In the past month, the price of gasoline has risen substantially. However, it’s quickly pointed out that gasoline now constitutes a smaller portion of families’ budgets when compared to fifty years ago. The impact of these higher prices is often more psychological, as we tend to be more aware of the prominent gas station signs as we drive around town.
What’s frequently overlooked but crucial to understand is the significant role psychology plays in the economy. Even if gas prices are lower than they were a year ago, our attention tends to be fixated on recent fluctuations. We have a tendency to give more importance to what’s right in front of us rather than considering the broader context of our personal or business finances.
Although the direct consequences of elevated energy prices have been mitigated by better technologies and strategies adopted by families and businesses, one particular statistic that stands out for everyone is the price of gasoline. High gas prices provide a rationale for manufacturers, retailers, and even small businesses to push for higher prices, even if this is primarily a tactic to increase profits and wages.
This scenario presents a notable political dilemma for those in power, especially for Democrats on a wider scale. While they express genuine concerns about climate change and environmental preservation, this stance contradicts the objective of ensuring a consistent supply of affordable gasoline.
There are currently two areas in the Finger Lakes that are used for underground propane (LP gas) storage. They are Bath Petroleum Storage, owned by Finger Lakes LPG Storage, LLC between Campbell and Bath, and Harford Propane Storage owned by Enterprise Products Operating LLC outside of Hartford (south of Dryden) in Cortland County.
The existing LP storage facilities in our state don't get a lot of attention, as they are located in remote parts of the state, not necessarily known for their unique scenic beauty. But they are interesting facilities, and I encourage you to turn on the satellite view, zoom in, explore these wells and well data carefully.
If you are not seeing the wells, try zooming out one level first. Sometimes Google Maps over-zooms this map.
July will likely go down as the hottest month ever recorded in human history, and climate change is partially to blame. Researchers predicted the month would smash the previous record, set in 2019, before it even came to an end, according to a statement from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
Centralia is a borough and near-ghost town in Columbia County, Pennsylvania, United States. Its population has dwindled from more than 1,000 residents in 1980 to 63 by 1990, to only five in 2017—a result of the coal mine fire which has been burning beneath the borough since 1962. https://www.history.com/news/mine-fire-burning-more-50-years-ghost-town
The other day driving past the hunting camps and rural homes up on the dirt roads around Gas Springs NY, I was a bit surprised how far the electric lines extended into this area to very remote farms and camps on dirt roads. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised – rural electricifican has extended to nearly all corners of our country – but it seems like in an era of solar power, batteries and inverters, to be incredibly expensive and wasteful to have run lines all that way out there.
While rural electricifican efforts got underway in the 1930s, many of the more remote farms and homes didn’t get electricity until the 1950s or even 1960s. It seems hard to imagine a modern dairy without electricity to run the pumps or coolers but many other farms certainly did. They had all kinds of belt driven equipment that often ran off of Blackstone and other primitive motors. The modern tractor PTO had yet to be standardized.
