High Prices or Words Have Meanings

<a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/ETHANOL_REFINERIES?SITE=MTBIL&SECTION=BUSINESS&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT" >Oil industry scales back refinery plans</a><br />n<br />n<blockquote>A push from Congress and the White House for huge increases in biofuels, such as ethanol, is prompting the oil industry to scale back its plans for refinery expansions. That could keep gasoline prices high, possibly for years to come.<br />n<br />nWith President Bush calling for a 20 percent drop in gasoline use and the Senate now debating legislation for huge increases in ethanol production, oil companies see growing uncertainty about future gasoline demand and little need to expand refineries or build new ones.</blockquote><br />n<br />nAll this talk about increasing biofuels now becomes more important. Refineries are running at full capacity now so any increase in energy usage is going to have to come from biofuels. Are they up to it? Congress and the President can call for increases in usage of biofuels all they want, but that doesn't mean it is going to happen. Lust like they can pass a law that says pi=3.14 instead of 3.14159265….. but that doesn't give the right answers.<br />n<br />nAll along with the high fuel prices we have been hearing that with more refining capacity the prices would moderate a little and things would be fine again. Now that looks bleak and the prices we are seeing now might be the low ones while biofuels try to struggle to fill the gap. Don't get me wrong, nothing remains static, and eventually gas prices will drive high enough that some refiner will build more capacity to take advantage of the high prices and break the logjam and get more refining capacity built. We will have to suffer through some pretty high prices before that happens though since expansion of refineries is a long term thing and can't happen overnight.<br />n<br />nThis is a perfect example of what I mean by words have meaning. All these politicians spouting their Utopian ideals about how much energy they want from biofuels is causing a reaction that in the long run might hurt us all. Maybe the biofuels industry can meet the goals the politicians are setting but I don't know. I've just seen too many times the politicians set a goal and then it turns out not to be as feasible as they thought. Fusion power and hydrogen car are just a couple of examples and it wouldn't surprise me if the savior of the biofuels movement, cellulistic ethanol production, falls in the same category, promising but unachievable. In the meantime while this whole plays out, prepare for high prices at the pump. They are going to be here for a long time.<br />n<br />n<strong>If language did not affect behavior, it could have no meaning. Kenneth L. Pike </strong><br />n<br />nP.S. I know somebody is going to spout some garbage about the oil companies don't want to build refining capacity because they will make more money. Leave it at home and learn a little bit more about the business world. I don't want to hear it.