The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 77
most helpful in to overcome the myriad legal and licensing requirements that
are sure to arise.
So as not to appear too Polyanna-ish, I do want you to know that I have taken
into consideration the financial devastation to the existing oil/gasoline industry
(and its collateral distribution and retail components) that would result from the
elimination of gasoline. This is why my premise proposes the idea of the elimination of NEW gasoline-powered vehicles by 2014, and not the total elimination
of all gasoline-powered vehicles and machinery by 2014. Simply put, with the
base of existing gasoline-powered vehicles and stationary machinery that now
exists, the oil/gasoline industry will continue to thrive in the United States for at
least a couple of decades. In the meantime, those oil/gasoline producing companies that wish to would turn their efforts to seriously producing alternative
fuels; and the associated industry components would adapt to distributing and
selling the alternative fuels. As for those companies and individuals that do not
want to adapt to the new alternative fuel, they would go the way of the buggy
whip industry or just do business with other nations that continue to rely on
gasoline.
THE UNDERLYING ISSUE
In referring to the gasoline crisis I say “seem” because there is evidence to
suggest that the high cost of gasoline at the pump is nothing more than the
contrived gasoline shortage scare of the 1970s. Case in point: last year, when
the barrel price of oil was in the $60 range, gasoline at the pump in the U.S.
was in the low to mid $3 per gallon. Today, oil is running around $130 per barrel,
yet gasoline is “only” low to mid $4 per gallon. Why isn’t the price $6 or $7 per
gallon, or better yet why wasn’t the price last year in the $2 range?
While I understand the arithmetic tied to the issues of “oil lifting,” production and
refinement facilities, and increased world demand for petroleum and gasoline,
I believe the real culprits behind today’s pump price are commodity speculators,
OPEC, and the oil companies.
It’s said that it costs the Saudis and others about $2 to “lift” a barrel of oil.
There’s a wide gap between $2 and $130. It would be one thing if the $130 per
barrel price included all the eventual shipping, refining, and marketing costs
related to taking the oil from underground and then transforming it from its raw
state to the product you pump into your vehicle, but it doesn’t. Those costs are
additional. Therefore, the $130 price is not predicated on arcane consumer supply & demand economic theories. It’s because of greed.
