The Barrel Breakdown

The hard facts on gas prices -- it's not really the taxes, the marketing, or the gas stations that are driving up the cost of a tank. It's the harder, more nebulous problem of pricey crude oil. My uncle, a petroleum engineer, said some of the causes are deteriorating equipment in oil fields, the increasingly difficult connundrum of how to get those last drops of oil at the bottom of a well and the tremendous investment that is off-shore drilling. I'm convinced we're not running out of petroleum -- there are massive, unlocked stores of it in Canadian tar pits, for example -- but it's becoming more and more impractical, with the technology we have, to extract it.

I think I'll just ride my bike.