Authors libby rittenberg 803
Bạn đang xem bản rút gọn của tài liệu. Xem và tải ngay bản đầy đủ của tài liệu tại đây (291.2 KB, 1 trang )
Barack Obama, a Democrat, was against it. Mostly Republican proposals to
allow offshore drilling and exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge also received attention.
These measures were unlikely to have much affect on gas prices, especially
in the short-term. For example, the federal government would normally in
a two-month period deposit 10 million gallons of gasoline in the strategic
reserve; consumption in the United States is about 20 million gallons of
gasoline per day. World gasoline consumption is about 87 million gallons
per day. Putting an additional 10 million gallons into a global market
which will consume about 5 billion gallons in a 60-day period is not likely
to have any measurable impact.
The higher oil prices were very good for oil companies. Exxon Mobil, the
largest publicly traded oil company in the United States, reported profits of
nearly $11 billion for the first quarter of 2008. Whenever oil prices rise
sharply, there are always cries of “price gouging.” But, repeated federal
investigations of the industry have failed to produce any evidence that
such gouging has occurred.
Meanwhile, market forces responding to the higher gasoline prices are
already at work. Gasoline producers are looking at cellulosic ethanol,
which can be produced from materials such as wood chips, corn stalks, and
rice straw. Automobile producers are examining “plug-in” hybrids—cars
whose batteries could be charged not just by driving but by plugging the
car in a garage. The goal is to have a car that could go some distance on its
battery before starting to use any gasoline. Consumers are doing their part.
Gasoline consumption in the United States fell more than 4% by the
summer of 2008 from its level one year earlier.
Attributed to Libby Rittenberg and Timothy Tregarthen
Saylor URL: />
Saylor.org
803
