T&T: $100 + a barrel!

[LRZeitlin at aol.com]

Doom and gloom, doom and gloom. Are powerful trawlers likely to follow the 
dinosaurs into extinction?

Take an example from the automotive field. In the UK after WW2 the size of 
automobiles started increasing just as in the USA. Fuel resources were limited 
and the price of petrol started to rise. But it was not until the price reached 
the equivalent of $4 per US gallon that consumers started demanding more 
efficient cars. 

Auto companies that failed to respond lost market share and either were sold 
to foreign interests or went out of business altogether. The list includes 
Rolls Royce, Daimler, Jaguar, Rover, Rootes Motors (Austin, MG), Humber and 
numerous others. Virtually all British automobiles on the road today are imports or 
made by non-British owned companies.

We are on track to follow the British example. Yesterday oil prices hit a 
record peak. Gasoline is above $3 a gallon in most areas. Sales of larger cars 
have declined. The current 20 year old CAFE of 27.5 mpg, with its numerous 
exemptions, insures the continuation of the manufacture of fuel guzzling behemoths 
which clog dealer's lots and the revised CAFE standard of 35 mpg will not 
phase in until 2020. Without an automobile industry change in it's collective mind 
set, drivers will opt for more economical foreign imports, even luxury 
imports. Not to worry, the laid off Detroit auto workers can always get jobs in the 
housing industry. Along with unemployed State Department officials as we turn 
over control of our foreign policy to our Arab oil suppliers.

Will it happen with trawlers? A cursory survey of local fuel depots on the 
Hudson show that the price of a gallon of diesel is nudging $4 a gallon, with 
expectations that it may be as high as $5 by next summer. My neighbor's pride 
and joy is a 46 foot motor yacht with twin Cummins diesels. Last summer he 
bragged that he had a fuel economy of two miles a gallon at cruising speed. By my 
calculation, his biannual trip down the ICW to Florida and return may soon 
incur a fuel cost of $7500.

On the other hand, my sailing friends are chortling with poorly disguised 
shadenfreude. Has the worm finally turned?

Larry Z


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