It’s July, and we have a mini-heatwave, yet the talk is of next winter. Take a look at these numbers for home heating oil here in Massachusetts.
Average Price For July 8
- 2008: 4.71
- 2007: 2.54
- 2006: 2.58
- 2005: 1.98
- 2004: 1.54
- 2003: 1.31
- 2002: 1.16
- 2001: 1.31
Somebody should let Phil Gramm, former senator and now economic advisor to John McCain, know that there’s nothing psychological about the cost of energy. There are many people in the northeast who simply will not be able to pay their heating bills, and they need to do their whining now, before they freeze in their own homes. And today the price of a barrel of crude oil has set yet another record.
Cactus Lizzie hits on many good points. Our electric is from PECO/Exelon and they have been using wind power. We signed on to have a majority of our power come from their wind turbine areas. Amtrak is a great way to travel but the repubs keep cutting back on funding trying to literally derail Amtrak. Now in today’s news electric and gas utilities are being cut off to peoples’ homes in record numbers. But not to McCain’s 7 homes of course. People are not whining, you repub idiots, they are having REAL problems! As McCain and his whiner weiner are laughing at how great the economy is for them, the Dow drops and people are saying “Recession? No, DEPRESSION!”. Thank you, repubs!
There’s no question that the costs of both heating homes and fueling cars have leaped up higher in the past year than many people’s incomes can absorb. It’s a big hit, not a gradual rise, and there’s no way people’s wages are going to be increased by the same degree, in order to keep pace with these much higher prices. There’s some real suffering going on out there, and more to come once winter hits.
Now, I will share with you something to make a point… Not to gloat or tease you, Doug. Our home is electric, with a gas range top and a gas hot water heater with solar assist. When we bought this 2540 square foot house, it already had 20 solar panels on the roof. Our latest electric bill for one month’s usage, ending June 24th, was $12.10.
Now to be fair, we do keep it warm in the house. Not everyone would like it. We turn the 2 central air conditioners for each side of our ranch-style home down to a lower temperature when people come to our home. We have very high ceilings, and ceiling fans in every room, which we use a lot. We do some other energy-saving things, like closing the vertical blinds on the sunny side of the house.
My point is that solar power works very, very well here in the Southwest. June is a hot month here, of course. We don’t blink at temperatures in the low triple digits. We’re seeing quite a bit of new construction going on here that includes at least several solar panels on the roof, although few have as many as 20, like we do.
I think everybody here should have solar panels. It’s a no-brainer. But of course, except for the installation of the solar panels to begin with, no company has a vested interest in pushing solar power. It’s free from the sun, of course.
I realize that solar power is not sufficiently practical for all the different weather areas of the U.S.A. But I don’t think anyone can argue that we are long overdue for entering a transition phase to employ alternative sources of energy. I hear that wind power would be great for a really big swath of America’s heartland, from the far north to down south.
The only silver lining in the cloud of soaring fossil fuel expenses is that it makes the costs of exploration of energy sources in this country more feasible. I understand that in Europe, countries have slapped a gradually rising hefty tax on gasoline for many years. Their efforts to incrementally wean people off of heavy gasoline consumption worked, and so various European nations are significantly ahead of America in dropping their purchasing levels of Middle East oil.
If we had started doing the same thing back in the Jimmy Carter Presidency, when we had the gasoline crunch in the 1970’s, the government would have collected a LOT of money – kept in OUR country, instead of going into Middle East nations’ pockets. That money could have been used expressly for the purpose of increasing the practicality and efficiency of our various mass transit systems, as just one possible idea. Amtrack might have retooled, and become a LOT better than it is today.
Of course, many people scream that taxes paid out to the government get squandered, misspent. Okay, maybe so. But at least the money would’ve stayed right here in America, instead of sending it now at these high oil prices to the Middle East, right?
There’s been no real foresight in this country, and now we’re paying the piper. After the 1970’s oil crisis was over, we all went back to buying big gas-guzzling cars, and the Reagan administration really didn’t say anything to discourage Detroit from producing them. No longer was there any serious tone of conservation talk coming out of the White House. The heat thermostats got pushed back up, and the heavy sweaters came off.
Instead, as contrasted with Europeans who were paying $2.00 and more for gasoline a long time ago, we refrained from introducing a graduated tax on fuel, and enjoyed a much lower gas price. So now, instead of ramping the cost up gradually in a way that people can absorb, we’re struggling with this sudden leap in energy prices. We don’t have enough viable, alternative options in place apart from foreign oil imports, to cushion this blow.
And of course, there’s the issue of global political tensions about the supply of world oil, which increase the risk of our country going to war. Is it worth the risk of America’s sons dying in future combat, just so we’ve been able to enjoy cheaper fuel all these past decades, than Europe has? I don’t think so.