Grr. Just lost this post once before. Damn Blogger.
Anywho, some of my friends might be wondering who this person is who's been writing all these posts so friendly to the oil and gasoline industry. Obviously, my blog has been hijacked by someone from the Fraser Institute, and the real John is tied up in a basement somewhere.
But no, it's still me. So why defend the high price of gasoline? (I don't think that's what I'm doing, but whatever.) Because quite simply, the ranting about high prices - whether it's righties screaming about taxes, or lefties screeching about corporate predation - is a form of denial. Not to say that these explanations aren't true, because they almost certainly are to a limited extent.
But the reality is that oil prices have doubled in the last five years. There is already speculation that light sweet crude (the feedstock for most north american refineries) has already peaked, and is now in global decline. If true (and the linked post concedes it's hardly conclusive) this is HUGE. Light sweet crude makes up most of North America's oil consumption, so most of our refineries would need major refits to take different grades of oil. If light sweet is in decline, we're looking at higher prices for gasoline, even if we find new sources of heavy and sour sources of oil. Even if this turns out to be wrong, we're obviously in a time when gas prices are going to be both higher than we like, and far more volatile.
I think the Mackenzie piece that Mike pointed out is actually a perfect example of this - even if we accept Mackenzie's assertions, he concedes at the end of the article that gasoline should still cost about $0.90/litre. While I continue to support some investigation in to the matter, I don't think that parliament or any other authority is going to find anything new in the oil industry.
This is important, because we really can't afford to take our eyes off the ball. What we should be focusing on his how to get people out of gasoline-burning cars, quickly. Talking about taxes or gouging diverts us from what we should be talking about, and that is conservation, period.
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John,
Thanks for keeping up with this. I by no means am in denial about peak oil. And I also still agree with the Mackenzie piece that gas prices should be high, just not as high as they are. Profiteering is profiteering as far as I'm concerned. I merely wanted to point out that gas prices are high partly because of supply and demand but also because of gouging and profiteering by the oil companies, who have us, all of us, by the proverbial short and curlies.
I am all for conservation and the finding of alternatives. I would love to purchase a bio-diesel mini-van (3 kids) or a hybrid, Smart-car like min-Van or something. I'd love to see fuel cell cars and hydrogen stations springing up, windmill farms, geothermal heating and solar arrys being put on the grid.
I think we need to keep prices high and subsidize alternatives in order to break our addiction to oil. then the oil companies will have real competition.
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