Energy Crisis: Now is the time (Part 1)
The issue of gasoline in the United States and alternative fuels have become quite an interesting topic. United States citizens have seen a steady increase in gas prices over the last 3 years. A long drawn out explanation is not needed to explain why, it is simply supply and demand, as demand rises so will prices.
Some people tend to think the solution is to increase supply, that we should open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to help control the price of gas but that is simply a band aid fix for what is becoming a terminal illness. Furthermore opening ANWR would have no effect on current economy for years and possibly decades.
So what is a declining superpower of the modern world to do? Again its simple economics, lower demand and prices will drop. The major problem is that government officials are easily swayed by the deep pockets of the oil industry, which leaves very little room for change in this country. The oil companies have a money tree in the United States and will do anything to preserve that.
The fourth largest supplier of oil for the United States is Venezuela, who has had tense relations with the Bush administration over the past few years. The problem with this scenario is that we depend on Venezuela for oil and because of the tension between the two leaders Venezuela is looking to decrease their dependency on the U.S as a major client.
Venezuela has increased their oil exports to China from 12,300 barrels per day to 150,000 barrels per day, with a predicted increase to 500,000 barrels per day over the next 5 years. Venezuela also began exporting 65,000 barrels a day to India and have come to agreements with Iran to build joint oil refineries. This information is troubling, if Venezuela drops their exports to the United States prices will rise drastically and economic growth in the U.S will suffer.
