It was merely a few weeks ago that oil hit the mythical $100 a barrel threshold, which was sort of a psychological barrier for many who want to keep thinking of oil as an endless, cheap form of energy, not something that is going to become vastly more expensive in the near future.
Today oil hit $108 a barrel, and gas prices are sure to rise accordingly in the coming days.
The linked article shows a photo of gasoline going over $4 a gallon in Los Angeles. (Of course, here in British Columbia, gas has been over the equivalent of that for awhile now.) With the busy summer driving season coming -- at least in theory since many may choose to vacation near home or in their homes -- gasoline prices may surge to unthought of heights.
Canadians may see gas rise even more since Esso's Strathcona refinery in Alberta is still not producing near capacity due to an undisclosed problem.
Canada's gas consuming public fear of gas prices going up in the coming days until the plant breakdown is fixed. The country is experiencing an under capacity as for the past three decades, no new refineries were built as cars on the road continued to increase.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC has similar problems due to delays caused by unplanned maintenance at Shell's Scotford refinery near Fort Saskatchewan.
The oil industry is surely very aware of Peak Oil and the fact they haven't invested in refineries suggests they know crude oil does not have a long future.
Unfortunately, this will reignite the interest in converting Alberta's tar sands into oil, a process which requires mass inputs of natural gas (another fossil fuel rapidly going into decline in North America) and water. This is environmentally devastating and should not even be considered as a last resort. Other people will try to tout biofuels as a replacement, despite growing evidence that it creates more global warming inducing carbon gas as well as force the price of food to go up.
North Americans are nowhere near the point they need to be at: a massive shift in lifestyle must take place. Currently, people are in denial and bargaining with suspect technological "fixes" rather than accept our current lifestyle does not have a long future. Do people feel that filling up the SUV is more important than keeping croplands meant for food production and slowing the increase of greenhouse gases?
Now we'll just wait to see if people really do change their driving habits or if it'll take $7 or $8 a gallon to really alter how people live.
I don't have any deeper analysis of what's going on. The United States is in the midst of a monumental financial failure (click here for a bunch of depressing articles) converging with a cheap energy crisis with climate change acting as the dark overseer. If I had a solution, I'd offer it, but there's so much inertia in the business/industrial realm to fight that it's overwhelming.
Back to your usual program of Obama Vs. Clinton in petty "he said she said"....