Energy Shortages

President Bush on Monday urged Americans to drive less and embrace conservation more in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and he said he would work with Congress to enact incentives for energy production and refinery construction. The president also said that he was directing federal agencies to reduce energy consumption and that he would release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as needed to ease the shortages and price increases caused by the hurricanes.

A handful of refineries sustained heavy damage from Hurricane Rita's fierce winds, but initial reports from the Gulf Coast early Saturday suggested that the nation's largest refining center was spared the destruction that many had feared. Although the early news was good, oil industry experts cautioned that refinery crews from Lake Charles, La., to Houston are still assessing the condition of the plants in Rita's path as it hit land in the predawn hours.

Fearing that Hurricanes Rita and Katrina would result in a shortage of fuel, Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue on Friday asked schools across the state to close their doors Monday and Tuesday in what he described as "early snow days." Perdue requested the closures during an afternoon conference call with state school superintendents. Word filtered out to parents through the evening, dismaying some who said they would be left to scramble to find child care.

State air quality officials Friday temporarily relaxed gasoline evaporation standards to help avoid shortages and price spikes resulting from hurricane-related disruption of Gulf Coast oil operations. Taking emergency action, Catherine Witherspoon, executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, gave the green light to the sale of gasoline formulated for winter use, which officials predict will increase the availability of gas but will also increase pollution.

One hundred fifty dollars to fill 'er up. That's what it cost Adam Mleasai, a 28-year-old builder, to fill his battered green Audi beneath the lighted canopy of a BP station on North London's Finchley Road. "It's so frustrating," he said, estimating that he is paying 80 pounds a week, about $150, to fill his gas tank. As British fuel prices edge toward 1 pound per liter, nearly $7 a gallon, that buys only about 83 liters, or 22 gallons.

U.S. energy regulators can't force government utilities to repay electricity overcharges from the 2000-01 energy crisis, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, a decision that could slice hundreds of millions of dollars from a refund sought for customers of California's nongovernment power companies. California state officials expressed displeasure with the ruling by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals but didn't say whether they would press the matter further.

Cuba appears to be limping out of its worst season of blackouts since the collapse of the Soviet Union, but its economy may be in its strongest state in decades to address the crisis, analysts and experts said.

Lost luggage, bad weather and now ... no fuel? Although fliers haven't yet had to add that problem to the list of headaches associated with air travel, it may not be far away. Airports in Arizona, California, Florida and Nevada recently came within a few days -- and at times within hours -- of running out of jet fuel. Because of supply bottlenecks, airlines were forced to fly in extra fuel from other markets and scramble for deliveries by truck.

Despite having the world's second-largest reserves of oil, Iraq announced Monday that it would begin rationing gasoline over the next few months to cope with an ongoing fuel shortage. Iraqis will be issued ration cards next month allowing them to buy limited quantities of kerosene and cooking gas. Later, they will face restrictions on gasoline purchases. Increased demand for fuel and the failure of the U.S.

The alarm bells on California's stressed-out power grid sounded early this year. On July 21 and 22, the agency that operates the state's 25,000-mile electricity transmission system declared its first Stage 2 power emergencies of the summer. The alerts -- triggered by unexpected generator breakdowns -- were the first in the state since 2003 and revived ugly memories of the rolling blackouts that plagued Californians during the energy crisis of 2000-01.