We dont have enough oil in N. America to make a noticeable difference in the price of gas even if we handed the gov't agencies over to the oil industry. Look at 2008 if you doubt that.


Speculation might play a marginal role in prices...but its real supply and demand that is driving this. Every year oil gets harder to pull out of the ground, every year more people have a car.


The obvious reaction to this should be increased production (the US has massively stepped up oil production over the last several years) while looking for alternatives. Biofuels, nat gas, better batteries for electric cars....this is the only way to make any real impact on gasoline prices.


If you double US oil production and refining capacity you can bring gas down ~10% for 5-10 years before the spigots start to dry up. Of course its physically impossible to double oil production even given unlimited budgets....


Our energy/fuel policy needs to stay away from the 'hope and pray for magic beans to solve our problem' mantra that is so popular on the right.

Like I said in my other thread, I think this price is a direct result of a short term tightening of supply.


The idea that it is a result of long term trends does not justify this spike in the price of gas. If you want to talk about the average price over the next decade then yes that is a result of long term trends. Within that trend will be short term ups and downs which this latest spike is.

 

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If that's what no pipelines looks like, I'd hate to see what lots of piplelines would look like...

 

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God dammit I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE VOTED FOR MCCAIN!!!

 

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