Oil costs hit New England hardest

I'm not an expert on this, but from all of my various conversations with "energy" experts... I have heard some interesting comments. For instance, it's really only the northeast US that relies on oil for heating homes in winter. I understand that most of the rest of the US is typically heated with either natural gas or electric.

Furthermore, the northeast consumes approximately eight billion gallons per year in heating oil. And of that, approximately one billion gallons is used for CT homes. (CT uses another 300 million gallons as transportation fuel.)

But what got me really thinking about this was articles, such as this one from the AP:

New Englanders struggling this summer to pay gas prices topping $4 a gallon should brace for more bad news - home heating oil costs next winter are expected to hit record highs. (by Andrew Miga)

One retail heating oil dealer says she expects a typical household delivery that cost $500 last winter will climb to at least $850 this winter.

Ouch. I use heating oil. Next year is going to stink. I wish I had invested in gold a few years back... the article continues...

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who heads the Small Business panel, warned of an impending crisis in the Northeast, which is more reliant on oil heat than other regions. "It is reality not rhetoric that price spikes will force people to decide whether to feed their families or heat their homes," Kerry said at the hearing.

Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, the panel's ranking Republican member, said high oil prices are a matter of life and death. She said parts of Maine could literally "become uninhabitable" for many this winter. "When people can't afford the cost of home heating oil, they simply freeze," Snowe said. "Consumers and small businesses are being stretched to the limit and beyond, but nowhere is the ensuing calamity looming larger than in New England where just getting through this winter is fast-becoming our No. 1 priority."

This is unnerving.

Tim White