Thank you George....

[Fat Tone]

It's really hard to sympathise with Americans complaining about the price of fuel. Here in the UK regular unleaded peaked at ~$2.60/l or $9.36/USG.

Things are relaxing now, mainly due to initiatives from some of the big supermarket chains, but we really were beginnning to feel the bite of fuel prices and the country appears to be nosediving in to a recession.

I don't know, but suspect US fuel bills are a smaller fraction of household expenditure (or at least could be if they drove more cars rather than trucks) and their individual wealth is less sensitive to fluctuations in fuel prices. Am I right?

[Brian Ellis]

I guess there is a parallel with the water situation on this island. On an average, the rainfall on this island is ~450 mm ±300 mm. This should be largely more than sufficient, with correct resource management, to supply everyone, even after three or four winters of low rainfall. Last autumn, it was clear that the supplies were dwindling but the Papadopoulos government in power cynically took no measures against the possibility of another poor rain winter. Why? Because rationing or even hosepipe restrictions would have been unpopular and there were Presidential elections coming up in February. By the end of December, it was clear that the rain was not coming as was necessary, but still nothing was done, business as usual. By election time, still no rain (we got, on average about 150 mm over the whole rainy season, and still no restrictions. Papadopoulos lost the presidency, thank God!, to be replaced by the communist Christofias whose first two acts were a) to introduce water restrictions and b) start negotiations to reunify the island. As far as the water was concerned, too little but, by far, too late. Now we are in the same crisis with water as the US with oil, we'll pay what it takes to get some. Some parts of the country will run totally dry in a couple of weeks. Result: we are frantically boring holes, left, right and centre, to try and get a few more drops, while wastage continues (e.g., it is estimated that 10,000 t of water are lost/day due to leaks in an antiquated pipeline system, a problem known for decades). In the meanwhile we are paying through the nose for imported water, sitting in tankers offshore, with it impossible to offload the water. Thank God our water is supplied at fixed prices and not on a market supply/demand basis or we would be paying more than $4/gallon for it just now! I had the luxury of a 2-minute shower this morning and actually pressed the button on the toilet!

[Dr Mordrid]

That may have been the thought train in the past, but now I think that people finally "get" that oil is a national security issue and this will cause the transition we should have made after the first oil shocks, and most certainly after the Gulf War.

[Nowhere]

Bummer... :/

Yes, Doc, you're saying that we should "speed up conversion to alternatives drastically", but face it, it will only happen due to financial reasons/only if there would be more money in it. Cheaper oil makes that point further away... (nevermind that we use the thing...everywhere; so it would be a good idea to preserve as much as we can isntead of simply burning it right now...)

[DukeP]

I think theres room for some technological advances inside the field of refinery. Get some new hightech refineries up and running, and who knows which oilfields would become profitable again...

AFAIK a lot of the worlds refinery are still running on '60s tech.

~~DukeP~~

[Jammrock]

That and new finds in North America say there is tons of crude for the taking here. 2 billion barrels in the arctic, with just over a third in Alkaska. Between 800 BILLION and 2 TRILLION barrels of shale oil in the Rocky Mountains, and new finds in the Gulf of Mexico. The big problem is tap into new sources and the fact that all the refineries are old and failing...

[Dr Mordrid]

Just goes to show the power of psychology on the oil market. That market is 75% perception, and until now the perception was that the US wouldn't drill offshore or in the Alaskan deposits. That perception made speculators think fixed supply would let them keep bidding oil up.

Next thing you know GWB dropped the 30+ year old presidential executive order against drilling in many offshore locations and Alaska and gee whiz...all of a sudden the perceptions changed and the speculators started bailing on oil futures.

Even the suggestion that production would go up burst their oil bubble. Imagine that

As a result oil dropped from almost $160/bbl to just under $125/bbl over a 2 week span and it's still trending downward.

Before this all started our areas gas prices peaked at:

Regular: $4.18/gal
Premium: $4.38/gal
E-85: $3.79/gal

Now they're here and still falling:

Regular: $3.74/gallon
Premium: $4.05/gallon
E-85: $3.36/gallon

IMO if Congress dropped their drilling ban oil would go under $80/bbl and gas below $3.00/gallon without even sinking the first bit.

This isn't to say that we should slow down the transition to bio fuels and electric/hybrid vehicles, we should speed it up drastically, but increasing production now will give us a buffer in both time and energy security in case the middle east situation with Iran goes poof.