No Pain No Gain

The gas prices are now around $3.25/gallon in US. People slowly seem to realize that this is not something that can go down anytime soon. Even the President has acknowledged that he is helpless in this. People always haggle whether the oil companies are making money or not. But no one seems to understand that they are in the business of making money. They are not in charitable business. They will try to make money when they can. Did anyone complain when the gas prices had gone down to almost a Dollar/gallon about 4 years back? It is market economics which comes into play. Demand and supply which decides the price of oil.

CNN has been broadcasting a show " We have been warned" for the last 2 months over the weekends. In the show we are told of Brazil's success in attaining self-sufficiency for its fuel needs with 40% of their needs met by Ethanol made out of Sugarcane. Brazil is the number one producer of Sugarcane in the world. When Brazil can do this why can't it be done in USA or India which are so dependent on imported oil. There can be no miracles overnight. But if we plan now may be USA and India can become self-sufficient for their energy needs in about 25-30 years, which is good enough. People always look for something which is romantic and unachievable in a decent period. Hydrogen fuel cell technology is one example of that. Why can't the Governments encourage businesses to invest in the manufacture of Ethanol so that we need not be dependent on imported oil. They say common sense is not so common.

Hopefully now that Gas prices have become prohibitively expensive people will wake up now and think of alternatives to the traditional fuels. If the prices were low people would go about their business as usual without worrying as to what might happen tomorrow. I sincerely hope this is a true wakeup call and people will wake up. As someone said " No pain No gain."