It is very sad that the whole world is suffering from high prices of Oil.Yes, the whole world. Some may think that the Oil producing countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia will not be suffering like the rest of the world, though true, they too feel the heat. These countries import food and many other commodities from food products to industrial goods.
Oil prices impact the cost of all produce and products and commodities in the world. Higher the cost of Oil, higher the prices for all goods. Higher prices for commodities imported by these countries will result in an increase in cost of oil to recover from the cost of higher imports. It appears to be a vicious cycle which very rarely will result in low prices for all.
The best solution for this is to look for alternative energy resources. The race for an affordable alternative energy started long time back, but then died down due to the low cost of Oil. Many alternative energy sources were found but not exploited. These are Solar, Wind, ocean currents, etc. Oil and natural gas has limited resources. But the Solar/Wind energy resources are those which will never end. Yet, there was no good Government or private encouragement given to those who wanted to explore these energy resources till now.
Once the cost of Oil started to rise, many new companies jumped into the bandwagon of alternative energy and within couple of years came out with better and more efficient means of harnessing energy from Light and Wind.
Biofuels is not the answer. Remember, Biofuels are made from natural resources. If made from crops, more crops will be grown for these fuels thereby increasing cost of the food products made from these crops. It will be more efficient if BioFuels is made from natural waste - corn stalks (corn will be sold as food product while the waste stalks can be used to generate bio fuel), cow dung (it releases methane gas which has been used for quite sometime in India for generating electricity in villages), etc.
Just imagine, if huge efforts were put into finding good and better methods of harnessing energy from Wind/Light/Water much earlier, then we would not have seen the huge increase in cost of Oil and the resulting increase in prices of various commodities.
I do not see the high efficient Solar Panels being sold by retailers, even though if available, there will be a very high demand for these panels. Maybe it is some sort of Business policy so that they can control and maintain the high cost of these panels. I guess, Government should intervene and ensure that the cost of these energy resources are reduced for local consumption. More like tax-rebates for manufacturers for local sales.
Installing Wind and water turbines in the oceans is also a very good way to harness the unlimited power of nature. Governments should provide huge tax-concessions to those companies in this business.
I see that in the next five years, individuals will be able to buy these High Efficient Solar Panels from retail hardware stores and harnessing the power of wind light and water to manage home energy in a more efficient way. This will be possible due to the high number of companies who are jumping into the Solar/Wind/Water energy harvesting.
Till then, let us hope we can survive with the increasing costs of commodities, which are actually increasing at a rate which cannot be matched by the increases in salaries.
