trysail
Catch Me Who Can
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______________
Sinopec to Buy Daylight Energy for $2.1B
By Colin McClelland and Bradley Olson
October 10, 2011
Green Energy
- Thread starter RightField
- Start date
______________
Sinopec to Buy Daylight Energy for $2.1B
By Colin McClelland and Bradley Olson
October 10, 2011
Ishmael
Literotica Guru
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More and more of those types of facilities will be moving to China.
This entire recent love affair with solar is based on ignorance for the most part. So many folks think that solar is the latest, greatest, thing since sliced bread when the facts show that is far from the case.
Solar (photovoltaic) energy was first described in 1839 (Alexandre Edmond Becquerel), Einsteins first paper was on photovoltaic principle (1905). As a science it's quite mature and damn near as old as the steam engine.
Photovoltaic cell research is now restricted to material research and manufacturing technique. On an energy per unit surface area any steps forward are now going to be slight increments, quantum leaps are virtually out of the question now.
Massive government loans to US based solar projects are nothing more than a massive waste of the taxpayers money.
Ishmael
Peregrinator
Hooded On A Hill
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You think the cost of military intervention in oil-rich countries is insignificant, huh?
I don't make that assumption.
What the fuck is it with you and calling me a trust fund baby? I don't have a trust fund, never have, and never will. My dad got killed (financially) in the crash of the early nineties by some ignorant board members and basically started over. He and mom are comfortable, but there's no pot of gold lying around. He paid for college. I've paid for everything else I've done or purchased myself, with money I earned working. Okay? Next time you pull this trust fund bullshit I'll know you're in busybody territory, making shit up in order to insult me. That's iggy time, which would be too bad, because for all your irascible and irrational shit I still like posting with you. I don't accuse you of shit you haven't said yourself is true, and I don't post about shit you told me on the phone or in PM either. All I ask is the same respect. Deal?
J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
Americans can save a diaper load of money and energy tying a ball of rope tween 2 trees and using it to dry clothes.
Add a skylite or 2 to your home and turn off the lights.
Wanna heat a room cheap? Install an incadescent bulb, switch it ON, and close the door all day.
Add a skylite or 2 to your home and turn off the lights.
Wanna heat a room cheap? Install an incadescent bulb, switch it ON, and close the door all day.
Peregrinator
Hooded On A Hill
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goldenpalomino
open your eyes!
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Fusion!!!
No form of energy is without its blemishes, yet compared to oil & coal - with their massive subsidies and external costs, wind, solar, hydro, tidal, ocean current & energy saving technologies are golden.
No form of energy is without its blemishes, yet compared to oil & coal - with their massive subsidies and external costs, wind, solar, hydro, tidal, ocean current & energy saving technologies are golden.
RightField
Literotica Guru
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Here's to a long life for Occupy Wall Street
GEORGE F. WILL
Published Oct 13, 2011 at 3:00 am (Updated Oct 12, 2011)
The Tea Party’s splendid successes, which have altered the nation’s political vocabulary and agenda, have inspired a countermovement — Occupy Wall Street. Conservatives should rejoice and wish for it long life, abundant publicity and sufficient organization to endorse congressional candidates deemed worthy. All Democrats eager for OWS’ imprimatur, step forward.
In scale, OWS’ demonstrations-cum-encampments are to Tea Party events as Pittsburg, Kan., is to Pittsburgh, Pa. So far, probably fewer people have participated in all of them combined than attended just one Tea Party rally, that of Sept. 12, 2009, on the Washington Mall. In comportment, OWS is to the Tea Party as Lady Gaga is to Lord Chesterfield: Blocking the Brooklyn Bridge was not persuasion modeled on Tea Party tactics.
Still, OWS’ defenders correctly say it represents progressivism’s spirit and intellect. Because it embraces spontaneity and deplores elitism, it eschews deliberation and leadership. Hence its agenda, beyond eliminating one of the seven deadly sins (avarice), is opaque. Its meta-theory is, however, clear: Washington is grotesquely corrupt and insufficiently powerful.
Unfortunately for OWS, big government’s scandal du jour, the Obama administration’s Solyndra episode of crony capitalism, does not validate progressivism’s indignation, it refutes progressivism’s aspiration, which is for more minute government supervision of society. Solyndra got to the government trough with the help of a former bundler of Obama campaign contributions who was an Energy Department bureaucrat helping to dispense taxpayers’ money to politically favored companies. His wife’s law firm represented Solyndra. But, then, government of the sort progressives demand — supposed “experts,” wiser than the market, allocating wealth and opportunity by supposedly disinterested decisions — is not just susceptible to corruption, it is corruption. It is political favoritism with a clean (even green) conscience.
Demands posted in OWS’ name include a “guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment”; a $20-an-hour minimum wage (above the $16 entry wage the United Auto Workers just negotiated with GM); ending “the fossil fuel economy”; “open borders” so “anyone can travel anywhere to work and live”; $1 trillion for infrastructure; $1 trillion for “ecological restoration” (e.g., re-establishing “the natural flow of river systems”); “free college education.”
And forgiveness of “all debt on the entire planet period.” Progressivism’s battle cry is: “Mulligan!” It demands the ultimate entitlement — emancipation from the ruinous results of all prior claims of entitlement.
Imitation is the sincerest form of progressivism because nostalgia motivates progressives, not conservatives. Tea Party Envy is leavened by Woodstock Envy — note the drum circles at the Manhattan site — which is a facet of Sixties Envy. Hence conservatives should be rejoicing.
From 1965 through 1968, the left found its voice and style in consciousness-raising demonstrations and disruptions. In November 1968, the nation, its consciousness raised, elected Richard Nixon President and gave 56.9 percent of the popular vote to Nixon or George Wallace. Republicans won four of the next five presidential elections.
Perhaps things will go better for progressives this time. Barack Obama feels their pain — understands their “frustration.” America’s median income has declined even faster since the recovery began three Junes ago than it did during the recession, students are graduating into a jobless “recovery,” African-Americans and Hispanics have unemployment rates of 16 and 11.3 percent, respectively, but Obama is on the case: He wants corporate jets to be taxed more. OWS must still, however, raise the consciousnesses of backsliding congressional Democrats who have decided that, unlike the President, they do not believe that “the rich” begin at household incomes of $250,000.
Tahrir Square Envy also motivates America’s Progressive Autumn, the left’s emulation of the Arab Spring. Of course, some lagoons of advanced thinking, such as Montgomery County, Md. — it is a government workers’ dormitory contiguous to Washington — were progressive before OWS’ drum(circle)beat became progressivism’s pulse. The Montgomery County town of Takoma Park is a “nuclear-free zone,” meaning it has no truck with nuclear weapons.
Responding to peace activists, some Montgomery County Council members sponsored a resolution to instruct Congress to slash defense spending. The idea died when Virginia began inviting the county’s second-largest private-sector employer, Lockheed Martin, to move across the Potomac. To OWS, this proves the power of the plutocracy. To the Tea Party, it proves the virtue of federalism.
As Mark Twain said, difference of opinion is what makes a horse race. It is also what makes elections necessary and entertaining. So: OWS versus the Tea Party. Republicans generally support the latter. Do Democrats generally support the former? Let’s find out. Let’s vote.
GEORGE F. WILL
Published Oct 13, 2011 at 3:00 am (Updated Oct 12, 2011)
The Tea Party’s splendid successes, which have altered the nation’s political vocabulary and agenda, have inspired a countermovement — Occupy Wall Street. Conservatives should rejoice and wish for it long life, abundant publicity and sufficient organization to endorse congressional candidates deemed worthy. All Democrats eager for OWS’ imprimatur, step forward.
In scale, OWS’ demonstrations-cum-encampments are to Tea Party events as Pittsburg, Kan., is to Pittsburgh, Pa. So far, probably fewer people have participated in all of them combined than attended just one Tea Party rally, that of Sept. 12, 2009, on the Washington Mall. In comportment, OWS is to the Tea Party as Lady Gaga is to Lord Chesterfield: Blocking the Brooklyn Bridge was not persuasion modeled on Tea Party tactics.
Still, OWS’ defenders correctly say it represents progressivism’s spirit and intellect. Because it embraces spontaneity and deplores elitism, it eschews deliberation and leadership. Hence its agenda, beyond eliminating one of the seven deadly sins (avarice), is opaque. Its meta-theory is, however, clear: Washington is grotesquely corrupt and insufficiently powerful.
Unfortunately for OWS, big government’s scandal du jour, the Obama administration’s Solyndra episode of crony capitalism, does not validate progressivism’s indignation, it refutes progressivism’s aspiration, which is for more minute government supervision of society. Solyndra got to the government trough with the help of a former bundler of Obama campaign contributions who was an Energy Department bureaucrat helping to dispense taxpayers’ money to politically favored companies. His wife’s law firm represented Solyndra. But, then, government of the sort progressives demand — supposed “experts,” wiser than the market, allocating wealth and opportunity by supposedly disinterested decisions — is not just susceptible to corruption, it is corruption. It is political favoritism with a clean (even green) conscience.
Demands posted in OWS’ name include a “guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment”; a $20-an-hour minimum wage (above the $16 entry wage the United Auto Workers just negotiated with GM); ending “the fossil fuel economy”; “open borders” so “anyone can travel anywhere to work and live”; $1 trillion for infrastructure; $1 trillion for “ecological restoration” (e.g., re-establishing “the natural flow of river systems”); “free college education.”
And forgiveness of “all debt on the entire planet period.” Progressivism’s battle cry is: “Mulligan!” It demands the ultimate entitlement — emancipation from the ruinous results of all prior claims of entitlement.
Imitation is the sincerest form of progressivism because nostalgia motivates progressives, not conservatives. Tea Party Envy is leavened by Woodstock Envy — note the drum circles at the Manhattan site — which is a facet of Sixties Envy. Hence conservatives should be rejoicing.
From 1965 through 1968, the left found its voice and style in consciousness-raising demonstrations and disruptions. In November 1968, the nation, its consciousness raised, elected Richard Nixon President and gave 56.9 percent of the popular vote to Nixon or George Wallace. Republicans won four of the next five presidential elections.
Perhaps things will go better for progressives this time. Barack Obama feels their pain — understands their “frustration.” America’s median income has declined even faster since the recovery began three Junes ago than it did during the recession, students are graduating into a jobless “recovery,” African-Americans and Hispanics have unemployment rates of 16 and 11.3 percent, respectively, but Obama is on the case: He wants corporate jets to be taxed more. OWS must still, however, raise the consciousnesses of backsliding congressional Democrats who have decided that, unlike the President, they do not believe that “the rich” begin at household incomes of $250,000.
Tahrir Square Envy also motivates America’s Progressive Autumn, the left’s emulation of the Arab Spring. Of course, some lagoons of advanced thinking, such as Montgomery County, Md. — it is a government workers’ dormitory contiguous to Washington — were progressive before OWS’ drum(circle)beat became progressivism’s pulse. The Montgomery County town of Takoma Park is a “nuclear-free zone,” meaning it has no truck with nuclear weapons.
Responding to peace activists, some Montgomery County Council members sponsored a resolution to instruct Congress to slash defense spending. The idea died when Virginia began inviting the county’s second-largest private-sector employer, Lockheed Martin, to move across the Potomac. To OWS, this proves the power of the plutocracy. To the Tea Party, it proves the virtue of federalism.
As Mark Twain said, difference of opinion is what makes a horse race. It is also what makes elections necessary and entertaining. So: OWS versus the Tea Party. Republicans generally support the latter. Do Democrats generally support the former? Let’s find out. Let’s vote.
RightField
Literotica Guru
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- Jun 30, 2003
- Posts
- 9,364
I'm a big fan of Fusion also, though we haven't been able to make it work. I hope we can.
1sickbastard
Seriously?
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- Nov 19, 2010
- Posts
- 26,724
There are those who say we've already hit 'Peak Oil' and the long decline has already come.
Actually, that is the point. The term 'resource' is economic. As one resource becomes scarce (another economic term), the price pressure from limited supply and heavy demand results in resource substitution, in which another resouce is found to relieve said demand.
This will happen to the petrochemical and energy industries, eventually.
4est_4est_Gump
Run Forrest! RUN!
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2011
- Posts
- 89,007
I read the Will and I agree; Do everything possible to keep those people out there...
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
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- Nov 8, 2005
- Posts
- 25,593
http://www.economist.com/node/21532285
Thou orb aloft full-dazzling
The solar industry is taking off, but that does not justify the wasteful subsidies that created it
October 15th, 2011
Thou orb aloft full-dazzling
The solar industry is taking off, but that does not justify the wasteful subsidies that created it
October 15th, 2011
RightField
Literotica Guru
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- 9,364
CURL: Can you really afford four more years?
By Joseph Curl
The Washington Times
Sunday, February 26, 2012
In January 2009, when President Obama was sworn in, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $1.68.
Today, it's more than double that: The price has reached $5 in parts of California and $6 just outside Florida's Disney World. In fact, prices have set a record, being so high so early in the year. By Memorial Day, America's first big travel weekend of the year, gas nationwide will average $4 and above, industry analysts predict.
Candidate Obama made political hay of the issue throughout 2008, boldly asserting that he - and he alone - was most able to bring prices down. He repeatedly said there was "no silver bullet" and "no quick fix," but on the campaign trail in Indianapolis, he told Americans, "You shouldn't have to accept any more excuses as to why it can't be done."
More than three years into office, that's all Mr. Obama offers - excuses. He blames oil companies for making a profit; blames "speculators" for pushing up the price of oil; blames Congress for not doing away with oil-industry tax breaks; blames world producers for limiting outflow to drive up prices.
But this past weekend, the president made a startling claim: "Under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years."
The claim is true, but as always, a very crafty lie of omission. America is producing more oil than eight years ago, but not because of anything the president has done. In fact, production is up only because Americans are resourceful and have battled past the obstructions Mr. Obama has erected.
"Since taking office, he has declared 85 percent of our offshore areas off-limits, decreased oil and gas leases in the Rockies by 70 percent, rejected the Keystone XL pipeline and has 10 federal agencies planning more regulation of hydraulic fracturing, which is key to oil and natural-gas development," says Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.
The administration's own Energy Information Agency "estimates that oil production in the Gulf was down 22 percent in 2011 and projected to be down 30 percent in 2012" after Mr. Obama's Gulf moratorium policies were put in place, the API said.
So, how on Earth is America producing more oil? Because of action taken by President Bush, and even his predecessors.
"That production is a direct result of leases issued before this administration and as result of development on private and state lands," Mr. Gerard said, according to Fox News.
"On private lands, oil production is booming," wrote Fox reporter Jim Angle. "In North Dakota, the oil and gas are on private or state land and beyond the president's control. The state has gone from producing a small amount of oil to some 450,000 barrels a day. Unemployment is 3.3 percent, the lowest in the country. And the state has a budget surplus in the billions."
In this weekend's speech, Mr. Obama made more excuses. "There are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can't just drill our way to lower gas prices." Wrong. In fact, just saying America is going to drill for its own oil has a dramatic effect on prices. In July 2008, when gas was $3.28 a gallon, Mr. Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling and urged Congress to lift the federal moratorium. Crude-oil futures plummeted nearly $10 the next day, the largest decline in 17 years.
What's more, early in Mr. Bush's tenure, debate raged over opening a tiny part of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling (just 8 percent of the more than 19 million acres in the reserve). Democrats killed the Republican proposal, saying the billions of barrels of oil wouldn't come to market for a decade.
In 2012, that oil - estimated at 1 million barrels a day for 30 years, nearly the amount the U.S. imports from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela - would be flowing.
Just last year, Mr. Obama said, "Our energy policy still is just a hodgepodge." It is just that today. Yet the president continues to push "green" energy, claiming the only answer to America's problems is to pursue an "all of the above" strategy. Last week, he said his administration is forging ahead with alternative-energy sources such as "a plant-like substance, algae."
Yes ... pond scum. Mr. Obama is officially out of ideas.
But one claim he made this weekend is absolutely true: "In 2010, our dependence on foreign oil was under 50 percent for the first time in more than a decade."
The reason? Americans can't afford to fill their cars up anymore.
A few months ago, exactly a year out from Election Day 2012, Mr. Obama pleaded for support: "I'm going to need another term to finish the job."
But America can't afford four more years of trying to turn a community organizer into a president. They'd be better off trying to turn pond scum into fuel.
By Joseph Curl
The Washington Times
Sunday, February 26, 2012
In January 2009, when President Obama was sworn in, a gallon of regular gasoline cost $1.68.
Today, it's more than double that: The price has reached $5 in parts of California and $6 just outside Florida's Disney World. In fact, prices have set a record, being so high so early in the year. By Memorial Day, America's first big travel weekend of the year, gas nationwide will average $4 and above, industry analysts predict.
Candidate Obama made political hay of the issue throughout 2008, boldly asserting that he - and he alone - was most able to bring prices down. He repeatedly said there was "no silver bullet" and "no quick fix," but on the campaign trail in Indianapolis, he told Americans, "You shouldn't have to accept any more excuses as to why it can't be done."
More than three years into office, that's all Mr. Obama offers - excuses. He blames oil companies for making a profit; blames "speculators" for pushing up the price of oil; blames Congress for not doing away with oil-industry tax breaks; blames world producers for limiting outflow to drive up prices.
But this past weekend, the president made a startling claim: "Under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years."
The claim is true, but as always, a very crafty lie of omission. America is producing more oil than eight years ago, but not because of anything the president has done. In fact, production is up only because Americans are resourceful and have battled past the obstructions Mr. Obama has erected.
"Since taking office, he has declared 85 percent of our offshore areas off-limits, decreased oil and gas leases in the Rockies by 70 percent, rejected the Keystone XL pipeline and has 10 federal agencies planning more regulation of hydraulic fracturing, which is key to oil and natural-gas development," says Jack Gerard, president and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute.
The administration's own Energy Information Agency "estimates that oil production in the Gulf was down 22 percent in 2011 and projected to be down 30 percent in 2012" after Mr. Obama's Gulf moratorium policies were put in place, the API said.
So, how on Earth is America producing more oil? Because of action taken by President Bush, and even his predecessors.
"That production is a direct result of leases issued before this administration and as result of development on private and state lands," Mr. Gerard said, according to Fox News.
"On private lands, oil production is booming," wrote Fox reporter Jim Angle. "In North Dakota, the oil and gas are on private or state land and beyond the president's control. The state has gone from producing a small amount of oil to some 450,000 barrels a day. Unemployment is 3.3 percent, the lowest in the country. And the state has a budget surplus in the billions."
In this weekend's speech, Mr. Obama made more excuses. "There are no quick fixes to this problem, and you know we can't just drill our way to lower gas prices." Wrong. In fact, just saying America is going to drill for its own oil has a dramatic effect on prices. In July 2008, when gas was $3.28 a gallon, Mr. Bush lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling and urged Congress to lift the federal moratorium. Crude-oil futures plummeted nearly $10 the next day, the largest decline in 17 years.
What's more, early in Mr. Bush's tenure, debate raged over opening a tiny part of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to drilling (just 8 percent of the more than 19 million acres in the reserve). Democrats killed the Republican proposal, saying the billions of barrels of oil wouldn't come to market for a decade.
In 2012, that oil - estimated at 1 million barrels a day for 30 years, nearly the amount the U.S. imports from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela - would be flowing.
Just last year, Mr. Obama said, "Our energy policy still is just a hodgepodge." It is just that today. Yet the president continues to push "green" energy, claiming the only answer to America's problems is to pursue an "all of the above" strategy. Last week, he said his administration is forging ahead with alternative-energy sources such as "a plant-like substance, algae."
Yes ... pond scum. Mr. Obama is officially out of ideas.
But one claim he made this weekend is absolutely true: "In 2010, our dependence on foreign oil was under 50 percent for the first time in more than a decade."
The reason? Americans can't afford to fill their cars up anymore.
A few months ago, exactly a year out from Election Day 2012, Mr. Obama pleaded for support: "I'm going to need another term to finish the job."
But America can't afford four more years of trying to turn a community organizer into a president. They'd be better off trying to turn pond scum into fuel.
J
JAMESBJOHNSON
Guest
In 2008 the price of gasoline was around $4, in fact the price of a barrel of oil was near $150 when Wall Street crashed. You can check it.
http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx
http://gasbuddy.com/gb_retail_price_chart.aspx
Sean Renaud
The West Coast Pop
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- Posts
- 59,617
I can't read an entire article that starts off claiming the price of gas has more than doubled under Obama. While technically true it's bullshit and anybody who would use that "fact" is a liar and you don't need to read past that point.
garbage can
North by Northeast
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- Posts
- 57,302
Would it be fair to say that Obama wants the price of gas to skyrocket, as he said in 2008...?..
JohnnySavage
Literotica Guru
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It seems Mr. Curl isn't very good with economics, statistics, or simple mathematics. US domestic crude oil production is the highest it's been since 2002. From 2002 through 2008 production steadily decreased. Starting in 2009 through current, production has increased every quarter.
I don't know Mr. Curl, but he seems to be good at spelling. Maybe he could teach 4th grade?
I don't know Mr. Curl, but he seems to be good at spelling. Maybe he could teach 4th grade?
Sean Renaud
The West Coast Pop
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
- Posts
- 59,617
First. He didn't say that. What he said was under his plan the cost of energy would necessarily skyrocket. I forget the rest of the context of the speech but he didn't say he wanted the price of gas to skyrocket.
Second I'd want it used in context not as a sound bite.
garbage can
North by Northeast
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- Dec 7, 2005
- Posts
- 57,302
But if he has a plan that requires the cost of gas to skyrocket, seems like for the plan to work, he wants the price of gas to skyrocket............
Sean Renaud
The West Coast Pop
- Joined
- Feb 5, 2004
- Posts
- 59,617
But if he has a plan that requires the cost of gas to skyrocket, seems like for the plan to work, he wants the price of gas to skyrocket............
Not necessarily. Energy=/=gas prices.
Still I'd like the entire context of the speech. If I remember right this was about clean coal but it's been three years.
garbage can
North by Northeast
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- Dec 7, 2005
- Posts
- 57,302
Hmmm, do they make 1000W incandescent bulbs..?..
mercury14
Pragmatic Metaphysician
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- Jul 8, 2009
- Posts
- 22,158
He wont give you the context.
koalabear
~Armed and Fuzzy~
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koalabear
~Armed and Fuzzy~
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RightField
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 30, 2003
- Posts
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This is an opinion piece, but it is thought provoking.
Energy Will Be Obama's Waterloo
By William Tucker on 3.2.12 @ 6:09AM
And it will all be his doing -- blaming Bush won't cut it anymore.
When President Obama suggested last week that we might eventually be replacing oil with algae, Mark Whittington of Yahoo suggested that the President had reached his "lunar base moment." It was an apt analogy. Just as Newt Gingrich's musings about a moon colony finally made the public cock its head a little when listening to him, so the moment may have arrived when the environmentalism fantasies that inhabit the President's brain will finally be exposed to the light of day.
As things stand now, $5 gas may shift the entire focus of the election onto energy and what the Administration's faculty-lounge policies have been doing to America's industrial base. To the public, "clean, green energy" will no longer be a dreamy vision of windmills and solar collectors but the hard reality of spending $100 to fill your tank. There's one more thing as well. This will be the first issue in four years where President Obama won't be able to cast reflexive blame on George Bush.
The President began his term with an Inaugural Address promise that "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories." He has kept that promise. Using the crowbar of the $1 trillion "stimulus," the Administration has shoehorned much of the country's energy investment into a Rube-Goldberg sector of the economy made up of the half-baked projects of armchair entrepreneurs plus the off-the-charts dreams of those wanting see the entire planet transformed into an environmental utopia.
Prompted by various federal and state government tax incentives plus market-obliterating "renewable mandates," hundreds of square miles of mountain and prairie have been covered with 45-story windmills that look like the archaeological remnants of a previous race of 80-foot giants. These "wind farms" generally produce electricity that is essentially useless. When the wind blows, windmills can force other forms of generation out of the market because they are free of fuel costs. But those other forms of generation have to be kept running just in case the wind dies down. Last year when temperatures rose to 110 degrees in Texas, that state's 7 percent "wind capacity" proved absolutely useless in the heat-induced doldrums.
And wind "farms," it should be noted, always talk in terms of "capacity" rather than output. That's because they only operate about 30 percent of the time. Nobody has yet invented a way to store commercial quantities of electricity and it may be impossible without building facilities of equally gargantuan dimensions -- say an entire city block of rechargeable batteries. Without any means of storage, wind power is essentially a nuisance.
Then there is solar electricity, which, in order to access, California is now planning to cover dozens of square miles of pristine desert (yes, there is already environmental opposition) in order to prove the world can run on sunshine. Solar energy is a bit more concentrated than wind so that it only takes about five square miles of highly polished collectors to produce 100 megawatts -- when the sun shines. In the desert environment, these solar panels will require constant cleaning and polishing to keep them from getting covered with dust and therefore becoming dysfunctional. It's a labor-intensive task that will require lots of water coming from who-knows-where.
And how about the electric car? Caught in the headlock of a government bailout, GM was forced to push its Volt out the door -- where it has sat on dealer lots ever since. Sales are miserable, except for the occasional government agency that drops by to place an order. Government patronage of the electric car industry has also produced the $104,000 Fisker Karma, made in Denmark but shipped to our shores so that Leonardo DiCaprio and a few others could buy first editions. Then there was the Bright, which went bankrupt last month, and the Asperta, which failed before that.
Now all this wouldn't be so bad if the Administration hadn't spent the other half of its time trying to put the fossil fuel industry out of business in order to clear the path for the Green Age. After spending a year failing to pass cap-and-trade, the Administration has doubled down with the Environmental Protection Agency, turning it loose on the nation's coal plants. The Sierra Club just celebrated the closing of the 100th coal boiler, with more to come. Just what this will mean for the reliability of the electric grid will be revealed this summer when electrical demand peaks. Last August, with temperatures at 110 degrees, Texas consumed a record 68,000 megawatts of electricity with only 76,000 MW of generating capacity on hand. Since then, the EPA has demanded the closure of 10,000 MW of Texas coal. The state has dodged the bullet only by going to court. Industrial states from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin are facing the same dilemma. If the region starts suffering power shortages this summer, will George Bush be there to take the blame?
Not that the President hasn't been playing both sides of the fence. With extraordinary chutzpah, Obama has claimed credit for the increase in oil and gas production through fracking technology. As Newt Gingrich pointed out last week (chronicled on this site by Peter Ferrara), the only reason fracking has succeeded is that all the new deposits are east of the Rockies and therefore beneath private land. In the Far West, where the federal government still owns up to 80 percent of the territory, the pace of exploration is slower than ever. The Institute for Energy Research has shown that drilling on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management is at an all-time low, only half what it was during the Clinton Administration.
How about offshore development? For a few brief months, the Administration actually talked about opening up new areas for exploration. Then came the BP oil spill and since then the Gulf of Mexico is becoming a backwater. Of 51 rig platforms stationed in the Gulf, only 21 are under contract and 15 actually drilling, a utilization of only 41 percent. The rate in rest of the world is 83 percent and in Europe and the Mediterranean 96 percent so there's plenty of demand out there. Fourteen rigs have left the Gulf over the last two years and the pace is accelerating. Since the Gulf provides 30 percent of our domestic production, this is bound to have an impact.
This bureaucratic foot-dragging is recognized all over the oil industry. "These have been the most difficult three years from a policy standpoint that I've ever seen in my career," Bruce Vincent, president of Swift Energy, told the annual meeting of the National Association of Petroleum Engineers last week. "They've done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting." And that doesn't even include the Keystone Pipeline, where the Administration kicked away 700,000 barrels a day, 4 percent of our total consumption. And all this isn't supposed to have an effect on gas prices?
In truth, though, all these considerations are long-range. What is having a more immediate impact is probably the easy money policies of the Fed. Oil isn't climbing so much as the dollar is depreciating. As the Wall Street Journal notes, if President Obama is ready to reap the reward of rising housing and stock prices, it's only fair that he accept rising commodity prices as well. This is treacherous territory. Every major downturn since the Arab Oil Boycott of 1973 has been preceded by a run-up in oil prices. It seems to signal an inflationary bubble in the economy that is about to pop.
So what can the Administration do between now and November? To be frank, they haven't a clue. President Obama is a lawyer, not an economist or a scientist. His knowledge of energy is drawn from the chitchat in the faculty lounge.
In any case, wherever supply and demand are concerned, Democrats are rarely willing to concede to reality anyway. Bernie Sanders is already yammering about "speculators" and the apologists in the press are lamenting that "the President isn't to blame for gas prices." There are even off-the-wall stories claiming that drilling and pipelines will only make things worse. "The Canadian plan [for building Keystone] was to use their market power to raise prices in the United States and get more money from consumers," proclaimed Bloomberg breathlessly -- just as every entrepreneur plans to acquire "market power" to "get more money from customers." Only to end up have the market end up claiming power over them. When defending something like the Obama Administration's energy policies, it's always important to make simple things sound complicated.
At bottom, the real problem is what Charles Murray describes in his new book, Coming Apart --the growing gap between college-educated people schooled in the wish fulfillment of "green energy" and the hard-won, hard-nosed wisdom of blue-collar America. To the elite in New York, Washington and San Francisco, energy generation is something we're trying to put behind us. It's déclassé. Only in blue-collar regions like Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Dakota do the realities of energy become visible, tangible, and audible -- and taxable.
The good news for Republicans is that the battle lines are drawn. After a summer of $5 gas plus power shortages in industrial regions, the results of four years of Obama energy policies will be hard to avoid. And there won't be any George Bushes around to take the blame.
Energy Will Be Obama's Waterloo
By William Tucker on 3.2.12 @ 6:09AM
And it will all be his doing -- blaming Bush won't cut it anymore.
When President Obama suggested last week that we might eventually be replacing oil with algae, Mark Whittington of Yahoo suggested that the President had reached his "lunar base moment." It was an apt analogy. Just as Newt Gingrich's musings about a moon colony finally made the public cock its head a little when listening to him, so the moment may have arrived when the environmentalism fantasies that inhabit the President's brain will finally be exposed to the light of day.
As things stand now, $5 gas may shift the entire focus of the election onto energy and what the Administration's faculty-lounge policies have been doing to America's industrial base. To the public, "clean, green energy" will no longer be a dreamy vision of windmills and solar collectors but the hard reality of spending $100 to fill your tank. There's one more thing as well. This will be the first issue in four years where President Obama won't be able to cast reflexive blame on George Bush.
The President began his term with an Inaugural Address promise that "We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories." He has kept that promise. Using the crowbar of the $1 trillion "stimulus," the Administration has shoehorned much of the country's energy investment into a Rube-Goldberg sector of the economy made up of the half-baked projects of armchair entrepreneurs plus the off-the-charts dreams of those wanting see the entire planet transformed into an environmental utopia.
Prompted by various federal and state government tax incentives plus market-obliterating "renewable mandates," hundreds of square miles of mountain and prairie have been covered with 45-story windmills that look like the archaeological remnants of a previous race of 80-foot giants. These "wind farms" generally produce electricity that is essentially useless. When the wind blows, windmills can force other forms of generation out of the market because they are free of fuel costs. But those other forms of generation have to be kept running just in case the wind dies down. Last year when temperatures rose to 110 degrees in Texas, that state's 7 percent "wind capacity" proved absolutely useless in the heat-induced doldrums.
And wind "farms," it should be noted, always talk in terms of "capacity" rather than output. That's because they only operate about 30 percent of the time. Nobody has yet invented a way to store commercial quantities of electricity and it may be impossible without building facilities of equally gargantuan dimensions -- say an entire city block of rechargeable batteries. Without any means of storage, wind power is essentially a nuisance.
Then there is solar electricity, which, in order to access, California is now planning to cover dozens of square miles of pristine desert (yes, there is already environmental opposition) in order to prove the world can run on sunshine. Solar energy is a bit more concentrated than wind so that it only takes about five square miles of highly polished collectors to produce 100 megawatts -- when the sun shines. In the desert environment, these solar panels will require constant cleaning and polishing to keep them from getting covered with dust and therefore becoming dysfunctional. It's a labor-intensive task that will require lots of water coming from who-knows-where.
And how about the electric car? Caught in the headlock of a government bailout, GM was forced to push its Volt out the door -- where it has sat on dealer lots ever since. Sales are miserable, except for the occasional government agency that drops by to place an order. Government patronage of the electric car industry has also produced the $104,000 Fisker Karma, made in Denmark but shipped to our shores so that Leonardo DiCaprio and a few others could buy first editions. Then there was the Bright, which went bankrupt last month, and the Asperta, which failed before that.
Now all this wouldn't be so bad if the Administration hadn't spent the other half of its time trying to put the fossil fuel industry out of business in order to clear the path for the Green Age. After spending a year failing to pass cap-and-trade, the Administration has doubled down with the Environmental Protection Agency, turning it loose on the nation's coal plants. The Sierra Club just celebrated the closing of the 100th coal boiler, with more to come. Just what this will mean for the reliability of the electric grid will be revealed this summer when electrical demand peaks. Last August, with temperatures at 110 degrees, Texas consumed a record 68,000 megawatts of electricity with only 76,000 MW of generating capacity on hand. Since then, the EPA has demanded the closure of 10,000 MW of Texas coal. The state has dodged the bullet only by going to court. Industrial states from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin are facing the same dilemma. If the region starts suffering power shortages this summer, will George Bush be there to take the blame?
Not that the President hasn't been playing both sides of the fence. With extraordinary chutzpah, Obama has claimed credit for the increase in oil and gas production through fracking technology. As Newt Gingrich pointed out last week (chronicled on this site by Peter Ferrara), the only reason fracking has succeeded is that all the new deposits are east of the Rockies and therefore beneath private land. In the Far West, where the federal government still owns up to 80 percent of the territory, the pace of exploration is slower than ever. The Institute for Energy Research has shown that drilling on land owned by the Bureau of Land Management is at an all-time low, only half what it was during the Clinton Administration.
How about offshore development? For a few brief months, the Administration actually talked about opening up new areas for exploration. Then came the BP oil spill and since then the Gulf of Mexico is becoming a backwater. Of 51 rig platforms stationed in the Gulf, only 21 are under contract and 15 actually drilling, a utilization of only 41 percent. The rate in rest of the world is 83 percent and in Europe and the Mediterranean 96 percent so there's plenty of demand out there. Fourteen rigs have left the Gulf over the last two years and the pace is accelerating. Since the Gulf provides 30 percent of our domestic production, this is bound to have an impact.
This bureaucratic foot-dragging is recognized all over the oil industry. "These have been the most difficult three years from a policy standpoint that I've ever seen in my career," Bruce Vincent, president of Swift Energy, told the annual meeting of the National Association of Petroleum Engineers last week. "They've done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting." And that doesn't even include the Keystone Pipeline, where the Administration kicked away 700,000 barrels a day, 4 percent of our total consumption. And all this isn't supposed to have an effect on gas prices?
In truth, though, all these considerations are long-range. What is having a more immediate impact is probably the easy money policies of the Fed. Oil isn't climbing so much as the dollar is depreciating. As the Wall Street Journal notes, if President Obama is ready to reap the reward of rising housing and stock prices, it's only fair that he accept rising commodity prices as well. This is treacherous territory. Every major downturn since the Arab Oil Boycott of 1973 has been preceded by a run-up in oil prices. It seems to signal an inflationary bubble in the economy that is about to pop.
So what can the Administration do between now and November? To be frank, they haven't a clue. President Obama is a lawyer, not an economist or a scientist. His knowledge of energy is drawn from the chitchat in the faculty lounge.
In any case, wherever supply and demand are concerned, Democrats are rarely willing to concede to reality anyway. Bernie Sanders is already yammering about "speculators" and the apologists in the press are lamenting that "the President isn't to blame for gas prices." There are even off-the-wall stories claiming that drilling and pipelines will only make things worse. "The Canadian plan [for building Keystone] was to use their market power to raise prices in the United States and get more money from consumers," proclaimed Bloomberg breathlessly -- just as every entrepreneur plans to acquire "market power" to "get more money from customers." Only to end up have the market end up claiming power over them. When defending something like the Obama Administration's energy policies, it's always important to make simple things sound complicated.
At bottom, the real problem is what Charles Murray describes in his new book, Coming Apart --the growing gap between college-educated people schooled in the wish fulfillment of "green energy" and the hard-won, hard-nosed wisdom of blue-collar America. To the elite in New York, Washington and San Francisco, energy generation is something we're trying to put behind us. It's déclassé. Only in blue-collar regions like Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Dakota do the realities of energy become visible, tangible, and audible -- and taxable.
The good news for Republicans is that the battle lines are drawn. After a summer of $5 gas plus power shortages in industrial regions, the results of four years of Obama energy policies will be hard to avoid. And there won't be any George Bushes around to take the blame.
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