why wont the goverment allow us to build more refineries which would lower the price of gas?

Answer 1

You are correct that more refined oil would lower the price of vehicle fuel. The refineries are the narrow point of the funnel since none have been built or expanded in 27 years. There is more than enough crude oil still in the ground. Just the United States alone with known untapped reserves has enough to last for at least 200 years, not counting shale oil, oil derived from coal, and crude derived from biomass. However you are incorrect at pointing the finger at government.

Using known oil reserves, building and expanding oil refineries, have all been constrained and held back by the tree huggers who go to court every time any suggestion is made to alleviate the situation.

The price of fuel as it reaches the $3.00 a galleon is around the same price of fuel during the early 1970s when adjusted for the cost of inflation. Here you can point the figure at government because we notice the higher price as hurting more today because the cost of government has risen dramatically during those years and thereby taking a bigger part of our purchasing power.

None of this has anything to do whith the Bush family (or their friends) owning, or not owning, oil companies. All that false argument does is change our focus from the real challenges. Part of those challenges are to not address the realities of alternative energy sources.

Alternative energy sources contain the solutions for many of our current challenges. As has occurred during know history with each addition of new energy sources, more people will be able to access energy at relatively less expensive costs. One of the down sides to this is that countries which have their entire (or near entire) economies dependant on selling crude oil will have their economies collapse. Such an event will lead to violent revolutions in a number of world regions.

Of course this will also be blamed on the West for not buying the oil of these countries.

Answer 2

The government does not disallow building more refineries. And building more refineries would tend to raise the price, as the expense of building one is quite high and they would have to get their money back. And anyway, it is still a fact that 50 to 60 percent of the cost of gas is oil - that's from a Chicago paper that looked into it extensively.

And the whole oil from the ground to gas at the pump is a dismally complicated system, politically, financially, ecologically, physically. And all that only adds to the costs.

Answer 3

It's not a matter of government "allowing" the building of refineries. THe problem is that they are very highly regulated and expensive to build. The return on building one is much lower than an investor can get somewhere else, so no refineries are being built.

Google "opportunity cost"

Answer 4

Regulations of emissions on the Refineries. That's why they are building new refineries on the other side of the world so the pollutants that come from the refineries can kill off the people outside of America first.

Answer 5

You don't really think if there were more refineries the cost of gas would go down do you? That would make it worse. Not to mention the fact that if there were more refineries, there would be more polluting. The only way to reduce cost is to reduce demand.

Answer 6

1st, President Bush's family owns oil companies.

2nd, Oil companies are showing record profits.

3rd, They can build as many refineries as they want. But why should they (see 1st and 2nd)

Answer 7

Its not the govt who is preventing this. Its all the leftist anti industrial special interest groups.

The same ones who want wind power but just not on THEIR coastline.

Answer 8

Because we are at the "peak oil" point of our civilization. We need to develop alternative resources, not find ways to use more of a waning resource.

Answer 9

Because most people don't want them in their back yard and thanks to run away population growth we're running out of places to put them except for out in the middle of nowhere.

Answer 10

refining more wont lower the cost. only having more oil to refine would.