Skip to main content

ASPO newsletter 57 released

The link is to an article quoted in Newsletter 57 of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (and Gas)

The point is that in many countries fuel has been subsidised (ie not taxed, but subsidised) and the subsidies are being withdrawn - unsurprisingly.
From the article linked the following examples are cited:
  • Last week the BBC reported that dozens were killed in fuel riots across Yemen when the government withdrew subsidies resulting in dramatic price increases.
  • All across Indonesia people were lining up at gas stations in response to developing fuel shortages. In one city, half the public transport was inoperable due to a lack of fuel.
  • In Zimbabwe, the government has moved to deregulate fuel procurement in the face of severe shortages: waits of hours for buses, gas lines that are blocks long, and a bread shortage. The black market price for gasoline is now ten times the official rate.
  • Nearly all the poorer countries make their electricity using diesel generators.
  • Nicaragua, one of the poorest countries in Central America , recently started blacking out the poorer districts between 7 and 10 p.m. , the hours of peak usage.
  • Tanzania, with the highest gasoline taxes in East Africa and a chaotic oil marketing system, is seeing its plans for economic growth "suffocated" by high-priced oil. Tanzania also handles fuel for the landlocked states of Malawi , Rwanda , the Eastern Congo , Burundi and Uganda .
  • And closer to home, Maxjet put off plans to offer cheap flights from Baltimore to London until spring when the company hopes fuel prices will be cheaper.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Why are babies born young?

Why are babies born young? This sounds like an odd question. People would say "of course babies are born young". However, this goes to the core of the question of human (or animal) development. Why is it that as time passes people develop initially through puberty and then for women through menopause and more generally getting diseases such as sarcopenia, osteoporosis, diabetes and cancer, but most of the time babies start showing no signs of this. Lots of research into this has happened over the years and now I think it is clear why this is. It raises some interesting questions. Biological youth is about how well a cell functions. Cells that are old in a biological sense don't work that well. One of the ways in which cells stop working is they fail to produce the full range of proteins. Generally the proteins that are produced from longer genes stop being produced. The reason for this relates to how the Genes work (the Genome). Because the genome is not gettin