Record Crude Oil Prices Leading to Renewable Energy Research

Oil prices have been steadily rising throughout the past few years. Formerly agrarian and undeveloped countries, such as China, are industrializing and modernizing their technologies. This economic growth has increased the global appetite for oil. Compounding this with instability in the Middle East, the primary source of the world’s crude oil, and worries of supply shortages, the price of crude oil was bound to increase.

Crude oil is dark oil consisting of hydrocarbons which contain numerous chemicals used for fuel. It contains the basis for gasoline, butane, and propane, amongst other fuels. The oil is then separated and sent off for specific uses.

USA Today, among other sources reported that the price of crude oil topped over $70 per barrel for the first time during last summer. This is about $40 higher per barrel than the United States paid on average in the 1990’s. Crude oil futures are currently sitting around $60 per barrel because of the reduced demand during Winter, however it will most likely go back up to record prices in the spring when Americans begin driving more as they traditionally do in the summer.

The primary reason that oil topped $70 per barrel is largely due to the hurricanes that have hit Florida. The storms have prevented the off-shore oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico from supplying the United States with crude oil. The off shore oil fields have been delayed in delivering million barrels of oil to the United States due to hurricane. Before the series of hurricane crippled our ability to get oil from the Gulf of Mexico and they are only now recovering. The loss of a major BP pipeline from Alaska to the continental United States also decreased the supply of crude oil to the U.S.

The rising cost of oil is having large repercussions in the U.S. economy. It goes far beyond what citizens pay at the pump. Transportation of all nearly goods in our country relies heavily on oil. A large share of the energy we produce comes from oil. Plastic and other vital goods are composed of oil as well.