President no longer worried about CO2: focus on alternative energy is economic says Obama, no mention of climate

It seemed clear some time ago that Obama had stopped believing in the AGW myth. He has the intelligence and open enough mind to step away from something when the evidence shows it is make-believe.
Politically he can’t yet say this, of course.

This analysis is not very convincing. First of all, WUWT readers should understand that estimates coming from models are trumped by actual data. The claims of recoverable reserves are not actually supported by the production data. Yes, the hydrocarbons are there. But to extract them we need to spend energy. In the case of shale, tar sands, and other unconventional sources the amount of hydrocarbon reserves that are economically viable (positive return on the energy invested) is very small. This is why most shale gas producers, who are unquestionable good at getting the gas out of the ground, have serious funding gaps that have to be filled by borrowing and selling off assets. And this is why the actual production of oil has not changed much since 2005 even though hundreds of billions in new investment has helped develop new fields.

We need to read this in the nyt and hear it on NPR or they won’t believe it.

Vangel, your assertions are dated and untenable. Of course it takes energy to extract and refine unconventional hydrocarbons. But that energy is present and abundantly available, as well as very cheap. We cannot blame you for failing to keep up with the developments in energy conversion, because you are much like any other average Joe who believes what he reads, but fails to go the extra mile to discover what is not being reported.
For those readers who actually want to understand the rest of the story which Alec Rawls omitted above, I suggest following my boss Al Fin’s energy blog, alfin2300.blogspot.com .

Harpo says:
March 19, 2012 at 7:00 pm
It seemed clear some time ago that Obama had stopped believing in the AGW myth. He has the intelligence and open enough mind to step away from something when the evidence shows it is make-believe.
================================================================================
Do you seriously think that he ever believed in it? Its becoming clearer by the day that global warming/climate change or whatever is nothing more than a smokescreen and excuse for the real agenda for which, in my opinion, Obama is nothing more than a shill –
http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/proposed-un-environmental-constitution-for-the-world-would-establish-an-incredibly-repressive-system-of-global-governance

Since additional CO2 in the atmosphere has been beneficial, we can use more of it.
(Forests and crops now grow 10-60% faster than seventy years ago.)
Higher world wide temperatures have been beneficial in the 11,500 years
since mankind became ‘civilized.’ (During the medieval warm period, the
Nordics populated SW Greenland and then left when it got cold.)
So let’s build more coal burning plants. Let’s find and produce the oil
we know we have. Let’s really use more natgas..! But do these things
while capturing the sulfur, NOXs, mercury, and soot.

I am naive on American politics (I’m from Down Under) but I think Obama would have received many favours when running for President from the one world government-save the planet crowd. He OWES a lot of people. Hence, the reason for being President is to pay-back that crowd by damning oil and promoting fairy floss energy, at the same time, knowing that ordinary Americans will be condemned to a lower standard of living.

Any enterprise or business you do with liars will always fail.
The prez is very good at seamy “willful deception”.
Either out of malice or blindness,
it’s a Big Fail for all of us.

Hey he is your current president, look where our federal Liberals are now the providers of the Green Shaft/Shift. I think Mr O’s policies are working, if it his intent to destroy the Democratic Party.

Obama lies? No kidding. He has always been a liar and a power grabber.He has surrounded himself with cronies like Chu who want to control all of our lives and in the end destroy freedom as we have known it. If he is elected for another term, there may will be an insurrection in this country and it won’t be peaceful.
As a parting shot, Vangel Vesovski says: “The claims of recoverable reserves are not actually supported by the production data.” Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Want an example, just look at the relatively quick change in natural gas supplies in the last decade or less.
If Obozo had started 3 years ago, leasing on federal lands, we would be in a lot better shape to be more in control of oil prices. Why? Stability in crude oil markets is achieved when there is roughly a 1 to 2 million barrel per day “overhang” in supply. When that occurs, there is sufficient market flexibility to cover for minor regional supply disruptions. If there’s a sudden oversupply (or drop in demand), the price can drop sharply because the excess oil must be stored at a cost. Lacking a market, the value of an incremental barrel is low. Conversely, if demand grows by 0.5 to 1 million bbls/day without supply gains, the price can shoot up rapidly. As that market cushion erodes, buyers get nervous and bid up the price. That is where we are now. If Obozo would have had permitted back then( including ANWAR), we would be starting to bring the stuff to market about now. In fact, if he was smart enough to change directions and say so, we would see oil futures drop lie a stone and catch a lot of these speculators in the crossfire.
I will for for ABO in Nov. I will let you translate ABO.

Obama is not to be trusted. He is in election mode and is now playing to the centre so you can be sure he is NOT going to play up to the Warmistas. He is keeping CO2-is-a-pollutant out of the public eye for now ! But he has not thrown it under the bus ! If he is reelected, look out ! His czars will make sure that gasoline is at least $10.00 a gallon by the end of 2016 ! And Dr.Chu will be back with a vengence !!

NW says, “Still I’d be happier if commentaries could be freed of the verb “lie” in all its forms.”
Ah, how about Fraud, Scoundrel, Wastrel, Traitor, Fool, Coward, instead of lie or liar? All = Obama

Harpo says:
March 19, 2012 at 7:00 pm

It seemed clear some time ago that Obama had stopped believing in the AGW myth.

Whether or not our own dear SCOAMF believes that the globe is warming, whether or not he believes this is caused by CO2, & whether or not he believes that burning “fossil” fuels has caused any appreciable increase in atmospheric CO2 are entirely beside the point. If pressed upon the point, I would venture that most Yale men would admit that their school is no better than Cornell or UNLV in any objective test, but that won’t stop them from playing their games with oblate spheroids in the intent of scoring more points.

Hey guys! Isn’t it great to see that the Administration already is coming off its CAGW stance? I predicted this at least two years ago. Mr. Obama should be welcomed to the fold, not reviled as a liar. He is a politician standing for reelection for crying out loud. Of course he is going to back away gracefully.
The Obama Administration has slowed down the permitting process after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but that doesn’t seem entirely out of line to me. That was a bad one, and to take a little time to reconsider safety measures and slow down the permitting process was not a bad idea. This does not mean that no permits have been issued by the way—far from it. A little south of fifty permits have been issued. The same goes for the Keystone XL pipeline. It was pushed through far too quickly. 60 days to approve it? Come on, that’s irresponsible. Ask Nebraska Governor David Heinemann (R), or Senator Mike Johanns (R-Nebraska). They are against it, and they hardly qualify as your bleeding-heart liberals.
And if Mr. Boehner wants to convince someone that world oil prices are tied to U.S. production, he needs to take his story a little farther into the countryside. Any sentient being knows that oil is a world commodity, and the world market sets the oil price—period. Demand from China and India has everything to do with oil prices, ANWR or Keystone XL very little. Those are the facts.
If you are looking for politicians curtsying to a frothy-mouthed base, please tune in to Romney, Santorum, et al. But perhaps they want soon-to be outlawed condoms for oil transportation.
Climate skepticism can always use converts. When a slow conversion is happening in the White House, I think the right idea is to say hail and well met, not to get one’s undies in a bundle.

ElmerF says at 8:29 PM:
[SNIP: This really is too far. Drop it. -REP]
Chill out, Elmer. You’ll live.

I’ve been snipped! FINALLY I said something that went too far. I’m a new man!
[REPLY: Congratulations. In my commenter persona I’ve been snipped numerous times. Welcome to the club. But please, even in jest, that stuff is not getting through. Thank you for your good humor and understanding. -REP]

Spector says:
March 19, 2012 at 10:11 pm
““There’s No Tomorrow,” Peak Oil Documentary”
They show a lot of graphs in that film.
None of the graphs has numbers on the y scale.
It’s a propaganda film. They pretend to have data when they have none.
If they had data, they could put numbers on the scales.

lol, Malthusians are out and about tonight. Peak oil!!! Dear God, do you people listen to yourselves? Read up ….. heck read the damned post. We’re not out of oil, we’ve got plenty of oil, well enough to last us centuries. And, much of the world’s reliance on it will be diminished by the nat gas that we’ve found.
Read geologists and economists. Read something other than your dystopian fantasies.

When the Spanish Portola Expedition discovered the Los Angeles valley in 1769 they were amazed at the 350F black geysers at the La Brea (Spanish for tar) tar pits. This super-heated discharge continued until drilling of oil wells at Long Beach in the early 1900’s. Hydrocarbons are a natural by-product of fission prduced ‘elemental’ atoms under high temperature and high pressure which form ‘elemental’ molecules and eventually elemental compounds. This is described in “Fossil Fuel is Nuclear Waste”. Speaking of waste….there’s no free lunch in the eco-energy market either. Solar cells work by molecular erosion, a one-time, one-way flow of direct current that creates less energy than reqired for production. Photovoltaic, like bio-fuels are a net energy loser. For more on this read “Green Prince of Darkness”. Those who would lie about your mothers warm breath on your baby face being a toxin….will lie about everything. There are six times the proven reserves of Methane Hydrate in tundra and ten times the proven reserves of Methane Calthrates at the ocean floor. Find and share Truth.

DirkH says:
March 19, 2012 at 10:17 pm
“Why did he block the Keystone XL pipeline, then?’
He blocked it because the approval period was way too short, as was the stated reason. It takes a little longer than sixty days to work out the kinks in a proposal of that magnitude.
I don’t think Mr. Hansen makes any sense either, but that doesn’t change the fact that a major pipeline project needs a reasonable time for approval. The Republican Governor of Nebraska agrees with this.

“For that to be true, human effects on climate would have to dominate natural effects, a hypothesis that has already been falsified by 15 years of no warming. The only people who believe it at this point are the paid shills of our lavishly funded climate-alarm industry and their anti-capitalist allies. It has actually become unmentionable, which really does warrant some mention.”
Succinctly put Mr Rawls….. and it is a message that the voters are becoming more and more informed about.

Owen in Ga says (March 19, 2012 at 9:01 pm): “Pretty much whatever Mr. Obama says I look for the deception, because the guy hasn’t played it straight with anyone yet. I am not even sure he knows when he is prevaricating.”
Well I know when Obama’s lying:
His lips move.
(Oh come on, somebody had to say it!)
[Moderator’s Note: This comment is acceptable. Please remember, however, that we are talking about the President of the United States and there are some lines that will not be crossed. Please exercise… shall we say, discretion? in comments. Thank you for your cooperation. -REP]

As for Hansen, I will be amazed if he holds his job after the election, the issue for Obama is if he moves Hansen now the left will go insane before the election.

Alec Rawls says:
March 19, 2012 at 11:12 pm
“Obama is not a convert. He’s a liar. When he pretends that his long-professed anti-CO2 policies have nothing to do with CO2, he is not telling the truth. But you just keep smoothing your panties Torgeir. Whatever makes you feel good.”
Dear Mr. Rawls:
Governments lie. Get used to it.
What I find remarkable is that if you can’t see that the Obama Administration backing off its CAGW views has major benefits, your mind is clouded with too much protest.
That’s a win, Alec. Take it, and save your disparagement for a better occasion.

peak oil is not about “running out of oil.” it’s about running out of cheap, affordable oil. and we’re already there, otherwise, why would the price of oil have doubled — twice — in just the last decade? saudi arabia, once the world’s swing producer, is pretty much producing a maximum right now, and regardless of all the shale/tar sands oil & gas we can produce in the u.s and canada, we are still very close to a deficit in liquid fuels. the best estimates by the u.s. military and iea and other respected monitors of world oil supply indicate that we will be off the 8-year plateau of hubbert’s peak that the world’s been on within another year or 2 or 3 — then world oil supply will rapidly go into a tailspin, with dramatic gasoline price increases and, in the not too distant future, actual shortages at the pump. i am flabbergasted to see such uninformed and completely unsophisticated opinion about the reality of peak oil among such an otherwise erudite crowd as frequents WUWT. suggest a trip to theoildrum.com, and, additionally listen to a few interviews (on youtube) with the highly respected oil analyst dr. robert hirsch, author of the 2005 “hirsch report,” which was commissioned by the u.s. gov’t and then suppressed. i found “there’s no tomorrow” to be an excellent film — even with the unenumerated y axes.

p.s. i’ve long been a great admirer of mr. watts, and this blog, and agree wholeheartedly with the thesis that co2-caused AGW is complete bunk. but it’s distressing to see the same highly discerning skeptics regarding agw react in such kneejerk fashion to a problem that is all to real, and has already bitten us ($147/barrel oil directly precipitated the 2008 financial crash) and, like a boa constrictor, will continue to tighten around the world economy for the foreseeable future, with predictably dire consequences. as far as oil prices are concerned, notice that each spike in oil prices is followed by a financial crash, ensuing demand destruction, which then temporarily lowers the price of oil … which then creeps back up again. and these cycles are getting closer and closer together. suggest some more research before dismissing the reality of peak oil. no matter how much we “drill baby drill” in the u.s. and offshore, we’ll never come anywhere close to meeting our current domestic needs for liquid fuels without lots imported oil. also, as the oil exporting countries continue to siphon more and more of their oil to quell domestic demand, there’ll be less and less available for export. china and india alone will be absorning much of this exported oil anyway.
peak oil is real, and may be the most serious problem the advanced industrial world faces for the foreseeable future.

” If we drilled every square inch of this country — so we went to your house and we went to the National Mall and we put up those rigs everywhere — we’d still have only 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.”
The operative word is ‘known’. Whenever there is a desire to limit the supplies available the reserve is reduced to what is ‘known’ (proven etc). Whenever there is a desire to inflate the amount they are termed ‘reserves’ or ‘disciveries’ or ‘estimated’. Both sides place this game: those who pretend we are running out and those who pretend they know there will be more.
As abiotic oil exploration is only seriously practised in Russia where 50% of current exports are from ‘non-fossil sources’ it is very unclear what anyone’s ‘known oil reserves’ are because we have not even started looking properly yet.
Whatever you dear readers think about the tussles over energy that must be going on behind the scenes in the Office of the President, one this is obvious to us ‘furriners’: the USA has started looking for energy a lot closer to home and stopped grabbing derricks in foreign lands. That is credited to the President, like it or not, true or not, just as the previous acquisitive behaviour is rightly or wrongly attributed to the previous one. Stop dissing your own CIC.
One more thing, the chart of reserves is laughable as a picture of available energy. Africa is barely explored and it seems every time someone trips over a mango tree root, oil pops up. Keep your eye on the Congo basin.

Tiger Woods Leg says:
March 19, 2012 at 11:28 pm
Keystone will be approved right after the election, and Obama strongly supports the new pipeline to move Canadian oil while Keystone gets built.
Also, why can’t we take winning for an answer? Global warming is scientifically invalid and we need to accept we won the argument and quit vilifying the other side for actual agreement with us.
”
What makes you believe all of this? Saying Hansen will get fired and all of that seems suspect. I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Keystone approved even if he gets re e-elected, but outside of that it’s hard to believe the rest of what you’re saying.

Dear Mr. Sexton:
I understand that the U.S. has reserves to outproduce any other country in the world.
Yet U.S. oil production has fallen most years since 1980. During the Bush II Administration it fell every year. EVERY year, under the tutelage of the Arbusto President. The first sharp upticks in production happened in 2009 and 2010. Those were Obama years, but I am willing to accept the notion that these increases happened due to decisions made towards the end of the Bush Administration, although it would be nice to see confirmation for it.
As a matter of fact we only saw an increase in U.S. oil production in 7 out of 30 years in the period between 1980 and 2010. This was a time when Republicans controlled government for 18 out of 30 years. During the Reagan Administration U.S. oil production fell for 5 out of 8 years.
It seems to me that this data shows that U.S. oil production does not depend on which party occupies the White House or Congress.
What is your explanation for the decline in production? I understand that new technology may have altered the picture, but we can’t forget that there are political and environmental considerations in the picture as well.

So called Oil Markets are a financial casino not a true market. The prices set have nothing to do with cost of production, supply or demand. That is why we have silly prices.
If Oil “contracts” consisted of real oil that had to be collected, you would see prices tumble.

Torgeir Hansson says:
March 19, 2012 at 11:42 pm
“Governments lie. Get used to it.”
Au contraire, Mr. Hansson. This is not “government” lying. This is a candidate for political office in the United States this year. Barack the Usurper’s own government has put plenty of facts out there to contradict the bald-faced lies he has been telling. So this is quite foolish of you to be insulting the intelligence of the rest of us with dismissive statements like yours.
Bottom line: with the current price of a barrel of oil, it is now easier to develop new resources that were more expensive to reach. If this government will stay the heck out of the way and quit revoking and denying more drilling permits on federal lands, this will, eventually, increase the supply of oil to the point where gas prices can come down. It has been proven with natural gas in this country. If the Democratic Party in this country hadn’t spent as much time halting exploration efforts in this country for the last 40 years, we would not be talking about gasoline prices here like we are now. As James Sexton also said, Europe has its own problems, most of them of their own making, so please stifle the urge to sound ridiculous.

Hello Alec:
What Obama is saying is that drilling in the U.S. will not solve the short-term price issue at the pump. And he’s right. We do need more alternative sources, such as nuclear, wind, and solar, and everything else we can come up with—biofuels from pig manure and all the rest of it. We need to use all available resources to succeed.
I will have to take issue with the notion that the Obama Administration is out to deceive everybody. They are trying to solve the issues that are facing us, based on the best information available, just as I believe the Bush Administration tried to do the same, and every Administration before it. I will not follow you into the assumption that this Administration is out to ruin the country. That is a toxic notion.

Torgeir Hansson says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:07 am
Taxing behavior usually ends up creating unforeseen consequences that defeat overall policy on a particular subject. I’ve never been a big advocate of taxing to regulate people’s behavior, unlike you. We’ve been taxing gasoline in this country for years; about one-third to one-half of the price of gas at the pump is gasoline taxes, depending upon what state you are in. And yeah, it has an effect – in Texas, for example, gas tax revenue has gone down in recent years, and has created a budget crunch for highway construction and maintenance. Like it or not, people will drive and have to drive. It does little good to cut your nose off to spite your face.
Now, Europeans may be desperate with respect to oil, because they are “regulating behavior” in spite of the fact that they have mass transit systems that are far more comprehensive than those in the United States. Maybe THEY should try finding more oil in their own backyards.

Torgeir Hansson says:
March 19, 2012 at 9:39 pm
The Obama Administration has slowed down the permitting process after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, but that doesn’t seem entirely out of line to me. That was a bad one, and to take a little time to reconsider safety measures and slow down the permitting process was not a bad idea.
He didn’t slow the process down, he called it to a complete halt.
This does not mean that no permits have been issued by the way—far from it. A little south of fifty permits have been issued.
You’re thinking of leases — the BSEE’s site lists 69 deepwater permits approved of 107 submitted.
http://www.bsee.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Permits/Status-of-Gulf-of-Mexico-Well-Permits.aspx
Problem is, the majority of them are permits to *resume* drilling at existing sites…

Torgeir Hansson says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:33 am
“Dear Smokey:
Governments need money to function. You may not like it, but governments are the agents of the people. Both driving and smoking cost money to society, as there are cheaper alternatives.”
Name me a cheaper alternative to driving.

Bill Tuttle says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:35 am
“He didn’t slow the process down, he called it to a complete halt.”
Untrue, Bill. Here:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/29/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-claims-there-has-been-just-one-ne/
Try to read up on the facts next time.

Allan,
I believe solar is a good alternative for many residences. As many homes as possible should have solar. I hear the industry talk about grid parity, but the limitations are obvious. The number of players in the solar industry who talk about “climate change” is dwindling rapidly. It’s all about dollars and cents. Still based, of course, on the 30% Federal tax credit.

Torgeir Hansson says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:46 am
Bill Tuttle says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:35 am
“He didn’t slow the process down, he called it to a complete halt.”
Untrue, Bill. Here:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/29/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-claims-there-has-been-just-one-ne/
Try to read up on the facts next time.
*ahem*
“Frustrated twice by the federal courts—which had overturned his original temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling—President Obama Monday evening decided to do what most of us have probably wanted to do when denied by someone in a position of authority: he went ahead anyway. (Sometimes it’s good to be President.) Interior Secretary Ken Salazar directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM)—the government agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service (MMS)—to issue new suspensions of deepwater drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, while investigators continue to look at the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.”
http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2010/07/12/obama-issues-new-offshore-drilling-moratorium/
The Obama administration’s six-month delay in approving new offshore drilling leases in federal waters will become a new three-year ban, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quietly told reporters last Friday. Which means that no new oil and gas leases will be approved during President Obama’s term…
http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/beltway-confidential/2010/03/obama-moratorium-no-offshore-drilling-while-he%E2%80%99s-office/5916
My emphasis, both quotes.
The top two hits of 856,000 for the query terms “Obama moratorium on offshore drilling” — would you kindly enlighten me as to where I might find the fact that Obama did *not* call a halt to offshore drilling?

I will not follow you into the assumption that this Administration is out to ruin the country. That is a toxic notion.
Torgeir Hansson says:
March 20, 2012 at 2:26 am
No and I don’t want you to follow me. Unlike you I have run a business and I know for a fact that the Obama administration has been doing everything it can to destroy the business community in the US. You can start with his unending attacks on the banks and wall st and finish with his Waxman markey, Dodd franks bills. Every business man in america has been slamming these bills from the beginning. A health bill that describes 19 ways to be attacked by a parrot and a finance bill which creates a bureaucracy that will costs millions of $. You my friend have the knowledge of the unemployable.

Torgeir Hansson says:
March 20, 2012 at 2:16 am
“Allan,
I believe solar is a good alternative for many residences. As many homes as possible should have solar. I hear the industry talk about grid parity, but the limitations are obvious.”
When the solar industry says “Grid parity”, they mean that the solar subsidy cost for the taxpayer or ratepayer per kWh is equal to the ratepayer rate (which is production cost of energy plus xx percent taxes).
In other words, they DON’T mean that the production cost of solar power beomes equal to any other way of producing electricity; their “Grid Parity” is a propaganda term they defined for their own purposes. It is useless for cost considerations.

We humans have been extracting gold and silver from the bowels of th earth for tens of thousands on years. Then we went for copper, tin, zinc and lead. Each discovery gave us a technological leap forward. Later on we discovered iron, which gave us a quantum leap. We continued discovering ores and transforming them into technological material for the advancemnt of humanity. Aluminum was the latest addition to the metallurgical field. meanwhile we had been extracting diamonds and other precious stones for our kings and queens, our temples and churches, hollywwod stars and billioners..
Some 150 years ago we started extracting oil, making our civilisation what it is today. Just 150 years of extracting black gold and we are hearing and reading of ‘peak oil’.
During these thousands of years of extracting gold and silver, copper and tin, lead and steel, diamonds and rubies, we never heard or read someone shouting peak gold, or peak iron or peak diamonds. But after 150 years of extracting oil we hear of peak oil. This is just rubbish. Have a look at a world map and mark the points from where we have extracted oil up to this day and one will realise that we have just scratched the surface. This is all a scam for robbing us of our hard-earned wages for others to get richer and richer and richer while the western countries are floundering in the financial mire. The latest scam is EU issuing 100 year bonds, meaning that the banks are getting loans from our great great great grand children…………..
All it takes to remedy the situation is to have a US president that is honest about this and acts honestly. That’s all the world needs; an honest US president.
I just wish I can fake US citizenship and come and vote come November.

The point of the post: Obama can’t even mention climate change or AGW in an energy speech. Convincing evidence that Al Gore is right – “the debate is over”

“If we drilled every square inch of this country — so we went to your house and we went to the National Mall and we put up those rigs everywhere — we’d still have only 2 percent of the world’s known oil reserves.”
I wish the alarmists would apply similar logic to their beloved windmills.
Paraphrased:
If we placed wind-turbines on every square inch of this country — so we went to your house and we went to the National Mall and we put up those turbines everywhere — we’d still generate a fraction of the energy that we need.”

Vangel Vesovski.
You are far behind the times in terms of the on-going shift in world energy production. We are seeing a paradigm shift. There is a huge amount of energy production about to break out from politically stable portions of the world, not just the USA.
Consider the geo-political implications if Israel becomes a Saudi class Oil exporter of light sweet crude at $35-$45 a barrel, and a major Natural Gas exporter, in about 7-years.
Once Israel breaks the risk premium (capital risk of the technology and the political risk premium from Arab oil retaliation and Green Regulatory NIMBY-ism) of the deep oil shale extraction and waterless deep gas fracking. (See article below) We will see a huge amount of energy sources emerging in politically stable areas of the world at $35-$45 a barrel.
Israel is providing an example of how oil consuming nations can become oil producing ones.
Forget Europe and America for a moment. Think China.
And once Israel goes there for oil shale, the barriers to coal gasification and natural gas to liquid hydrocarbon will also fall (Just google “Shell GTL” or “Pearl GTL” for the basics.), following deep oil shale extraction into the stable world energy mix.
$4 a gallon is the upper market limit on refined fuels, absent government interference via taxes, environmental regulations, moratoriums on energy development, and political instability risk premiums.
Liquifaction of coal to synthetic POL is now feasible at $4 a gallon pump price, and Shell’s natural gas liquifaction plant in Malaya has been converting natural gas to diesel for years. Shell’s new CFL plant in Louisiana is producing synthetic diesel from natural gas because diesel’s pump price is over $4 a gallon.
This is a set of technologies that will power the world economy for the next 50 years…without the Arab oil ticks.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Israel-May-Hold-the-Worlds-Third-Largest-Reserve-of-Shale-Oil.html
Israel May Hold the World’s Third Largest Reserve of Shale Oil
Last summer huge deposits of natural gas were found along Israel’s northern coastline.
As with almost everything having to do with that controversial country, both Israelis and others found this “revelation” a mixed blessing, to say the least. On the one hand, it certainly eases concerns about Israel’s energy viability, with enough not just for its own needs, but sufficient quantities to become a major exporter as well.
At the same time, many Israelis feared the effect such “easy money” would have on the country’s already significant elite corruption problem, and its proximity to Lebanese territorial waters raised once again the question of the wisdom of Israel’s 2006 invasion, which alienated many previously pro-Israeli elements in Lebanon, and seemed sure to fuel a national consensus to contest any easy access for which Israelis might be hoping.
Hmmmm … sounds a bit like BP and their Arctic drilling problems in Russia … 😉 …
Now, it turns out, even more fuel is being added to Israel’s energy fire — so to speak — with the equally stunning news that the country may hold the world’s third largest quantities of shale oil – behind the US and China, both of whom would consume almost all of their own production – meaning Israel could indeed become the world’s largest exporter of shale oil — hence the comparison to Saudi Arabia.
Israel a global super power in energy ??? The mind boggles.
But the same sort of technological revolution that has made previously inaccessible on-shore natural gas suddenly available – via a process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, an environmentally destructive process whose impact on the global natural gas scene we discussed last week – is now apparently transforming the extraction of shale oil as well – and in so doing, shaking up the energy dynamics of the entire world, including Israel.
How did all this come to be ???
The most recent developments in this story start with Dr Harold Vinegar, the former chief scientist of Royal Dutch Shell, who is at the center of an ambitious project to turn Israel into one of the world’s leading oil producers. Israel Energy Initiatives, or IEI, where Vinegar is chief scientist, is working on projects to extract oil and natural gas from oil shale from a 238sq km area of the Shfela Basin, to the south and west of Jerusalem.
Oil shale mining is often frowned upon by environmentalists for many of the same reasons as fracking: it’s a dirty process that is both energy and water-intensive.
IEI, which is owned by the American telecom group IDT Corp, believes its technique will be cleaner than that of other operators because the oil will be separated from the shale rock up to 300m beneath the ground.
Water will be a by-product of the process, rather than being consumed by it in large volumes. Vinegar says Israel has the third-biggest oil shale deposits in the world, outside the US and China:
“We estimate there is the equivalent of 250 billion barrels of oil here. To put that in context, there are proven reserves of 260 billion barrels of oil in Saudi Arabia.”
And not to upset too many people, but we also ran an item earlier this year about Arab scientists working for ARAMCO who argue that the Saudis have, in fact, systematically OVER-estimated their proven reserves.
IEI estimates the marginal cost of production will be between $US35 – 40 per barrel.
This, Vinegar points out, is cheaper than the $US60 or so per barrel that it costs to extract crude from inhospitable locations such as the Arctic – wow, if BP CEO Dudley isn’t gnashing his teeth when he reads this 😉 – and compares with $US30 – 40 per barrel in some of the deepwater oilfields off the coast of Brazil.
“These Israeli deposits have been known about, but have never been listed before. It was previously assumed there was not the technology to deal with it.”
IEI hopes to begin production on a commercial basis by the end of the decade, with a view to producing 50,000 barrels per day at the outset. This would be a fraction of the 270,000bpd consumed daily by Israel, but would be a significant step towards making the country energy-independent. With one barrel of oil comprising 42 gallons, Vinegar estimates each ton of oil shale contains approximately 25 gallons.
The extraction process involves heating the rock underground, using electric heaters, to approximately 325C, the level at which the carbon-carbon bonds in the rock start to “crack”.
Wow, this really DOES sound like the shale oil equivalent of “fracking”. The oil produced by the process is light and easily refined to a range of products, including naphtha, jet fuel and diesel.
This is significant, since light oil — like that produced in Libya — is considered “sweet” and much less costly to refine than the heavier crude found in Saudi Arabia.
Given the importance of political receptivity to outside investors in the energy business, it’s not surprising the project is attracting serious interest from outside investors. In November, 2010, an 11% stake in Genie Oil & Gas, the division of IDC that is the parent company of IEI, was acquired for $US11m by Jacob Rothschild, the banker, and Rupert Murdoch, chairman of News Corporation and promoter of right-wing lunacy throughout the English-speaking world.
Genie’s advisory board includes impressive figures such as Michael Steinhardt, the hedge fund investor, and more frightening ones, like Dick Cheney, former US vice-president, and co-founder of the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iraq, along with his running buddy George W Bush.
An appraisal is now under way that would be followed by an 18-month pilot stage, according to Vinegar. Among the issues this will address will be concerns raised by environmental groups, including an examination of IEI’s claims that the process does not require excessive use of water or energy.
Reassurance will also be sought that a local aquifer, which is several hundred metres below the shale deposits, will not be contaminated by the work. This is key, because, while the Middle East may have an abundance of fossil-fuel energy, it has a decided shortage of water, so any process that is a major net consumer of water may not be cost-effective from an overall point of view.
Assuming these early stages are completed successfully, a demonstration phase would then take place over three to four years, during which the work completed in the pilot phase would be continued on a larger scale. Only then would the commercial operations begin.
By that time, up to 1000 people would be employed on the project, many of them specialist engineers from outside Israel, says Vinegar, who adds:
“Funding is not needed for the pilot and demonstration, although once we get to 50,000 barrels per day, we would want to have a partner. We have been approached by all the majors.”
Not surprisingly, the project still faced a number of significant issues, as Vinegar points out:
“There is a geological risk:
– Is the resource there?
– What is the risk to the aquifer?
– We have no doubts here, in particular that the resource is there and is of good quality,
– but the pilot can prove these things.
“Then there is the technological risk:
– Can we drill long horizontal wells?
– Can the heaters be placed in them?
– And can they last?
“And finally there is the economic risk, what the price of oil does. But I think the price is going to continue rising, to the extent that, by 2030, we will be at around $US200 per barrel.”
And while this seems to have escaped Vinegar’s attention, which is not a great sign, there is a fourth potential risk for the project: whether it is capable of sufficiently overcoming substantive objections from environmentalists to win popular support – perhaps the most important challenge facing him and his colleagues.
If they are successful, though, it will probably mean an end to one of the most humorous stories in Jewish culture about fossil-fuel energy: During a crowded Passover service, a rabbi telling the story of the Exodus from Egypt was interrupted by an old man, who kept shouting, “Moses was a schmuck, Moses was a schmuck.”
Of course, the congregation was shocked, and the stunned rabbi finally asked the old man why he was criticizing the great hero of Judaism / Christianity / Islam. The old man replied without hesitation: “He said when they come out of Sinai, turn left. If he had any brains, he should have told them, “Turn right.'”
David Caploe PhD
Chief Political Economist
EconomyWatch.com

I get a little weary of the Oil is fungible/internationally traded argument. Yes, it is NOW. But it doesn’t have to remain that way. Other commodities – from diamonds to timber are also traded internationally but treated as standard trade goods. We could easily trade excess US oil on our terms rather than being driven by OPEC or Brent. Granted there is no US crude excess at the moment, but it wouldn’t take long to change that. We used to supply the world with oil – remember?

James Sexton says:
March 19, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Lol, not really…. “Advances in thermally conductive in-situ conversion may cause shale-derived oil to be competitive with crude oil at prices below $30 per barrel. …..” Continuing, ….“With the exception of the Alberta-Taciuk Processor, no significant development work in surface retorting has occurred for more than 20 years. During this period, major technical advances have occurred in process monitoring and control, process simulation and modeling, chemicals separation and purification, and systems and methods for reducing adverse environmental impacts.” More…… “We assume operating and maintenance costs for first-of-a-kind plants to be between $17 and $23 (2005 dollars) per barrel (OTA, Volume I, 1980; Albulescu and Mazzella, 1987).10 Given these capital and operating cost estimates, we project that the price of low-sulfur, light crude oil, such as West Texas Intermediate, will need to be at least $70 to $95 per barrel for a first-of-a-kind oil shale operation to be profitable.” What’s the price per barrel today? Oh, yeh $108 ….. but, that was just a first gen estimate…… “For initial production costs between $70 and $95 per barrel, experienced-based
learning could drop those costs to between $35 and $48 per barrel within 12 years of the start of commercial oil shale operations.” ……… but all of that was for off-site retorting.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG414.pdf
=====================================
Sorry but I prefer to look at the objective evidence instead of assumptions, mays, coulds, and other expressions of hope. And I am quite aware in the ‘advancements’ made in unconventional recovery because I have invested in them and talked to the people who made or implemented them. None of what I have seen convinces me that there is much of a profit to be made in extracting shale gas and liquids from the average shale formation.
Note that I have not dismissed the sweet spots in the good areas. For a small producer who limits his operations to the areas that make sense there is a lot of money to be made and if I see such opportunities I would have no problem taking a risk investing in them.
But what worries me the most is that the hype being pushed by the charlatans who tout the promise of shale production is diverting attention and investment from other sources. From where I stand the level of debt in the shale sector reminds me a lot of the subprime crisis in 2006. If there is a slight setback in the real economy for a period of six months or so I can see more than 80% of the shale sector going into bankruptcy within the following year with most of the drillers leading the way.

Thank you. Please do all you can to get the word out. The MSM like NY Times, Guardian and The Economist are all denying the obvious: The Obama administration has been an unmitigated disaster for the economy – they have attack fossil fuel businesses, subsidized uneconomic green scams and thrown money at their friends the banksters. Cheap energy is good for America. Expensive Green scams are not. And printing money like there is no tomorrow will simply make everything more expensive as America’s fiat currency devalues.

ElmerF says:
March 19, 2012 at 8:29 pm
As a parting shot, Vangel Vesovski says: “The claims of recoverable reserves are not actually supported by the production data.” Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. Want an example, just look at the relatively quick change in natural gas supplies in the last decade or less.
Nonsense. You need to look at the cash flows and profits. Or pay attention to the comments made by the CEOs. They don’t want to drill for gas but have to because if they did not the companies would have to write down the ‘value’ of the leases that they carry on their balance sheet. If they did that they would be bankrupt because there isn’t any capital to handle the change. Take a look at the 10-Ks and ask yourself why companies that have been producing shale gas for half a decade or more are unable to self finance their activities.

@Tiger Woods Leg
>>As for Hansen, I will be amazed if he holds his job after the election, the issue for Obama is if he moves Hansen now the left will go insane before the election.<<
Hansen will hold his job for as long as he continues to be USEFUL to whatever political regime is in office after the election. It could just as easily be a Republican regime as a Democrat regime. Control of energy production and distribution, carbon credit trading and carbon taxes potentially serve the needs of quite a few people regardless of their politics.

Spector says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:01 am
The point is that all the extra processing takes energy. That is why we/they have never exploited these resources before…….
Torgeir Hansson says:
March 20, 2012 at 2:26 am
For the Senate, the Republicans had the majority from 1981-86, 1995-2000, 2003-06. Let’s look at the period between 1995 to 2006. During that time oil production fell every year. EVERY year.
===========================================================
Guys, I don’t think you know how things work, or what has already been done. And, you’re not listening. Your talking points have already been addressed. The reason why we haven’t exploited the oil that’s there is because of the same enviro-nutjobs that are blathering so much about CO2. Spector, the sand oil Canada is trying to sell us….. don’t you think they understand EREOI ? Torgeir, in spite of what you believe about how the U.S. political system works, it isn’t that easy to say so and so was president and could have drilled if we wanted to. It doesn’t work that way. Oil companies have been trying to get to ANWR for years. Further as technology increase so to does the ability to extract more oil in an energy positive manner.
For decades the lunatic greens have thwarted U.S. energy production at every turn. I’ve offered these already, but, perhaps you’ve missed it.
Go here for the economic viability of extracting shale oil. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG414.pdf I don’t think you understand that our available oil and gas has already been identified as sufficient. Go here http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/site/pagina.php?id=3316

Shale gas is not limited to the USA.
The Fracking revolution has arrived in the UK.
And the same Warmist clique is against it there like in the USA.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100106839/watermelons-v-the-shale-gas-miracle/
Watermelons v the Shale Gas Miracle
By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: September 23rd, 2011
198 Comments Comment on this article
Caroline Lucas by Fenbeagle
God knows we could all do with some good news right now. And as it happens, from Oop North near Blackpool this week, we had good news in spades.
Sure, it was known Britain was sitting on some pretty sizeable shale gas deposits. What hadn’t been announced before though, was just how sizeable.
An area in northwest England may contain 200 trillion cubic feet of shale gas, putting it in the same league as some of the vast shale-gas plays that have transformed the U.S. energy industry.
The figure for the area near Blackpool, released Wednesday by Cuadrilla Resources, a small oil-and-gas company with operations in England’s Bowland Shale, highlights the U.K.’s emerging position as a new frontier for unconventional gas exploration.
I said “good news” but that seriously understates the case. It may be the best thing to happen to the British economy since the discovery of North Sea oil and gas; possibly since the Industrial Revolution. Those who’ve been following the story closely such as Nick Grealy at the
No Hot Air blog understand this perfectly well:
[*]No doubt about it, the numbers are not so much game changing as jaw-dropping. These figures surprised everyone, but they didn’t surprise readers here as much. The experience world wide of shale shows that initial “expert opinion” expectations of potential and actual production have been consistently pessimistic at best and generally down right wrong.
And even more amazingly, this may be just the tip of the iceberg. I hear reports that the shale gas deposits in the North East of England may be larger still; and that those under the North Sea may dwarf even these. We are talking, in other words, of cheap energy sufficiently abundant to supply our needs for at least the next century, possibly much longer. This means in turn that our industry will become more competitive, the cost of heating and lighting our homes will fall dramatically, and that our economy suddenly now has an opportunity to grow even as those in much of the Western world are collapsing.
So why aren’t we out on the streets, celebrating, drinking and rutting like it was VE Day all over again?
In a word: Watermelons.
You may have seen the episode of the Daily Politics where I accused Green MP Caroline Lucas of being a “watermelon” and she admitted she was proud to be one – “green on the outside, red on the inside.” Well we should be grateful for her honesty, I suppose. But is this really what we need right now as our economy stands on the brink of the Greater Depression: outspoken, publicity-hungry politicians who consider it their bounden and sacred duty to put whatever obstacles they can in the way of economic growth – all in the name of combating that increasingly discredited chimaera, “climate change”?
Lucas clearly thinks so, as she shows in her latest article for Komment Macht Frei (Grüne Abteilung). Drilling, she insists, must be postponed indefinitely, because someone somewhere might derive some economic benefit from it – and that would be just plain wrong.
With pound signs in his eyes, Cuadrilla’s chief executive says he was “excited” by the find. I am not. And neither are the many hundreds of environmental campaigners and local people who are fighting the government’s apparent determination to allow the exploitation of every last bit of fossil fuel from below our feet.
I think she might be pushing a bit with that “many hundreds”. “Dozens”, possibly, though it’s interesting to note that even at the Guardian the majority of commenters below her article appear to be either cautiously in favour of further exploration or downright cynical about Lucas’s doom-cult ideology.
My favourite is the one that says:
Gaia, in all her wisdom, has seen fit to give us the gas finds at Blackpool.
Much as I respect the views of Ms Lucas, I must accept Gaia’s sacred plan.
Lucas is not, of course, the only Watermelon standing in the way of economic recovery. The biggest and most dangerous by far is the impossible Chris Huhne:
The UK’s “dash for gas” will be halted by the government because if unchecked it would break legally binding targets for carbon dioxide emissions, Chris Huhne, energy and climate change secretary, said on Monday evening.
Well he may think that now. But I do wonder whether his Coalition colleagues will feel quite so enamoured of this principled stance to progress, economic growth, cheap energy, and inflation-reduction as the depression deepens, the weather gets colder, the landscape is ruined by more and more wind farms, and energy bills continue their exponential rise.
One thing’s for certain. No longer is there any excuse for anyone to write sympathetic pieces about George Osborne arguing that there is no magic bullet available in his armoury to save the British economy. Against all the odds, that magic bullet has just been handed to him on a plate. All he has to do is call a halt to Britain’s economically suicidal drive for “renewable energy”, cancel immediately Britain’s disastrous wind farm building programme, and give the green light to shale gas drilling. It won’t even cost the taxpayer any money. The cheap energy is there. The jobs are there. If he doesn’t grab this miraculous opportunity with both hands, history will never forgive him.
Oh incidentally it has come to my shocked attention that I am speaking at the Soho Literary Festival tomorrow on this very subject: Watermelons. Even though I haven’t prepared anything I’m sure I’ll be very good and would welcome your support, if any of you happen to be in central London and at a loose end around 5.45pm on Saturday evening. Maybe see you there?

vangelv,
You really need to check out the chart at the link:
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/N-American-oil-output-could-top-40-year-old-peak-2193837.php
The title in the text says it all:
The Oil Boom is Here
North America appears headed for an oil renaissance, with crude production expected to hit an all-time high by 2016, given the current pace of drilling in the U.S. and Canada, according to a study released by an energy research firm this week.
U.S. oil production in areas including West Texas’ Permian Basin, South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale, and North Dakota’s Bakken shale will record a rise of a little over 2 million barrels per day from 2010 to 2016, according to data compiled by Bentek Energy, a Colorado firm that tracks energy infrastructure and production projects.
Canadian crude production is expected to grow by 971,000 barrels per day during the same period, with much of the oil headed for the U.S.
Combined, the U.S. and Canadian oil output will top 11.5 million barrels per day, which is even more than their combined peak in 1972.
Goldman Sachs has estimated the U.S. could move from being the No. 3 oil producer behind Saudi Arabia and Russia to the No. 1 spot by 2017.
It’s a reversal of the steady downward production trend that started after 1971, when U.S. oil production peaked around 9.5 million barrels per day.
And the pace of production now has caught quite a few people by surprise, says Joseph Pratt, a historian at the University of Houston who has written extensively about the oil and gas industry.
“We have this momentum out there to set about doing what we said we wanted to do back in the 1970s: reduce the flow of imports from volatile regions,” Pratt said. “It was like the Holy Grail back then. And suddenly it seems possible.”
The surge is fueled by the same drilling and production techniques that opened up natural gas production in recent years – the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing – as well as the success of deep-water Gulf of Mexico projects and the ramp-up of Canadian oil sands projects.
The natural gas glut has kept its price low, prompting producers to focus more effort on oil and natural gas liquids, which fetch better prices.
Earlier this year, the number of land and offshore oil rigs working in the U.S. exceeded the number of natural gas rigs for the first time in 18 years, according to data compiled by IHS-CERA.
And Texas oil and gas industry employment returned to its pre-recession highs in June, according to the Texas Petroleum Index, topping the last boom that peaked in October 2008, thanks largely to oil drilling.
The oil boom has plenty of economic upside potential. IHS-CERA predicts oil production could directly and indirectly generate another 1.3 million U.S. jobs over the next decade and raise an additional $97 billion in federal taxes and royalty payments.
But plenty of people are concerned about the other costs that might come with more oil production.
The proposed Keystone XL pipeline, a major project to bring Canadian oil sands to U.S. Gulf Coast refineries, has become a rallying point for environmentalists, with hundreds arrested during a sit-in in front of the White House several weeks ago.
And the Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with new rules aimed at tighter controls on emissions from oil and gas drilling, production and transportation.
The industry contends the proposed rules put a costly burden on a job-creating industry at a time when the country needs jobs.
But Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank, said the industry is far from being hobbled financially. He noted that the five oil majors – Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Chevron and ConocoPhillips – have reported $67 billion in 2011 profits and are sitting on $60 billion in cash. Yet they have cut more jobs than they’ve created in recent years and spent billions buying back their own stock, Weiss said.
Pratt predicted that tensions among the resurgent oil industry, community groups and environmental groups – heightened by last year’s Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill – will continue.
The conflict was manifest in public hearings Monday in Port Arthur, where federal officials took comments on the Keystone XL pipeline project, Pratt said.
“The first 25 speakers were union workers and locals saying they needed the jobs the pipeline would bring. Then the bus from Houston pulled up, and the environmental groups spoke about how it’s the filthiest oil in the world,” Pratt said.
“All of them had passion about their point of view, but there are questions of fairness and justice and economics that we just don’t know how to talk about.”
tom.fowler@chron.com
twitter.com/houstonfowler

I forgot to add this on the subject of taxes:

“The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005. More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.” http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/08/12/us-usa-taxes-corporations-idUSN1249465620080812

And this

WASHINGTON — A recent analysis of the 2007 financial markets of 48 countries has revealed that the world’s finances are in the hands of just a few mutual funds, banks, and corporations. This is the first clear picture of the global concentration of financial power….
http://www.insidescience.org/research/1.861

In 1976 A typical American CEO earned 36 times as much as the average worker. By 2008 the average CEO pay increased to 369 times that of the average worker. http://timelines.ws/subjects/Labor.HTML

No flies on those guys, they were not about to be shafted like the rank and file workers. The above is why Obama’s “Tax the rich” rhetoric is so very laughable. The very rich stuck their money in tax shelters a LONG LONG time ago and they are going to make sure it remains untaxable. That is why they pay bribes.

Torgeir Hansson says:
March 20, 2012 at 1:33 am
“Dear Smokey:
Governments need money to function. You may not like it, but governments are the agents of the people. Both driving and smoking cost money to society, as there are cheaper alternatives.”
___________________________
What a pony and cart? I live on a dirt road in the back end of nowhere the nearest civilization is 15 miles ~ a 30 mile round trip so that is about a two day journey for a pony and cart unless the animal is very fit. (This was part of a discussion on another board)
I have done 20 -30 mile carriage drives and it leaves me and my animals half dead the next day so it is a subject I am familiar with BTW. It also take ALL day. So how the heck am I to drive to work if it takes me all day HMMMmmmm?
Oh that is correct “Sustainable Communities” will stack humanity up on top of each other like logs and leave 1/2 of the country as a “Nature Preserve” So that must be what you are talking about when you say ” cheaper alternatives”
This no doubt is your Dream of America’s future.
Normal human use is allowed in the little green areas only: http://www.mtmultipleuse.org/wilderness/wildlands_map.htm
The bill to turn that map into reality was defeated at the 11th hour but the eco-nuts have not given up they never do and that is why we are in the mess we are today.

WILDLANDS PROJECT: http://www.mtmultipleuse.org/wildlands_project.htm
Noss, who is generally more restrained than Davis states the goal thus: “I suggest that at least half of the land area of the 48 conterminous states should be encompassed in core reserves and inner corridor zones (essentially extensions of core reserves) within the next few decades.” Core reserves equals wilderness.

List of bills http://www.klamathbucketbrigade.org/YNTKwildlandsproject_table.htm
Newest try: http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/wildlands_project/wildlife_corridor_conservation_act_introduced_20100706416/

The two things that can kill off the AGW scare are running out of money and running out of political will, with this will coming from their constituencies concern , the only countries where the latter does not matter, such as China , have not bought into the ‘scare ‘ in the first place .Which is why the fight is far more often done on the PR front than the science one when it come to AGW proponents.
Its just reality that most people nether know the science nor frankly care about it , most people don’t put the effort into looking into the background . As fine a web site as this is , its still a echo chamber to those who self selected put the effort in.
And that goes for both sides, but ‘the people ‘do care about their basic, such as has fuel cost, getting hit, they do notice the shrill alarmism, and best of all they do grow tired of constant messages of doom.

The Oil Commodity market, like all markets, is an illogical, emotionally driven institution. Write a story about a Saudi pipeline busting and watch the panic. Remember about 3 years ago crude went to $150. There was no shortage, only speculation. If these speculators heard that the US was doubling it’s drilling permits, I submit, the price of crude would plummet.

“Sun Spot says:
March 20, 2012 at 10:03 am
Many here seem to not like Obama (and he’s not perfect), but when you hold your nose and vote you can’t seriously consider one of the current crop of brain dead Republican zombies.”
We might not want to go down “Specific Political” paths on this site – it would be counterproductive.
Let’s just say that many, many people would find that “… brain dead Zombies” remark offensive.
At least “Zombies” are fictional. Marxists, Fascists, Communists, One-Worlders, Welfare-Staters and various Totalitarian Wanna-bes exist in the real world.

James Sexton says:
March 20, 2012 at 7:10 am
“Your talking points have already been addressed. The reason why we haven’t exploited the oil that’s there is because of the same enviro-nutjobs that are blathering so much about CO2.”
This country has had falling oil production over almost every of the last 40 years (with the exception of 7), no matter which Administration was in charge. But in your mind it’s all the fault of the all-powerful “enviro-nutjobs.”
There are plenty of posts on this thread that present you with a far more nuanced reality. My simple point was that decline in U.S. oil production seemed to be party-neutral, and I think that stands up to scrutiny.

Alec Rawls,
>>Natural gas does not compete directly with oil and gas.
Diesel can be chemically created from a number of feed stocks. As I posted earlier, Shell in Louisiana is making money converting natual gas to diesal. The more we move to diesel in transporation, the better it is for energy supply stability.
When the UK and Polish natural gas fracking comes on-line, things are going to get very dicey for the Russian Federation.
The ability to replace directly Russian gas and to convert a portion of that Natureral gas to diesel means a double shock to Russian finances. Gas to diesel places a cap on the up side of crude oil prices as Russian direct income from natural gas is under the most pressure from lower cost supplies.
RobRoy,
The larger the share of world energy supply from politically stable areas. The lower the total risk premium speculators can demand.
That is why oil & gas shale are hugely important to our political near future. The less cash there is available to politically unstable regimes from POL. The more stable the world political environment and the better economic development in stable areas of the globe.

Here’s the criteria to judge them by:
=====================================================
“GOD, give us men! A time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office can not buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.
Josiah Gilbert Holland”

Alec Rawls says:
March 20, 2012 at 10:38 am
“Please, in your quest to support and embrace Obama, do not misrepresent what other people are saying. It’s pretty trollish behavior, posing as someone who wants to give the benefit of the doubt while grossly mis-stating what other people have said.”
This is getting juvenile.

There’s been some pathetic kvetching here about this article and the discussion being too political. Well, so? The issue we’re beating our heads against a wall is primarily a political one, although I could see an economist or two here argue quite convincingly that it’s economic first.
The science, we all know, is important. But the science is not the rreal issue. Given how rickety the CAGW claim is, we all know there is sufficient argument to at least put enough doubt to it to slow down the panic decision-making we’ve been subjected to. Yet, curiously, that’s not what’s happening; people are still frightened, governments are making costly and destructive policies, and fantastic sums of money are being sucked away into the pockets of shadowy corporations and activist groups.
Science and facts will not reverse any of this. Try and provide an easily-understandable and bullet-proof piece of evidence tomorrow that unquestionably proves that CAGW is utterly and totally false…and it will have zero impact on the day after. The subsidies will continue, the regulations will tighten, Greenpeace and WWF will go on harvesting their tribute from corporations and the media will ladle-out the same memes. Science has next to nothing to do with this current disaster, except to serve as a fancy decoration, a snazzy PowerPoint presentation tarting-up decisions already made. This is why the focus needs to be on the political.
Here, in Canada, we’ve been lucky in that respect. We have possibly the best government in our history, a majority Conservative government which among other things has been quietly taking on the Warmists and the crypto-socialists with excellent economic and social results. But we can’t do it alone. With UK’s pseudo-conservatives and watermelons, Australia in the clutch of a demented Labour administration and the US under a horrific government not even it’s worst enemies could dream up, Canada can only go so far before it starts pissing-off the big guys. So, yes, by all means, let’s argue the politics…even rudely, if need be…because it’s the politics that are destroying our economies, busting our societies, enriching and empowering nations that hate us and leading us and our children into nightmarish, pre-industrial levels of servitude and poverty.

In addition to the overt actions of the administration, don’t forget those taken by their sychophants in the green world. After Interior Secretary Salazar made a big deal out of freeing up 370 mm tons of coal here in Wyoming, there was an immediate suit filed with a liberal federal judge who posted an injuction against digging said coal. The best of both worlds for the administration, a big speech in Cheyenne to make an appearance of helping Wyoming and no coal to be dug anyway. These people are the lowest of the low.

Torgeir Hansson is the quintessential “intellectual” who is religiously wedded to mistaken beliefs about fossil fuels being expensive to society and damaging to our entire planet and every living thing on it. Torgeir subscribes to the idea that fossil fuels (and their derived energy and products) need to be so costly that fewer people can afford them (a necessary requirement if you want to reduce consumption). Can’t everyone see that Torgeir believes that less consumption of fossil fuel is for our own good and the good of our planet (bless his heart)?
I have got news for Torgeir.
Torgeir has been caught up by nonsensical green doomsday propaganda. Although he is not the first, nor the last and he is far from being alone; it does not make him right. The truth is that fossil fuels have, on the whole, been miraculously beneficial. Those societies that have the necessary infrastructure to benefit from the use of fossil fuels are enjoying today the highest standard of living the human race has ever seen. These societies also enjoy some of the highest environmental standards – clean water, healthy forests and healthy protected wildlife and wilderness areas (things a poverty stricken society could never even begin to worry about).
Just how Torgeir equates all this fossil fuel driven food production, higher living standards, better environmental stewardship, good health and greater life expectancy to being “expensive to society” is a complete mystery.
Did Torgeir by chance study at the French Sorbonne with Pol Pot?

Sent a lot of this to Politifact.com, just curious if they’d like to weigh in again. Btw, Newt and Mitt have the most False & Liar, liar, pants on fire. But Santorum is catching up. I see far more Ron Paul signs & banners all over this country! hmm? SpaghettiO does have a lot of false & half truths, a lot of true and far more comments examined.
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ron-paul/statements/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/ron-paul/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/newt-gingrich/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/mitt-romney/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/rick-santorum/
http://www.politifact.com/personalities/barack-obama/
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/24/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-us-oil-production-eight-year-hig/
Barack Obama says U.S. oil production is at eight-year high
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 24, 2012, President Barack Obama talked up U.S. oil production.
“Nowhere is the promise of innovation greater than in American-made energy,” Obama said. “Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years. That’s right – eight years. Not only that – last year, we relied less on foreign oil than in any of the past sixteen years.”
This passage includes a number of claims, but here we’ll focus on the one that “right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.”
We looked at a similar claim on March 15, 2011, and rated it Mostly True. But we will update our assessment based on new data.
We turned to the Energy Information Administration, the federal government’s official office for energy statistics. Since Obama said “oil production,” we will only look at crude oil extracted from U.S. territory, rather than natural gas or other petroleum products.
Here are the annual totals, in barrels produced, going back to 2003:
2003: 2,073,453,000 2004: 1,983,302,000 2005: 1,890,106,000 2006: 1,862,259,000 2007: 1,848,450,000 2008: 1,811,817,000 2009: 1,956,596,000 2010: 1,998,137,000
The full-year data is available only through 2010, but 10 months of data from 2011 have been made public. Through the end of October 2011, production totaled 1,713,038,000 barrels. If that pace continues, the year-end total should be around 2,055,646,000 barrels — higher than any year since 2003. That’s eight years ago, just as Obama said.
The last time we looked at this question in March 2011, we noted that production levels actually have been quite stable over the period in question. The estimated level for 2011 is only about 13 percent higher than for the lowest year in that eight-year period. So the increase the president is referring to is not particularly dramatic. In addition, levels of production were typically higher from the 1950s to the 1990s.
However, one caveat we mentioned in our last analysis — that the Energy Information Administration projected that production totals were poised to fall over the subsequent two years — no longer appears to be accurate.
The most recent “Short-Term Energy Outlook,” published on Jan. 12, 2012, forecast increases in total crude oil production in 2012 and 2013, thanks to increases in onshore production in the Lower 48, which overshadow declines in production in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico.
The last issue is whether Obama and his administration claimed credit for this achievement and whether they deserve it.
The government does play a role in shaping oil production, but many other factors, including private-sector business imperatives and the domestic and international energy market, are factors as well.
We think Obama’s phrasing suggests that he thinks the administration’s policies have played a role, saying, for instance, that “over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration.” But we also think he does so cautiously.
Our ruling
Obama was correct when he said that “right now, American oil production is the highest that it’s been in eight years.” We think he may have overstated his administration’s role in achieving that, but not wildly so. We rate the claim Mostly True.

Ed Mertin says:
March 20, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Sent a lot of this to Politifact.com……..
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If you want to do a proper fact check, look and see how much drilling is going on in public lands vs private, where the govt. has no control. I allow that it is factual, I’ve already checked. But, it is still disingenuous. He’s taking credit for allowing people to drill off shore again? Or that he only withdrew 1/2 of the leases already granted? That the oil companies are going around the president to drill oil when it sells for $108/barrel, can’t be seen as an accomplishment. It’s farcical.
Anyone repeating the tripe he stated as factual is simply a propaganda tool for the administration.

Husker Homer says:
March 20, 2012 at 2:08 pm
Torgeir,
“Also, your comments on US production over time and political parties and presidents fails to recognize the ups and downs of oil prices, and the impact those huge fluctuations can have on domestic oil exploration and production. And, as we are seeing now, how technological advances can turn things upside down in 5 years time.”
I never touched that point. My point was to demonstrate that oil production in the U.S. is not dependent on political parties. It is market-driven, which is your point, which I agree with 100%.

Alec Rawls says:
March 20, 2012 at 3:53 pm
“This insanity (sic.) is KILLING our economy, right now, right before our eyes. It doesn’t matter that greens like Stephen Chu are well meaning in their scientifically unsupported belief that they are saving the planet. They are unplugging the modern world and they need to be stopped.”
This is what I don’t understand. If this “insanity” is KILLING our economy, how come we are seeing an economic recovery after the 2008 crash? It doesn’t add up. The facts say otherwise.

john says:
March 20, 2012 at 4:47 pm
This is a must read.
More Johnson And Carbon Taxes
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=203625
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The problem with Libertarians is that they’re hard to organize and they aren’t very complicit. Johnson is less of a Libertarian than I am, and I’m a conservative. He’s a liberal with conservative tendencies. He’s backwards. But, many Libertarians are.
As a former card carrying member of the Libertarian party, I’ve got to tell you, there’s a bunch of nuts in that tree. That party is nothing but disappointment. If and when they want to get serious about being a political force, then I’ll reconsider my position on that party and offer to assist in any way I can. Toss his behind, and then set a foundation of principles.