They already said on the news that gas prices are going to be extremely high this summer. That’ll teach us to stay home for a year.
Part of that is there aren't enough truck drivers licensed to drive tankers. They are always in short supply (about 10% vacancy), but COVID pushed a lot of them to retire and now there are 20% vacancy rates. Plenty of oil...just can't get it to the pumps. Edit...just scrolled and saw the article below...so yeah...what he said.
I'll add some thoughts about the shortage of qualified drivers being the resident blue collar former truck driver who still has a valid Class A CDL and have continuously since the law was created. Actually since I turned 21 having had a chauffeur's license before that. That and I have also run a truck stop for a number of years out on the Ohio Turnpike.
You must basically be a saint in order to be a specialty driver. I used to have a tanker endorsement as well as a haz mat endorsement. While the written testing is easy enough to get by, you must now pass an FBI background check to keep either of those endorsements. I let those endorsements lapse for that reason. Passing them would not be a problem on my end as I went through that to get my optical license, but that cuts quite a few candidates before they even get started. Add to that the federally required random drug testing, which is what ultimately made me seek a career change, even though I was quite happy driving. With the potential of testing positive for having smoked some weed 4 weeks earlier, the risk was too great. Test positive once and you are forever stigmatized and your career as a truck driver is done, as in forever. Not to mention insurance rates and having things like that pop up whenever any checks are run on you by either a police encounter or pre employment screening. It was also the basis for staying out of a any employment situation where random testing was involved. I can stop long enough to pass a scheduled test, not a problem, but I refused to live in fear for my very livelihood because of random testing. Again, 1 strike and you are out. That and you are also held to a much lower BAC of 0.04 which is basically what you get from sipping one beer, even when driving your own vehicle. I don't drink so that is not a personal problem for me, but I do indulge in cannibus.
So who would want to live in a world of forced sobriety with peanuts for pay ? Some, but that greatly reduces the size of the pool of potential drivers. The 20% vacancy rate is actually across the board for any position requiring either a Class A or B CDL. Not worth it for 50k per year. Increase the pay to 100k per year and then more people may give up their personal freedoms in order to be employed as a commercial truck driver.
Remember the above the next time you see an OTR driver. They are some of the soberest people you will find anywhere, not to mention the sacrifices they make regarding having a family life. Be grateful that someone is still willing to do this job under the hardships required, not to mention the dangers involved just actually driving.
And just to be clear, being high behind the wheel of a real truck is a non starter for me, as I would venture to say for most any other professional driver. There is just too much going on in the cab and on the road in front of you to have a momentary lapse of your reasoning abilities. But to get busted and lose your job for something you did a week earlier is just plain insane. But that is the law. Testing has yet been developed to determine the difference from being under the influence or just having it in your system such as with alcohol. That and it is still federally illegal and interstate commerce may be involved.
And just how many of today's entitled youth and young adults are going to want to do a job like this to begin with ? Manual labor ? Me ? For how much money ? You've got to be kidding ?
They already said on the news that gas prices are going to be extremely high this summer. Thatâll teach us to stay home for a year.
Part of that is there aren't enough truck drivers licensed to drive tankers. They are always in short supply (about 10% vacancy), but COVID pushed a lot of them to retire and now there are 20% vacancy rates. Plenty of oil...just can't get it to the pumps.
Edit...just scrolled and saw the article below...so yeah...what he said.
In other words: it's time for a new war to drive the price back up.
LOL!
1. That is a snapshot from 2016 after oil prices swooned starting in late 2014.
2. Many US tight oil (shale oil) companies have earned on averaged an inadequate return (think of it as a social loss) for a number of factors. The IPs (initial production rates) are high and then production declines sharply to a slow trickle which can last for years but in many cases does not fully cover variable operation costs let alone providing an adequate return on capital.
I asked a retired petroleum geologist friend sitting across our kitchen table in late 2020 the following question. If he had the ear of the Quebec government, would he recommend that the government permit exploitation of the Utica Shale natural gas formations?
He said no. Why? For environmental reasons? No. It is possible to frack safely. He said the Quebec government should not proceed because of the poor if not negative economic returns.
3. Cheap capital fuelled by excessively stimulative US Federal Reserve policy has exacerbated the boom 'n bust nature of US tight oil (shale oil). The irrational, patriotic pursuit of domestic energy autonomy has also played a role.
4. The USA would have created a much more stable, tight oil sector by imposing much stricter and tighter restrictions on natural gas flaring. Natural gas is an important by-product of shale oil production. By doing so, it would have slowed down the boom and favoured companies and projects with scale. Scale typically means more expensive, qualified professionals on hand to assure environmental best practices.
The oil & gas industry should not be run as if it were a gold rush. Similarly, farmers and ranchers should not be subsidized to trash watersheds and airsheds.
Six Recent Clashes and Conflicts on a Planet Heading Into Energy Overdrive
Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time. Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or so since World War I, and smaller engagements have erupted every few years; a flare-up or two in 2012, then, would be part of the normal scheme of things. Instead, what we are now seeing is a whole cluster of oil-related clashes stretching across the globe, involving a dozen or so countries, with more popping up all the time. Consider these flash-points as signals that we are entering an era of intensified conflict over energy.
From the Atlantic to the Pacific, Argentina to the Philippines, here are the six areas of conflict — all tied to energy supplies — that have made news in just the first few months of 2012...
Gasoline and heating oil prices are ratcheting up. In California, some motorists are paying over $5 per gallon. President Obama declared that “there is no quick fix” for this problem. Meanwhile, the hapless but howling Republicans are blaming him for the fuel surge as if he is a price control czar.
Indeed, President Obama has some proper power to cool off retail petroleum prices. David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s Budget Director, said it plainly on CNN last week, “Stop beating the war drums right now, and Obama could do that, and he could say the neocons are history.” Having done his stint on Wall Street, Stockman knows that war talk by the war hawks inside and outside of our government is just what the speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange want to hear as they bid up the price. Your gasoline prices are not charging up due to strains between supply and demand. Speculation, with those notorious derivatives and swaps, is what is poking larger holes in your fuel budget, according to Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement lawyers. The too-big-to-fail Wall Street gamblers – Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley – are at it again.
Dr. Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America documented that speculation added $600 to the average family’s gasoline expenditures in 2011.
Earlier, the head of Exxon/Mobil estimated that speculation was responsible for over $40 per barrel in price increase at a time when oil was more than $100 per barrel.
Last June, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman, Gary Gensler, declared in New York City that “huge inflows of speculative money create a self-fulfilling prophecy that drives up commodity prices.”
Mr. Gensler and the CFTC received more legislated authority to police these Wall Street gamblers, but key members of Congress refused to give him a budget to, in his words, “be a more effective cop on the beat,” at a time of sharply-increasing trading volume. Congressional campaign budgets are being swelled by campaign contributions from those very Wall Street gamblers. This is called “cash-register politics.” Meanwhile, you the people pay and pay at the pump and wonder why no one is doing anything about it...
Lpg is also a good option if you can get it where you live.is very clean in terms of emission.I drive an old wagoneer v8 and this sort of engines goes very well on it.also the big diesels from the european brands are great .so much torque,they deserve a better reputation .
There's a group of people (engineering students?) around here who has converted several vans to run on used cooking oil. The exhaust actually does have somewhat of a french fry smell.
Older diesel engines are amenable to that conversion. MB diesels are prized for the purpose. There are issues with cold-weather performance. but otherwise it's a fairly straightforward operation.
Almost. More like speculators are anticipating a further dollar drop, and are betting on commodities again.
That too. But this uncertainty in the middle east is really screwing things up too. If the majority of American's agree'd that we should be stirring things up in the middle east, we'd have a pretty darn good economy.
There's a group of people (engineering students?) around here who has converted several vans to run on used cooking oil. The exhaust actually does have somewhat of a french fry smell.
Jaa,I know. How about the smell of a pine forest ? Diesel engines has always been liked here.
In Sweden, evolution diesel that includes 15% biodiesel produced from a forestry industry waste residue known as tall oil and 5% canola-based biodiesel has been launched in 370 of the country’s 600 gas stations as of early April 2011. It reduces GHG emissions by 16% compared to 100% fossil diesel—roughly 250,000 metric tons of carbon per year, the equivalent of taking 120,000 cars off the road.
How about the smell of deep fried chips ? Sorry for the short commercial at the beginning.
There's a group of people (engineering students?) around here who has converted several vans to run on used cooking oil. The exhaust actually does have somewhat of a french fry smell.
Yes, the 'Mercan perception is that diesels are nasty, stinky and just generally too disgusting for their delicate sensabilities.
I'd buy one. I've been eyeing the Audi A3 TDI lately. You can get diesels here, but so far it's just a few of the quirkier (and less desirable) models, and they haven't been price competitive yet. BMW has come around as well, but they still won't put one in a coupe, so you have to settle for the sedan - at least they are starting to do the M series now - but again, there is price.
There are probably several reasons; one is that Ford doesn't believe there is much of a market for diesel cars in the US. Diesel engines are apparently more common and popular in Europe, and most European nations have lower emission restrictions for diesel vehicles than the US does. There are, I imagine, other reasons and motives.
Yes, the 'Mercan perception is that diesels are nasty, stinky and just generally too disgusting for their delicate sensabilities.
How about the smell of a pine forest ?
