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Energy prices drive a significant portion of the price we spend for everything. No matter what we spend our money on, we cannot escape the cost of energy. It requires electricity to power the computers we use to purchase items from Amazon and eBay. It requires electricity to power the machines that it takes to make the computers that we use to purchase items from Amazon and eBay. It takes electricity to power the machines that manage the orders for Amazon and eBay. And so on and so on.

Alternatively, we can drive to Barnes & Noble to purchase the book we are looking for. This requires energy to fuel our car, and, of course, the Barnes & Noble requires electricity to run their lights, point of sale machines, etc. Where does the vast majority of this electricity come from? According to the Department of Energy, burning fossil fuels.

If there is a disruption in the supply, or increase in the cost of these resources, our costs for energy increase. What happens when Amazon and eBay have to pay more money to run their computers? What happens when Barnes & Noble has to spend more money on their machines to run their stores? What happens when their employees need to make more money to pay for their additional costs of running their computers at home? Bottom line is that Amazon, eBay, and Barnes & Noble all have to increase their prices.

Very quickly, we can see that any disruption or significant change in the US energy supply will have a dramatic impact on the cost of labor, products, and resources. A prolonged shortage of resources for producing energy will drive prices up across every sector of the economy.

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