Fossil Fuel Industry Selling Us BS For Our Tanks

More BS from the oil industry. Served fresh every day.

By Alan Anderson

SACRAMENTO - March 4, 2013: Everyone has heard that there are two sides to every story, but I’m here to tell you that that is not true when it comes to the Fossil Fuel story. I’ve tried to count the story lines and it seems to be four or more sides to this story, and most of them are lies.

The first and most truthful side is the consumer’s use of gas/diesel and how it affects normal Americans daily in their wallets. It doesn’t matter what the economic level of the consumer is, they need to fill their tanks to get to work or get the kids to school and just take care of those everyday needs. Then there is the side of the business that relies on large amounts of fuel to make their businesses run. Let’s just use Kraft Foods as an example. Kraft has food processing plants all over the US and they need to get it to consumers. Let’s focus on one of their products: Lunchables. Kraft Foods in Stockton, California needs to get 40,000 lbs of Lunchables to Buffalo, NY consumers. It is going to take them the cost of at least 400 gallons of fuel to get it there. So, 400 gallons multiplied by $3.65 per gallon is $1,460; plus the fees to the trucking company and driver costs. Now if you multiply that by all the trucks hauling product for all the companies that’s a big chunk of money. So if America wants to eat we pay the cost of the fuel.

Now there is the side of the story that relates to fuel suppliers, and there are many of them. They have very few worries when it comes to price of gas/diesel at the pumps. When they need more money, they raise the price fuel. When shareholders agitate for more money, they raise the price of fuel. It once was called a game of supply and demand, but nowadays there is nothing but demand since by their calculations they have more supply than they know what to do with. But this is not a truth they can prove anymore. U.S. oil industry executives talk about the large reserves we have here in the country however they have yet to have them proven. The word “Proven” in the oil industry means they have to have it PROVEN. As of March 1, 2013, the U.S. has 2% of the worlds “Proven” oil reserves. This is well below what the oil industry claims they have discovered. Until they prove it to the powers that oversee the industry it is just fairy dust in the ground. This is also true with the new Natural Gas Boom in America. One half of what they say they have has yet to be proven, although they swear it’s there and push policy make us believe it.

Just about everyone has heard about the Keystone XL pipeline. Why is this so important to America? It isn’t really in the big picture of America. We get 20,000 maximum temporary jobs to build it and only 1,500 permanent jobs to maintain it. After that only the oil companies will benefit because the oil will be sold to the rest of the world. End of Story there. But is it? Why does it look like they seem desperate to get this oil? Simple, we are running out of “easy oil.” It cost lots of industry money to get that toxic sludge out of the ground and this harder-to-get-at-oil doubles and triples the cost. So you see we are running out quicker than we are lead to believe. The spike in prices this year, which have so far soared by about 45 cents in recent weeks, are mostly due to "crack spread." The Energy Information Administration - the U.S. government's energy statistics and analysis agency - suggests that "about two-thirds of the rise in gasoline prices since the start of the year" can be traced to a rise in the "crack spread," a measurement of refinery profit margins. In comparison, only about 15 cents of the rise is due to worldwide increases in crude oil prices. Consequently, hard-to-get equals more-to-pay. This isn’t sounding like the Oil Independence that was so highly touted back before the election. This sounds like the last gasps of life of a failing oil industry and their last ditch effort to pocket some money before the BUST.

The last side of this story is that of Government and its need for Fossil Fuel money and support. This is the simplest of the stories. Oil industry supports candidates that promote their interests, which include lowering regulations and not promoting replacements to America’s Energy Future. It is just that simple. Even the President of the United States fell for the BS the Energy industry was trying to sell us on Independence from Foreign Oil. The reality is that if we don’t change to a renewable fuel source for our transportation sector we will be more dependent on foreign oil in the near future. This all leads me to believe that we’re not going to be able to drill our way to energy security after all.