Editorials

End of the Day: Coming Soon: $5 a gallon gasoline May 17, 2007 - | Editor/Publisher

A reporter for Bloomberg writes in a late April article $4 a gallon gasoline is coming soon to a pump near you. That is accurate, but he shouldn’t have stopped there, $5 a gallon is not far behind. In fact we could well be paying that amount by the fall of next year.

You might say, well I won’t pay that much. That is way too high. Major and minor oil companies will report “windfall”, “obscene”, “historic” profits - pick your adjective.

The fact of the matter is even though prices have risen to almost $4 in California and well over $3 here, demand is still climbing. Higher prices are supposed to inhibit demand, unless of course, it is for something we have to have. And we have to have gasoline.

We need gas to get to work, to take the kids to school, (or more accurately put in their cars so they can drive to school), to shop, to live. We depend on our vehicles here in the rural areas where there is no public transportation.

$4 a gallon? Outrageous! $5 a gallon? Unbelievable! $100 to fill up? Extortion!!! But go ahead and fill’er up.

We will pay those amounts because we have no choice. Many will go to smaller vehicles that consume less gasoline.

As President Bush noted, we as a nation are addicted to oil. And our addiction keeps us subservient to some extent to those who have the oil, namely countries Saudi Arabia and other members of OPEC. There are even those who say our invasion of Iraq is nothing more nor less than a thinly-disguished oil play. Iraq reportedly has the world’s second largest reserves of oil which means we are there for the oil and while the bulk of our troops might be pulled out one day, some American troops and strategic bases will be left to “protect our oil.” The price we paid for bringing freedom to those poor suffering democracy-deprived Iraqis, you understand.

There are alternative fuels available and the United States better go after them with the moral imperative of war.

Brazil, for example, has 350 sugar cane mills producing 19 billion liters or about 5 billion gallons of ethanol a year. The same automakers we have here are already producing hybred engines for the Brazilian market.

With a modern China buying automobiles in record numbers and vying with India for a greater share of the world’s oil, demand is certain to rise, supplies certain to shrink, and the price of a gallon of gasoline certain to rise.

Americans might be able to adjust to $3 a gallon gasoline without major changes in their life styles. But what happens if it hits $4 a gallon here? Or $5?

Remember the movie “Three Days of the Condor”? At the end, the CIA official muses that if Americans start running out of gasoline, they won’t ask where we get it or how.

At the end of the day, energy independence will be forced upon us one way or the other.

(Correction: With apologies to all, I misindentified Scrapper baseball star Luke Jamison in Monday’s column.)

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