Showing posts with label Oil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oil. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
EPA Mandates Use of Nonexistent Fuel
FRom: Madison Project
It’s bad enough that government regulations and environmental legal defense groups have prevented us from building oil refineries for over 30 years. It’s even worse when the existing ones are forced to blend fuel mixtures that don’t exist.
We are all painfully aware of the Soviet style mandate that requires 10% of petroleum to be comprised of ethanol. This unconstitutional mandate has killed jobs, driven up the cost of fuel and food, lowered gas mileage, and damaged car engines – all to benefit corporate cronies in Big Ag. This odious fuel source is primarily made from corn. But since 2010, the EPA has mandated the blending of more than 20 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel into the nation’s fuel supply.
We are all painfully aware of the Soviet style mandate that requires 10% of petroleum to be comprised of ethanol. This unconstitutional mandate has killed jobs, driven up the cost of fuel and food, lowered gas mileage, and damaged car engines – all to benefit corporate cronies in Big Ag. This odious fuel source is primarily made from corn. But since 2010, the EPA has mandated the blending of more than 20 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel into the nation’s fuel supply.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
GAO: Recoverable Oil in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming 'About Equal to Entire World’s Proven Oil Reserves'
From: CNSNews.com
The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.
The GAO testimony stressed that the federal government was in “a unique position to influence the development of oil shale” because the Green River deposits were mostly beneath federal land.
“The Green River Formation--an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming--contains the world's largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.
“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified.
“The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered,” Mittal told the subcommittee. “At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world's proven oil reserves.”
In her oral statement before the subcommittee, Mittal said that developing the shale oil would create wealth and jobs for the country, but also challenges for government.
“Being able to tap this vast amount of oil locked within this formation will go a long way to help to meet our future demands for oil. The U.S. Geological Survey, as you noted, estimates that the formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil of which half may be recoverable,” she said.
“As you can imagine having the technology to develop this vast energy resource will lead to a number of important socioeconomic benefits including the creation of jobs, increases in wealth and increases in tax and royalty payments for federal and state governments,” she said.
“While large-scale oil-shale development offers socioeconomic opportunities it also poses certain socioeconomic challenges that also should not be overlooked,” she testified. “Oil shale development like other extractive industries can bring a sizable influx of workers who along with their families put additional stressed on local infrastructure. Development from expansion of extractive industries has historically followed a boom-and-bust cycle making planning for growth difficult for local governments.”
In her written testimony, Mittal noted that three-fourths of the Green River shale oil is under federal land.
“The federal government is in a unique position to influence the development of oil shale because nearly three-quarters of the oil shale within the Green River Formation lies beneath federal lands managed by the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Bureau of Land Management (BLM),” she testified.
The Green River Formation, a largely vacant area of mostly federal land that covers the territory where Colorado, Utah and Wyoming come together, contains about as much recoverable oil as all the rest the world’s proven reserves combined, an auditor from the Government Accountability Office told Congress on Thursday.
The GAO testimony stressed that the federal government was in “a unique position to influence the development of oil shale” because the Green River deposits were mostly beneath federal land.
It also noted that developing the oil would pose “socioeconomic challenges,” which included bringing “a sizable influx of workers who along with their families put additional stress on local infrastructure” and “making planning for growth difficult for local governments.”
“The Green River Formation--an assemblage of over 1,000 feet of sedimentary rocks that lie beneath parts of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming--contains the world's largest deposits of oil shale,”Anu K. Mittal, the GAO’s director of natural resources and environment said in written testimony submitted to the House Science Subcommittee on Energy and Environment.
“USGS estimates that the Green River Formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil, and about half of this may be recoverable, depending on available technology and economic conditions,” Mittal testified.
“The Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization, estimates that 30 to 60 percent of the oil shale in the Green River Formation can be recovered,” Mittal told the subcommittee. “At the midpoint of this estimate, almost half of the 3 trillion barrels of oil would be recoverable. This is an amount about equal to the entire world's proven oil reserves.”
In her oral statement before the subcommittee, Mittal said that developing the shale oil would create wealth and jobs for the country, but also challenges for government.
“Being able to tap this vast amount of oil locked within this formation will go a long way to help to meet our future demands for oil. The U.S. Geological Survey, as you noted, estimates that the formation contains about 3 trillion barrels of oil of which half may be recoverable,” she said.
“As you can imagine having the technology to develop this vast energy resource will lead to a number of important socioeconomic benefits including the creation of jobs, increases in wealth and increases in tax and royalty payments for federal and state governments,” she said.
“While large-scale oil-shale development offers socioeconomic opportunities it also poses certain socioeconomic challenges that also should not be overlooked,” she testified. “Oil shale development like other extractive industries can bring a sizable influx of workers who along with their families put additional stressed on local infrastructure. Development from expansion of extractive industries has historically followed a boom-and-bust cycle making planning for growth difficult for local governments.”
In her written testimony, Mittal noted that three-fourths of the Green River shale oil is under federal land.
“The federal government is in a unique position to influence the development of oil shale because nearly three-quarters of the oil shale within the Green River Formation lies beneath federal lands managed by the Department of the Interior’s (Interior) Bureau of Land Management (BLM),” she testified.
Friday, July 15, 2011
America's coming oil boom
From: NYPOST.com
Just a year after the BP oil spill, America is on the verge of a new golden era of oil exploration and production -- unless President Obama and his environmentalist friends get their way.
This surge in domestic production would leave Iran, Kuwait and the Arab emirates combined in the rear-view mirror.
The US drilling boom rests on a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to open shale-oil reserves.
It's why wells are springing up in places like North Dakota, California and Pennsylvania, with thousands of new jobs in their wake.
The irony is that Obama had hoped higher oil prices would make us all drive electric cars and install backyard windmills. Instead, they're making it profitable for US companies to expand the hunt for new reserves and to use fracking to reopen old ones.
Just last month, Exxon-Mobil announced the discovery of a vast field in the Gulf of Mexico, with as many as 700 million barrels waiting to be tapped. Other companies are using fracking to return to the Texas basin, the center of US oil production in the 1930s -- which will mean millions in investment and thousands of jobs for that state. Montana and North Dakota are sitting on a shale-oil formation that could yield nearly 4 billion barrels.
Not many Americans realize we are already the world's No. 3 oil producer, at 7.5 million barrels a day. The coming boom should add another 1.5 million by 2015. That's closing in on Saudi Arabia's daily total.
And oil-shale rich Canada could surpass Iran's barrel-per-day output in a few years -- so we're looking at a major shift in the geopolitics of oil.
Easy-to-find oil is running out in the Mideast. After deliberately wrecking a multibillion-dollar deal with BP, Russia -- the world's biggest oil and gas producer -- is looking more and more like a bad bet for foreign investors. If you want to make money in the oil biz, America will be the place to go.
But the environmental lobby is bent on preventing it -- waging an all-out war on fracking, claiming (against all evidence) that it contaminates ground water. The ideologues hope to use memories of the BP spill and a more recent one on the Yellowstone River to dam up all exploration and pipeline construction.
Never mind that fracking goes on thousands of feet below groundwater sources, and that Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling did more damage to the Gulf economy than the BP spill ever did -- or that the Yellowstone accident has affected an area of less than 10 miles on the edge of a national park of 3,500 square miles.
The promise of prosperity and jobs was enough to get even a blue state like New York to ignore the green lobby's fearmongering. But Obama may yet derail the boom.
The president has had the oil industry's two most important tax incentives -- the percentage-depletion allowance and the deduction for intangible-drilling costs -- in his cross hairs for a long time.
Both help oil and drilling companies recoup the heavy capital investment they need to look for oil, even when they turn up nothing. The White House argues that we must end both "tax breaks for Big Oil" to close the budget deficit.
Just a year after the BP oil spill, America is on the verge of a new golden era of oil exploration and production -- unless President Obama and his environmentalist friends get their way.
This surge in domestic production would leave Iran, Kuwait and the Arab emirates combined in the rear-view mirror.
The US drilling boom rests on a technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to open shale-oil reserves.
It's why wells are springing up in places like North Dakota, California and Pennsylvania, with thousands of new jobs in their wake.
Fracking has also opened up supplies of natural gas, sending prices plummeting. Now, even New York's regulators have recommended lifting the state's ban on the fossil-fuel gold rush that's pushed North Dakota's unemployment rate to 3.2 percent -- the lowest in the nation.
The irony is that Obama had hoped higher oil prices would make us all drive electric cars and install backyard windmills. Instead, they're making it profitable for US companies to expand the hunt for new reserves and to use fracking to reopen old ones.
Just last month, Exxon-Mobil announced the discovery of a vast field in the Gulf of Mexico, with as many as 700 million barrels waiting to be tapped. Other companies are using fracking to return to the Texas basin, the center of US oil production in the 1930s -- which will mean millions in investment and thousands of jobs for that state. Montana and North Dakota are sitting on a shale-oil formation that could yield nearly 4 billion barrels.
Not many Americans realize we are already the world's No. 3 oil producer, at 7.5 million barrels a day. The coming boom should add another 1.5 million by 2015. That's closing in on Saudi Arabia's daily total.
And oil-shale rich Canada could surpass Iran's barrel-per-day output in a few years -- so we're looking at a major shift in the geopolitics of oil.
Easy-to-find oil is running out in the Mideast. After deliberately wrecking a multibillion-dollar deal with BP, Russia -- the world's biggest oil and gas producer -- is looking more and more like a bad bet for foreign investors. If you want to make money in the oil biz, America will be the place to go.
But the environmental lobby is bent on preventing it -- waging an all-out war on fracking, claiming (against all evidence) that it contaminates ground water. The ideologues hope to use memories of the BP spill and a more recent one on the Yellowstone River to dam up all exploration and pipeline construction.
Never mind that fracking goes on thousands of feet below groundwater sources, and that Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling did more damage to the Gulf economy than the BP spill ever did -- or that the Yellowstone accident has affected an area of less than 10 miles on the edge of a national park of 3,500 square miles.
The promise of prosperity and jobs was enough to get even a blue state like New York to ignore the green lobby's fearmongering. But Obama may yet derail the boom.
The president has had the oil industry's two most important tax incentives -- the percentage-depletion allowance and the deduction for intangible-drilling costs -- in his cross hairs for a long time.
Both help oil and drilling companies recoup the heavy capital investment they need to look for oil, even when they turn up nothing. The White House argues that we must end both "tax breaks for Big Oil" to close the budget deficit.
Friday, July 01, 2011
The Oil Reserve Plunder Blunder
From: American Thinker
Until this past week, the International Energy Agency had released oil only twice from the emergency reserves of its member nations. The first time was during the 1991 Gulf War in response to the loss of Iraqi and Kuwaiti oil production, and the other was in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when the Gulf of Mexico fields and regional refineries were shut down.
The recent decision to release oil, ostensibly to offset the significantly smaller loss of supply caused by the civil war in Libya, was therefore a major policy shift. This shift is not only misguided but fraught with potential problems for the future.
The IEA was founded in the early seventies to offset the influence and potential threats of oil cutoffs emanating from OPEC. Since then, the stockpiles have only been used in the most extreme of circumstances. However, the ramification of last week's action is that the IEA and its member states may intervene more quickly, and for domestic political considerations, in order to smooth over price movements after small disruptions in supply. While originally conceived as a hedge and strategic reserve in case of a massive cutoff in oil production due to unforeseen circumstances such as major war or political upheaval, the reserve seems to have mutated into a lever to manipulate the market.
The move of releasing 60 million barrels this past week seems to have had its short-term intended effect: the oil price did drop sharply. Nonetheless, it is not a reliable precedent and one that may only work for the short run. Now that a new standard has been set, there will always be political pressure brought to bear whenever there is a spike in the price of oil.
Today, because of an increase in demand, particularly in the emerging Asian economies and the refusal of the United States to develop its own reserves, the smallest disruption in supply can have a painful effect. This is particularly true in Western economies presently struggling with a poisonous mix of low growth, high unemployment, and rising inflation.
These countries, which are loath to raise interest rates to mitigate the effect of high commodity prices, as they are fearful of further strangling any nascent economic recovery as well as an over-sensitivity to the political implications of higher energy prices, have chosen instead to manipulate the market.
The IEA cannot regularly intervene in this manner without depleting its reserves, which then ultimately strips the agency of its ability to intervene. Prices will not fall if markets perceive that stockpiles will have to be rebuilt. Moreover the logic of the IEA argument is dubious at best. Market dynamics will of their own accord bear down on oil prices. More fuel efficiency is always in the offing and becomes financially feasible as the cost of oil rises. New investment in oil production, also accelerated by rising prices, will ultimately bring down prices in the long term. Suppressing the price mechanism through intervention will simply retard this correction.
As in the case of the financial crisis of 2008, in large part brought about by government policy, the decisions made to intervene by massively bailing out numerous banks, financial institutions, and governments were exacerbated by not allowing the markets to function in a normal pattern. A severe situation has been made potentially catastrophic by the unfettered printing of money and never-ending government and central bank intrusion. The leaders of the Western world, having so ineptly dealt with the financial crisis, are now bringing the same mindset to the oil markets.
The recent decision to release oil, ostensibly to offset the significantly smaller loss of supply caused by the civil war in Libya, was therefore a major policy shift. This shift is not only misguided but fraught with potential problems for the future.
The IEA was founded in the early seventies to offset the influence and potential threats of oil cutoffs emanating from OPEC. Since then, the stockpiles have only been used in the most extreme of circumstances. However, the ramification of last week's action is that the IEA and its member states may intervene more quickly, and for domestic political considerations, in order to smooth over price movements after small disruptions in supply. While originally conceived as a hedge and strategic reserve in case of a massive cutoff in oil production due to unforeseen circumstances such as major war or political upheaval, the reserve seems to have mutated into a lever to manipulate the market.
The move of releasing 60 million barrels this past week seems to have had its short-term intended effect: the oil price did drop sharply. Nonetheless, it is not a reliable precedent and one that may only work for the short run. Now that a new standard has been set, there will always be political pressure brought to bear whenever there is a spike in the price of oil.
Today, because of an increase in demand, particularly in the emerging Asian economies and the refusal of the United States to develop its own reserves, the smallest disruption in supply can have a painful effect. This is particularly true in Western economies presently struggling with a poisonous mix of low growth, high unemployment, and rising inflation.
These countries, which are loath to raise interest rates to mitigate the effect of high commodity prices, as they are fearful of further strangling any nascent economic recovery as well as an over-sensitivity to the political implications of higher energy prices, have chosen instead to manipulate the market.
The IEA cannot regularly intervene in this manner without depleting its reserves, which then ultimately strips the agency of its ability to intervene. Prices will not fall if markets perceive that stockpiles will have to be rebuilt. Moreover the logic of the IEA argument is dubious at best. Market dynamics will of their own accord bear down on oil prices. More fuel efficiency is always in the offing and becomes financially feasible as the cost of oil rises. New investment in oil production, also accelerated by rising prices, will ultimately bring down prices in the long term. Suppressing the price mechanism through intervention will simply retard this correction.
As in the case of the financial crisis of 2008, in large part brought about by government policy, the decisions made to intervene by massively bailing out numerous banks, financial institutions, and governments were exacerbated by not allowing the markets to function in a normal pattern. A severe situation has been made potentially catastrophic by the unfettered printing of money and never-ending government and central bank intrusion. The leaders of the Western world, having so ineptly dealt with the financial crisis, are now bringing the same mindset to the oil markets.
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Finger Pointer In Chief
From: YID With LID
As Ronald Reagan once said, "Well, there he goes again!" President Obama is incredibly adept and shifting blame to those evil demons who run big corporations in America. During the health care debate it was those nasty insurance companies. When he was trying to negotiate a deal giving the auto companies to the UAW the President blamed those un-American hedge fund operators and those opposing his financial reform bills were greedy bankers.
Now that gas prices are approaching $5.00 per gallon the President is finally going to address the issue of rising gas prices, by demonizing people in the oil industry. Yesterday at a town hall he placed the blame for high prices squarely on the backs of big oil:
Obama Channels Casablanca "Round Up All of the Usual Oil Company Suspects"
As Ronald Reagan once said, "Well, there he goes again!" President Obama is incredibly adept and shifting blame to those evil demons who run big corporations in America. During the health care debate it was those nasty insurance companies. When he was trying to negotiate a deal giving the auto companies to the UAW the President blamed those un-American hedge fund operators and those opposing his financial reform bills were greedy bankers.
Now that gas prices are approaching $5.00 per gallon the President is finally going to address the issue of rising gas prices, by demonizing people in the oil industry. Yesterday at a town hall he placed the blame for high prices squarely on the backs of big oil:
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Barack Obama's "Marie Antoinette" Moment
The video is about four minutes long and the comment comes at the end, but it's telling. "Let em eat cake" is now "You Might Want To Think About A Trade In". All this as gas prices rise. Funny stuff. It sure is good to know that as he said "remembers what it was like to pump gas". The common touch. Absolutely amazing. Here it is:
Of course, Barack Obama has never liked low gas prices or utility bills. Higher energy costs are the price we will pay for his green energy policy. Don't believe me? Here's a reminder:
"Necessarily skyrocket". Yeah, but hey at least he remembers pumping gas. If we were patriotic we would shell out $42,000 for the "VOLT". After all, we already paid for it with our taxes. When Barack Obama said he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he meant it. We all pay the price as while someone else pays for his gas.
Of course, Barack Obama has never liked low gas prices or utility bills. Higher energy costs are the price we will pay for his green energy policy. Don't believe me? Here's a reminder:
"Necessarily skyrocket". Yeah, but hey at least he remembers pumping gas. If we were patriotic we would shell out $42,000 for the "VOLT". After all, we already paid for it with our taxes. When Barack Obama said he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he meant it. We all pay the price as while someone else pays for his gas.
Obama's 'Let them eat cake' moment deep sixed by media
Quote Barack Obama: "If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting 8 miles a gallon"Obama said laughingly. "You might want to think about a trade-in."
From: American Thinker
As gasoline prices soar, while domestic oil production struggles under regulatory and permitting burdens imposed by the Obama administration, the American public is suffering, and so are Obama's reelection prospects. The sad fact is that Obama wants high energy prices.
From: American Thinker
As gasoline prices soar, while domestic oil production struggles under regulatory and permitting burdens imposed by the Obama administration, the American public is suffering, and so are Obama's reelection prospects. The sad fact is that Obama wants high energy prices.
"Under my plan of cap and trade plan makes electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket"'; "coal powered plants, natural gas, you name it..whatever the plants were...they will have to retrofit their operations..that will cost money and they will have to pass those costs onto consumers"
In 2008, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar indicated he would still oppose a measure to open up offshore areas to new oil and natural gas drilling even if gasoline prices reached $10 a gallon.
Yesterday, speaking to a crowd in Pennsylvania, responding to a question about high gasoline prices, the mask slipped, and Obama revealed how out of touch and arrogant he is.:
"If you're complaining about the price of gas and you're only getting 8 miles a gallon, you know," Obama said laughingly. "You might want to think about a trade-in."
This is truly a "let them eat cake" moment. People struggling to pay for gasoline rarely have the resources to buy a new car. Ed Morrissey of Hot Air points out that "the last time anyone drove an 8-MPG vehicle that didn't include a half-track was in the mid-1970s." When do suppose the last time was that Obama filled the tank on his own car?
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
YID With LID: Barack Obama's Oil Lease LIES!
"Yid With Lid", consistently one of the best blogs on the internet exposes Barack Obama's "energy" policy.
From:YID With LID
Once again he wants to present "incentives" for the energy industry to drill on existing leases. You see, his feeling about the oil executives is the same as his feeling about the American people, they are complete and total idiots,paying for leases but not bothering to take the product out of the ground so they can make money.
All of those stupid executives (according to the POTUS) run their companies by paying fees instead of collecting revenue. getting the product out of the ground so they can make money. This is nothing but Presidential subterfuge.
What the President is not telling you is that these oil leases purchased by oil companies is for exploration and drilling, not just drilling. Oil is not equally distributed across the each potential drilling location, there are unlucky oil companies that get stuck with a lease for a parcel that doesn't hold any oil. What make those companies really unlucky is that the parcel right next to them might be the new Saudi Arabia.
Even if the leased location is a bonanza of black gold, that oil company still might not be drilling. This may be surprising (not), but there is a lot of red tape to get through once you find oil on a site before you start drilling. This red tape has gotten even more complicated during the Obama administration. Even if everything runs smoothly, it can take years for companies who own a lease to complete their exploration activities, and more years to move from exploration to drilling.
From:YID With LID
Barack Obama's Oil Lease LIES!
How do you know which parts of Obama's energy speech were either lies or misleading? Only the parts where his mouth was moving. This morning President Obama once again tried to pull the energy policy wool over America's eyes.Once again he wants to present "incentives" for the energy industry to drill on existing leases. You see, his feeling about the oil executives is the same as his feeling about the American people, they are complete and total idiots,paying for leases but not bothering to take the product out of the ground so they can make money.
All of those stupid executives (according to the POTUS) run their companies by paying fees instead of collecting revenue. getting the product out of the ground so they can make money. This is nothing but Presidential subterfuge.
What the President is not telling you is that these oil leases purchased by oil companies is for exploration and drilling, not just drilling. Oil is not equally distributed across the each potential drilling location, there are unlucky oil companies that get stuck with a lease for a parcel that doesn't hold any oil. What make those companies really unlucky is that the parcel right next to them might be the new Saudi Arabia.
Even if the leased location is a bonanza of black gold, that oil company still might not be drilling. This may be surprising (not), but there is a lot of red tape to get through once you find oil on a site before you start drilling. This red tape has gotten even more complicated during the Obama administration. Even if everything runs smoothly, it can take years for companies who own a lease to complete their exploration activities, and more years to move from exploration to drilling.
The Case for Increasing Domestic Oil Production
From: Reason.com
Why America can and must produce more oil
Oil is the world’s most critical and scarce energy resource. Only oil is easily divisible, transportable, and vital for most transportation. Japan’s shuttered nuclear plants mean new demand for more millions of barrels of fuel oil to generate electricity for its cities and factories. Libyan oil production will now be shut down for months or years. There is almost no spare capacity in world production.
Here’s a tough fact to face: World prosperity is critically dependent upon the stability of a single decrepit, corrupt dictatorship in Saudi Arabia. While the regime there has been quick to put down calls for expanded rights, the protests for political, civil, and economic rights continue. Chaos in Saudi Arabia, which produces about 12 percent of the world’s oil, would cause such shortages of oil in Asia and Europe that the whole world could be thrust into major economic crisis. Closed factories in China, Japan, and Korea would crash commodity prices and world trade. Banks would again be tottering and calling in loans. Russia with its supplies would have a stranglehold over a dependent Europe. And Americans might be lined up for hours at gasoline stations, maybe with ration cards.
Here’s a tough fact to face: World prosperity is critically dependent upon the stability of a single decrepit, corrupt dictatorship in Saudi Arabia. While the regime there has been quick to put down calls for expanded rights, the protests for political, civil, and economic rights continue. Chaos in Saudi Arabia, which produces about 12 percent of the world’s oil, would cause such shortages of oil in Asia and Europe that the whole world could be thrust into major economic crisis. Closed factories in China, Japan, and Korea would crash commodity prices and world trade. Banks would again be tottering and calling in loans. Russia with its supplies would have a stranglehold over a dependent Europe. And Americans might be lined up for hours at gasoline stations, maybe with ration cards.
Friday, March 25, 2011
American Thinker: The Energy Myth That Won't Die
From :American Thinker
The renewed prospect of $4.00 or even $5.00 per gallon gasoline has brought greater urgency, if not clarity, to a debate about national energy policy.
Predictably, the response of liberal energy navel-gazers has been off the mark. According to this group, the answer to the liquid motor fuel supply problem is...more ethanol.
Ethanol remains a case study in poor choices and the negative effects of government intervention in markets. The problems with alcohol-based "renewable" fuels are well-documented. Both corn-based and cellulosic ethanol have significant drawbacks, not the least of which is that artificial demand for corn to produce ethanol is driving up global food prices and contributing to civil unrest in parts of the world.
Using carbohydrates to replace hydrocarbons is not nearly as simple as the words politicians use to promote the practice, and the outcomes from converting carbohydrates to fuel are not as benign as they would have us believe.
Not only is the EPA prepared to authorize an increase in the domestic ethanol mandate from 10 percent to 15 percent, there is pressure to authorize importation of foreign-sourced ethanol.
A several-year-old ethanol scheme has recently attracted more interest - a demand to open American energy markets to Brazilian biofuel. Some call the Brazilian product "the good ethanol."
If we're smart, we'll kill this monstrous idea - and quickly.
Brazil, the world's largest producer of sugar, uses much of its sugar to produce ethanol, a process which bypasses the prior distillation of corn to sugar. American advocates of importing Brazilian ethanol ignore two inconvenient facts: Not only does Brazilian cane ethanol have the same problems as corn ethanol, Brazil has proven that, even by removing a step in the manufacturing process, ethanol is not a competitive fuel.
Brazilian ethanol has been a nightmare of impracticality. Production began in the 1970's as a response to the Arab oil embargo and to use only surplus sugar. Over the years, the Brazilian ethanol program morphed into a national energy policy. In order to "support" their expanding ethanol market and to make up for ethanol's fuel efficiency deficit, Brazil mandated flex-fuel vehicles and taxed ethanol at a rate less than gasoline (America taxes ethanol motor fuel content at the same rate as gasoline). Early on, Brazil mandated a 20-percent ethanol fuel mix for gasoline. Today, many vehicles in Brazil use mostly or only ethanol fuel. Brazil also nationalized their oil industry and generously and expensively subsidized ethanol production.
Surely, such massive government intervention in at least two markets would be sufficient to insure the success of ethanol.
It wasn't.
Since their ethanol program was conceived and implemented, Brazil has begun to aggressively develop newly-discovered offshore petroleum reserves. Petroleum development would be unnecessary if the Brazilian ethanol experiment had been successful. Environmentalists should note that the new Brazilian petroleum operations lie offshore some of the world's most pristine beaches.
The Brazilian experience with sugar-based ethanol has proven that alcohol fuels can't compete effectively in markets fixed to favor them, much less in open markets.
The socialization of ethanol in America and Brazil has encouraged large agricultural interests to acquire smaller farms and erode the family farm tradition in both countries. Other unintended consequences of both American and Brazilian ethanol policies are priceless -- as in unaffordable: The United States is the world's largest producer of ethanol from corn; Brazil is the world's largest producer of sugar cane ethanol. The world prices for both corn and sugar are currently at or near historically high levels, demonstrating the effects of artificial ethanol demand complicated by the vagaries of supply. The petroleum market works in the same way, except that the demand for petroleum, a single-use commodity, is practical, as is the development of untapped reserves by private investment.
The hypocrisy of elected officials on energy policy is staggering. Politicians demand more ethanol while preventing domestic petroleum exploration and production.
The price of oil recently exceeded $104 per barrel before retreating. It may go higher in the future, yet alternative energy advocates continue to tell us that we need not find and consume far more American gas, oil and coal. By denying practical supply sources, progressive energy policies play into the hands of some of the world's worst and least stable petroleum-producing countries.
At the same time, progressives denounce NAFTA and open trade with Mexico and Canada, our largest and best non-domestic sources of natural gas and oil.
Most American consumers favor free energy markets. They understand that, without overly-oppressive regulation and political obstacles to conventional sources of energy, free-market private investors and technological innovators accessing American energy resources can solve America's fuel-scarcity problems as well as associated environmental concerns.
Most American consumers favor free energy markets. They understand that, without overly-oppressive regulation and political obstacles to conventional sources of energy, free-market private investors and technological innovators accessing American energy resources can solve America's fuel-scarcity problems as well as associated environmental concerns.
Nevertheless, politicians prefer tinkering in energy distractions that are largely relevant only in the problems they create and the campaign donations they produce. If wind, solar, biofuels, wave power and other alternatives to hydrocarbon-based sources were economically viable and competitive in energy markets, all would be made available by "greedy" private investors without government subsidy. It is only government-enforced taxpayer investment in these alternatives that attracts private money interests. The real greed lies, mutually, in private "investors" chasing public funds for private profit with the complicity of politicians. Politicians promote energy alternatives and then harvest campaign cash from the recipients of taxpayer handouts. It's an insiders' game, a closed loop: politicians and rent-seekers are playing taxpayers and consumers for chumps on marginally viable and impractical alternative energy sources.
Any rational American energy policy must begin with carbon-based energy.
Our dependence on oil is one of necessity. The world's energy demands are simply too great for energy alternatives to provide much offset.
If the world is to move away from petroleum, radically new energy technologies must be developed. In the meantime, the most potentially successful solutions to lowering liquid fuel costs are the things progressives and many politicians oppose: increased exploration and responsible exploitation of our own fossil fuel-based energy resources offshore, in ANWR, in the Bakken Layer, in Marcellus Shale deposits and elsewhere in and around America.
The truth is that the best way to lower energy -- and, as a byproduct, food -- costs and to increase energy availability is to increase the supply of conventional, practical, domestic energy assets.
Rebel Commander in Libya Fought Against U.S. in Afghanistan
From: Pajamas Media
Shortly after unrest broke out in eastern Libya in mid-February, reports emerged that an “Islamic Emirate” had been declared in the eastern Libyan town of Darnah and that, furthermore, the alleged head of that Emirate, Abdul-Hakim al-Hasadi, was a former detainee at the American prison camp in Guantánamo. The reports, which originated from Libyan government sources, were largely ignored or dismissed in the Western media.
Now, however, al-Hasadi has admitted in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore that he fought against American forces in Afghanistan. (Hat-tip: Thomas Joscelyn at the Weekly Standard.) Al-Hasadi says that he is the person responsible for the defense of Darnah — not the town’s “Emir.” In a previous interview with Canada’s Globe and Mail, he claimed to have a force of about 1,000 men and to have commanded rebel units in battles around the town of Bin Jawad.
“I have never been at Guantánamo,” al-Hasadi explained to Il Sole 24 Ore. “I was captured in 2002 in Peshawar in Pakistan, while I was returning from Afghanistan where I fought against the foreign invasion. I was turned over to the Americans, detained for a few months in Islamabad, then turned over to Libya and released from prison in 2008.”
Al-Hasadi’s account is largely confirmed by investigations conducted by Praveen Swami, the diplomatic editor of the British daily The Telegraph. Swami originally wrote about al-Hasadi’s background in the Afghan jihad in a March 21 column. In response to a query from the present author, Swami was able to obtain confirmation of al-Hasadi’s arrest and transfer to Libya from what he describes as a “senior source” in the Afghan government.
According to a separate UK intelligence source contacted by Swami, al-Hasadi was released by the Libyan government as part of a deal that was struck with the al-Qaeda-affiliated Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIGF). The LIGF has long opposed the rule of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya.
On February 25, al-Hasadi had issued an ambiguous statement claiming that he had been a “political prisoner” and accusing the “Dictator Gaddafi” of spreading “lies.” Al-Jazeera provides an English translation of the statement here. (Scroll down to “12:46pm”.) A video of al-Hasadi reading his statement is available here.
In his more recent remarks to Il Sole 24 Ore, al-Hasadi admits not only to fighting against U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but also to recruiting Libyans to fight against American forces in Iraq. As noted in my earlier PJM report here, captured al-Qaeda personnel records show that al-Hasadi’s hometown of Darnah sent more foreign fighters to fight with al-Qaeda in Iraq than any other foreign city or town and “far and away the largest per capita number of fighters.” Al-Hasadi told Il Sole 24 Ore that he personally recruited “around 25” Libyans to fight in Iraq. “Some have come back and today are on the front at Ajdabiya,” al-Hasadi explained, “They are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists.” “The members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader,” al-Hasadi added.
The revelations about al-Hasadi’s involvement in the anti-American jihad are particularly troubling in light of clear evidence that Western forces are coordinating their attacks on Libyan government targets with rebel forces.
Reporting from the outskirts of Ajdabiya yesterday, Antoine Estève of the French news channel i-Télé noted that just “minutes” after rebel positions had been hit by artillery fire from Libyan government forces, the Libyan government positions were then bombarded by coalition aircraft. (Estève’s report can be viewed here.) In a March 19 dispatch from Benghazi for the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, correspondent Lorenzo Cremonesi cites rebel leaders as saying that they were given the opportunity to provide NATO with a map indicating enemy targets that they wanted bombed.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Obama: Drill, Brazil, Drill!
From: Investors Business Daily
Energy Policy: While leaving U.S. oil and jobs in the ground, our itinerant president tells a South American neighbor that we'll help it develop its offshore resources so we can one day import its oil. WHAT?!?
With Japan staggered by a natural disaster and a nuclear crisis, cruise missiles launched against Libya in our third Middle East conflict and a majority of U.S. senators complaining about a lack of leadership on the budget, President Obama decided it would be a good time to schmooze with Brazilians.
His "What, me worry?" presidency has given both Americans and our allies plenty to worry about. But in the process of making nice with Brazil, Obama made a mind-boggling announcement that should make even his most loyal supporter cringe:
We will help Brazil develop its offshore oil so we can one day import it.
We have noted this double standard before, particularly when — at a time when the president was railing against tax incentives for U.S. oil companies — we supported the U.S. Export-Import Bank's plan to lend $2 billion to Brazil's state-run Petrobras with the promise of more to follow.
Now, with a seven-year offshore drilling ban in effect off of both coasts, on Alaska's continental shelf and in much of the Gulf of Mexico — and a de facto moratorium covering the rest — Obama tells the Brazilians:
"We want to help you with the technology and support to develop these oil reserves safely. And when you're ready to start selling, we want to be one of your best customers."
Obama wants to develop Brazilian offshore oil to help the Brazilian economy create jobs for Brazilian workers while Americans are left unemployed in the face of skyrocketing energy prices by an administration that despises fossil fuels as a threat to the environment and wants to increase our dependency on foreign oil.
Obama said he chose Brazil to kick off his first-ever visit to South America in recognition of that country's ascendancy. He has also highlighted one of the reasons for America's decline — an energy policy that through the creation of an artificial shortage of fossil fuels makes prices "necessarily skyrocket" to foster his green energy agenda.
In an op-ed in USA Today explaining his trip, Obama opined: "Brazil holds recently discovered oil reserves that could be far larger than ours. And as we seek to increase secure-energy supplies, we look forward to developing a strategic energy partnership."
Yet in his alleged quest for "secure-energy supplies," he refuses to develop oil and natural gas resources in U.S. waters. His administration has locked up areas in the West where oil shale reserves are estimated to be triple Saudi Arabia's reserves of crude. His administration is even stalling on plans to build a pipeline to deliver oil from Canada's tar sands to the U.S. market.
That project would build a 1,661-mile pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta to U.S. refineries near Houston. It would create 13,000 "shovel-ready" jobs and provide 500,000 more barrels of oil per day from an ally.
Yet it's now being held up by the State Department because it crosses an international border, on the grounds that it needs further environmental review. Shipping oil by tanker from Brazil is safer and more secure?
If Brazil had copied our current energy policy, it wouldn't have discovered in December 2007 the Tupi field, estimated to contain 5 billion to 8 billon barrels of crude, or its Carioca offshore oilfield that may hold up to 33 billion barrels.
Haroldo Lima, head of Brazil's National Oil Agency, estimates that Carioca might hold as much as five times the reserves of Tupi. Somehow the Brazilians aren't too worried about oil spoiling the pristine beaches of nearby Sao Paulo or Rio de Janeiro in the tourist season.
We suggest that President Obama return home and start worrying about an unapologetic American renaissance in which we focus more on American energy and American jobs and less on mythical environmental hazards and foreign accolades.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Blood and Oil
So, now that we are engaged in establishing a no fly zone over Libya, a country that provides us two percent of our oil, where are the protesters? When George Bush invaded Iraq just how many protestors featured signs saying "No Blood For Oil"?
Now that Barack Obama is President, the silence is deafening. All of a sudden we're fighting a bloody dictator and defending freedom fighters. So now we see ideology at its worst. It demonstrates a genuine lack of conviction to be so brazenly hypocritical. Franklin Roosevelt once said of Nicaragua's Samoza "he's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch".
George Bush was a son of a bitch and a war criminal to the left for invading to get oil, but if Obama's your SOB, well keep looking the other way so we might bear witness to your fraudulent ways. "No Blood For Oil", unless you voted for the guy pulling the trigger. Ahhhh,,, politics is so splendidly hypocritical.
George Bush was a son of a bitch and a war criminal to the left for invading to get oil, but if Obama's your SOB, well keep looking the other way so we might bear witness to your fraudulent ways. "No Blood For Oil", unless you voted for the guy pulling the trigger. Ahhhh,,, politics is so splendidly hypocritical.
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