly two months. Much of the anger in GasHole is about the gap between this mechanical relationship and refinery margins, which can widen sharply when refining capacity is knocked out, as it was after Katrina.

What the price rise meant for a household

To make the film's price figures concrete, consider a hypothetical household that drives 12,000 miles a year in a car averaging 25 miles per gallon. It burns 12,000 ÷ 25 = 480 gallons a year.

• At $1.47 a gallon (January 2001), that costs 480 × $1.47 = $705.60.
• At $3.12 a gallon (May 2007), it costs 480 × $3.12 = $1,497.60.

The difference is $792 a year for the same driving. At the July 2008 record of $4.11, the same fuel would have cost 480 × $4.11 = $1,972.80. Calculations like this explain why the film found receptive audiences in 2008.

Why storms move pump prices so fast

GasHole's audience was angry partly because prices seemed to jump overnight. The 2005 hurricanes show the mechanics. Gasoline prices depend on the cost of crude oil, on refining, and on getting fuel through pipelines to stations. Katrina hit all three. The Minneapolis Fed reported that in the week ending September 30, 2005, crude oil inputs to U.S. refineries averaged 11.7 million barrels a day, the lowest level since March 1987. On the East Coast, where two pipelines from the Gulf were shut down, the average price peaked at about $3.20 a gallon, above the national figure. Diesel reached an inflation-adjusted high of $2.82 a gallon in September. The same storms disrupted natural gas: the Gulf region supplied about 20 percent of U.S. natural gas production, and wellhead prices rose from just over $6 per million BTU in June to more than $13 by the end of September.

When a large share of refining capacity goes offline at once, the price of finished gasoline can rise much faster than the price of crude, because there is temporarily less gasoline to go around while demand barely changes. That widening gap between crude and pump prices is what members of Congress questioned oil executives about in the hearings GasHole shows. The prices also fell back quickly as refineries restarted: the national average was back down to $2.93 after Hurricane Rita.

A timeline of the issues in the film

Checking the film's own numbers

Several figures in GasHole can be checked against independent data. Its January 2001 starting price of $1.47 and May 2007 figure of $3.12 are consistent in scale with the EIA-based figures above, which show the national average passing $3 after Katrina and reaching $4.11 in 2008. The rise from $1.47 to $3.12 is $1.65 a gallon, or about 112 percent. The political donation figures the film cites, $150 million to Republicans and $49 million to Democrats since 1990, imply that about 75 percent of the total went to Republicans (150 ÷ 199 ≈ 0.75). These totals could not be independently verified for this article, so they are best treated as the film's own reported figures rather than audited numbers.

Context: The "100 MPG" Legend

The most controversial parts of GasHole concern inventions that supposedly delivered extraordinary fuel economy. These stories predate the film by decades and have a recognizable pattern: an inventor demonstrates a device, reports enormous mileage, sells or loses the patent to a large company, and the invention disappears. Wikipedia's article on fuel-saving devices notes that the patents of the Canadian inventor Charles Nelson Pogue helped give rise to an urban legend of this kind.

Charles Nelson Pogue

Pogue filed U.S. patents in the 1930s for a carburetor that he said vaporized gasoline before it reached the cylinders. Press reports in the 1930s claimed results of about 200 miles per gallon. According to Wikipedia, the announcement was never followed by verifiable tests or demonstrations. Pogue is not discussed in GasHole, but his story is the template for the ones the film tells.

Tom Ogle

Tom Ogle was the subject of enthusiastic press coverage in El Paso in 1977, including the El Paso Times headline the film reproduces. Wikipedia's account of GasHole says that Ogle was later found dead of a drug overdose and that his car disappeared. Secondary accounts of his invention disagree on basic details, including the car, the mileage achieved and the engine. Whatever the 1977 demonstrations showed, no device based on his design was ever put into production.

The Shell Studebaker and the mileage marathons

The 149.95 miles per gallon figure in GasHole is real, but its context matters. It comes from Fuel Economy of the Gasoline Engine, a technical book by Shell researchers D. R. Blackmore and A. Thomas, published in 1977. The figure was a record from Shell's long-running mileage marathons, competitions in which engineers built highly modified cars to cover a short course on as little fuel as possible.

A 1952 Time magazine report shows what those competitions involved. That year, two Shell research engineers, Dave L. Berry and Fred Schuette, set a new record of 168.49 miles per gallon at Shell's tenth annual mileage test at Wood River, Illinois, beating the previous record of 149.95. Their car was a completely rebuilt 1924 four-cylinder Chevrolet. They raised its compression ratio from the normal 6:1 to 10:1, removed the fan belt to save power, and inflated its tires to 110 pounds per square inch to reduce rolling resistance. The test covered twelve miles.

In other words, the high figures were achieved by stripped-down competition vehicles driven gently over a short course, not by ordinary cars in traffic. They show that careful engineering and driving can dramatically improve fuel economy; they are not evidence of a suppressed device that would have made a normal family car achieve the same results.

The physics of fuel economy

A gallon of gasoline contains a fixed amount of chemical energy. For its MPGe ratings of electric vehicles, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency treats 33.7 kilowatt-hours of electricity as equivalent to one gallon of gasoline, based on a heat content of about 115,000 BTU per gallon. A car that gets 25 miles per gallon therefore uses about 33.7 ÷ 25 ≈ 1.35 kWh of fuel energy per mile. A car of the same size getting 100 miles per gallon would have to cover each mile on about 0.34 kWh.

Wikipedia's article on fuel-saving devices sets out the thermodynamic argument. The theoretical efficiency of an ideal spark-ignition (Otto cycle) engine is 1 − 1/r^(γ−1), where r is the compression ratio and γ is the ratio of specific heats. With a 10:1 compression ratio and γ of 1.27, the ideal limit is about 46 percent, and real engines achieve considerably less. The article's illustration: if a car getting 20 miles per gallon has an engine that is 20 percent efficient, then getting 100 miles per gallon from the same car by changing only the fuel system would require an engine that was 100 percent efficient, and 300 miles per gallon would require 300 percent efficiency, which would violate the first law of thermodynamics.

High fuel economy is possible, but it comes from reducing the energy a vehicle needs (less weight, lower aerodynamic drag, lower rolling resistance, lower speeds) and from recovering energy that would be wasted (as hybrids do when braking), not from a carburetor or fuel treatment that extracts energy the fuel does not contain. That is exactly how the Shell marathon cars achieved their figures.

What testing of fuel-saving devices has shown

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has tested many add-on fuel-saving devices under the Motor Vehicle Information and Cost Savings Act. According to Wikipedia's summary, of 104 devices tested, only seven showed any improvement in fuel economy, and none improved it by more than six percent. Consumer Reports, AAA and Popular Mechanics have reached similar conclusions in their own tests, and some devices actually reduced power and economy. Sources cited by Wikipedia also record Federal Trade Commission actions against the marketers of several engine-oil and fuel additives, including STP and Slick 50.

This record does not prove that every inventor in GasHole was mistaken, but it explains why engineers are skeptical of large claims made without independent testing, and why the film's critics objected to its implication that the inventions were suppressed rather than unproven.

Context: Rudolf Diesel

GasHole links the death of Rudolf Diesel to its theme of inventors who threatened powerful interests. The facts are these. On the evening of September 29, 1913, Diesel boarded the steamship Dresden in Antwerp, bound for a meeting in London. He went to his cabin around 10 p.m. and was never seen alive again; his bed had not been slept in, and his hat and folded overcoat were found under the afterdeck railing. About ten days later, the crew of a Dutch pilot boat recovered a badly decomposed body from the water, kept the personal effects, and returned the body to the sea. Diesel's son Eugen identified the effects on October 13.

The death has never been explained. Two of Diesel's biographers concluded that he took his own life. Other theories hold that he was murdered, noting that he had refused to give German forces exclusive rights to his engine and was traveling at a time when diesel engines for British submarines were under discussion, or even that his death was staged. None has been proven. There is no documented link between Diesel's death and the oil industry.

The connection to biodiesel is more solid. Diesel's engine was designed to run on a range of fuels. In 1900, the Otto company exhibited a small Diesel engine that, at the suggestion of the French government, ran on peanut oil, and according to Diesel it "operated so well that very few people were aware of the fact." In his writings Diesel noted that the motor "was built for ordinary oils, and without any modification was run on vegetable oil."

Context: The Alternatives the Film Promotes

Biodiesel

Biodiesel is a diesel fuel made from vegetable oils, animal fats or recycled cooking grease. It is usually produced by transesterification: the oil or fat reacts with an alcohol, most often methanol because it is cheapest, to produce fatty acid methyl esters, which are the fuel, and glycerol as a by-product (about 100 kg of glycerol per tonne of biodiesel). Rapeseed and soybean oil are the most common virgin feedstocks; waste cooking oil, tallow, lard and fish oil are also used.

Biodiesel is sold pure (B100) or blended with petroleum diesel; B20, for example, is 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel. Wikipedia notes that blends of 20 percent and lower can be used in diesel equipment with no or only minor modifications, although some manufacturers do not extend warranty coverage to them, while pure B100 may require engine modifications. The U.S. standard for biodiesel blendstock is ASTM D6751.

Biodiesel contains about 37.27 megajoules per kilogram, roughly 9 percent less energy than No. 2 petroleum diesel, partly offset by its better lubricity and more complete combustion. U.S. production passed 1 billion gallons in 2011. An EPA analysis from 2010 estimated that soy biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by about 57 percent compared with petroleum diesel, and biodiesel from waste grease by about 86 percent. Critics argue that growing crops for fuel, especially palm oil, can drive deforestation and compete with food production, and that emissions from land-use change can cancel out the benefits.

Biodiesel can only replace diesel fuel, not gasoline. For the majority of American passenger cars, which run on gasoline, it was never a direct substitute, which is one limitation the film's enthusiasm passes over.

Ethanol

Ethanol, blended into gasoline, is the main U.S. biofuel for gasoline engines, and federal policy expanded it sharply during the years GasHole was made. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 created the first Renewable Fuel Standard, requiring 4 billion gallons of biofuel in 2006 rising to 7.5 billion gallons by 2012. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 expanded the program, requiring 9 billion gallons in 2008 and setting a target of 36 billion gallons by 2022, with corn-starch ethanol capped at 15 billion gallons and at least 16 billion gallons to come from cellulosic biofuels.

Those cellulosic targets were not met, and the program has been controversial. Most gasoline is limited to about 10 percent ethanol (E10), a ceiling known as the "blend wall". A 2016 Government Accountability Office report found the program unlikely to meet its greenhouse gas goals because advanced biofuel production was limited, and a University of Wisconsin study cited by Wikipedia estimated that the standard raised corn prices by about 30 percent and that corn ethanol's carbon intensity was no lower than gasoline's once land-use change is counted. Variety's observation that GasHole does not explore the ethanol debate in depth is fair: the debate became considerably more complicated after the film was made.

Hydrogen and electric vehicles

GasHole's closing message mentions hydrogen alongside biofuels. In the years since the film, battery electric vehicles, rather than hydrogen cars, have become the main alternative to gasoline for passenger transport. The comparison Variety drew with Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006), a documentary about the withdrawal of General Motors' EV1 electric car, places GasHole in a cluster of mid-2000s films about why alternatives to gasoline had not caught on.

Assessing the Film

GasHole is strongest where it relies on the public record: presidential speeches, congressional testimony, price data and the documented history of Standard Oil and the 1973 embargo. Its interviews with legislators of both parties support the filmmakers' claim to be nonpartisan, and its timing, arriving as prices hit records in 2008, gave it unusual relevance.

It is weakest where it relies on anecdote. The stories of the water-injected Buick and of Tom Ogle are presented without independent testing, and the Shell 149.95 mpg figure is offered without the context that it came from a fuel-economy competition using a specially prepared car. The implication that inventors died because of what they invented is, as the Lincoln Journal Star noted, never substantiated. Viewers interested in the subject will get more from the film if they treat these segments as part of the folklore of the oil age rather than as established fact.

Common Misconceptions

"GasHole is a 2010 film."

The film was completed and toured in 2008, won its festival award in 2009, and was released on DVD in 2010. All three years appear in listings.

"Shell proved that a normal car could get 150 miles per gallon."

The 149.95 mpg figure came from Shell's mileage competitions, in which engineers modified cars heavily and drove them over a short course. A 1952 record of 168.49 mpg, for example, was set in a rebuilt 1924 Chevrolet with raised compression, no fan belt and tires inflated to 110 psi.

"A better carburetor could triple fuel economy."

The energy in gasoline is fixed, and engines already convert a substantial fraction of the theoretical maximum into work. Large gains come from reducing the energy the vehicle needs, not from fuel-system tricks. EPA testing found no add-on device that improved economy by more than six percent.

"Biodiesel can replace gasoline."

Biodiesel substitutes for diesel fuel only. Most American passenger cars run on gasoline, for which ethanol is the main biofuel.

"Rudolf Diesel was killed by the oil industry."

Diesel's death in 1913 remains unexplained. Suicide and several murder theories have been proposed, but none is proven, and there is no documented link to oil companies.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who made GasHole?

It was written, directed and produced by Scott D. Roberts, an actor from Turlock, California, and Jeremy Wagener, a Los Angeles writer-director. It was their first documentary. Peter Gallagher narrated.

Who appears in the film?

Interviewees include the economic historian Les Manns and psychology professor Brian Pauwels of Doane College, the actor Joshua Jackson as a biodiesel user, Representatives Anna Eshoo and Sherwood Boehlert, and Manteca resident K. D. Kunde. Archival material features Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter and George W. Bush, and congressional testimony by oil executives. No oil company representative agreed to be interviewed.

Is GasHole biased?

The filmmakers presented it as a nonpartisan story and included Republican and Democratic voices. Critics generally found its arguments about profits and political influence well supported by public footage, but criticized its reliance on secondhand material and its unproven implication that inventors were killed.

Was there really a 100 mpg car?

Specially built competition cars have achieved well over 100 mpg, as Shell's mileage marathons showed. Claims of ordinary production cars achieving such figures through a carburetor or fuel device have not been independently verified, and the physics of engine efficiency makes them implausible.

How high did gas prices go when the film was made?

The U.S. average for regular gasoline reached $3.07 in the week after Hurricane Katrina in September 2005 and a record $4.11 on July 7, 2008. That nominal record stood until June 2022.

Why did the filmmakers distribute it themselves?

According to The Modesto Bee's profile, Roberts and Wagener chose a grass-roots tour of nearly 50 cities instead of pursuing a major distribution deal. The film had been paid for largely out of their own pockets, and touring let them screen it while gasoline prices were in the news, hold question-and-answer sessions with audiences, and give part of each night's proceeds to local charities, mostly environmental groups. Commercial DVD distribution followed later.

How does GasHole compare with Who Killed the Electric Car?

Both films appeared in the mid-2000s and both ask why alternatives to gasoline had not taken hold. Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006) focuses on a single product, General Motors' EV1 electric car, and the decision to withdraw it. GasHole ranges more widely across oil-industry history, prices, politics and fuels. Variety's critic judged that GasHole ran "smoother" than the earlier film, which he called "wobbly", although both rely heavily on the argument that powerful interests held back better technology.

Where can I watch it?

The film was released on DVD in 2010 by Cinema Libre Studio and has since appeared on several streaming platforms; availability varies by country.

Summary

GasHole is a low-budget, self-distributed documentary that captured American frustration at the gas pump in the years between Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 price peak. Its directors, Scott D. Roberts and Jeremy Wagener, combined the documented history of Standard Oil, the 1973 embargo and the congressional hearings of 2005 and 2006 with older, much shakier stories about suppressed high-mileage inventions, and wrapped the whole in an optimistic call for biodiesel and other alternatives. Critics praised its timeliness and its material on oil-company profits and political influence while questioning its use of anecdote. The broader context shows that American energy independence was promised by presidents for decades, that gasoline prices did spike dramatically while the film was being made, that the "100 mpg carburetor" belongs to folklore rather than engineering, and that the biofuels the film championed turned out to have real but limited roles.

Sources

• GasHole (Wikipedia)
• The Modesto Bee profile, "Turlocker, partner look at gas prices, alternative fuels" (via gasholemovie.com)
• Lincoln Journal Star review by L. Kent Wolgamott (via gasholemovie.com)
• GasHole press clippings, including Variety review excerpts (gasholemovie.com)
• Standard Oil (Wikipedia)
• 1973 oil crisis (Wikipedia)
• Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, Gasoline prices climb in response to hurricanes (2005)
• U.S. Energy Information Administration, Today in Energy (March 2011)
• Snopes, Was US Average Gas Price in June 2022 the Highest It's Ever Been?
• Time, "AUTOS: 168 Miles per Gallon" (1952)
• Fuel economy of the gasoline engine (Texas A&M library catalog record)
• Fuel saving device (Wikipedia)
• Charles Nelson Pogue (Wikipedia)
• Miles per gallon gasoline equivalent (Wikipedia)
• Rudolf Diesel (Wikipedia)
• Biodiesel (Wikipedia)
• Renewable Fuel Standard (United States) (Wikipedia))