Thursday, June 26, 2008

Fetching Our Own Oil

From the Chicago Tribune: "Obama has said he opposes lifting the federal ban on offshore drilling. And on Friday he promised a moratorium on the practice. Now he will find out if the pain voters are feeling at the pump will be inflicted upon him for his position."


McCain still doesn't have the right position on drilling in Alaska or easing up restrictions on producing our own oil. But at least he's starting to talk about getting oil from the Gulf and temporarily reducing the enormous gasoline taxes. Now if only he could get 'em all to begin undoing the damaging demands for more and more ethanol.

7 comments:

  1. Susan,

    I live in a community that is host to a major player in the ethanol market. Stock prices have dropped 75% from the same time last year and 3 finished ethanol plants have delayed opening dates because the cost of corn is high.

    I wonder if they see a connection between their product and the high cost of corn?

    In case you are interested, here is a link to an article in my local paper.

    http://tinyurl.com/6q5zfm

    Melanie

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  2. I also wanted to point out the article said Verasun(ethanol producer) was adding on to a local ethanol plant so they could extract oil from dried distillers grain.

    Now our beer prices are going to go even higher!

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  3. I think it's interesting how the article refers to corn as "feedstock" for the ethanol plant. Like the refinery is alive or something. What about corn being "feedstock" for chickens and cows and people?

    And the article says corn prices have gone up 80% in the last year. Not even doubled yet? Wow. I thought it would've been more. Maybe in the last two years it's more than doubled??

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  4. Today I was yelled at twice about the outrageous price of popcorn.

    Yes, the price is insane, but the costs have only risen to cover our cost- the company's profit has remained the same over the past year, even though the price of each container of popcorn has risen a dollar.

    Stupid ethanol is getting me yelled at.

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  5. Rachel, are you allowed to respond to "What's up with the outrageous cost of popcorn?" by suggesting that they might've noticed the high cost of the foods at the grocery store too, and that the theatre isn't immune to rising costs, and that they might want to contact their legislators about rescinding the ethanol mandates? Or would you get in trouble with management?

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  6. Has anyone seen any discussion anywhere on how much corn is UNDERWATER this year?

    Seems like *everyone* around here is replanting portions of their fields. That's GOT to have an effect on all this, too!

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  7. Probably the only people who realize what's up with the drowned corn are us hicks. And we obviously don't understand all the complexities of big oil and govt policies and how ethanol is going to save us all from drowning via global warming. So when gas prices go up another 50% and food prices double again, and we say, "I told you so," the pundits and the politicians will be caught off guard and not know what happened, and will be commissioning expensive Blue Ribbon Task Forces to investigate. And the hicks will go, "DUH!" You tell us that we have to use thus-and-so-much corn for fuel, and God says, "Oh, yeah?"

    Not even God could sink the Titanic. Right....

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