So, what will the pump prices
be like Monday?
be like Monday?
BP shutting down Alaskan oil field. Hoo boy, expect next quarter's oil profits to be even higher!
The Prudhoe Bay reportedly accounts for 8% of domestic production, though indications are most of it goes to Japan and China anyway.
Jeez... should I go out and top off the tank (I'm down to a third) before I go to bed?
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Once we get through the elections, though, it's anybody's guess as to where prices will go. I suspect Big Energy is aware that they're heading into the their last real chance to gouge us for oil, and most likely, they will ramp it up, as part of some strategically planned move to make the Repubs look like 'the Party of Energy Security' in 2008. It's right around then I'd expect some serious alt fuel stuff to start rolling out, just in time for the reds to claim credit for it heading into November.
And if that all goes off without a hitch, well, fine. But they'd better have something in their pockets more impressive than ethanol or butanol. Otherwise, we're in for a very resounding thud.
I need to start paying closer attention to Big Energy's connections to Parliament Hill in order give anyone a decent understanding of where we're at up here.
As it is, the only thing I understand with any certainty is this: I'm going to keep buying my monthly bus passes.
That's the US government -- not the Republicans or the Democrats, not Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken. It's all the pigs lined up at the trough waiting to be slopped.
And we keep feeding these bastards.
Dwight: Good point. I was recently reading how engineers in the electric branch of automobiles have revisted the early days of electric cars and come to the conclusion that there was such a backlash anticipated against the idea of having to plug an auto in for a recharge that that path was all but abandoned. Upon revisiting it some of the engineers have determined that that was a bad move, as that's likely to be a far more useful approach in the long term - combined with developing more hydro-electric, wind and solar resources in appropriate regions - to solving both energy dependency and pollution problems. Too much is being leaned on hybrid vehicles when the fuel-burning aspect of vehicles should be reduced to more of a back-up element.
Mike: I'm not sure whre the "five times" figure comes from, though it strikes me as something hyperbolic the petroleum industry has their respective PR departments hand out. I suspect that in part it's referring to the taxes added to processed gasoline as it heads to and is dispensed from the pump, some federal, some state. The federal taxation on gasoline is 18.4 cents per galllon, and the state tax here in PA is 32.2 cents per gallon. Looking into where that money's spent is always a good thing for responsible citizens to do, seeing if it's being used for purposes other than transportation-related items (roads and even public transit) or environmental projects should be cause for us to speak up. Still, such taxes are fairly well fixed for long periods of time, so the underlying oil prices are what is causing the rises from month to month.
That oil companies are on the one hand talking about instabilities in the supply and transit of oil and on the other crowing about record profits to their shareholders each quarter is what I remain focused on, as the two things do not wash. This is pure opportunism to the point of gouging. If it weren't the case then their profits would be considerably closer to flat. This is in no way a case of "our costs have gone up so we have to pass that on down the line."
J.