I ran across an intriguing columnist today who described in plain language (not analyst-speak) the real story of gasoline prices–it’s not market forces, and it’s not global unrest or even demand. The article is in…
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Archive | Author: Judy Dugan
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Gas Tax Is State Money Pot
3-26-08 by dugan Most of U.S. price inflation is being driven by oil, and no place is it more evident or harmful than at the pump. Especially in California, where regular is stuck…
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Hot Fuel’s Alternate Universe
3-24-08 by dugan Sometimes when an argument doesn’t make sense, it’s the argument’s fault. That was my conclusion when a weights and measures official from New York came to the California Energy Commision…
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“Get a Grip” View on Ethanol
3-24-08 by dugan Leave it to the Canadians to stay calm. Consider Frank Dottori, founder and former CEO of a multibillion-dollar forest products company. Nowadays he’s heading a project to turn forest and…
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The Great Spring Ripoff
3-23-08 by dugan Yep, oil prices kept dropping over the weekend, down about 9% over the last week. But gasoline prices hit a new record of $3.26 nationally on Sunday. So did diesel, at…
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Exxon’s EZ Profit Strategy
3-21-08 by dugan When you’ve got a product that the world can’t live without, it doesn’t pay to make more of it. That’s how Exxon sees it, as explained in detail in a…
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Better Late, Etc…
3-20-08 by dugan Just as the oil bubble shows its first holes, the New York Times gets around to a real, meaty story on the dangers of unregulated commodity markets. It’s a story that…
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Hole In the Bubble, But…
3-19-08 by dugan It’s not bursting yet but there’s a little hole in the oil bubble today, with prices down more than $4 a barrel (about 10 cents a gallon) for crude oil today,…
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Chevron’s Goliath Strategy
3-19-08 by dugan The Oakland-adjacent and working class city of Richmond, Calif., is on the verge of allowing Chevron to proceed with a huge, contentious "upgrade" of its refinery there so it can…
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Defending Cheaper, Cleaner
3-19-08 by dugan There’s no single path to an affordable and clean energy future, and that’s a good thing. After all, the monoculture of petroleum dependence has brought us $4.00 a gallon gasoline,…
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Arnold’s Nuclear Natter
3-17-08 by dugan There are days when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to just blurt the last cockamamie idea he heard from a powerful pal. So it is with the Gov’s new enthusiasm for…
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Oil, Farm Prices, Hunger
3-17-08 by dugan The hype that ethanol is the only driver of food grain prices is persistent and wrong. Here’s a short and to the point video from CNNMoney (thanks to Insider for…
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Deadly Plug-In Hybrids!
3-14-08 by dugan I’m happy to admit that Earth would be better off if we all hiked or biked to work, got our power from solar panels on the roof, wore parkas indoors rather…