Cheap Gas = Death of Green?

Caterpillar International and Toyota both brought bad news today. Oil prices are off 70% from their $147 peak in July. Eight months ago, any yegg with the ability to execute a financial transaction was a genius, but the bubble that burst in Q4 was the result of 8 years of Bush economic policy that can be summed up thus: reckless deregulation. One would think we learned a lesson these past months, but of late that old Bush recklessness has some pundits saying cheap gas will be the death of alternative energy.

We don’t hear much about the precipitous fall of crude prices in connection with conspiracy theory and popular revolt. It’s a pity. What we hear is the usual pabulum that a weak economy means less demand. Less demand means decreased production which means the manufacturing sector requires less in the way of non-renewable energy, and the rest is copper-bottomed supply-and-demand economics. On a macroeconomical level this is undeniable truth, but this truth obtunds what might otherwise seem a lot like Bush-sponsored price gouging on the part of Big Oil this past summer. How else can one explain a 70% decrease in cost? Of course there are many other ways to explain it, but it is the extremes I am questionining here, not the gestalt.

Huffington Post