Oil, bacteria, gasoline alternatives and Bush

I see the price of a barrel of oil dropped today, June 19th. Not unexpected after bush’s rant at congress about not allowing offshore oil drilling. Not that the amount of oil from offshore is going to decrease the price that much.

But the time the wells could be drilled and oil starts flowing is a few years away and won’t make all that much difference in the price of gas. However the threat of it must have been enough for speculators to ease up on the market.

The fact that China raised their prices to their people also helped. Another thing that helps is with the price of oil so high it makes other fuels and recovery methods much more price competitive and eventually all of this will go away. Of course oil may be 400 bucks a barrel before that happens.

I seem to remember the govt saying, during one of the gas crises, 30 years or so ago, there was enough oil in the shale of the mountains in the west to last us for a couple of hundred years but extracting it wasn’t feasible with the price of a barrel of oil at 20-30 dollars. It should be feasible now so why aren’t we hearing more about it.

I was reading, on Google news, yesterday that there are at least two companies that say they can make oil or gasoline using bacteria. Genetic engineering of bacteria is how it is going to be done and the two companies are ready to build test plants next year.

The bad part is they are expecting to use corn to make the petroleum. The price of corn doubled due to ethanol production, which means all of our food prices went up. We absolutely have to stop using our food supplies to make gas extenders or even gas and oil itself.

Switch grass works better and no one eats it. Lol, even hemp works better and no one is even considering it. Heh, it also makes better paper and you can make a ton of different things from the hemp plant.

We drove 1 1/2 billion miles less this year April than last year April according to the stats and I can’t wait to see May’s stats compared to last Mays.

All I can say is hang on tight, the price will settle down eventually but it will be because we don’t ned it as much as there are dozens of alternatives in the works. Science and the inventive minds of the people will come up with solutions. The problem is will we still be alive to see them or will we all have starved because the price of food is so high.

Bush and his oil buddies are now in hog heaven but they won’t be there forever. Bush’s rant about offshore drilling may have spurred the drop but drilling offshore is exactly what the oil comapnies have wanted to do for years. If Bush could get that rammed through congress he’d be a hero to the oil companies and I’m sure they’d show their gratitude.