luckie
07-13-2006, 02:28 PM
Lust for fuel could spawn a new age of creativity
July, 13, 2006
Kent Cockson
Pensacola News Journal
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060713/OPINION/607130302/1020
What's fueling those periodic dime-a-week jumps in the price at the pump for gasoline? Could be a lot of things. The energy pundits tell us it's market jitters caused by the saber-rattling in North Korea and Iran. Or it's a "seasonal" adjustment. Or the hurricane season's possible effects are driving prices up. Or the oil companies tell us it's the ever-increasing cost of developing technology to recover the crude that is turned into the tigers in our tanks.
We read or listen to this psycho-babble, and we nod our heads, figuring if that is what's being reported in the newspaper or on network TV news, it must be true. Horse feathers -- all of that is window dressing.
Three things are fairly certain in a capitalist world increasingly influenced by mega-mergers and monopolistic drift:
· The price of oil-based fuel is going to remain high.
· It will go higher.
· The continuing trickle-down is going to impact almost everything because it already has pushed up a number of costs.
The "big box" suppliers and trucking companies are reluctant to share data on the increased expense of doing business, citing it as "competitive" information. But one area owner-operator has said that since 2004, fuel surcharges that are passed along to consumers have gone from 8 or 9 cents a mile in 2004 to more than 30 cents a mile today.
Frank Patti, owner of Joe Patti Seafood, says fuel surcharges tacked on by commercial fishermen have skyrocketed in two years, while the cost of air-freighting frozen seafood has jumped 100 percent. As for his company's four fishing boats, it costs $70,000 to fuel and outfit one of them for a 30-day trip -- and most of that is 38,000 gallons of wholesale fuel expense.
What's really causing the pump-price escalation for drivers? It could be our consumer greed. It could be Big Oil's lust for profits, charging whatever the automobile-loving consumer is willing to pay. Ot it could be that mysterious "next big thing" -- the oil companies afraid that residential living around commercial cores is going to take off on a grand scale -- everywhere from Reston, Va., where such communal living began years ago, to downtown Pensacola.
If trends continue, in tomorrow's world you won't even need a hybrid car to go most places. Just sling on your backpack and Segway down to the corner grocery to get what you need. Or hop on your bicycle and ride over to your favorite restaurant for lunch. Heck, walking dates for the young and the young at heart might even come back in vogue.
Business teleconferencing is having a chilling effect on regular travel across the nation or across the ocean to do business. Moreover, with video screens morphing into high-quality, high-definition, wide-screen monsters that engulf you in "surround sound" in your own rec room, cable and satellite offerings plus "rent and deliver" DVD movies have come of age. Why would you leave the comfort of your own home for after-hours entertainment?
Then there's the serious research and development on corn-based ethanol and electric fuel cell technology.
Question is: Has any or all of this given Big Oil the jitters? We as a society have taken brief peeks at the end of the age of oil-based energy, and you know how humankind reacts when we get just a glimpse of something we like, particularly if we can save some money.
Could it be that the future no longer looks so rosy for Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco or BP Oil stock? So, Big Oil is motivated to get it while it's good -- jack up those prices at the pump, and rake in those $60 billion-per-quarter profits while there's still plenty of money to be made. After all, nothing lasts forever -- even though the world's oil reserves could still feed our gasoline greed for generations.
July, 13, 2006
Kent Cockson
Pensacola News Journal
http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060713/OPINION/607130302/1020
What's fueling those periodic dime-a-week jumps in the price at the pump for gasoline? Could be a lot of things. The energy pundits tell us it's market jitters caused by the saber-rattling in North Korea and Iran. Or it's a "seasonal" adjustment. Or the hurricane season's possible effects are driving prices up. Or the oil companies tell us it's the ever-increasing cost of developing technology to recover the crude that is turned into the tigers in our tanks.
We read or listen to this psycho-babble, and we nod our heads, figuring if that is what's being reported in the newspaper or on network TV news, it must be true. Horse feathers -- all of that is window dressing.
Three things are fairly certain in a capitalist world increasingly influenced by mega-mergers and monopolistic drift:
· The price of oil-based fuel is going to remain high.
· It will go higher.
· The continuing trickle-down is going to impact almost everything because it already has pushed up a number of costs.
The "big box" suppliers and trucking companies are reluctant to share data on the increased expense of doing business, citing it as "competitive" information. But one area owner-operator has said that since 2004, fuel surcharges that are passed along to consumers have gone from 8 or 9 cents a mile in 2004 to more than 30 cents a mile today.
Frank Patti, owner of Joe Patti Seafood, says fuel surcharges tacked on by commercial fishermen have skyrocketed in two years, while the cost of air-freighting frozen seafood has jumped 100 percent. As for his company's four fishing boats, it costs $70,000 to fuel and outfit one of them for a 30-day trip -- and most of that is 38,000 gallons of wholesale fuel expense.
What's really causing the pump-price escalation for drivers? It could be our consumer greed. It could be Big Oil's lust for profits, charging whatever the automobile-loving consumer is willing to pay. Ot it could be that mysterious "next big thing" -- the oil companies afraid that residential living around commercial cores is going to take off on a grand scale -- everywhere from Reston, Va., where such communal living began years ago, to downtown Pensacola.
If trends continue, in tomorrow's world you won't even need a hybrid car to go most places. Just sling on your backpack and Segway down to the corner grocery to get what you need. Or hop on your bicycle and ride over to your favorite restaurant for lunch. Heck, walking dates for the young and the young at heart might even come back in vogue.
Business teleconferencing is having a chilling effect on regular travel across the nation or across the ocean to do business. Moreover, with video screens morphing into high-quality, high-definition, wide-screen monsters that engulf you in "surround sound" in your own rec room, cable and satellite offerings plus "rent and deliver" DVD movies have come of age. Why would you leave the comfort of your own home for after-hours entertainment?
Then there's the serious research and development on corn-based ethanol and electric fuel cell technology.
Question is: Has any or all of this given Big Oil the jitters? We as a society have taken brief peeks at the end of the age of oil-based energy, and you know how humankind reacts when we get just a glimpse of something we like, particularly if we can save some money.
Could it be that the future no longer looks so rosy for Exxon-Mobil, Chevron-Texaco or BP Oil stock? So, Big Oil is motivated to get it while it's good -- jack up those prices at the pump, and rake in those $60 billion-per-quarter profits while there's still plenty of money to be made. After all, nothing lasts forever -- even though the world's oil reserves could still feed our gasoline greed for generations.