A Gas crisis?

Gas, or petrol, as it is more accurately called in Britain , has reached record prices in Springfield. My friendly gas station sells the stuff for over 3 $ a gallon. Back in 2000, it had reached a nadir of 99c!
So what happened? Is ist another feat of GW's malfeasance? The Jewish lobby? Are we running out of the stuff? Could be the "arabs" you know....
Mind you, it is still cheaper than a gallon of latte at Starbucks, of Evian at Wholefoods or even cheaper than a gallon of gas in 1973. Anyway it is still cheaper than a gallon of gas in Europe (7$).
The reason for these astronomical prices are many. Chief among them, speculation. Wall street golden boys, busy buying barrels of crude for October 2009, have already factored in all the possible nasty events we might encounter before that date: An invasion of Iran, a coup in Nigeria, a nationalization in Venezuela, a debacle in Iraq or even GW's impeachment. They are protecting themselves, that is hedging their price, by artificially adding a "risk" premium. The rise of China and India, the lack of new refining capacity and rumors of war, are not events that took anybody by surprise.We have a CIA to prepare us for all that!

Meanwhile, the majors, EXXON, Chevron, BP, are not investing one red cent in new drilling or refining capacity, because they know full well that they are not protected at all from a return to 10$ a barrel if things go wrong (wrong for them, right for us.)

But , not to worry, help is on the way. France is building one ethanol plant. The US already have 109 in operation and plan 60 more. By 2025, our engines will run on 85% ethanol. Better yet, the use of corn for the production of ethanol, will redirect that cereal from export, back to the homeland. Why fight for market access at the WTO if you can use your production at home? Even better, why waste billions of dollars subsidising farmers if they can get rich with ethanol?
And I forgot biomass, bio-diesel , switchgrass, and shale. Brazil is already self-sufficient thanks to sugar cane based ethanol. (The streets of Belo Horizonte smell like a bar!)

But wait, what if by the time our pipelines are ready to spew ethanol, our engines are ready for hydrogen? Or worse, what if , by 2025, oil is back at 10$ a barrel?