Test Drive for the End of Oil
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 03. 1.07
An Imperial Oil (Exxon) refinery in Nanticoke caught fire last week; co-incidentally Canadian National Railways was hit by a strike. Suddenly Ontario was short of gasoline and couldn't bring in extra supplies by rail. Not a big deal in a diversified economy with lots of gas stations right? Well, wrong. As the Esso (Exxon) stations closed due to lack of supplies, there was a run on all of the other stations and they started running out. As people found out which stations had gas, they drove the extra distance to them to stock up and caused traffic jams as there were long lineups of people idling their cars in the streets trying to get into the station, all of which, of course, burns more gas. The price has gone up from 74 cents a litre to $ 1.10 in a week. ($ 4.16 per American gallon)
The CBC's Andy Barrie interviewed one of the people from powerful film The End of Suburbia who welcomed us to the future, what it will be like not when we run out of oil, but when we just start finding it a little bit tighter than it is now. It has not taken very much to completely disrupt the system here. :;Globe and Mail
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
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- Era Of Cheap Oil is Over, Prices Will Top $200: International Energy Agency
So much for Canada's sovereign gas company that was supposed to fix problems like this. Petro Canada ended up closing a number of gas stations due to the sudden demand.
People in groups can be idiots. If they had all decided to cut out unnecessary trips and car pool for a short while, it is likely they would have lasted longer without running out of fuel. Instead, everyone thought "me me me" and went to fill up their cars, so they are probably using more fuel than normal and quickly ate through the reserves.
Also, I think the gas stations should have raised prices sooner, so people would think harder about what trips they really needed to take. Those going to the mall on the weekend would forgo the trip because of the extra expensive, while those going to visit a relative in the hospital would easily fork over the extra money, because that visit is important to them. This would have extended the supply longer and cut out more unnecessary trips.
This is a very common occurrence in Florida during hurricane season. I remember after Hurricane Charley we couldn't find gas anywhere that made sense to drive to. Hurricane Katrina did the same thing but caused the gas price to spike even higher since the gulf coast oil plants were shut down.
" I think the gas stations should have raised prices sooner, so people would think harder about what trips they really needed to take."
I hate to be the one to break this to you, but a gas station, like any other business, is concerned with supplying a product or service which people wish to purchase. Their job is not to discourage people from buying their product or service. That is because they are greedy capitalist pigs.
Of course, all of this horror in Toronto could have been spared, if only we had a centrally-planned command economy, in which a government committee sets prices and availability of fuel. This is a very effective strategy. Look at a country like Cuba. They don't have lineups for gas. In fact no one hardly is ever allowed to buy gas. Or food. or clothing, or shelter. That would just be selfish.