Any one fell like we are getting the shaft here...
They blame the rising costs on
#1 The Blackout
#2 Pipeline Rupture in Phoenix
#3 Traditional Labor Day Increase
I can stomach #3 as a reason, #1 and #2 are absolute bull****. I realize refineries did shut down. I also know that once they go down they just don't start up again. It takes a long time to bring the towers back up to temperature where they can start cracking crude...
But I also know gas is stored in huge ass tanks all across the country, the dip in production for two or three days did not effect the supply to the point where there was a shortage. Other non east coast refineries I am almost postive have not been operating at 100%...why this means everywhere in the country has to take a 10% price hike is ludicrous. There is excess crude around, the blackout did not drop supplies to zero
Why a pipeline burst in Phoenix causes the same thing, again baffles me. This should effect Phoenix (and it did) and parts of the west coast. Here the gas did run out so they do have to get existing supplies down to as low as they can go.
And I concede gas prices will go up in the summer especially over busy holiday weekends, which is actually my biggest gripe about the whole system
Oil companies own everything (besides foreign drilling operations) from the derricks to the pumps to the pipeline and tankers and rail cars to the refineries to the gas stations themselves. Where is there any control over the industry.
Gas station owners make pennies per gallon profit, most of it is tax the rest is the price of gas which is set by a collection of suppliers much like OPEC does with crude. They set the supply, they set the price, they make the profits. They also are able to sell many of the chemical building blocks they recover from the oil to the chemical makers around the country and world. So while we get oil from overseas we sell back the refined products overseas and domestically.
The whole system stinks...all utilities in general stink. You are at the mercy of a corporate America (and for that matter anylysts in Wall Street) dictating what prices will be and to maximize their profits they will gouge you every damn chance they get.
Nothing in my entire life sickened me more (from what I have witnessed personally) than the night of September 11 when I drove around the city and saw gas prices of $4 a gallon and people lined up to get gas. It was amazing...that moment right there made me question the whole industry I am inately involved with and I have thought about the whole thing since that day.
Fuel Cells are the answer to all of the problems, but people have no idea how much money that is going to cost us all. The whole infrastructure change is mindboggling. The sad thing I forsee is that Mobil, Exxon and BP will probably be at the forefront of this technology as well, limiting and hindering the implimentation every single damn chance they get