Ah, the pain. Gas prices rose 11 percent here for the most common grade of gasoline … all the way to $1.86 a gallon.

I’ve meant to do a post about gas prices in a country that is, essentially, floating atop vast pools of crude oil … but it got pushed to the back of my mind. I don’t drive. Gas prices are not posted in big numbers at the state-run fueling stations. And nobody much talks about it. Except when prices are raised by the emirate’s oil company, as they just were, and even then … it seems cheap.

These aren’t the days when gas was, like, 25 cents a gallon around here.

But still … if you’re paying around $3.10 a gallon in SoCal at this moment, the sound of $1.86 probably sounds pretty good.

It was even better, a few weeks ago.

Before the massive price hike (consumers rioting in the streets … not), the most popular gas was $1.68 per gallon. So, up 18 cents a gallon, that’s fairly significant.

The rise here seemed smaller because it went up 15 fils — and the dirham is 100 fils … and a dirham is worth about 27 cents.

What makes the price rise actually semi-steep is that it is per liter … and liters are 4.5 to the gallon. So, Dh1.52 per liter … do the math.

(One of the reasons I hadn’t written about this earlier: The arithmetic mentally tired me, up front. I believe I did this correctly.)

Actually, the price of gas is a higher than I would expect. Considering Abu Dhabi’s enormous oil fields are only about 100 miles away from the city. Just pull it out of the ground, refine it, drive the tankers a couple hours to the gas stations … how expensive can that be?

I believe — and I have never seen this confirmed; I’m just blue-skying here — that the government wants gas to cost something vaguely noticeable, in the pocketbook, to try to retard the massive rise in the car culture here. Make that the massive gas-guzzling car culture here.

Anyone who can afford an SUV (that is, all Emiratis and many Westerners) already owns one, and those were never gas-sippers.  The governments in the area are talking about rail connection between the seven emirates, and with neighboring countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Yemen … but it’s all on the drawing board, and for now, the only way to get anywhere is to drive.

Anyway, if gas were sold for what it actually costs, here (with no sales tax, no state tax, no federal tax) … it very well could be 25 cents a gallon. But we don’t want to make it too cheap, right?

An interesting  thing here is how the UAE (Abu Dhabi is one of the seven united emirates) is aggressively moving toward nuclear power for generating electricity. Yes. The country floating on oil … plans to have four nuclear plants online by the end of the decade. To provide about 25 percent of its energy needs.

What do they know that the U.S. doesn’t? Oh, yeah, that burning a lot of gas is maybe not a good idea? That they will take their chances with storing nuclear waste rather than use up their own oil. Because, see, that’s where they get all their money. Selling oil to Westerners and east Asians who can’t live without it.

So, yes, $1.86 a gallon still sounds like a pretty good deal.

If you come from Europe, it sounds like a great deal.

From what I can tell, these are approximate price figures for a gallon of gas in selected European countries:

Spain: $6.25

United Kingdom: $6.70

France: $6.90

Italy: $7.00

Germany $7.20

Norway and Netherlands: $7.95

So if you hail from those locales … you might be tempted to just drive all over the Arabian Peninsula … just cuz it wouldn’t bankrupt you.

In Abu Dhabi, then, gas isn’t free. But if you’re from the U.S. … or England or Norway … it might seem as if it is.