As part of my preparations for a final post of 2010, I reviewed my 2010 Google Analytics results. For reasons that I cannot quite understand, a short post I published more than five years ago showed up as third on the hit list. Perhaps I just discovered a catchy title. Here is a updated version of the chart that has remained popular for five years.
It is interesting to note that heating oil prices as reported by the U. S. Energy Information Agency for the month of December, 2010 are nearly back to their 2007 peak. Boy, I sure hope that is not an omen for this coming summer. I hope you agree that 2008 is not a year that most of us would want to relive, from an economic and energy cost perspective.
Heating oil prices also react to weather and crude eased further below $90 on Friday on forecasts for warmer weather in the US Northeast and a smaller-than-expected drawdown in existing stocks. On the other hand, there are shortages in the U.K. and there is talk of rationing.
@DV82XL – for me, the scary part of that chart is that heating oil price trends and diesel fuel price trends are essentially identical. Every winter, the cost of driving my TDI increases. I guess I should not complain too much, I do get 45 MPG and I have reduced my commute by 30 miles each way with my recent move to Lynchburg.
Bought my oil-heated house in 2000. Believe me I’ve felt the effects illustrated in your chart.
“Boy, I sure hope that is not an omen for this coming summer. ”
In Ohio, last time I filled my gas tank (Sunday after Christmas), I was paying over $3.00/gallon for the first time, I think, since 2008. Granted, that was a holiday pricing, but still, the price of gas has been creeping up this year.
I also saw a headline the other day, about a former Shell exec , who was predicting $5/gallon gas within two years, because the world economy is recovering. Boy, whatever recovery we experience would seriously have the brakes put on it by $5/gallon gas.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2010/1230/US-gas-prices-pass-3-mark.-Will-anything-stop-them-from-climbing-higher
Unfortunately, I don’t think building nuclear plants would have a big impact on the price of oil products, at least, not until we got a LOT of plants built. I’d like to see us start, but I think it’d take 20 or more years of aggressive construction for nuclear to even make a dent in the cost of gas.
I just spent about an hour playing around with a spreadsheet, trying to get a grip on the economics of plug-in hybrid cars, trying to decide how many miles I’d have to drive at what price for gasoline vs price for electric power, and the conclusion I came to is that gasoline has to be very expensive (over $4/gallon), and remain that expensive for an extended period of time (like, 8 to 10 years) for a plugin hybrid to make sense, financially. Oh, also, you have to do a lot of driving, and probably charge the car battery twice a day (if that’s even possible).
The thing is, the plugin-hybrids have a cost ‘premium’ of somewhere in the $15,000 – $20,000 range, which can buy a whole lot of gas at even $4/gallon.
I think that we simply must resign ourselves to $4 or $5/gallon gas for cars. As for heating oil, that’s bad news. I’d hate to see people being unable to afford to heat their homes most of the winter because of too-expensive oil.