The US, and in fact the entire civilized world, is knee deep in a financial meltdown. However, crashing stock markets and crumbling banking institutions have led to one pleasant side effect. The price of gas is dropping faster than the NASDAQ. A quick trip through south-east Michigan shows that gas prices have dropped below the $3.00 threshold, and tumbling crude prices show that even cheaper petrol is on the way. A barrel of oil now costs $77.70, which is in stark contrast to the $147 per barrel crude in July that lead to $4.25 per gallon gasoline. That's a drop of nearly $9.00 today alone, and OPEC has scheduled an emergency meeting to try to halt the precipitous drop of black gold.

A number of factors are conspiring to create a situation that recently would have been unthinkable: the United States as a supplier of gasoline to world markets. According to Booz & Company, those factors are the rise of biofuels in the West, the introduction of plug-in electric and other alternative fuel vehicles, and the growth of the really cheap car, like the Tata Nano.

There's been a lot of head-scratching about the exact cause of the meteoric rise in price for a barrel of oil. Are speculators driving it to turn a quick buck? Is it the weakening value of the U.S. dollar? How about increaded worldwide demand? Chances are, all those forces are playing a part in the rise of fuel prices, and no single solution is likely to fix the problem.

Just as it was starting to look like prices would rise on a daily basis for the rest of eternity, the price of a barrel of oil dropped by $16 from Tuesday to Thursday. Economists point to the dismal economic and inflation news as a main factor for the drop. All we know is that ever since gas got more expensive, everything else started to follow suit. That leads us to spend less on things that we don't absolutely need, which probably isn't good for the economy.

It's a complex issue, this business of oil. With stock markets and unemployment numbers taking their lumps, civilian unrest at oil and food prices, and politicians weighing in with all manner of cures and pronouncements, the Group of Eight nations got together to try and figure something out. The result: they want oil producing companies to produce more oil while they work on creating oil-independent fuel sources.

A scientist in the U.S. Department of Energy's science and energy research unit has said "Energy independence is a realistic goal for the United State of America," by 2030. There are, of course, a few caveats to that. First is that by the word "independence," he doesn't mean not using any oil entirely -- he means getting oil consumption down to a point where our usage is "not subject to restraining or directly influenced by others as consequence of the need for oil."

For seven years, William D'Arcy drilled well after well in Persia, now known as Iran, looking for oil. With his funding running low, and his employers getting quite impatient, D'Arcy drilled one last well and hit a gusher on May 26, 1908. The rest is history.