Use of corn-burning stoves are on the increase, this last year's sales increased 4X.
Corn for burning is selling for around $275.00 a ton on the east coast.
Wood pellet producers can't keep up with demand, pellets sell as soon as they hit the sales floor.
Some retailers are refusing to sell pellets by the bag anymore, they will only sell ton size lots, and regular customers come first.
I guess it might be more accurate to simply say "Energy Prices" are affecting all other prices.
Likewise, congress failed to continue tax breaks for wind turbine generator farms.
Investment fell by 75%, a real disaster for the still struggling industry.
( What I read only mentioned wind farms specifically, I don't know whether other alternative energy ventures were affected as well. )
Likewise, clean coal technologies are getting the NIMBY treatment in some areas, and getting funding withdrawn by the feds in others.
( To be fair, the Energy Dept. had some valid concerns, and still plans to proceed with some smaller scale projects that will only be partially fed funded. )
This may be indicative of a larger problem, a sociological shift in priorities, some realistic, others perceived.
Thing is, this is an election year, and public perception becomes politically correct action in a bid for career survival.
I would guess politicians are looking at the distinct possibility of having to fund a massive national health care system on top of everything else.
That's done with taxes.
High Energy Prices result in greater tax revenues.
$5.00 per gallon gas will go a long way towards funding health care.
“Use of corn-burning stoves are on the increase, this last year’s sales increased 4X.”
Which wasn’t that hard.
“Corn for burning is selling for around $275.00 a ton on the east coast.”
Speaking of problems which solve themselves...
That's how Britain does it. $4/gal tax and it's not enough.
Here in "progressive" (used sarcastically) Pennsylvania, I continuously pass signs on the roads "No Ethanol Plant Here", "Say no to the Biodiesel Plant", "Stop Windfarming in Lycoming County", etc
As the second-largest retired population next to Florida, Pennsylvania's citizens oppose any sort of new industry from coming in.
In fact, we recently had an empty manufacturing site being looked at by a manufacturing company to make bicycles. The population opposed it because it would have brought non-union jobs into the area.
Union members can afford to hold firm as Congress keeps extending unemployment benefits with each piece of "emergency" legislation.....like the stimulus package.