There Is No Gas In Atlanta
This morning, I almost had to call in sick to work. My car was running on empty and I couldn’t find a gas station that actually had gas. Eventually, after visiting 5 different stations, I eventually found one in an out-of-the-way location that still had gas. At $4.50 per gallon. The problem is two-fold.
Hurricanes Ike And Gustav Disrupted Supply
According to a story by CNN, many refineries in the Houston area are still not operating at full capacity in the wake of the recent hurricanes. Furthermore, the Colonial Pipeline which delivers gas all over the south east is not operating at full capacity.
Strict Environmental Standards
Due to Atlanta’s incessant smog problem, all gasoline sold in the metro Atlanta area must be of the low-sulfur variety. What this means is that during periods of short supply, we can’t simply import gasoline from neighboring areas like other cities can do. It has to be specially blended. This is an example of well-meaning environmental regulations backfiring in an emergency. Were it not for that, gas would still be available at a reasonable price. It’s bad enough that I know several people who just don’t have enough gas to get to work tomorrow and will have to take vacation days until the supply problem is figured out. I guess that’s one way of encouraging conservation.
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We had a similar situation a week ago in Missouri, although the causes were economic, not environmental. Some stations let their gas run out because it did not make sense for them to restock at the higher short-term prices. Which is a weird stalemate, because in the very short term, for many of us, gas is worth upwards of $10 gallon.