Medary.com

Ready for $4 gasoline?  The oil companies have a big excuse, er, reason to tighten things up--BP has shut down the Alaska oil pipeline:

Oil prices jumped by more than $1 a barrel Monday following a production shutdown at an Alaskan oil field that accounts for about 8 percent of U.S. production.

BP Exploration Alaska Inc. began shutting down oil production Sunday at Prudhoe Bay due to severe pipeline corrosion.

Once the field is shut down, in a process expected to take days, BP said oil production would be reduced by 400,000 barrels a day. BP officials said they didn't know how long the Prudhoe Bay field would be off line.

We gotta do something ASAP about getting away from a hydrocarbon-based energy economy.  Actually, we have to do a lot, including building a bunch of new nuclear power plants--that way we have the juice to go to biofuels and/or hydrogen.