Europe Exhausting Herself Running From Energy Boogeymen

Cross-posted from Al Fin Energy


Europe's high energy costs are driving increasing numbers of industries and large employers overseas. Most of Europe's high energy costs are caused by Europe's reflexive flight from inexpensive energy of the hydrocarbon and nuclear varieties.

High energy costs are emerging as an issue in Europe that is prompting debate, including questioning of the Continent’s clean energy initiatives. Over the past few years, Europe has spent tens of billions of euros in an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

“We embarked on a big transition to a low-carbon economy without taking into account the cost and without factoring in the competitive impact,” says Fabien Roques, head of European power and carbon at the energy consulting firm IHS CERA in Paris. “I think there will be a critical review of some of these policies in the next few years.” _NewYorkTimes

Carbon dioxide is boogeyman #1 for the European greens who control much of the continent's energy policy. But Europe's ineffectual attempts to reduce carbon emissions amount to suicidal self-flagellation and self-strangulation. It is all grand theatre, with the end result being self righteous self-immolation.

Boogeyman #2 is nuclear power. Germany is the poster boy of sacrificial self-castration in this regard.

The changes have been rapid. Nuclear power supplies 17 percent of the country’s energy needs, down from 23, while renewables have climbed from 20 to 25 percent in just months.

...Despite technological advances, wind, solar, hydro and other green energy sources still remain an unprofitable investment in a fair market. The way to encourage their exploitation is through a set of feed-in tariffs, a policy where energy companies are forced to buy electricity from green generators at a price set by the government (which is usually legislated to remain the same for two decades).

The German government has passed the cost of the payment from the energy companies to the consumer... This week, energy companies announced that the charge would go up by 47 percent for next year. The average Germany household will now pay €250 a year to sponsor green energy producers, four times more than in 2009. _RT

But green energy is expensive and unreliable. Which means that big industries whose profit margins depend upon the use of inexpensive energy, must move overseas -- and take their good paying jobs with them.

On Dec. 19, Voestalpine, an Austrian maker of high-quality steel for the auto industry, announced that it would build a plant in North America that would employ natural gas to reduce iron ore to a kind of raw iron that would then be used in the company's European blast furnaces.

...Energy-intensive industries like chemicals and steel are, if not closing European plants outright, looking toward places like the United States that have lower energy costs as they pursue new investments.

BASF, the German chemical giant, has been outspoken about the consequences of energy costs for competitiveness and is building a new plant in Louisiana.

“We Europeans are currently paying up to four or five times more for natural gas than the Americans,” Harald Schwager, a member of the executive board at BASF, said last month. “Energy efficiency alone will not allow us to compensate for this. Of course, that means increased competition for all the European manufacturing sites.” _NYT

Europeans have unwittingly handed their futures over to saboteurs in high places. Green government officials and their advisors are pushing European economies over a cliff, for the sake of faux environmental fear mongering. They are running from the energy boogeymen, and in the process are destroying the economic futures of their people.

Europeans are no longer living in a democracy, but are being controlled by a non-representative quasi-feudal system known as the European Union, based in Brussels. And the EU is essentially in thrall to the faux environmental power interests.

With such suicidal leadership, it is no wonder that demographic projections show most European populations rapidly withering away.

The future of Europe rests in the hands of her people, although Europeans have not been noted historically for understanding that fact -- except for the popular uprisings against communist governments in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

And there is very little time.

US Election Sets Obama Free to Pursue "Final Solutions"

This article is adapted from a posting on Al Fin Energy

President Obama's powerful interlocking network of campaign support organisations has succeeded in making sure that the US President can sit in the White House for another four years. This feat opens the door for a great deal of new regulation which has been held back until after the US elections.

President Obama has spent the past year punting on a slew of job-killing EPA regulations that will destroy millions of American jobs and cause energy prices to skyrocket even more,” Senator Inhofe said. “From greenhouse gas regulations to water guidance to the tightening of the ozone standard, the Obama-EPA has delayed the implementation of rule after rule because they don’t want all those pink slips and price spikes to hit until after the election. But President Obama’s former climate czar Carol Browner was very clear about what’s in store for next year: she told several green groups not to worry because President Obama has a big green ‘to-do’ list for 2013—so they’ll get what they want. As a result, hard working Americans will lose their jobs and be subjected to skyrocketing energy prices

This report also importantly puts the spotlight back on an Obama-EPA that has, as the Washington Post said, earned a ‘reputation for abuse.’ It serves as a stark reminder that President Obama has presided over a green team administration that works every day to ‘crucify’ oil and gas companies and make sure that ‘if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem.’ _Independent.org

Not just the EPA, but the Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Land Management, and a number of other US federal agencies, have prepared regulations which will work to strangulate US energy industries:

... the proposed BLM rule would drive oil and gas developers off federal and tribal lands. Complying with the rules is too complicated and costly. Producers can realize a much faster and much better return on their capital investment by developing oil and gas reserves on adjoining private lands.

Federal and tribal lands hold large reserves of oil and natural gas. At a time when the United States desperately needs to move toward, not away from, energy independence, it makes no sense to let bureaucratic meddling effectively place these valuable domestic reserves out of reach. _Killing US Shale

Mr. Obama is certainly the president of the US, and probably will be for a number of years to come. He has the right to put his personal stamp on government policy.

In his first term, Mr. Obama largely kept his hands off the shale energy boom. That was fortunate for him, because without the shale boom, the US economy would have been in much worse condition. He "confined" his executive meddling on energy to a stonewalling of offshore oil, a slow regulatory death of coal, an attack against Canadian oil and oilsands, and what is essentially a freeze on new nuclear development.

But now, elections have consequences, and Mr. Obama has no reason to fear the full implementation of his agenda of energy starvation. The greatest uncertainty remaining is: How is it to be done, and when? These things must be done delicately __attributed to the Wicked Witch of the West.

Pathetic Germany: Who Can Save You Now?

This article is cross-posted from Al Fin Energy blog

Germany intends to produce 40% of its electric power from big wind and big solar by 2020 -- and 80% of its power from big green by 2050. German politicians say it will work. They are betting the entire country on it. The cost of Germany's great energy experiment -- Energiewende -- has risen to upwards of $250 billion over the next 8 years. That is about 7% of Germany's 2011 GDP. Electricity costs are already going up, and German electricity consumers must pay a 15% renewable-energy surcharge tax with every monthly bill.

Germany's government is betting its industry and its economy that green energy technologists can somehow pull a herd of rabbits out of a thimble, and save the day. Pathetic Germany: Who can save you now?

In 2010, the German government declared that it would undertake what has popularly come to be called an Energiewende—an energy turn, or energy revolution. This switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy is the most ambitious ever attempted by a heavily industrialized country: it aims to cut greenhouse-gas emissions 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, and 80 percent by midcentury. The goal was challenging, but it was made somewhat easier by the fact that Germany already generated more than 20 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, which produces almost no greenhouse gases. Then last year, responding to public concern over the post-tsunami nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, Chancellor Angela Merkel ordered the eight oldest German nuclear plants shut down right away. A few months later, the government finalized a plan to shut the remaining nine by 2022. Now the Energiewende includes a turn away from Germany's biggest source of low-­carbon electricity.

To some German economists, the country's energy policy is simply wrong-headed. Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, is especially scathing. "The Energiewende is a turn into nowhere-land, because the green technologies are just not sufficient to provide a replacement for modern society's energy needs," he says. "It is wrong to shut down the atomic power plants, because this is a cheap source of energy, and wind and solar power are by no means able to provide a replacement. They are much more expensive, and the energy that comes out is of inferior quality. Energy-intensive industries will move out, and the competitiveness of the German manufacturing sector will be reduced or wages will be depressed." _TechnologyReview

The problems with Germany's plan are too many, too obvious, and too grave to dismiss. And yet that is exactly what Germany's politicians are doing, to the ultimate demise of the nation's industrial might and its economy. And when Germany goes, it will drag the rest of Europe down with it.

There is much about the current policy that arguably isn't logical. In the short term at least, the decision to close the nuclear plants means that the Energiewende will actually push utilities to rely more heavily on coal. Last year, for example, RWE fired up two long-planned new boilers at an existing facility near the Belgian border that burns the dirtiest fossil fuel of them all: brown lignite coal. Though these boilers are cleaner than the ones they're replacing, the coal plant is the largest of its kind in the world, and it's going full blast these days to keep up with power demand.

...Inevitably, some hot July week will come when a high-pressure system stalls over Europe, stilling turbines just when sunburned Germans reach for their air conditioners. Until large-scale, cheap storage is available, gas power plants, which can start up quickly and efficiently, will be the most practical way to cope with these situations. But there's little incentive to build such plants. Owners of gas plants meant to meet peak power needs can no longer count on running for a certain number of hours, since the need will no longer fall on predictable workday afternoons but come and go with the sun and wind. Says ­Ottmar ­Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, "The design of the electricity market will change fundamentally. You have fluctuating demand, and at the same time a fluctuating supply. The linkage and the interplay in these two dimensions has become the subject of intense research. There could be new and emerging market failures." _TechnologyReview

Market failures? Certainly. But more importantly, power failures. As power blackouts and cascading failures become more common across Germany -- and thus across Europe -- Germans will find themselves immersed in the true experience of big green: Freezing or roasting in the dark.

Without enough cheap, reliable power to support the high-technology industry and the transportation system, Germany's economy—and that of Europe as a whole—could be in trouble. Already some German firms are building new manufacturing facilities elsewhere; for example, last year the chemical producer Wacker ­Chemie decided to build a polysilicon plant in Tennessee, partly because energy costs in Germany were so high. Weale says, "The quality of the supply would only have to deteriorate a little bit and it would be quite serious for this high-­technology industry. We've already seen, even without the lights going out, that industry is getting nervous." _TechnologyReview

Not long ago, German politicians were talking about having to spend $25 billion on new power infrastructure to facilitate new offshore wind installations and new solar power plants. Now, they are talking about up to $250 billion -- a significant portion of German GDP.

But in reality, German economists admit that no one knows how high the ultimate cost of the Energiewende will grow to be.

And in the end, what will Germany have? A former economic powerhouse of Europe, reduced to dependency upon intermittent unreliable forms of energy. A nation in demographic decline, stripped of its most profitable industrial producers -- because these producers could not depend upon Germany's power supply.

Rarely has a nation gone through the rapid ups and downs that Germany has undergone over the past century. It is not certain that the much depleted German character can survive the next collapse.

Germany's Strange Case of Energy Anorexia Nervosa

The following article is adapted from an article on Al Fin Energy

“If Germany succeeds, it could be a role model for economies all over the world,” said Claudia Kemfert, DIW’s senior energy expert. “If it fails, it will be a disaster for Germany’s politicians, society and economy.” _Bloomberg

Germany will serve as a test case to show whether industrialized countries can compete while relying on renewables _TechnologyReview

Germany -- the economic powerhouse of Europe -- has settled upon a risky energy strategy, staking its industrial future on intermittent and unreliable forms of energy: big wind and big solar. Germany is turning away from nuclear power, and aims to use intermittent renewables to generate 33% 35% of its electric power by 2020, and 50% of its electric power by 2050.

Unfortunately for the future of German industry, the intermittency of big wind and big solar will make it almost impossible for German utilities to provide clean, affordable, and reliable power to industry and other consumers, at the high levels of penetration by intermittent renewables that Germany is trying to achieve. Clearly, some form of utility-scale storage would be needed to make such a scheme "work." That is why German planners are considering the "hydrogen option."

The hydrogen option involves using intermittent renewables to convert water into H2 and O2 using electrolysis, then converting the H2 back to electricity when needed, using fuel cells. Unfortunately, the round trip conversion efficiency of the "hydrogen option" is only about 20 or 25% -- in other words, Germans will lose 75% to 80% of the total energy generated by the intermittent renewables. Which is precious little to begin with.

With that information in mind, here is more about the German plan from Technology Review:

If Germany is to meet its ambitious goals of getting a third of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050, it must find a way to store huge quantities of electricity in order to make up for the intermittency of renewable energy.

Siemens says it has just the technology: electrolyzer plants, each the size of a large warehouse, that split water to make hydrogen gas. The hydrogen could be used when the wind isn't blowing to generate electricity in gas-fired power plants, or it could be used to fuel cars.

Producing hydrogen is an inefficient way to store energy—about two-thirds of the power is lost in the processes of making the hydrogen and using the hydrogen to generate electricity. But Siemens says it's the only storage option that can achieve the scale that's going to be needed in Germany.

Unlike conventional industrial electrolyzers, which need a fairly steady supply of power to efficiently split water, Siemens's new design is flexible enough to run on intermittent power from wind turbines. It's based on proton-exchange membrane technology similar to that used in fuel cells for cars, which can operate at widely different power levels. The electrolyzers can also temporarily operate at two to three times their rated power levels, which could be useful for accommodating surges in power on windy days.

Germany, which has led the world in installing solar capacity, isn't just concerned about climate change. Its leaders think that in the long term, renewable energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels, so it could give the country an economic advantage, says Miranda Schreurs, director of the Environmental Policy Research Center at the Freie Universität Berlin. Germany will serve as a test case to show whether industrialized countries can compete while relying on renewables. _MITTechnologyReview

How Shale Revolution Creates Jobs; How Obama Destroys Them

The oil and gas industry could be creating even more jobs if the United States had more of a pro-development policy for traditional energy sources instead of a government-driven, heavily subsidized, green energy approach. For example, energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie evaluated the impact on production, jobs, and government revenues of implementing regulatory policies that support the development of oil and natural gas resources, including: a) opening federal land that is currently “off limits” to exploration and development; b) lifting the drilling moratorium in New York; c) increasing the rate of permitting in the offshore Gulf of Mexico; d) approving the Keystone XL and other future Canada-to-U.S. oil pipelines; and e) leaving regulation of shale resources predominantly at the state level.

Under a scenario that encourages the development of new and existing domestic energy resources, Wood Mackenzie estimates that by 2015 an additional 1.27 million barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) could be produced, rising to 10.4 million BOE by 2030. That would be a 47 percent increase over the estimated 2030 production levels under a current development path case.

Furthermore, under the new development path, there would be a potential increase of 1 million new oil and natural gas jobs by 2018, and 1.4 million new jobs by 2030, while adding cumulative potential government revenue of $36 billion by 2015, and nearly $803 billion by 2030. _American

A Remarkable Lack of Concern for America's Energy Future
A new report from the World Economic Forum (PDF) reveals that about 9% of new US jobs in 2011 were created by the shale energy revolution.

The report said the oil and gas industry contributed 37,000 direct jobs in 2011, which led to the creation of an additional 111,000 indirect jobs during the same period. It said the multiplier effect for solar and wind energy were lower during operation, but higher at up to 3.3 times during construction.

“We always suspected that energy had a vital role to play in the economic recovery but we were still surprised when the data uncovered the magnitude of the sector’s multiplier effects,” Roberto Bocca, head of energy Iidustries at the World Economic Forum, said in a release.

The domestic U.S. oil and gas industry is in the midst of the its biggest boom in a generation, with hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technology unlocking billions of barrels of oil and decades’ worth of natural gas from previously untappable tight coal seam fissures. _Reuters via GWPF

The Obama administration has, of course, been trying to find a way to shut down as many forms of energy production as possible -- and to hell with jobs.

The oil and natural gas industry, one of the strongest job-creating sectors of the U.S. economy, has been unfavorably targeted by President Obama’s proposed 2013 fiscal year (FY) federal budget. To start with, Obama is proposing, for the fourth consecutive year, to repeal Section 199 of the “American Jobs Creation Act.” If enacted, this selectively punitive treatment would increase taxes on oil and natural gas companies by almost $12 billion over the next decade. It could possibly jeopardize some of the millions of American jobs supported by oil and natural gas producers and prolong the sub-par “jobless recovery.”

Overall employment in the U.S. economy still remains short by almost 5 million jobs, and more than 3 percent below the pre-recession employment peak in November 2007. But the oil and natural gas industry has added 34,200 jobs over that period and expanded industry employment by more than 22 percent. Oil and natural gas companies have been on a hiring spree, adding almost 100 new payroll jobs every day for the last year.

In contrast, job creation in green energy projects has so far been very disappointing. According to a recent Wall Street Journal analysis of $4.3 billion in public funding for wind energy under Section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, there were 36 wind farms that employed 7,200 American workers during the peak of their construction, or an average of 200 workers per project. Today, according to these companies and state and local government economic development officials, those projects employ only about 300 workers, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $14 million per permanent job. _TheAmerican

Obama's antagonism toward reliable sources of energy appears to be based upon at least two foundations: 1. A desire to please big money faux environmentalist supporters, who are pursuing an agenda of carbon hysteria, and 2. A desire to punish and discipline successful private sector enterprises, and to bring them more under the control of a bloated central governmental bureaucracy.

Anyone who has read Mr. Obama's first two autobiographies and observed his early career in community organising and political activism, will understand the man's antagonism toward capitalism, free markets, and any source of wealth and power creation which competes with a central, redistributive government.

The people of the US, in the meantime, must find ways of surviving despite their president's internal whims and caprices.

Good luck with that.

A Policy of Energy Starvation in Germany: A Cautionary Tale

Last spring, Chancellor Angela Merkel set Germany on course to eliminate nuclear power in favor of renewable energy sources. Now, though, several industries are suffering as electricity prices rapidly rise. Many companies are having to close factories or move abroad. _Spiegel

When governments embrace the green fantasy, their economies inevitably suffer. Germany's government went even more deeply into energy starvation than US President Obama's government. Germany actually closed its cleanest and most reliable source of electric power: nuclear plants.

Since Chancellor Angela Merkel's government abruptly decided to phase out nuclear energy last spring in the wake of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, the situation for industries that consume a lot of electricity has become much more tenuous.

Energy prices are rising and the risk of power outages is growing. But the urgently needed expansion of the grid, as well as the development of replacement power plants and renewable energy sources is progressing very slowly. A growing number of economic experts, business executives and union leaders are putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of Merkel's coalition, which pairs her conservatives with the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP). The government, they say, has expedited de-industrialization.

The energy supply is now "the top risk for Germany as a location for business," says Hans Heinrich Driftmann, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). "One has to be concerned in Germany about the cost of electricity," warns European Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger. And Bernd Kalwa, a member of the general works council at ThyssenKrupp, says heatedly: "Some 5,000 jobs are in jeopardy within our company alone, because an irresponsible energy policy is being pursued in Düsseldorf and Berlin."

...There is no sign yet of the green economic miracle that the federal government promised would accompany Germany's new energy strategy. On the contrary, many manufacturers of wind turbines and solar panels complain that business is bad and are cutting jobs. Some solar companies have already gone out of business. The environmental sector faces a number of problems, especially -- and ironically -- those stemming from high energy prices.

...the immediate shutdown of seven nuclear power plants last March is affecting supply, as the Krefeld example shows. The steel mill requires massive amounts of electricity to produce stainless steel, used in such products as sinks and auto bodies. The metal is heated to more than 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit) in giant furnaces. A single smelter consumes about as much energy in an hour as 10 single-family homes in an entire year. Electricity makes up a fifth of the mill's total costs, says Harald Behmenburg, the plant manager.

The price of electricity is moving in only one direction: steeply up. For the Krefeld plant, the cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity has tripled since 2000.

And there is no end in sight. When Merkel's new energy policy was introduced last year, says plant manager Behmenburg, planning for the future became virtually impossible. Behmenburg says that it is impossible now to know what will happen to the supply situation and the price of electricity in the coming years. The mill, steeped in tradition, didn't stand a chance of surviving, he says.

..."The promotion of renewable energy has led to substantial displacement effects on employment in the conventional energy production sectors, as well as in downstream industries that are particularly energy-intensive," concludes the report on a conference held at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research last year. The political opposition has also recognized the importance of the issue. Some believe that the green economy is everything, warns Sigmar Gabriel, chairman of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). "But they forget that they can't make a wind turbine without steel, plastic, mechanical engineering and electrical engineering."

It is equally important to stabilize the power grid as quickly as possible to prevent blackouts from occurring. Until now, the reliability of the German electricity supply was seen as a significant advantage for doing business in the country. But the loss of several nuclear power plants, coupled with the unpredictability of electricity from wind and solar sources, has changed the situation. _Spiegel

Germany's ongoing demographic decline will only be made worse by such abysmally irresponsible policies as the current energy starvation policy. Shutting down reliable sources of large scale power makes a wide range of important industries instantly untenable. The inevitable loss of industry and jobs is accompanied by a tragic loss of opportunity at all levels of society.

US president Obama has embarked upon a similar path to green oblivion, but fortunately for the US, he has been more tentative and cautious than Germany has been. Obama has also been lucky, in that his government has been unable to shut down oil & gas fracking of tight hydrocarbons. As a result of Obama's fortunate failure to shut down the North American shale bonanza, the US economy is still able to tread water.

But Obama has shut down several coal energy plants -- de-stabilising the power grid to a small but significant degree. He has delayed the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada, thus unnecessarily reducing global supplies of crude. Future US nuclear development under Obama and NRC chairman Jaczko has been set back many years. But at least they have not shut down the crucial existing nuclear plants. Not yet.

Extra Bonus: Here is a summary of a recent set of 5 future scenarios for the year 2050, from the Deutsche Post DHL. Al Fin futurists find it fascinating that the German futurists failed to include the ongoing demographic decline in the German welfare state, or the ominous consequences of German green policies such as carbon hysteria and anti-nuclear hysteria.

It is possible that the scars from 1930s and 1940s Nazism, and from Communist dysfunction in the East, have not yet healed cleanly in the national psyche of Germany. Wiser Germans had best find a solution quickly, because it is the dysfunctional German psyche that is at the root of the nation's problems.

How Obama Could Help US Energy: Get His Energy Starvationist Government Out of the *&%# Way!

Without his nose growing visibly, the President claimed the government was behind the technological advances that led to the current shale gas boom, and even suggested that he might take credit for the rise in domestic oil production. In fact, Mr. Obama's administration has hampered and castigated oil companies at every turn. In the light of the hysterical grandstanding over the BP Gulf spill (whose impact proved to be greatly exaggerated), it was ironic indeed to hear the President now declare a great opening up of offshore exploration.

The industry has responded to attacks by becoming more innovative and productive. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, between 2007 and 2010, U.S. oil production grew from 5.1 million barrels a day (mbd) to 5.5 mbd. The agency predicts domestic production will hit 6.7 mbd by 2020, helping take imports down to 36% of domestic usage in 2035 from 60% in 2005. So much for peak oil. Meanwhile, the EIA also predicts that by 2016, thanks to the shale boom, the U.S. will be a natural gas exporter. _NatPost

In other words, the US oil & gas sector has grown and prospered despite Obama's agenda of energy starvation. Imagine how much healthier US energy and US industry would be without vicious governmental harassment and regulatory handicapping.

After taking credit for prosperity that has occurred despite everything he could do to shut it down, Mr. Obama goes on to promote the green energy scams which are helping to kill Europe, and which will certainly destroy any economy foolish enough to depend upon them.

One wonders if the President has the slightest clue about the flagging state of the wind and solar industries in Germany, or that what is boosting China's alternatives industry is government subsidies ... from other countries.

The President announced a plan to devote huge swathes of public land to the development of clean energy to power "three million homes." He also apparently committed the Navy to buying a chunk of this power, as if it weren't expensive enough to guard the Strait of Hormuz.

Mercantilist alternative energy strategies represent - as Jimmy Carter famously suggested - the "moral equivalent of war." The problem is that it is war on one's own economy. At least, with his partial ceasefire against the oil industry, President Obama is now only shooting himself in one policy foot rather than both. _NatPost

Obama says he is promoting clean oil technologies, and takes credit for the economic success of technologies which he has tried to kill, but more intelligent people can see through his endless crap. Obama's ongoing (although publicly undeclared) war against coal, oil sands, oil shale kerogens, shale oil & gas, advanced nuclear power, arctic oil, offshore oil, etc. etc. amounts to a total policy of energy starvation -- relentlessly pursued by the EPA, NRC, Interior Department, and a score of other agencies and politically controlled bureaucratic entities.

Warren Meyer: Obama Deserves No Credit for US Oil & Gas Boom

Master Resource: Did the Government Invent the Shale Gas Revolution?

US President Obama Misrepresents His Own Record on Oil & Gas in Televised Speech

Previously published on Al Fin Energy blog

Obama Declares Energy Starvation: Defies His Own Jobs Council

President Obama’s jobs council called Tuesday for an “all-in approach” to energy policy that includes expanded oil-and-gas drilling as well as expediting energy projects like pipelines.

“[W]e should allow more access to oil, natural gas and coal opportunities on federal lands,” states the year-end report released Tuesday by the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

The report does not specifically mention the Keystone XL oil pipeline, but it endorses moving forward quickly with projects that “deliver electricity and fuel,” including pipelines. _TheHill

Meanwhile, US President Obama defies the job council and rejects one of the greatest potential provider of US jobs and prosperity -- the Keystone pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

Nat Jnl

In a decision sure to re-ignite a fierce energy debate, the Obama administration was announcing on Wednesday its rejection of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline...

... A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, decried the news. “President Obama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs and sell American energy security to the Chinese,” said Brendan Buck. “The president won’t stand up to his political base even to create American jobs. This is not the end of this fight.”

Texas Gov. Rick Perry also jumped on the news. "The president's focused more on the next election than on the next generation."_NatJnl

The unutterably stupid decision by the former junior Senator from Illinois is in keeping with his overall policy agenda of "energy starvation." Mr. Obama's ruling clique has sandbagged offshore oil drilling, coal mining, safe new nuclear energy reactors, oil shales, arctic drilling, various reliable methods of electrical power generation, and is in the process of putting pressure on shale oil & gas -- the one bright spot in his entire economic reign.

Mr. Obama's championing of bankrupt and unreliable green energy -- such as big wind and big solar -- exposed him as an inept and incompetent venture capitalist who likes to play with taxpayer's money for the benefit of political cronies.

Advanced economies need a huge amount of reliable and affordable energy to prosper. Mr. Obama has chosen to choke off energy supplies and starve the US private sector of its vital needs, and to harry it with ruinous regulation, taxation, mandates, and competition from tax-funded cronies.

US voters had best wise up to this president's agenda before they are all collecting government relief checks, paid in increasingly worthless Obama dollars.

More from Bob Zubrin

Obama to American people: "It's nothing personal. It's just politics, chumps."

Is Gregory Jaczko US Public Enemy # 1?

Messrs. Obama and Reid teamed up to elevate Gregory Jaczko to chair the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the nation's independent regulator. Mr. Jaczko was anything but a neutral designee, having served for years on the staffs of both Mr. Reid and Massachusetts' antinuke Rep. Edward Markey. As a Reid adviser, Mr. Jaczko headed up opposition to Yucca. The clear intent in making him chairman was to ensure Yucca's demise. _WSJ

But Jaczko was meant to kill all new nuclear power, not just the Yucca Mountain repository.

Image via WSJ
Gregory Jaczko is Obama's Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman. He is also the #1 enemy of safe, new, advanced nuclear power in the US. This means that Mr. Jaczko is the enemy of an abundant and clean future for the US, which places him rather close to the top position as public enemy # 1 in the US. Of course, he would have to compete with a number of other Obama administration officials, including the top dog himself.

Mr. Jazcko has been unilaterally closing down agency work on Yucca, even as the Energy Department's actions remain in adjudication. He's overridden fellow commissioners on Yucca decisions. He recently gave himself extraordinary emergency powers in the wake of the Japanese nuclear incident—without informing fellow commissioners or Congress. Mr. Jaczko has yet to make clear whether those powers are ongoing, when they will cease, or what actions he's taken with them.

All of this has inspired a revolt among agency staff and commissioners, and it's undermining the body's other work. Only this week, the NRC's inspector general finished an investigation into the chairman's actions. Mr. Jaczko claims the report vindicates him (though he refuses to release the report). House Energy and Commerce Republicans have their own copy (which they intend to release), and they'll be telling a starkly different story come Tuesday, when they hold a hearing on the report's gory details _WSJ

Brian Wang presents more details on how Obama's NRC is obstructing the licensing and permitting of new nuclear designs:

The NRC has over $1 billion per year in budget and over 3000 staff (charts below). Not only is the US not competing with China in building new reactors but the paperwork of its regulations continues to slow it down from even basic operations. The NRC also collects $200 an hour from utilities to cover the costs of license reviews. _Much more w/graphs atNextBigFuture

The NRC charges hundreds of millions of dollars for licensing new designs -- which eliminates all entries but the ones with the deepest pockets. Of course, those with close ties to the Obama administration -- such as General Electric -- receive priority treatment. But even in such cases of cronies, the NRC tends to drag its feet. Such bureaucratic foot dragging often means billions of dollars in extra expenses for nuclear projects -- often enough to break the project entirely.

Jaczko is costing the US dearly in energy, jobs, GDP, and future prospects. He is a man to be despised and held in contempt, for what he has done and what he continues to do. Yet he is but one of many powerful obstructionists and energy starvationists who has taken up residence in the Obama regime.

If US voters cannot find it within themselves to clean out this nest of rats in 2012, future prospects for the US will grow much dimmer, and very quickly.

Cross-posted from Al Fin Energy blog.

More: Nuclear advocate, blogger, and engineer Rod Adams demands that the NRC be audited

Gregory Jaczko is making implausible excuses for lack of productivity under his leadership at the NRC.

Obama Makes Predicting the Economic Future Easy

Growing a healthy economy is very much like growing a healthy garden. Economies need the proper conditions to grow, just as gardens do. When a gardener is neglectful of his garden, one can predict a poor result long before the crop is due to mature. The same thing applies to the managers of an economy. Bad -- incompetent or even malicious -- managers make prediction of the future easy.

US President Obama rode into the White House on a huge wave of hope, change, and popular enthusiasm. Everywhere he went, he was met by huge and adoring crowds. Expectations for this new president were astronomically high . . . . and then something happened -- the new president was inaugurated and put in a position where he had to accomplish something, for the first time in his life.

Over the years, Mr. Obama's achievements failed to live up to his promises and the astronomical expectations set for him. As the economy failed to improve -- and in many ways actually worsened -- the number of people flocking to his banner gradually and reluctantly fell away. "How could I have known that he would be such a bad president?", Obama voters would ask themselves, as they walked away from the president, sadly shaking their heads in disappointment and shame.

But in the real world, anyone paying attention could have predicted the ongoing debacle of the Obama economic descent into quagmire. Instead of providing conditions for the economy to grow and prosper, under Obama, debt, designed energy-starvation, and growth-strangling regulations expanded exponentially.

It is easy to see where the economy was going when the gardener is a narcissistic clown of no achievement and no competence, such as Obama. Never having participated in the productive private sector, Obama had no interest in seeing the prospering of markets and trade.

Consequently, debt has ballooned, the dollar has progressively lost value, the cost of consumables has exploded, jobs have disappeared in the millions, wages have shrunk, government has grown, regulations that make starting businesses difficult have proliferated, gold and silver prices have soared, and anyone with cash is holding onto it, just waiting for a glimmer of hope -- such as the Obama's packing up and moving out of the White House.

Of course, the damage Obama has done will live on for many years and decades. Once government regulations and departments are established, they can become almost impossible to remove -- no matter how destructive they are to the prosperity and well-being of the people.

And yet, economic seeds of prosperity -- just like the seeds of plants -- are still there waiting for the proper conditions that will allow them to bloom and grow. Growth and prosperity will be much spottier than they would have been without Obama, but they will come back to parts of the US. Look to the places where shale oil & gas fracking are being done to see pockets of prosperity so strong as to resist even Obama's attempts to shut them down.

The Obama economic agenda is equivalent to a "salting of the soil" approach to gardening. But even salt-toxic soil can be remediated so that healthy growth can take place again. But as I said, the post-Obama recovery in the US (and consequently around the globe) will be spotty. Keep your eyes open. Pay attention.

Predicting the economy will not be so easy when a different president is elected.

Cross-posted to abu al-fin

How the Green Movement Can Trigger the Great Human Dieoff

Powerful persons in the global green movement would like to see the human population of Earth reduced by at least 90%. For several decades, many of them believed that resource depletion, energy scarcity, mass starvation, or voluntary sterilisation might achieve their grand goal. But it is slowly dawning on them that if they are to slash the human population of the planet to a size that they consider manageable, they will have to be a bit more proactive.

Just in time for the great green engineered human dieoff, biological scientists have devised the perfect method of genocidal species extinction.

IN THE urban jungle of Juazeiro in Brazil, an army is being unleashed. It is an army like no other: the soldiers' mission is to copulate rather than fight. But they are harbingers of death, not love. Their children appear healthy at first but die just before they reach adulthood, struck down by the killer genes their fathers passed on to them.

These soldiers are the first of a new kind of creature - "autocidal" maniacs genetically modified to wipe out their own kind without harming other creatures....the approach should work with just about any animal - from invasive fish and frogs to rats and rabbits....it could transform the way we think about genetically engineered animals.

... the autocidal approach could not only be used to control invasive species such as cane toads, but that it is the only method that could work in many cases. "It's the only hope we have for the long-term control and eradication of these pests," he says. "Other efforts help, but in the end they are Band-Aids in the absence of a real solution."

Thresher has come up with a way to create fish that produce only male offspring. Releasing enough of these "daughterless" fish into the wild, with each passing on the daughterless habit, would turn a thriving invasive population into a bunch of reluctant bachelors destined for extinction.

...Models suggest that releasing enough daughterless carp to make up 5 per cent of the total population would effectively eradicate carp in the Murray-Darling basin by 2030. Thresher's models also suggest pests such as cane toads and rats could be tackled this way.

... One [approach] that has particular promise exploits chunks of "selfish" DNA that can spread themselves through the population and kill only when two copies are inherited. In theory a one-time release of just a few insects, rather than the continual release of millions, could wipe out a wild population (New Scientist, 22 March 2003).
_NewScientist

ArmageddonOnline.org
The last paragraph from the excerpt above describes the most subtle approach, and perhaps the easiest approach to genocide for greens to take. But they should be prepared to wait several generations to see the completion of their grand project. Such an approach should also allow environmentalists to create an antidote, so they they themselves and their associates could continue to live and procreate indefinitely. Think of it: a master race of environmentalists, sitting back and watching most of the rest of humanity fade away.

It is an approach without gas chambers, without germs, poisons, bullets, or bombs. A clean, test-tube approach that could propagate death and genocide far more broadly than any method previously devised.

How a Rational US President Would Create Jobs Now

A rational US president who was genuinely concerned about revitalising the American economy, would first remove all unnecessary and nonsensical government impediments to business investment and enterprise. Commerce and industry are particularly susceptible to government restrictions on the energy, power, and fuels that run society's crucial machinery. That would be a good place to start.

Video h/t Washington Examiner

Imagine if all of Obama's devastating policies of energy starvation were revoked. The resulting growth of jobs, revenues, and energy production would be astounding. Growth of jobs directly involved in energy production, transport, and sales, would be just the beginning. Each new energy job would stimulate the creation of supporting jobs in services, housing, manufacturing, infrastructure, etc. And so it goes: growth breeds growth.

The images below are taken from a report released last week by Wood MacKenzie, looking at the impact of relaxing just a few of President Obama's anti-energy policies (h/t Powerlineblog).

Job Creation Under Relaxation of Obama RulesWood Mackenzie’s analysis found that U.S. policies which encourage the development of new and existing resources could, by 2030, increase domestic oil and natural gas production by over 10 million boed, support an additional 1.4 million jobs, and raise over $800 billion of cumulative additional government revenue.
_quoted_in_Powerlineblog

Enhancement of Government Revenues Under Relaxation of Obama Anti-Energy RulesThe report assumes that the following changes would be made to existing Obama policies in order to allow energy and economic recovery to occur:

• Opening of Federal areas that are currently “off limits” to exploration and development
• Commencement of leasing, drilling and development activity in currently closed regions. Regions to be opened include: Eastern Gulf of Mexico, portions of the Rocky Mountains, Atlantic OCS, Pacific OCS, Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) – 1002 Area, National Petroleum Reserve, Alaska (NPRA) and Alaska offshore

• Lifting of drilling moratorium in New York State
• Commencement of drilling and development of Marcellus shale in New York State

• Increased rate of permitting in the offshore Gulf of Mexico
• Allows for a return to pre-Moratorium exploration and development activity

• Approval of the Keystone XL and other future Canada to U.S. oil pipelines
• Facilitates additional Canadian oil sands development, thereby increasing the demand for U.S. supplied equipment and infrastructure

• Regulation of shale resources remains predominately at the State level
• Environmental regulation of shale gas and tight oil plays are not duplicative or unduly burdensome. Permitting levels are at sufficient rates to develop resources in a timely manner _quoted_in_Powerlineblog

Increased Energy Production Due to Relaxation of Just a Few of Obama's Energy Starvation Rules
The improvements projected in the Wood MacKenzie report (PDF) are based largely on the revocation of Obama's de facto offshore oil moratorium, the approval of pipelines from Canada through the US for oil sands transport, and a cleaner and more streamlined set of regulations overseeing shale oil & gas production. The report also assumed an opening of currently blocked oil & gas resources in the Arctic and in the US mountain states, for development, and a reduction of duplication of bureaucratic environmental regulations.

In reality, according to Al Fin energy analysts, a more rational pro-energy policy would improve North American jobs, government revenues, and energy production far more quickly and to higher levels than the Wood Mackenzie report suggests. The reason our analysts are so confident is that potential for development of massive coal and kerogen deposits were not closely considered in the projections. Nor was the potential for development of advanced nuclear energy technologies for both uranium and thorium cycle reactors carefully considered.

Abundant energy opens the doors to other industries and commerce, which means more jobs and more revenues even in areas far removed from direct energy production or sales. The converse is true: energy starvation reduces jobs and revenues not only in the energy-related industries, but in society as a whole. And that is where the US stands under President Obama's policies.

Energy starvation -- shutting down reliable energy in favour of unreliable forms of energy such as big wind and solar -- is never a smart policy. It is a strongly ideological policy promoted by green faux environmental activists, with the unspoken aim of whittling away at the industry and commerce which support advanced economies. Economies which fall under the curse of energy-starvation policies slowly succumb to worsening economic conditions.

Adapted from an article published on Al Fin Energy

More: Three more places where Obama policies are holding back wealth and energy creation: Julia, Arctic, Bakken

The Obama agenda could not be more destructive of US jobs and the US economy if it were designed specifically to wreck the private sector.

A Pandemic of Malthusian Illiteracy?

Global economy optimists however say that "Malthusian illiteracy" lurks behind remaining adherents of Peak Oil theory - which basically says conventional oil production will stagnate and fall but demand will go on growing. _MarketOracle

As knowledgeable analysts come to understand that oil demand, rather than oil supply, is currently in the driver's seat, some of the impetus behind the peak oil panic has subsided. And yet the "Malthusian Impulse" continues to drive many observers, against their more rational proclivities. Still, global hydrocarban reserves continue to grow, year after year, and oil demand is slated to decrease in time.

New sources for transport fuels are likely to come from many directions, including new gas-to-liquids (GTL) technologies. Oxford Catalyst's microchannel GTL technology is very much in demand, as are other new varieties of GTL technologies. The market for GTL fuels may be more than 20 million barrels per day! Imagine the impact of that huge new supply on the global oil market. (Note that approximately between 5 and 10 million barrels per day could be produced via GTL from currently flared gas alone. Stranded gas could double that number.) More information at this PDF white paper download from Velocys, creator of the Oxford Catalysts microchannel technology.

A more conventional source for GTL transport fuels is the large scale technology championed by Shell.

In 2011, Shell began shipments from its Pearl GTL project in Qatar...The project is able to produce 140,000 b/d of fuel and 120,000 b/d of ethane and condensates... _Petroleum Economist

And that is just the beginning. As long as the huge price spread between the cost of natural gas and the cost of crude oil remains, more and more GTL projects will kick in to take advantage of this "easy money."

Second and third generation biofuels from biomass technologies are beginning to come on line, slowly (consult Al Fin Energy blog for updated news on this topic). Advanced biofuels technologies are not likely to take an appreciable bite out of crude oil demand for another 5 or 10 years. As long as natural gas prices stay this low, only the most efficient biofuels projects will be able to compete in the liquid fuels markets without government subsidies. But by the year 2030 if the technology continues to develop, the writing will be on the wall. This is a biological world, after all.

Advanced nuclear power technologies are likely to aid the development of new fuels technologies of all kinds, supplying safe and abundant power and heat for a multitude of energy development projects from oil sands to oil shales to biomass and aquaculture projects in cold climates, irrigation and desalination of saltwater in arid climates etc etc.

Other factors leading to a decreased demand for crude oil includes the increasing use of both natural gas and biomass as feedstock for the vast chemicals industry -- an industrial sector previously dependent upon petroleum for feedstock. (see Al Fin Energy blog for much more)

The ongoing global economic downturn and demand destruction extends from Europe to Japan to the US, and is beginning to put stress on the Chinese and Indian economies -- despite all the rah! rah! hype about the coming age of the Chindian global economy. Many nations which have maintained hefty consumer subsidies for transport fuels are being forced to reduce the subisidies. More downward pressure on demand.

Malthusian theories are appealing for their simplicity. And yet the never-ending and never-fulfilled Malthusian predictions of doom ignore the most salient and disruptive human technology of all -- the goal-oriented innovativeness of the human mind.

Despite the best efforts of energy-starvationists in the Obama administration, in the EU bureaucracy, in national bureaucracies of EU nations and advanced nations around the globe -- the prospects for abundant energy and fuels in the future are quite good, as long as the clowns in power do not destroy the economies they oversee.

If you have abundant clean energy and fuels, everything else is doable.

Why the Obama / Gore Carbon Hysteria Orthodoxy Is Wrong

A short 9 minute video based on the scientific findings of climatologist Roy Spencer, explaining why the IPCC climate orthodoxy and associated media / political carbon hysteria is turning out to be wrong. More at WUWT

According to the Greenland ice core charted above, temperatures were warmer 1,000 years ago, and warmer yet 2,000, then 3,000 years ago etc. CO2 levels have also been significantly higher in the past, particularly during some of the Earth's most prolific evolutionary eras.

It has been profitable for scientists and faux environmentalists to jump on the climate alarmist bandwagon. It was easy to fool the politicians, academics, and government funding agency bureaucrats -- and particularly easy to fool "science journalists" -- causing them all to panic.

Thanks to Obama administration suppression of coal, offshore oil & gas, nuclear power, and opposition to expanded use of Canadian oil sands, the US almost toppled into a state of energy starvation -- saved only by the fortuitous rise of the shale oil & gas industry. And the Obama administration is even trying to shut down shale fracking, behind the scenes! How stupid is that?

Healthy economies need energy. Lots of energy. When a US president bases his energy policy on a pseudoscientific theory of carbon hysteria, the entire nation suffers.

Obama Doubles Down on Stupid as US Economy Stalls

The US economy is facing another extended downturn, as Obama's economic policies fail yet again to lift US employment prospects. Years ago, Obama promised to keep unemployment under 8% -- as it was when he took office. Unfortunately, unemployment seems to be heading back toward double-digit territory, in the long term.

Under President Obama unemployment has remained above 8 percent for every single month, with the exception of January 2009 when he entered the Oval Office, rising as high as 10.1 percent in October 2009. By any measure, this is a terrible track record, and as even The New York Times acknowledged earlier this week, “no American president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has won a second term in office when the unemployment rate on Election Day topped 7.2 percent.”

The dire jobs figures are just part of an extraordinarily grim picture for the US economy, nearly two and a half years into the Obama presidency. As ABC News reported yesterday, “a cascade of negative economic reports this week is leaving Americans wondering if this is really a recovery from the recession that officially started December 2007 and ended June 2009.” And the housing market, in which 67 percent of Americans have a stake, is in serious trouble, with home prices sinking to their lowest levels since 2002, falling by 4.2 percent in the first quarter of 2011 and for eight straight months in a row.

In addition, the White House is paralysed in the face of the nation’s towering debts, which reached 62 percent of GDP by the end of 2010, the highest percentage since the end of World War Two. The Congressional Budget Office warned last year in its “alternative fiscal scenario” that “with significantly lower revenues and higher outlays”, the federal debt could grow to a staggering 87 percent of GDP by 2020, rising to 109 percent by 2025 and 185 percent in 2035.
It is little wonder that 66 percent of Americans now worry the federal government will finally run out of their money, and Moody’s Investors Service is threatening to downgrade America’s sterling credit rating unless it gets to grips with the debt crisis. Undoubtedly, the very future of the United States’ position as the word’s only superpower is at stake in the next few years _Telegraph

So what is Obama doing to fix the US' economic problems? He is doubling down on stupid by shutting down a big new oil pipeline from Canada. Not only does this new "Marie Antoinette-esque" policy hurt American energy, industry, and jobs, but it threatens to rile up Canada as well. While in keeping with an overall Obama policy of energy starvation, taking this action at this time makes the US President look even more foolish than usual.

PHMSA is mandating that TransCanada provide a detailed “restart plan,” conduct “mechanical and metallurgical” testing, and analyze the pipeline components that failed last month.

In addition, the order instructs TransCanada to conduct a review of its entire pipeline system within 60 days, among other things.

The order comes at a politically sensitive time for TransCanada. The company is seeking federal approval to expand its Keystone pipeline to carry Canadian oil sands from Alberta to Texas.

The proposed project, known as Keystone XL, is currently undergoing a multi-agency review that is being headed up by the State Department. Comments on the project’s latest layer of environmental review are due by Monday. _The Hill

When combined with the Obama administrations attacks against offshore oil drilling, shale oil fracking, new nuclear reactor design approval, coal plants and new coal technology etc. -- this latest attack on the importation of Canadian oil sands liquids reveals the Obama administration as even more anti-energy than Jimmy Carter.

In the meantime, Obama's crew continues to promote expensive and unreliable solar and wind energy mega-projects technologies -- presumably in an attempt to prevent these funds from reaching other energy projects which might actually supply usable and reliable energy to the American economy.

Of course, never attribute to ideology what could more easily be explained by corruption: One of Obama's biggest financial supporters and public fans, General Electric, is heavily invested in big wind energy and is diving into big solar. The administration is always happy to supply waivers and grant favours to those who are willing to play on the team.

Meanwhile the rest of the US economy is floundering, with no help to be found from an administration of corrupt revolutionaries without a clue.

More: Brian Wang describes the significant buildup of Canadian oilsands production. The Obama - Salazar - Reid policy of energy starvation never made very much sense. If these stuck-on-stupid idiots remain at the controls of US energy policies for much longer, the US may have to join the Organisation of Third World Countries.

More 6June11: More on the political / faux environmental forces lining up in opposition to the Keystone XL cross-border project (including map). With such a large and influential part of government and society promoting suicidal energy policies, the rot will be difficult to excise in time to prevent significant hardship, unless an electoral and taxpayer revolution occurs in the next 2 years.

Choking on Green Malthusian Dogma-Prop

From Paul Erlich's warnings of a population bomb to The Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth," contemporary ecological politics have consistently embraced [leftist] green Malthusianism despite the fact that the Malthusian premise has persistently failed for the better part of three centuries. Indeed, the [capitalist agri-tech] revolution was exponentially increasing agricultural yields at the very moment that Erlich was predicting mass starvation and the serial predictions of peak oil and various others resource collapses that have followed have continue to fail. _Breakthrough.org

One good recent example of frustrated Malthusianism is natural gas supply. Peak oil doomers declared an impending "peak natural gas" throughout the first decade of the 2000s. Even now, in the face of a shale gas bonanza sprouting up over the last few years, the doomers are frantic to justify their Malthusian true faith -- resorting to false claims of rampant water pollution from fracking fluids etc.

Within a year, U.S. recoverable shale gas reserves alone rose from 340 trillion cubic feet to 823 tcf, the Energy Department estimates. That’s 36 years’ worth, based on what the USA currently consumes from all gas sources, or the equivalent of 74 years’ of current annual US oil production. The reserves span the continent, from Barnett shale in Texas to Marcellus shale in Eastern and Mid-Atlantic states – to large deposits in western Canada, Colorado, North Dakota, Montana and other states (and around the world).

Instead of importing gas, the United States could become an exporter. The gas can move seamlessly into existing pipeline systems, to fuel homes, factories and electrical generators, serve as a petrochemical feedstock, and replace oil in many applications. States, private citizens and the federal government could reap billions in lease bonuses, rents, royalties and taxes. Millions of high-paying jobs could be “created or saved.” Plentiful gas can also provide essential backup power for wind turbines.

...Environmentalists voiced alarm. HBO aired “Gasland,” a slick propaganda film about alleged impacts of fracking on groundwater. Its claims have been roundly debunked (for instance, methane igniting at a water faucet came from a gas deposit encountered by the homeowner’s water well – not from a fracking operation). A politically motivated Oscar was predicted, but didn’t happen.

The Environmental Protection Agency revealed a multiple personality disorder. Its Drinking Water Protection Division director told Congress there is not a single documented instance of polluted groundwater due to fracking. (Studies by Colorado and Texas regulators drew the same conclusion.)

EPA’s Texas office nevertheless insisted that Range Resources was “endangering” a public aquifer and ordered the company to stop drilling immediately and provide clean water to area homes. EPA officials then failed to show up at the hearing or submit a single page of testimony, to support their claims.

Meanwhile, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced plans to conduct a “life-cycle” or “cradle-to-grave” study of hydraulic fracturing drilling and gas production techniques, to assess possible impacts on groundwater and other ecological values. Depending on whether the study is scientific or politicized, it could lead to national, state-by-state or even city-by-city drilling delays, bans – or booms. _MasterResource_via_OilPrice

While scientists argue whether water wells located within a mile of shale gas wellheads contain higher levels than normal of dissolved methane, there has been no evidence of water contamination or public health hazard from fracking fluids. Given the incredible financial wealth potential of shale gas deposits, it makes far more sense to let individual states regulate shale gas fracking. This is particularly true when the US government is controlled by an administration packing an "energy starvation agenda."

Malthusian lefty-Luddite Greens litter the landscape of European capitals, and under Obama have become a national hazard in the US as well. Their extreme alarmist rhetoric and anti-commerce stance threatens economies across the western world.

Human technology and ingenuity have repeatedly confounded Malthusian predictions yet green ideology continues to cast a suspect eye towards the very technologies that have allowed us to avoid resource and ecological catastrophes. But such solutions will require environmentalists to abandon the "small is beautiful" ethic that has also characterized environmental thought since the 1960's. We, the most secure, affluent, and thoroughly modern human beings to have ever lived upon the planet, must abandon both the dark, zero-sum Malthusian visions and the idealized and nostalgic fantasies for a simpler, more bucolic past in which humans lived in harmony with Nature. _Breakthrough.org

Cross-posted to Al Fin Energy

The US is #1 in Hydrocarbon Resources Worldwide: Why Is the Obama Administration Pursuing a Policy of Energy Starvation?

EnergyTribune
A new report from the Congressional Research Service points out that in terms of total hydrocarbon resource, the US possesses the largest inventory of any nation on Earth. But under the Obama regime, an unstated but unrelenting program of "energy starvation" is being carried out -- from the DOE to the Department of Interior to the EPA, even including the NRC. It is one thing to be energy-poor because you lack the resources. It is quite another to intentionally cripple your own economy using half-baked policies of carbon hysteria, nuclear fear, and faux environmental crisis fabrication.

From coal to gas to oil to methane hydrates to kerogens, bitumens, uranium and thorium, the energy resources of the US remain largely untapped in comparison to their potential.

America’s combined energy resources are, according to a new report from the Congressional Research Service (CSR), the largest on earth. They eclipse Saudi Arabia (3rd), China (4th) and Canada (6th) combined – and that’s without including America’s shale oil deposits and, in the future, the potentially astronomic impact of methane hydrates.

...if the White House is in any way serious about impacting the economic Black Hole that is the burgeoning national debt, reinvigorating business big-time, creating real jobs and restoring ebbing national wealth, the best shot by a distance if you’re American ... well, you’re standing on it, or rather above it.

...While the US is often depicted as having only a tiny minority of the world’s oil reserves at around 28 billion barrels (based on the somewhat misleading figure of ‘proven reserves’) according to the CRS in reality it has around 163 billion barrels. As Inhofe’s EPW press release comments, “That’s enough oil to maintain America’s current rates of production and replace imports from the Persian Gulf for more than 50 years”. Next up, there’s coal. The CRS report reveals America’s reserves of coal are unsurpassed, accounting for over 28 percent of the world’s coal. Much of it is high quality too. The CRS estimates US recoverable coal reserves at around 262 billion tons (not including further massive, difficult to access, Alaskan reserves). Given the US consumes around 1.2 billion tons a year, that’s a couple of centuries of coal use, at least.

...In 2009 the CRS upped its 2006 estimate of America’s enormous natural gas deposits by 25 percent to around 2,047 trillion cubic feet, a conservative figure given the expanding shale gas revolution. At current rates of use that’s enough for around 100 years. Then there is still the, as yet largely publicly untold, story of methane hydrates to consider, a resource which the CRS reports alludes to as “immense...possibly exceeding the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels.” According to the Inhofe’s EPW, “For perspective, if just 3 percent of this resource can be commercialized ... at current rates of consumption, that level of supply would be enough to provide America’s natural gas for more than 400 years.”

...With 85 percent of global energy set to come from fossil fuels till at least 2035 no matter what wishful thinkers may prefer, current US energy policy – much like European – is pure political pantomime. _EnergyTribune

Adapted from an article at Al Fin Energy