Re: Gasoline Shortage
Djohns,<br /><br />I am not of course precisely familiar with the situation in Phoenix, but I don't doubt what you say. It would not be the first time energy companies took advantage of a situation to reap benefits.<br /><br />You see it everywhere, I am afraid. In northern Ontario, for example, gas prices tend to be about 10 cents per liter higher than Southern Ontario (Toronto region), and they claim it is justified by the higher transportation costs. I have a friend in the industry, and they transport bulk gas by ship to the north, and it costs about one tenth of a cent per liter to ship this gas to the north. There is only one gas company servicing the north, of course.<br /> <br />And if the government approved the pipeline for use, I am sure they are confident the problems are fixed. My only point was that this new law was spearheaded by Senator Patty Murray of Washington after the Bellingham disaster, and was fought tooth and nail by the Office of Pipeline safety. I did see in the news where they expect the pipeline to be operating by this weekend, so perhaps that will ease the problems. I have to admit, though, that I have less than 100% confidence in the Office of Pipeline safety.<br /><br />And economics drive everything. My point is that there is no way to drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil, and there are alternate methods of reducing this dependence on foreign oil. Fuel cells will never catch on in a big way until there is an economic advantage to use them, for example.<br /><br />And rapid transit is another. Seattle is another city with no effective transit system, and a conservative group recently passed a statewide initiative that effectively decimated funding for public transportation, so that only those public transportation routes that paid their own way remain. This of course forced many more people back into their cars, and made the highway gridlock problem in the Seattle area even worse. Now the same group wants to spend billions and billions of (mostly federal)dollars on new freeway construction to alleviate this problem. It simply makes no sense.
Djohns,<br /><br />I am not of course precisely familiar with the situation in Phoenix, but I don't doubt what you say. It would not be the first time energy companies took advantage of a situation to reap benefits.<br /><br />You see it everywhere, I am afraid. In northern Ontario, for example, gas prices tend to be about 10 cents per liter higher than Southern Ontario (Toronto region), and they claim it is justified by the higher transportation costs. I have a friend in the industry, and they transport bulk gas by ship to the north, and it costs about one tenth of a cent per liter to ship this gas to the north. There is only one gas company servicing the north, of course.<br /> <br />And if the government approved the pipeline for use, I am sure they are confident the problems are fixed. My only point was that this new law was spearheaded by Senator Patty Murray of Washington after the Bellingham disaster, and was fought tooth and nail by the Office of Pipeline safety. I did see in the news where they expect the pipeline to be operating by this weekend, so perhaps that will ease the problems. I have to admit, though, that I have less than 100% confidence in the Office of Pipeline safety.<br /><br />And economics drive everything. My point is that there is no way to drill our way out of dependence on foreign oil, and there are alternate methods of reducing this dependence on foreign oil. Fuel cells will never catch on in a big way until there is an economic advantage to use them, for example.<br /><br />And rapid transit is another. Seattle is another city with no effective transit system, and a conservative group recently passed a statewide initiative that effectively decimated funding for public transportation, so that only those public transportation routes that paid their own way remain. This of course forced many more people back into their cars, and made the highway gridlock problem in the Seattle area even worse. Now the same group wants to spend billions and billions of (mostly federal)dollars on new freeway construction to alleviate this problem. It simply makes no sense.
