Bushamerica SUV driver kills gas station owner to avoid $52 gas bill 2177

Well, sure it does - the lack of extra refining capacity in this country, coupled with our own voracious appibreaste for gasoline and the rest of the world's voracious appibreaste for gasoline, is stretching the capability to produce it. So, since no one has the capability to make more, the gasoline that is being made can be sold for a very high price. If there were another 10 refineries sitting around running at 1-2 capacity, and the price is raised to what it is now, the owners of those refinries would increase their capacity, charge a lower price, and make more money on the volume of sales. But there are no such 1-2 capacity refineries - everything is running pretty much full tilt, so... those who have the refineries can charge whatever they want - no market forces are at work to bring the price down.

Now, if the environmentalists can be told to go sit in the corner, and we build a new refinery in just about every state, then we could deal with the refining capacity part of the equation. The only thing left would be the high price of crude itself. That can be dealt with, too, if we can (again) tell the environmentalists to go sit in the corner, and drill wherever there is oil ON OUR SOIL, meaning ANWR and offshore everywhere that is our continental shelf.

THAT will bring prices down, or keep them from going farther up. The only other way to do it is to figure out how to do land transportation without burning oil or its distillates. Nuclear, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, etc, but that is a technical challenge that hasn't been solved so far.

Dave Head