The current crude oil price is setting the stage for a huge price spike at a later date, probably not that far into the future.

The media has made much of the oil price decline from $147 to a current level below $40.00 a barrel. The emphasis has been placed on worldwide demand destruction due to the slowing world economy and the outright financial meltdown in the United States. Actually, much of the tremendous drop in oil prices is due not to supply and demand considerations but to the forced liquidation of crude oil futures contracts as margin calls over powered hedge funds and large investors who had used excessive leverage to position crude oil contracts on the way up in price.

As oil prices fell along with almost all asset classes forced liquidations by large investors caused a death spiral that was self reinforcing. The unrelenting feedback loop caused by deleveraging was impossible for many over leveraged operators to pull out of. They had to sell good positions along with the bad.

While under present demand conditions some demand destruction has surely occurred the current crude oil price has likely overshot the mark on the downside. At current oil prices exploration projects are being shelved and alternative energy projects are being abandoned. The current crude oil price is probably not going to last long. While demand has declined in fast growing economies like China, India, Russia, and Brazil the sheer numbers of their people moving up the economic ladder into middle class status will drive oil demand as they purchase automobiles and use a lot of energy produced from crude oil resources.

For the past several months crude oil prices today have been difficult to keep up with without developing a headache. From a high of about $147.00 a barrel in July 2008, to a recent low of just under $35.00 a barrel crude oil prices have had gut wrenching daily price fluctuations.

There is little hope of near term price stability. The worldwide financial market meltdown, the slow down in crude oil demand as world economic activity decreases , the continued rapid decline of crude oil production at the world’s major oil fields, and the rapid long term growth in oil products demand, even if it is at a slower pace than last year, in countries like China, India, and Brazil, will keep crude oil markets active and extremely volatile.

The ebb and flow of supply and demand factors along with the cancellation of oil exploration and production projects due to current relatively low prices are setting the stage for another price explosion within the next couple of years.

There is little hope that any combination of alternative fuels will replace the dependence of the developed world on oil as the prime energy resource at any time in the foreseeable future. Crude oil prices today will continue to be closely watched by investors across the globe.

We are all incredibly reliant on the power that comes through our sockets and light switches. But what would we do if there was a problem with that power, even temporarily?

What if, rather than having to rely on the electricity from your sockets, there was an alternative? And what if that alternative could be relied upon whenever you needed it, and could also save you money? A solar powered charger has the ability to charge anything from the smallest battery to powering the heating for your home.

Once the initial purchase of your solar panel, or solar charger is made, there should be no further cost. The electricity you recieve is then “free”. It may take some time to recoup your initial investment, several months perhaps, but at least you know that your standard electricity charges should start to drop.

You can talk to the installation contractor about just setting up a power grid large enough for emergency use only. This will save you some money now, and later when you can afford it better, you can then finish installing the rest of the solar panels, because you will already have some of the installation already.

For the ultimate in solar power for your home, you could start with a wind turbine that will hook up to a generator; the generator will then transfer power to an inverter, which will store power in at least 4 batteries or power cells. Regular house electricity is powered by Alternating current (AC) and the solar power that you are saving used direct current (DC), so you need to have an inverter to transform the DC current into AC current. You will also need a component called a charge controller. The charge controller disconnects the electric current once the batteries have been fully charged; this is a necessity for long battery life. Batteries still have to be maintained, even the batteries that you are storing energy in.