The nation's energy chief says it will take six months for U.S. energy production and prices to return to pre-hurricane levels, and he hints at energy shortages in the interim.What the hell's "normal" anyway? Gas prices have been high since before we invaded Iraq--Rita and Katrina only upped the price of gas by 10 cents or so. Of course, the article doesn't talk about other possible reasons for the gas prices being so high.
That's the most blunt and pessimistic estimate yet of how long the energy disruptions caused by hurricanes Katrina and Rita will affect the USA. But it could help Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman sell Americans on a conservation campaign he plans to detail Monday.
"How long before we return to normal? It's hard to know, because we have not yet got an assessment" of damage from Rita, Bodman said in an interview with USA TODAY on Friday. He said it will be two to three weeks before the assessment is done.
Stress about Iraq? That's a definite possibility because Iraq has not gone well--there was supposed to be a flood of oil on the market because of the Iraq Attack, but since that never came, a sort of faux-shortage was created driving oil investment/prices up. But was that the only reason gas prices could have gone up? There's also [http://news.google.com/news?q=peak%20oil&sourceid=mozilla-search&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&tab=wn|peak oil]. Click that link and read what little western coverage their is of it.
Conservation? Forget it--we won't have a choice in the coming years, by the look of things.
No comments:
Post a Comment