JohnH wrote:

"In 1981, the U.S. had 324 refineries with a total capacity of
processing 18.6 million barrels of crude per day. Today just 149
refineries have
a daily capacity of 16.8 million barrels."


If we truly have a refinery shortage, why aren't people waiting in lines to
buy fuel?

Because the increase in prices has stabilized the demand, for the moment
anyway. Lines will appear in the very near future, just as rolling
blackouts and brownouts began to appear a few years ago. We are running
out of energy generating capacity, be it liquid fuels or electricity.
We're just now seeing the leading edge of this problem, but if we don't
begin to dramatically increase production capacity or increase
conservation at a rate to keep the demand at current levels, we'll have
some serious issues in less than five years.


Matt