Gas Prices Creep Up: Oil Supply Crisis in the Offing?

Gasoline prices have gone up quite a bit in the last few weeks here in the Boston area, from about $1.69 per gallon to $1.89 per gallon. What gives?

What will become of us if we are hit with an energy crisis on top of this horrendous, Depression level economic crisis?

First of all, gas is still very cheap for the beleaguered U.S. consumer compared with Europe. Gas is more than three times more costly there. But clouds are gathering on the horizon.

The New York Times reported back in December 2008 that "dozens of major oil and gas projects have been suspended or canceled ... as companies scramble to adjust to the collapse in energy markets [meaning the price of crude oil]."

This means that all those oil derricks that were sprouting up all over places like Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Dakota have ceased operations, not to mention big exploration and drilling projects throughout the world. What looks like a good deal at $147 per barrel suddenly does not make any sense at less than $40 per barrel.

As a result, it is just a matter of time before supply constraints send the price of the Western world's precious oil upwards again.

That is just what the realing economy needs, right? High energy costs. Actually, yes. This is a golden opportunity for the U.S. and other countries, when oil demand is historically low, to begin weaning themselves from this heroin-like addiction, via conservation mainly (smaller cars, better trains, telecommuting, eating locally grown food, and the like), before the unfortunate implications of a loss in oil supply become the second really bad crisis to come true.

Getting a dose of electricity power losses

I now have the opportunity to answer my own question of a few blogs back; we lost power for 14 hours in our rental in Vermont. Energy is such an essential aspect of modern life, and electricity and its deliverance is a fragile commodity. We don't appreciate it until we lose it.

We were on our way to dinner in Waitsfield when suddenly my headlights illuminated power lines all over the road ahead of us. The lines were snaking in the high winds, which had knocked down a utility pole.

You see, it had been almost 60 degrees fahrenheit that day, and the rapid and unprecedented melting for Vermont (global weirding :) had apparently made the base of the pole unstable, so the wind easily knocked it down.

With the electricity off, we three-point turned away from the wires and drove route 17 west to Bristol for dinner. Then the fun started (for me at least). We returned to our little rented house, then by candlelight made a big "lodge fire" in the stone fireplace. The others took the two flashlights and went to sleep in the loft, while I slept by the fire and kept it going all night. It was wonderful.

I woke up when the sun came up and made camp coffee by heating the water in the fireplace. It was toasty and cozy in the room, and I didn't miss power for a second (although I am typing on a laptop right now). No vapid TV and blaring boom boxes; the cacophony of power excess. I was vaguely disappointed when the power came back on, although my family appreciated it, since my son had kind of a bad cold.

Everyone has to prepare themselves for a possible bad energy crisis, and more so, for gasoline supply shortages, which could happen within the year. What would you do if you suddenly couldn't get gasoline for several days or weeks? Have you even thought about it?

Another thought that came to mind was that a hybrid makes a pretty good energy-storage device.

When I turned on the Prius that night, it was the only robust power source on in that dark settlement, save for the amazing starlight. There are lots of proposals out to use millions of plug-in hybrids for energy storage during peak electricity demand, as well as to charge them up during off-peak hours.

What do you do when the electricity goes off?

Many New Englanders were confronted with this problem just north of where we live, where an extensive ice storm knocked out electricity all over Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and parts of Massachusetts for several days.

The experiences are emblematic of what could happen during an extensive energy crisis involving supply shortages of oil, natural gas, and other energy sources.

Watching the news coverage, I was struck by the vast differences in preparation among the citizenry. Many were bearing up well with good-humored Yankee stoicism, but were barely surviving with homes cold enough on the inside to see your breath, long gas lines (or no gas), and difficult treks to find food to restock the pantry.

A lot of people simply threw up their hands and crammed into any hotel with power that they could find. I joked with my family, rather lamely, that we would have just headed with our Prius into Boston in search of a Marriott, where I have a sort of "frequent stayer" program.

The good ole venerable wood stove

I was impressed by one fellow in New Hampshire who seemed to be actually having a good time. The reason was that he had a wood stove, a chain saw, and plenty of fallen-down trees to chop up and stoke the heater with. A wood stove will keep a fairly large area of a house, about 500 hundred square feet, toasty enough to live in, and you can heat up water, soup, and other stuff on its hot surface.

The man's family was simply sleeping in the vicinity of the stove, they had plenty to eat and drink, and he was not letting the fire go out. He talked about how everything for this long weekend had become "simpler," and that there was something nice and bucolic about how they were living (no TVs, video games, iPods, modern stresses, etc.).

Doesn't this observation remind you of the kind of post-Peak Oil scenarios people often talk about?

I vowed after listening to him to do two things: replace my wood-stove insert with a full-fledged wood stove, and get a couple of free-standing, perhaps kerosene burning lamps. My father, who passed away this year in his eighties, but lived successfully for decades on the wooded coast of Maine, in his infinite wisdom, gave me a kerosene burning lamp about 12 years ago. After not using it for a couple of years I donated it to a charitable auction, and now I'm kicking myself.

As one stranded person in northern New England put it this weekend, "You don't truly appreciate something until you no longer have it," and that's electricity.