One of my hobbies is examining the economic, technological and political dimensions of our society for unexpected relationships and weaknesses.
I have often thought what a neat idea it would be if a service station had an electrical generator to power the pumps during an electrical power failure.
The gasoline pumps use electrical motors to move the gas from the underground tanks into your car’s gas tank. No electricity, no gas.
We get many power failures during the winter storm season. How absurd it is that we have all these service stations, with plenty of gas in their storage tanks, unable to deliver it to motorists when they need it most.
I spoke with a small service station owner about this predicament, suggesting that it would be a good idea to equip himself with generator capability, so he could sell gas during an emergency.
What he told me revealed some interesting absurdities about the way we are organized.
For a service station to arrange for emergency generator backup, requires that the electrical system be re-wired so the circuits to the pumps are independently accessible. When the power fails, you want the limited capacity of the generator to be used for the bare minimum, and bypass things like the freezer, the display lights, maybe the service station’s furnace, etc.
So you have to pay an electrician to rewire the shop, which will cost a few thousand dollars. You also have to buy the generator(s).
And for what? It would not be unreasonable for a service station, equipped with an emergency power supply, to charge extra for fuel during an emergency.
However, there are probably laws against this, called “gouging”. In Nova Scotia, the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board sets the price for gas, and would likely come down hard on such a practice.
Furthermore, customers would be angry at what they perceived to be profiteering, especially regular customers.
So what does the service station owner do? Sell his gas at regular prices, even during an emergency?
His supply of gas would quickly disappear, as the word got out and everyone for miles around queued up for gas. His regular customers would be upset because they had to compete with all these Johnny-Come-Latelies. Customers that had queued for hours would be livid if the tanks were drained before they could get theirs.
The profit margins on gas are razor-thin. So for all his troubles, the prudent service station owner would have little profit to show, and lots of hostile or angry customers.
So what is the logical decision? Forget about emergency power backup, just stay home.
I even thought of arranging it so I could drive up to the service station with the generator in the back of a truck, and hook it up to pump a bit of fuel. But the service station owner would still have to pay for rewiring the electrical system, which wouldn’t pay for itself.
What we need is to pass regulations that would authorize a surcharge during an emergency, to reward those businesses who have gone to extra trouble and expense to prepare themselves. You don’t like the prices? Stay home: you’ll be no worse off than if there were no gas available at all.
I’ll be forwarding a copy of this article to the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board.
I also keep 20 or 30 litres of gas in jerrycans in a shed. I mix it with a special additive that prevents the gas from deteriorating and allows me to keep it for six to twelve months. The gas is used for the mower in summer, and snow blower in winter. At each change of season, I chuck the remainder in the car and replenish.