I've got a little list of gas-price villains
Erik Curren
There's a lot of talk these days about who to blame for $3-a-gallon gas. It reminds me of a spirited tune from the world's favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, The Mikado, sung by Koko, the Lord High Executioner:
As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I've got a little list - I've got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed - who never would be missed!
So, with apologies to G&S, I've made my own list of the usual suspects for high gas prices:
1. Oil Company Execs (aka Darth Vaders)
Congress hauled them in for hearings on price gouging in the '70s. And now the jowly, balding guys in pin-stripe suits that everybody loves to hate are back for a return engagement on Capitol Hill to the jeers of drivers nationwide.
Is the industry purposely keeping supply low to drive up prices? We started hearing last year that no new refineries have been built in the U.S. in a decade or more. Now, it seems that the oil companies didn't bother to replace all the refineries and drilling rigs destroyed last year by Hurricane Katrina, either. Up to 20 percent of oil infrastructure in the Gulf may be still be unrepaired.
Meanwhile, Exxon reported record profits in 2005, and oil CEOs are just getting richer as we feed more cash into their pumps.
2. Wall Street High Rollers
They also profit off of pain and wear suits. Today's high prices are supposed to be driven by commodities traders adding an instability tax to the price of oil in anticipation that supplies from scary places like Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela could be interrupted soon.
But why should we pay in advance for disasters that may never happen? Many drivers think this is just a scare tactic to drive up prices. Boo!
3. Tree Huggers
Those darned environmentalists made a stink about some chemical called methyl tertiary-butyl ether. Sounds tasty, huh? Cars think so. It's been added to gas for decades to raise its octane. But the enviros showed that it polluted water supplies. Whatever. So the government is making the oil companies replace MTBE with ethanol this year.
Now, wouldn't you know, there are some glitches in delivering the amount of ethanol needed. So that's driving up the price at the pump. Don't those eco-freaks care that Americans need to drive the kids to Disney World this summer? Under pressure to reduce gas prices, President Bush recently decided to slow down the phaseout of MTBE.
4. Foreigners, Supply Dept.
"How did OUR OIL get under THEIR SAND?" is a question more relevant than ever. Sure, we invaded Iraq for noble, altruistic reasons. But now we're spending almost $2 million a day to stick around and watch the country slip into civil war. Can't we at least get some of that black gold from Baghdad to help soothe our pain at the pump?
We already know how naughty our other oil suppliers are being. Why does every oil country seem to have some kind of Yankee-go-home chip on their shoulder? Talk about ingratitude.
5. Foreigners, Demand Dept.
In a touching scene a couple of weeks ago, President Bush begged Chinese leader Hu Jintao to ask his people not to use so much oil, so that there'd still be plenty left for Americans to drive their kids to Disney World this summer.
Not exactly a Nixon-in-China moment. I wonder next if he'll ask the Indians the same thing.
The Real Villain: Peak Oil
Well, that sure is a nice little list of villains. But here's where comedy becomes tragedy - we could cut off all their heads, and gas prices would still go up. At least, that's if you listen to petroleum geologists, instead of politicians pandering for votes.
Oil companies and speculators can only make big profits because geologists are genuinely concerned about supply. Companies aren't building new refineries because they know there's not that much oil left in the ground to refine. MTBE will soon pass, but that won't create more gas.
Even a peaceful Iraq would start to run dry in a few years at the rate we'd pump it. And don't expect developing nations to save gas as a favor to Uncle Sam. Right now, 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians are scrimping and saving so they can each buy a car and drive it around just like us.
No amount of head-chopping can overrule what scientists say are the facts of geology. Put simply, the world is running out of cheap oil. This year, or next, or pretty soon, we'll reach what they call "peak oil." That's when half the oil in the world has been pumped out. At that point, prices will begin an unstoppable climb as supplies dwindle.
If oil stays at its current level above $70 a barrel much longer, we'll start to see energy surcharges everywhere, from food to clothes to medicines. And when oil rises even further, we could see double-digit inflation and even the collapse of industries such as airlines that live on fossil fuels. After peak oil, many changes in our society won't be pretty.
We may like it when politicians or gossipy friends give us ready-made villains and easy solutions to high gas prices. It's comforting.
Let's lock up oil all the oil CEOs in Martha Stewart's old jail cell (nice drapes!). Let's put U.S. Army boots on the ground in a few more uppity oil nations to show 'em who's boss. Let's ask China pretty-please to stick to mule-drawn transport for a couple more centuries.
Then we can go back to planning that trip to Disney World.
But if America wants to avoid economic ruin, it's time to bring down the curtain on this tired performance. Yes, we should watch for and punish price gouging. But that's just a sideshow. In the main act, we need to focus on the real problem and find real solutions.
Cheap oil is running out. And we need to plan for a post-oil future now, by conserving energy and finding alternatives before our time runs out too. That's the little list we all should write.
Film on Mountaintop Removal Mining Airing Thursday
This Thursday you can catch a pre-screening of a new film on the evils of strip-mining in West Virginia. "Black Diamonds" will be screened free to the public from 7-9 p.m. in Staunton at Mary Baldwin College's Pearce Science Center on Frederick Street.
Two West Virginia natives, filmmaker Catherine Pancake and coalfield activist Julia Bonds, will be on hand to talk about the film and how bad this type of mining is for local communities and for the environment.
If you thought coal was a barbarity of the past, think again. After peak oil, expect coal mining to grow in pace with rising demand.
For more information: clanton1@mgwnet.com or (540) 939-4738.
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