Refined Refinery Thinking

What's good for Fenner -- good for America?

A few thougths crossed my mind today ...

• A lesson in supply and demand recalled, as illustrated above. Fenner, a highlight of the Mojave expedition undertaken by Incredible Daughter #1 and me last month, is not just a gas station -- it's a gas station in the middle of nowhere. There's not a lot of demand, but then, there's only one supply. Hence, $3.29 paid, if not with a smile, a credit card.
• A local greenie telling a local reporter that efforts to make golf courses more environmentally friendly were basically a joke. (They're not.) Her unstated position was obviously that golf should be banned because birds count and birdies don't.
  
• A friend launching the typical attack: Gas prices are high because gas companies are greedy.

... and coalesced ...

There hasn't been a new oil refinery built in the United States since 1976 -- and since that last one was built, the total number of US refineries has dropped from 321 to 149, largley because of repressive environmental regulatory fanatacism. (Source: Greenie Watch) Of course, this leads to shortages and high prices, but also to more deaths of the refinery workers who work in increasingly dangerous conditions as they try to coax a few more drops out of the aging equipment.

So if I were the CEO of an oil company, I just might raise oil prices as high as I could, just to get the public ticked off enough that they would help my company overpower the greenies and let us build some new refineries.

These would be wonderful marvels of technology, producing more of everything except pollution. They would have the latest safety systems to protect my employees, and they would pump out barrels of the very cleanest-burning gasolines. My wonderful new refineries would flood the market, prices of gas would drop ... but not so much that I wouldn't get my investment back ... and everybody but the grumbling greenies would be happy.

But because my plant, as good as it is, would be short of perfection, and because it just might encourage someone to twist the key and fire up an infernal internal combustion engine, the environmentalists will fight me tooth and nail.

See also:
Poor Should Stay Poor: Sierra Club
Hot Air On Wind Farm Dispute
ANWR: Any Nitwit Will Rant
Geo-Greens No!; Neo-Geos Yes!