Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Thursday, June 19, 2008
Jerome Christenson: No more excuses — saving money, gas
“For every complex problem there is a simple solution. And it’s always wrong.” — attributed to H.L. Mencken
WINONA, Minn. — So now we’re nostalgic for two-buck-a-gallon gas — half a dozen years ago, who’d have thunk it? But never fret: Congressgirl Shelly’s gonna make all your hi-test dreams come true — no excuses.
Sorry, I can’t help but be amused by the latest bimbo eruption out of the 6th Congressional District — since the folks up there sent Michele Bachmann to Congress, it’s clear that all the crazies in Stillwater aren’t locked up in the state prison.
Her latest shtick is something she’s calling the “No more excuses” energy act — a hodgepodge of legislative improbabilities that essentially says we have lots and lots of oil and energy in this country and all we have to do is stick a big straw in the ground, suck it out and in two shakes of a lamb’s tail, gas will be two bucks a gallon again.
Well, I wouldn’t sign up for that second SUV just yet.
Y’see our girl Shelly sort of has it almost half right — there’s way more oil tucked away in Colorado oil shales and Canadian tar sands than the Saudis ever sat on — and that’s not even touching all that coal and natural gas or the oil waiting offshore just off our coasts. We have lots and lots of energy right here in this country — no trouble there. The trouble is with that straw.
That’s the part that’s not so simple as Shelly sees it. The oil is there and we know how to get it — trouble is, the getting it is expensive. It’s not like we’re looking at some sort of petrochemical malted milk — and all we need is the evil, liberal, America-hating Democrats to vote for Bachmann’s bill so our benevolent friends at Exxon can go get it.
Getting all that energy means cooking it out of solid rock, washing it out of tons of sand or dropping a pipe down through a mile or two of sea water before drilling through a few miles of rock to get to the juice to make that Hummer hum. That’s not saying we can’t get to it, or even saying we shouldn’t try — but what it is saying is that nobody’s going to do it for two bucks a gallon. C’mon, give it a thought.
If there was profit to be made at that price wouldn’t somebody have been tapping into it — if not here (because of those evil Democrats, of course), then somewhere in the wild, wooly gas-thirsty world where environmental regulations are looser and you can still see the air before you breath it?
But they didn’t. And they won’t, not until the price stays high enough, long enough to make it profitable. No matter what pandering politicians want us to believe — four months ahead of Election Day.
When demand is high and costs are high, prices will be high. Shelly must have been absent the day they taught that in Econ 101.
But there are a couple of simple things that folks like you and me can do to make that expensive gas go farther. Lessons we’ve learned the hard way.
Consider. When the Winona bridge was closed, it didn’t take folks living on the opposite side of the river from where they worked long to figure out that when a lot of people rode in the same vehicle everybody saved money. It took an abrupt 120-mile daily commute to drive that fact home, but it’s just as true driving 20 miles as 120. The idea might have some staying power — already I’ve heard talk of buses running between Winona and towns around the area. Share the ride, save the gas. Sounds a lot easier than deep sea drilling.
And I got a lesson last weekend. We had to make a trip to Chicagoland, but water over the road was blocking I-90. Where there’s a need-to there’s a way-to, so I pointed the Geo south on Hwy. 14, the old pre-Interstate route to Chicago. Now, I’m not a serious lead foot — Wisconsin speeding tickets are too spendy for that — but driving the legal limit on 90 is an invitation for tire tracks over the trunk and down the hood. Well, a twisty-turny two-lane blacktop doesn’t invite travel too far in excess of the prescribed double-nickel, and I figured this was going to extend our trip half-way through eternity. My first surprise came when we pulled into the driveway not 20 minutes behind the pace for highballing through three states on 90. The second was finding an extra 2½ gallons left in the tank when I went to fill up.
Fifty cents a minute’s not a bad rate of pay. I didn’t have to tear up an arctic wilderness to do it either.
Yeah, when I pull into Mac and Don’s, I get nostalgic for 15-cent hamburgers, but they’re no more likely to come back than Shelly’s dream of $2 gas. Better we make the gas we have go a bit farther, last a bit longer than wait for the Exxon Santa to bring back the good old days. That’s the reality. No sense making excuses.
Contact Jerome Christenson at (507) 453-3522 or jchristenson@winonadailynews.com. For Jerome’s comments on this, that and something else, check out “Up on the wrong side of the bed” at www.rivervalleyblogs.com/jerome.
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