The Oil Drum

Sometimes, I have to admit, when predictions are made, I can be just wrong. Asked, early in the summer as to the wisdom of buying winter supplies of heating oil in the North East, I suggested that there would be a likely continued rise in price, and that with distributors having problems, that an early securing of supplies would pay off. Well it is not happening. Recent stories have shown that the price of heating oil in Maine has fallen from $4.71 in July to $3.08 last week. The national average heating oil price as shown by the EIA is steadily falling.

Well I'm still zipping around the country and so will be a bit disorganized for a while longer, but having taken a few days off it was interesting to find that the local paper at our Thanksgiving destination (Santa Barbara/Goleta) was starting a short series on alternate energy sources.  Given the location, they had an interesting cost evaluation of the investment required to provide power to a normal house.  Unfortunately, still  being on travel, that bit of paper got left, and the site requires registration, so you are left with my poor memory, but I seem to recall that they quoted a final cost of around $14,000 after tax incentives etc, to have your domestic power come from solar panels.  They do, however, have just a tad more sun than many of us.  The current level of takers in that community seemed to be around 15 a month.

In a quick scan of news elsewhere I see that India is recognizing their approaching peak production, and the need to find new sources, whether domestic or through pipelines from further north.