Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Energy. Show all posts

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Barack Obama's Honesty Parade (#309): Energy & Climate

 
BARACK OBAMA HONESTY PARADEBarack Obama on "global warming" (or is it "climate change" now? I forget).

[We must] deal with an energy situation where we are sending $800 million [a] day to some of the most hostile nations on earth and melting the polar ice caps in the process.

Why are we sending $800 million a day to pay overseas?

Because Democrats have blocked all oil exploration around the continental United States.


The accompanying map depicts "The No Zone." This is the region surrounding the United States in which Democrats have blocked oil exploration. From the tiny spit of land within the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to the Continental Shelf, Democrats have uniformly opposed every form of exploration that would allow us to stop sending our funds overseas and give us the time to transition to clean energy technologies.


In the mean time, Cuba has leased drilling rights to foreign countries, which will permit them to drain the Gulf of Mexico of its oil. For example, Cuba recently granted China drilling rights in the Gulf. And, in fact, China will be drilling within 50 miles of Florida.

While countries such as China suck oil out of the Gulf, Democrats continue to stonewall against sensible energy policies.

And are we really "melting the polar ice-caps"?

Actually, the verdict is in: the last twelve months have seen a long drop in world temperatures that literally wipes out a century of warming.


In fact, solar data suggests our concerns should be about global cooling. The sun's 'disturbingly quiet' cycle suggests the possibility of a "Maunder Minimum," which presages a massive cooling event.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe...

As for the polar ice caps?

The Antarctic (South Pole) is seeing "record levels of... sea ice":

The Southern Hemisphere sea ice area narrowly surpassed the previous historic maximum of 16.03 million sq. km to 16.17 million sq. km...

And how about the Arctic? On February 15, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Arctic sea ice has seen a "significant increase" in size following an extremely cold winter.

There's an upside to the extreme cold temperatures northern Canadians have endured in the last few weeks: scientists say it's been helping winter sea ice grow across the Arctic, where the ice shrank to record-low levels last year. Temperatures have stayed well in the -30s C and -40s C range since late January throughout the North, with the mercury dipping past -50 C in some areas. Satellite images are showing that the cold spell is helping the sea ice expand in coverage by about 2 million square kilometres, compared to the average winter coverage in the previous three years... If temperatures remain cold this winter, Langis said winter sea ice coverage will continue to expand.

Energy & Climate

With respect to both energy independence and "climate change", Barack Obama's truthiness leaves a lot to be desired.

I'm Doug Ross and I approved this message.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

The "Smart" Car

 
Daimler-Benz Smart Car
Est. Cost: $12,000 to $24,000, depending upon options
Mileage: city 33 mpg, highway 40 mpg
Base warranty: two years or 24,000 miles.

Toyota Yaris
Est. Cost: $11,300 to $18,000, depending upon options
Mileage: city 29 mpg, highway 36 mpg
Base warranty: three years or 36,000 miles (drivetrain 5 years or 60,000 miles).

So, which car is the "smart" car?

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

The Clintons: "stealing from children to reward Indonesian billionaires"

 
Investors Business Daily has a startling story of Clinton shenanigans that are doubly outrageous. Not only did the Clintons facilitate the illicit contribution of over $1 million from an Indonesian coal syndicate, but -- in an apparent quid pro quo -- Bill Clinton locked the door to the the world's largest coal field, conveniently located in Utah. The field could have contributed greatly to American's energy independence.

Hillary Clinton called President Bush's talks with the Saudis about increasing oil output "pathetic." But it's not as pathetic as her co-president husband locking up billions of tons of clean coal in exchange for political contributions...

A large part of America's energy dependence on foreign sources can be traced to Sept. 18, 1996, when President Bill Clinton stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon on the Arizona side and signed an executive proclamation making 1.7 million acres of Utah a new national monument.

...In fact, the declaration of 1.7 million Utah acres as a national monument, [deprived] an energy-starved U.S. up to 62 billion tons of environmentally safe low-sulfur coal worth $1.2 trillion and minable with minimal surface impact, was a political payoff to the family of James Riady.

He's the son of Lippo Group owner Mochtar Riady. James was found guilty of — and paid a multimillion dollar fine for — funneling more than $1 million in illegal political contributions through Lippo Bank into various American political campaigns, including Bill Clinton's presidential run in 1992.

Clinton took off the world market the largest known deposit of clean-burning coal. And who owned and controlled the second-largest deposit in the world of this clean coal? The Indonesian Lippo Group of James Riady... The Utah reserve contains a kind of low-sulfur, low-ash and therefore low-polluting coal that can be found in only a couple of places in the world. It burns so cleanly that it meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act without additional technology.

...a large portion of the coal-rich Kaiparowits Plateau within the monument belonged to the children of Utah. When Utah became a state in 1896, ...a trust fund was created to collect and hold all the revenues directly for the benefit of schools. [Now], the schools stand to lose as much as $1 billion over the next 50 years. Phyllis Sorensen, head of the Utah chapter of the National Education Association, called Clinton's action a "felonious assault" and "stealing from the schoolchildren..."

Sarah Foster has additional info as does the Newsmax archives from 2001.

Update: Linked by Mitchell Langbert. Thanks!

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Are Frank Luntz's focus group Democrats really this dumb?

 
A few nights ago, I was watching a recap of the latest Democratic debate. Frank Luntz was closing out a focus group with a bunch of undecided Democrats. Luntz asked the question: which of you would ever vote for a Republican? Only a couple out of a dozen or more raised their hands. When probed, their answers followed a few major themes:

* "I have to work really hard to make ends meet"
* "CEOs make too much money while the middle class gets shafted"
* "Everything Bush does is to benefit his "big oil" buddies"

Coincidentally, these are precisely the themes promulgated unceasingly by the mainstream media.

* Income inequality: a meme constantly harped upon by the likes of Paul "Economoron" Krugman. What this rocket scientist hasn't deduced is that, yes, Bill Gates pulled down tens of billions of dollars by creating Microsoft. This "income inequality" was the direct result of creating many tens of thousands of jobs directly... and probably millions of jobs, worldwide, indirectly. So: is "income inequality" good... or bad?

* Big oil: news flash for the focus group geniuses - the big oil companies are publicly held. Therefore, I'd wager at least three quarters of the focus group were either direct or indirect (via mutual funds) owners of oil companies. Think Bush is cheating the system to benefit "big oil"? Tell you what. Try something really crazy like buying shares in XOM or FSESX.


Democrats have prohibited drilling in all areas marked in red

While you're at it, read The No Zone to see how Democrats keep oil prices high by preventing drilling in, well, pretty much any area where America has oil.

The mainstream media's constant marketing of these fabricated themes really resonates with certain --er-- uneducated voters. That's why the likes of the New York Times can't die quickly enough.

Oh, and Dem focus group: enjoy the tax hike and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) that you'll get with a Democratic presidency. Does the name "Jimmy Carter" ring a bell?

Hat tips: Don Surber and Larwyn

Saturday, November 10, 2007

How about an energy bill with "energy" in it?

 
House Republicans are fighting to increase domestic oil and gas production. Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO):

We want an energy bill that has energy in it... Gasoline prices are an average 85¢/gal higher since the Democrats took control of Congress in January. Markets react to what they think Congress will do. Every proposal the Democrats put on the table reduces energy supplies instead of increasing them.

Joe Barton (R-TX), the Energy and Commerce Committee's ranking minority member, said yesterday that the energy bill which the House passed in August took 2 trillion barrels of shale oil off the table by rolling back EPACT provisions.

He also suggested that if Democrats really wanted to reduce oil prices, they would insert language to allow Alaska National Wildlife Refuge leasing and an inventory of US Outer Continental Shelf deposits.

If ANWR had gone on line 10 years ago, it would have been producing 3 million b/d by now. If an OCS inventory had been conducted and prospects drilled, that would have given us another 1 million or 2 million b/d, and oil prices wouldn't be approaching $100/bbl... If the Democrats want an energy bill, we'll help them. If they simply want higher prices to discourage consumption, they're already getting that.

Democrats appear to be living in some sort of dream world. U.S. oil consumption greatly exceeds domestic production. This gap will only increase, even as alternative sources of fuel (such as ethanol and other biofuels) come on-line.

Meanwhile, Cuba is permitting foreign countries to drill in the Gulf within 50 miles of Florida. That's right, countries such as China are already drilling -- without our permission -- within spitting-distance of the U.S. Do the Democrats care?

No. The Democrats have vowed to suppress oil exploration in the areas marked "No." That's "The No Zone", where promising reserves go untapped, even while China drains oil from the Gulf of Mexico.

Drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)? To give you a sense of scale, if ANWR occupied the area of a football field, the requested exploration region is the size of a postage stamp. But, no - the Democrats oppose tapping a tiny scrap of land in ANWR. New refineries? Of course not. The Democrats oppose those, too.

Democrats say they want oil independence and instead force Americans to become more dependent upon foreign oil each and every day.

Preposterous? Ludicrous? Of course. It's just business as usual with the current Democratic leadership. Sometimes I think the only thing keeping the Earth aligned on its axis is the gyroscopic energy of FDR, Truman and JFK spinning in their graves.

Every time you visit the gas pump, I want you to remember your crack Democratic leadership team that prevents energy exploration here in the US.

Hat tips: Gateway Pundit and Larwyn

Friday, November 02, 2007

The Democratic Energy Plan: $5 Gas

 
Our beloved Democratic Congress, led by professional politicians Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, has hit another milestone. Unfortunately, their latest achievement is completely bungling U.S. energy policy, resulting in the highest oil prices ever seen on the face of the Earth.


Crude Oil and Gasoline Prices under the current Democratic Congress(source: Gateway Pundit, click to zoom)

You may ask: why would I blame the Democrats? The answer is a simple, brutal fact (hat tip: Gateway Pundit).


Democrats have prohibited drilling in all areas marked in red

The "not-in-my-backyard" Democrats have prohibited drilling in literally every oil-rich area that surrounds the country.

This US DOE Report posits that there are more than 9000 billion barrels of oil in this country alone. New technologies coming online could double U.S. oil reserves. Even the known stripper oil wells could be converted to crude oil production.

Were the Democrats' objections to local exploration based upon ecological grounds? Of course not. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that offshore rigs are ecologically sound. During the twin storms, the rigs were swept away like leaves in the tailwind of a Rosie O'Donnell fart. Did you hear about any oil spills in the aftermath of the storms? Nope. The Democrats' bogus objections to offshore drilling are based upon two factors unique to the liberal progressive wing of the party: stupidity compounded with arrogance.

Meanwhile, there's important offshore drilling news that the mainstream media hasn't chosen to share with its customers: China is drilling for oil 50 miles from Key West, Florida. Yes, you heard that right. Michael Moore's socialist utopia -- Cuba -- is leasing drilling rights to the Chinese. In turn, they are draining the gulf of oil with the tacit approval of your Democratic Congressional leadership.


Cuba has leased drilling rights to China 50 miles from Key West, FL

Now, you'll forgive me as I have to write my representatives a thank you note for their wonderful stewardship of U.S. energy policy.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Democrats Support Higher Oil Prices (and Higher Taxes)

 
Chart-of-the-Day offers an intriguing multi-decade view of oil prices, adjusted for inflation (hat tips: EagleSpeak and Larwyn).

The price of crude oil is rising once again. Today's chart provides some perspective to the latest price spike with a long-term view of West Texas Intermediate Crude. One point of interest is that oil is trading near 25-year highs but still well below the inflation-adjusted highs of 1980. It is also interesting to note that most oil price spikes were a result of Middle East crises and often preceded or coincided with a US recession.

Despite the catastrophic damage that high oil prices can wreak on our economy, Democrats oppose virtually every measure that would relieve the pain on average Americans.


The accompanying map depicts "The No Zone." This is the region surrounding the United States in which Democrats have blocked oil exploration.

Democrats oppose drilling in deepwater, even though Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved that modern offshore drilling platforms pose little or no pollution risk. Democrats oppose exploration in a tiny, postage-stamp sized region of Alaska. As for new refineries or nuclear energy, well, the Democrats oppose those, too. The net impact of Democratic behavior is that America will become increasingly dependent on foreign oil.

While alternative energy sources remain an admirable goal, they are decades away from becoming serious alternatives to oil. For good or bad, America's economy and national security hinge on access to oil. Ben Stein comments:

...If we lost all oil and gas products tomorrow, ...the world would simply collapse. There would be an immense depression beyond anything we saw in the 1930s -- the economy would go back to a primitive state. There would simply not be a functioning society. It would be as if there had been nuclear war, minus the casualties from blast and radiation... In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is.

The Democrats like to pretend that oil is a needless luxury by preventing exploration in sensible locations. But, in the mean time, Cuba is permitting foreign countries to drain the Gulf of Mexico of its oil. Cuba granted China drilling rights in the Gulf. And, in fact, China will be drilling within 50 miles of Florida.


While countries such as China suck oil out of the Gulf, Democrats continue to stonewall against sensible energy policies.

Act accordingly in 2008.

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Hillary Clinton's Anti-Innovation Debacle

 
Did you know that Hillary Clinton has introduced her "Innovation Agenda"? In truth, she should call it her Tubby, Bloated Government Bureaucracy Agenda, because that's truly what it is. I encourage you to read her position paper because I'm not making this stuff up.

* Establish a $50 billion "strategic energy fund" to devise ways to make the United States energy independent and reduce the threat of global warming.

Well, you know, there really aren't enough free-market incentives for better and cheaper energy sources. So Hillary intends to create a governmental bureaucracy that will invent our way to energy indpendence since the free-market isn't suitably efficient. I'd call it a boondoggle and a scam, but that understates its potential for abuse. And don't even get me going on global warming. I'd just encourage you to read about the UN, the IPCC and the blatant conflicts-of-interest associated with "anthropogenic climate change".

* Increase the basic research budgets 50 percent over 10 years at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy's Office of Science, and the Defense Department, with more focus on the physical sciences and engineering, high-risk research, and E-science initiatives that link Internet-based tools, global collaboration, supercomputers, high-speed networks, and software for simulation and visualization.

That sounds inexpensive. And we're not just talking science, we're talking e-Science™! All we need to do is increase budgets by 50% (don't ask how that figure was arrived at) and we'll get Internet-based global collaboration supercomputers talking with each other over high-speed networks to simulate and visualize e-Science! Damn it, why didn't I think of that? And it might even be less than the $50 billion energy fund!

* Direct the federal agencies to award prizes in order to accomplish specific innovation goals.

Can I win a prize for my super-hybrid, fuel-efficient corn-mobile? It gets five miles to the cob, so I think I deserve a prize! I haven't found a company that's keen on the idea, but a federal agency would be a great choice to fund my innovative corn-car!

* Triple the number of NSF fellowships to 3,000 a year and increase the size of each award by 33 percent to $40,000 a year.

This sounds like a cheap option: it's only $20,000,000 of your money. Just don't ask how Hillary arrived at these numbers; suffice it to say that it's a lot less expensive than her first choice.

* Provide tax incentives to encourage broadband deployment in underserved areas.

Tax incentives for the phone companies? Now that sounds like a good idea! Of course, some sources assert that the telcos already gamed taxpayers and never built the high-speed networks they had promised in underserved areas. Of Bruce Kushnick's book, "The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal," attorney Harold Feld wrote:

...[it] meticulously documents how the incumbent telcos have used the promise of broadband to win subsidies and regulatory goodies. The pattern Bruce describes is a fairly straightforward one. Bell companies go to [name state] legislature and promise to provide fiber networks (which will bring high-speed internet access, video services, jobs, education etc. to [name state]. All the telco asks in exchange is deregulation of prices, deregulation of competitive obligations (such as opening the network to rivals), and subsidies or tax incentives to reach the areas where it is not profitable to deploy. Then take the goodies, make some high profile efforts to deploy, then quietly forget about it while enjoying deregulated monopoly and tax subsidies. Don't worry, state legislators and the public will forget about it as well, and will accept the current state of the universe as the best possible world that can be achieved.

While apparently lifted from today's headlines, Kushnick traces this kind of behavior back to the early 1990s. His book asserts that this behavior has cost the U.S. tax payers over $200 Billion, at a minimum over the last ten years. Lest one ask “how could the Bells ever get away with such a thing?!?!” I will observe that what Kushnick documents are no secrets. Rather, like the purlioned letter, each broken promise, terminated project, absorbed tax incentive, and regulatory bonus happened in plain sight...

Kushnick estimates that the Bell companies overcharged north of $200 billion from 1992-2004 for these networks, including various financial perks. On average, Kushnick believes that each American household has already paid $2000 apiece for various network buildouts.

Thanks, telco lobbyists!

* * * * * * * * *

And what will pay for all of these government programs? Taxes. You and I will, once again, feed the mouths of thousands more bureaucrats and lobbyists.

Hillary's solution is taxes and government. Big government with a capital B. More bureaucracies. More grift. More waste.

And are you one of those poor souls who believes Hillary can duplicate Bill's go-go economy? Unless Tim Berners-Lee invents another world-wide web and Mr. Peabody dials us back to Y2K on the time machine, you'd be wise to think again.

I have two words for Hillary's anti-innovation, mega-taxation agenda: Economic. Disaster.

Monday, May 07, 2007

Frivolous vs. Magnanimous: Energy Policy

 
Frivolous: Democrats claim they want energy independence, but their policies are at odds with their claimed intent.


The accompanying map depicts "The No Zone." This is the region surrounding the United States in which Democrats have forbidden oil exploration. Take, for example, ANWR. The Alaskan wildlife refuge is an immense property. To put it into its proper scale, if ANWR was the size of a football field, the requested oil exploration area is the size of a postage stamp.

Democrats oppose drilling in deepwater, even though Hurricanes Katrina and Rita proved that modern offshore drilling platforms pose little or no pollution risk. As for new refineries, well, the Democrats oppose those, too.

The net impact of Democratic behavior is that America will become ever more dependent on foreign oil.

While alternative energy sources remain an admirable goal, they are decades away from becoming serious alternatives to oil, which is the lifeblood of our economy. Several months ago, Ben Stein described the reliance of our society on oil:

...If we lost all oil and gas products tomorrow, ...the world would simply collapse. There would be an immense depression beyond anything we saw in the 1930s -- the economy would go back to a primitive state. There would simply not be a functioning society. It would be as if there had been nuclear war, minus the casualties from blast and radiation.

In a word, we cannot as a modern society or even a modestly industrial society live without oil and gas. That is, [it is not] a luxury or a narcotic. [It is] a basic necessity of life, as basic as almost any commodity there is.

The Democrats simply pretend that this isn't the case by preventing exploration in sensible locations.

In the mean time, Cuba is permitting foreign countries to drain the Gulf of Mexico of its oil. For example, Cuba granted China drilling rights in the Gulf. And, in fact, China will be drilling within 50 miles of Florida.


And while countries such as China will be sucking oil out of the Gulf, Democrats are continuing to stonewall against sensible energy policies.

Many Democrats call themselves "progressives", but when it comes to energy policy, the term "regressive" comes to mind.

Magnanimous: Republicans, if nothing else, are pragmatists. They recognize the landscape of energy dependence and have created realistic gameplans for dealing with the situation.


United States Senator Larry Craig (R-ID) has assembled a powerful set of graphs that illustrate the real problem... and a potential solution.


The bottom line is that in order to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, we must open up new avenues of exploration and refinement. To do anything less is to court disaster, but that seems to be standard fare for the modern Democratic party.

Hat tips: Gateway Pundit and Larwyn. Frivolous vs. Magnanimous is a recurring series. Email us with suggestions!