One of the reasons to expand domestic renewable fuels like ethanol is to help reduce our demand for oil from unstable parts of the world. Relying on these regions for our energy supplies just doesn't make much sense.
One of these unstable spots is Nigeria -- an important U.S. crude oil supplier.
This morning, militants in the country attached an off-shore oil facility, forcing Shell to shut it down, cutting oil supplies from Nigeria by 10 percent. Constant bombings, attacks on export facilities and kidnappings by the "Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta" and other gangs have already cut oil production in the country by 20 percent.
Yesterday, oil prices went up because Chevron's workers in Nigeria wanted to go on strike. Strikes -- or the threat of them -- are fairly constant. Fortunately for us all, the strike was averted. An interesting note...one of the reasons for one of the recent strike threats was the high price of gasoline.
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