Yesterday, president Obama announced emission standards which he said would raise the cost of automobiles by $1300.
While the new fuel and emission standards for cars and trucks will save billions of barrels of oil, they are expected to cost consumers an extra 1,300 US dollars per vehicle by the time the plan is complete in 2016. Mr Obama said the fuel cost savings would offset the higher price of vehicles in three years.
His remarkable comment caught my attention, because one of the primary purposes of Obama’s “cap and trade” plan is to massively raise the cost of fuel. There aren’t going to be any fuel cost savings. In fact, Mr. Obama told the San Francisco Chronicle last year that he actually intends to bankrupt coal fired power plants using cap and trade:
You know, when I was asked earlier about the issue of coal, uh, you know — Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I’m capping greenhouse gases, coal power plants, you know, natural gas, you name it — whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, uh, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.
Two automobile companies are already going bankrupt, so I think we should take Mr. Obama’s words seriously.
I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax, not any of your taxes.
WASHINGTON – Democrat Barack Obama said Sunday that if elected he will push to increase the amount of income that is taxed to provide monthly Social Security benefits.
Audacity indeed. The assumption seems to be that no one remembers what was said last week.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“The global warming scam is the result of the widespread belief in a new religion, based on the deification of a nebulous entity, ‘The Environment’. ‘The Environment’ is an extension of the concept of ‘Nature’ which was held sacred by the Romantics, but it is a much more demanding deity, requiring constant and increasing sacrifices from humans.”
~~Dr. Vincent Gray,
IPCC Expert Reviewer
Václav Klaus is brilliant on carbon and political ends! It cannot be said of him that he’s an empty suit (I’m not sure of some others)!
geoff pohanka (10:20:22) :
They keep asking why isnt the united states like Europe, their cars get a lot better gas mileage than the USA.
There are two important differences. In Europe, people are encouraged to buy cars with diesel engines. The fuel tax is much less on diesel so it costs much less to the consumer, to make up the difference in higher diesel car purchase expenses. Diesels save gas in Europe. Also in Europe, the engines are so small, they must use manual transmissions to get enough torque from them.
In the USA, the govt does not like diesel engines, they think particulate from diesel engines cause cancer. In Europe diesel soot is just soot. Here it causes cancer. Americans also do not like to drive manual transmissions.
So unless we embrace both diesel engines and manual transmissions, we can not follow Europes lead with improved fuel mileage. There are also almost no SUVs in Europe, the station wagon is their SUV. It is hard to imagine that the Pick-up, V, and van will mostly all go extinct, at least as we know them, in the next six years.
Geoff,
A few remarks:
1. There is NO European standard on fuel price policies and taxes.
Every European country has it’s own policy.
Diesel is somewhat cheaper compared to gasoline but this is compensated by higher road taxes. There is NO fiscal compensation for the higher price of a Diesel.
Driving a diesel is only interesting if you drive more than 30.000 km per year, depending on the type of car.
There is NO Government encouragement to drive diesels.
Your remark about the manual transmissions is not correct either. Most cars sold now come with automatic or semi automatic transmissions which are very efficient.
Fact is that Europeans us their cars in a different manner.
They make less kilometers or miles and they tow limited weight trailers or caravans.
You also might wonder that Chrysler in Europe is a big mark selling a lot of Mini Vans and Jeep models.
The European car models already sold in the USA are the bigger cars like Mercedes E and S Class models, the big Audi’s but also cars like VW, Rabbit, Jetta and Passat.
I do not think there is a market for the smaller models considering the car use and size and weight of the avarage American. They are simply not big enough.
Diesels have the future, especially when the US will produce clean sulfer free diesel made from Natural Gas.
In Europe Chrysler already sells the Patriot Jeep with a turbo diesel engine that will get you over 40 miles per gallon.
The current diesel filter technology eliminates carcinogenic particles.
Older diesels can become clean diesels by installing an LPG injection system. A single injector pumps a small amount of LPG into the fuel pump.
Diesel and LPG are burned in a mix resulting in clean exhaust emissions (No Particles), more power and torque and higher milage.
In Europe this technology is not legal but in the US there are no laws against such an application.
In Australia this technology is big business.
(for more info google Diesel LPG injection)
jon (10:03:39) :
Why not be more conservative with our fuel supplies (more energy efficient) … we already have the technology to do this … to do nothing but bleat about the rights of fuel guzzling car owners is absoloutley immoral and ridiculous!!!
Jon,
Modern cars ARE fuel efficient.
Hybrids are expensive and take a lot of valuable resouces for the electric parts and the batteries which have to be imported.
There is no shortage of resources for the next 200 years.
Which means that we have all the time to develop a real successor for fossil fuels instead of unrealistic alternatives like wind, solar and electric propulsion.
There is NO Peak oil in sight for the moment.
The Waxman Climate and Security Bill has passed, see climatedepot.com
In the mean time there is still no evidence that CO2 has anything to do with AGW.
That is right, because AGW is a hoax:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/intersection/2009/05/19/the-deniers-last-stand/#comment-17273
John Galt (11:41:12) :
Thought you would never ask:
From http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/BG1458.cfm
GW (09:37:10) :
Hal (08:17:31) :
You are absolutely correct. Seeing this coming for about a year now, last fall I purchased two 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokees with the big 5.9 litre engines. Both were low mileage gems and cost less than $10K for the two. My wife was not supportive, until I convinced her that in just a few years time cars like these will never be available again – the Prius will become the new Escalade.
Being a car guy, I expect to keep these two Guzzling SUV’s for the next 30 years or more, barring of course a wreck or theft.
WAIT UNTILL YOU HAVE TO FUEL UP THOSE BABIES WHEN GASOLINE CAN ONLY BE PURCHASED BY A COUPON SYSTEM!
BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN.
jon (07:12:06) :
Jon,
You don’t mine oil shale, you insert rods into the shale, gradually heat the rods to about 650 degrees, and you get a very sweet oil out of the formation. Basically you are replicating Mother Nature’s methods in turning kerogen into oil. Also produced, as a by product, is natural gas, which is used to maintain heat levels.
Older methods included mining of shale, crushing, and then heating in these huge retorts up to 4,000 degrees. This did leave immense piles of debris, dirty air, and used vast amounts of water.
Newer in situ processes avoid all these problems. Shale is left in the ground.
By the way, crude produced is of a very pure grade, very little, if any, sulfur. This makes it very easy to refine.
Here’s a link on some of the details:
http://tinyurl.com/8ojdq
Dean (10:31:46) :
Communism and Cuba!
The AP article in my morning paper said that pickups would become too expensive for most people and would only be used for work. Phooey.
Sounds like alarmism, like how seat belts and cat converters would drive the car companies bankrupt.
We will adapt.
Dean, you entirely miss the point.
Driving your car os only a small part of the story.
We can not adapt to an 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050 without a serious breach of our civil rights.
It will not take long before you will get a set of carbon coupons.
If you use them up for driving, you won’t have the energy to heat your home or make a trip with an airplane.
Your life will be ruled by corporatists (read fascists) in a very tricky world.
In the end they will provide permits to have a kid, all in the name of climate and security which brings us at the real target of the AGW hoax: POPULATION CONTROL
I think it’s better to have a fight now with your current civil rights in tact than later when every opposition against CO2 mittigation measures will be regarded as an illegal act against the State.
Are you awake now?
You don’t mine oil shale, you insert rods into the shale, gradually heat the rods to about 650 degrees, and you get a very sweet oil out of the formation. Basically you are replicating Mother Nature’s methods in turning kerogen into oil. Also produced, as a by product, is natural gas, which is used to maintain heat levels.
So what are those massive machines doing in Alberta digging for gold :)?
http://www.iconocast.com/EB000000000000065/Y4/News1_1.jpg
Cooking Oil Shale, sounds like a job for a nuclear reactor to me.
jon,
You wrote:
I take it that you are suggesting running a massive grid of roads and power lines across the pristine western slope of Colorado? How about the subsidence and groundwater contamination caused by removal of the kerogen?
Steve … I never wrote that Jack Simmons did.
IGNORE GREEN RHETORIC: COAL IS OUR FUTURE, SAYS US ENERGY SECRETARY
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu “said that one compromise would be approving new coal-fired power plants without obliging them to capture and store their carbon.” (article cited below)
Well he’s got it half right. Now if he’d just notice that global warming stopped around year 2002.
Slowly, the USA will come around to the following Energy Strategy for America.
Regards, Allan
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/an_energy_strategy_for_america1/
Nov 15, 2008
An Energy Strategy for America
By Allan M.R. MacRae
The USA has two daunting problems – the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression; and President-Elect Obama’s energy policies, which will severely deepen the economic crisis. Obama stated in a San Francisco Chronicle television interview that he wants to implement an aggressive CO2 cap-and-trade system that could bankrupt coal companies. He further stated that energy prices will necessarily skyrocket. Obama believes that global warming is a critical issue, and he supports the use of solar energy, wind power and biodiesel. To his credit, Obama also supports a market approach and technological development.
In 2007, US primary energy consumption consisted of oil (40%), natural gas (25%), coal (24%), nuclear (8%) and hydroelectricity (2%). As a percentage of total proved reserves of fossil fuels, the US holds just over 2% of the world’s oil, 3% of natural gas, but almost 29% of global coal. See http://www.bp.com/productlanding.do?categoryId=6929&contentId=7044622
Energy projects have been constrained due to fears of catastrophic global warming, allegedly caused by increased atmospheric CO2 from burning fossil fuels. However, global warming is just not happening anymore. For the last decade, average global temperatures have not increased. Since January 2007 all global warming has disappeared, as average temperatures plummeted to 1979 levels – when accurate satellite measurements began.
Global cooling is now occurring and is expected to continue for the next twenty to thirty years, due to the recent shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from its warm to cool phase. See here and here .
Despite shrill claims of ice cap melting, Arctic sea-ice extent is now at its highest seasonal level since modern satellite measurements began in 2002 – more evidence of global cooling. For decades, the US has experienced a huge balance of trade deficit, due primarily to high oil imports. Energy self-sufficiency has been the goal of recent US Presidents, without success. There is now an opportunity to address both these serious challenges, by rejecting global warming myths and creating an energy strategy based on true, verifiable facts. Here is the outline of a responsible and economic Energy Strategy for America:
1. Reject CO2 taxes and cap-and-trade measures used to “fight global warming”. Examine the satellite data, the only accurate global temperature measurements in existence. Climate Dyslexics please note: The Earth is cooling, not warming. Global cooling should last for twenty to thirty years and could be severe.
2. Generate much more electrical energy from abundant US coal reserves. Use existing technologies to control real atmospheric pollution from SOx, NOx and particulates, but do not control CO2. In the future, if CO2 sequestration becomes economically attractive (for enhanced oil recovery) or is proved necessary (in the unlikely event that global warming becomes a real problem), retrofit the coal plants with expensive CO2 recovery equipment at that time.
3. As rechargeable battery technology continues to improve, electric and gasoline-electric light vehicles will become commonplace. The power infrastructure already exists to fuel this fleet, and refueling can be done during off-peak periods, when power plants are underutilized. This major change in the light vehicle fleet will shift energy consumption from foreign oil to domestic coal.
4. Re-examine corn ethanol and wind power, which do not work economically or effectively. Corn ethanol for motor fuel requires huge ongoing subsidies and severely distorts food prices. Wind power also requires big subsidies, and almost 100% backup with conventional power generation. Wind power can also cause critical instabilities in the electric power grid. Conduct a full-life-cycle energy balance on corn ethanol, wind power, biodiesel and solar energy, and also examine the environmental demands and pollution associated with these so-called “green” technologies.
5. Re-examine hydrogen. It is an energy medium, like electricity, but if implemented would require a huge new hydrogen infrastructure to be built at great cost, for no environmental or energy gain.
6. Avoid energy subsidies, especially ongoing operating subsidies, which distort economic decisions and create expensive industrial and environmental boondoggles. Wind power and corn ethanol may prove to be two such costly mistakes.
Instead of skyrocketing energy prices, this Energy Strategy for America will result in lower costs, improved balance of trade, and in time could even provide energy self-sufficiency for the USA. Read more here.
Allan M.R. MacRae is a Professional Engineer and writer on energy and the environment. In 2002 he predicted in a newspaper article that global cooling would recur. He does not work in the coal industry, accepts no compensation for his writing and holds no coal investments.
****************************************
IGNORE GREEN RHETORIC: COAL IS OUR FUTURE, SAYS US ENERGY SECRETARY
BBC News, 21 May 2009
By Roger Harrabin
Environment analyst, BBC News
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu says the US will not be able to cut greenhouse emissions as much as it should due to domestic political opposition.
Prof Chu told BBC News he feared the world might be heading towards a tipping point on climate change.
This meant the US had to cut emissions urgently – even if compromises were needed to get new laws approved.
Environmentalists said Prof Chu, a Nobel physicist, should be guided by science not politics.
The American political system is in the throes of a fierce battle over climate policy. President Barack Obama says he wants cuts in greenhouse gases but has left it to Congress to make the political running.
The House of Representatives is debating a climate and energy bill but even if it passes it may be rejected by senators, many of whom are funded by the energy industry.
Prof Chu is a Nobel prize-winning physicist and a world expert on clean energy. But he said it was impossible to ignore political reality.
“With each successive year the news on climate change has not been good and there’s a growing sensation that the world and the US in particular has to get moving,” he said.
“As someone very concerned about climate I want to be as aggressive as possible but I also want to get started. And if we say we want something much more aggressive on the early timescales that would draw considerable opposition and that would delay the process for several years.
The US energy secretary said that awareness of climate tipping points had increased greatly only in the past five years. He added: “But if I am going to say we need to do much, much better I am afraid the US won’t get started.”
To the anger of environmentalists, he said that one compromise would be approving new coal-fired power plants without obliging them to capture and store their carbon. The UK government has made this a stipulation for new coal plants but Prof Chu declined to explain why the US government would not follow suit.
FULL STORY at
Sorry about that … I was replying to Jack Simmons comment:
“You don’t mine oil shale, you insert rods into the shale, gradually heat the rods to about 650 degrees, and you get a very sweet oil out of the formation. ”
My response was: So what are those massive machines doing in Alberta, digging for gold :)?http://www.iconocast.com/EB000000000000065/Y4/News1_1.jpg
Alberta has the largest shale/sand oil reserves in the world … this is being proceesed using ex-situ extraction techology which requires open cast mining … it is creating fine mess in that province.
jon (06:43:51) :
Alberta is using old technology. Shell is exploring use of new technology avoiding problems of Alberta. Please read what I posted earlier. Comparing what is going on in Alberta with what is proposed here is like comparing gliders with jet airliner.
Steven Goddard (05:29:53) :
No need for massive grid of roads. One square mile will produce one billion barrels of oil. That part of Colorado is not pristine western slope of Colorado. It is like the badlands of the Dakotas. I’ve lived in Colorado my entire life and love this land. Environmental impact much smaller than the development of suburbs here on front range.
Sandy (05:14:14) :
If I was in charge:
1) Restart nuclear fuel processing in this country. If done, there would be no nuclear waste problem. France is using technology developed in the United States and has safely and effectively produced over 80% of her electrical energy for the last 25 years from nukes. The total waste from this program would fit into the Staples Center where the Denver Nuggets defeated the LA Lakers last night. Recycling was stopped by Jimmy Carter, a former nuclear engineer who should have known better, due to unfounded fears of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel rods. You cannot directly use plutonium from fuel rods for nuclear bombs because the material is contaminated with isotopes of plutonium causing ‘fizzles’, premature ignition of nuclear chain reaction. You must have the resources of a nation state to build weapons from fuel rods. This is even assuming terrorists could obtain fuel rods. This technical problem was enough of a challenge during the Manhattan Project to cause despair for Robert Oppenheimer. Until the compressive design of the ‘fat man’ was verified, a plutonium device was not workable. See The Making Of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes for details. For details on why nuclear energy makes sense now, see http://www.terrestrialenergy.org/.
2) Confirm commercial feasibility of oil shale with an aggressive program of development. If it works, then…
3) Build array of nuclear power plants on western slope of Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah, using waste heat to heat up shale. Excess energy produced is electrical, which would replace the coal plants I would shut down as they produce true pollutants such as mercury and fly ash. I don’t like coal plants, not because of CO2, but because of the reasons mentioned above. This would also stop the acidification of our high mountain lakes, which is part of the beauty of Colorado.
4) Capture the water in the Colorado River currently being wasted on swimming pools, golf courses, suburban sprawl, and subsidized agriculture (all environmentally unsound) downstream and do something useful with it: produce oil from oil shale. Build more nuclear power plants in California to desalinate ocean water, replacing Colorado River water being used by California. Also, capture fresh water flowing out from rivers in Northern California with big rubber bags and tow same to Southern California where it is needed.
All of the above would avoid, and in large measure, correct, the abomination we see in California today. California has implemented every kind of zany alternative energy scheme known to mankind ever sense Moonbeam Brown insisted on no new sources of electrical power other than zany alternatives. Result? California enjoys the highest electric bills in the US and also has the filthiest sources of electricity in the US. California insists on not having new plants in their backyard, but in other states. Very hypocritical of them, but that appears to be a trait of environmentalists led by the likes of Al Gore. If you want to see what the US would look like after cap and trade and alternative energy generation, exam the cautionary tale of California.
All of the above would generate thousands of very high paying jobs, unlike alternative energy sources designed primarily to enrich people like Al Gore and T Boone Pickens and abuse the environment.
If there really would have been a need to replace fossil fuels world wide, Governments all over the world would have started a Los Alamos like project which led to the Atomic Bomb.
We would concentrate all our scientific skills to solve the problem.
Instead, billions of dollars are spend to corrupt scientists payed politicians and colaborating media, to trick their polulations into a scheme which not only doubles the consumption of fossil fuels but also destroys our economies, our prosperity and our freedom.
What happens today is comparable to offer the USSR the white flag of surrender during the cold war.
This is treason on an unimagianable scale.
I am convinced that the US Senate will stop this madness and destroys the Markley Climate & Security bill, but if they don’t, the shit will hit the fan.
To many people oppose cap & trade and to many people understand the real objectives of our treaturous government.
No sane American or European will accept the rule of tyranny by a Climate Industrial Complex ruled by Governments and the United Nations.
We will not be enslaved by the likes of Al Gore, Hanson, Kerry, Clinton and Obama.
We will not accept the madness of the United Nations representing all those countries that hate the West.
We will not hand over our economic power to the Chinese or the Russians and we certainly won’t accept to sacrefice our way of life to a coupon scheme to fuel up our car or heat our house.
We will take them out of power, put the trators to justice and continue our road of development and prosperity, in order to meet real threats and find solutions for real problems. For the sake of humanity.
That is what we will do.
Jack Simmons,
You speak both confidently and incorrectly.
The oil shale deposits in Colorado tend to be in thin, low permeability layers, and tend to be located in some of the most beautiful, forested locations in the state along Parachute Creek – between Vail and Grand Junction.
The Colony Mine is the largest oil shale mine, and is located right in the Middle of some of Colorado’s most beautiful and unspoiled country.
http://libraryphoto.cr.usgs.gov/htmllib/btch235/btch235j/btch235z/erl00039.jpg
http://www.garfield-county.com/
They keep asking why isnt the united states like Europe, their cars get a lot better gas mileage than the USA.
We get better mileage in the UK because our gallons are bigger! 🙂
From the You knew it was coming file…
Democrats further declined to develop emissions-free energy sources such as new hydroelectric power, and decided to permit the EPA to write the rules necessary to regulate water vapor as air pollution.
Ok now we really have lost our collective minds.
Jack Simmons … is Homer Simpson an employee of yours??? 🙂
Ron de Haan (08:17:43)
We will not be enslaved by the likes of Al Gore, Hanson, Kerry, Clinton and Obama.
You are the newest neighbour in the THIRD WORLD’s neighbourhood.
You still don’t know how things work in countries like that. We call it “the pendulum law”: you will endure for a certain period of time, a kind of revolution, inmediately followed by a counter revolution…So take it calmly and wisely.
Stop the presses! New information has come up indicating that rising CO2 may not, in fact, be the cause of global warming: click
Jon,
You are really confused about oil shale versus tar sands. I don’t know where you get your information from.
The picture you show is the mining operation for tar sands operations. The shale would not be collected with that type equipment. The shale I am familiar with is really rock that contains oil not sand or soil and separation via physical means is more difficult.
Also some of the more recent tar sands operations do not mine as shown in the picture, they extract the oil via other means.
Finally you talk about a “mess” I worked on a tar sands process in Alberta during the 70’s. Have you ever visited a mining and extraction site or are you just repeating some environmentalist propoganda? The area is not exactly pristine. While living in Ft McMurray for 1 year, I fished on the tar laden shore of the Athabasca river. The oil just oozes out of the ground. The indians used this tar to prevent their canoes from leaking.
As the sands are extracted and processsed via mining, the now clean sand is returned to the pit and the area is reforested by the plant operator. If you think that oil tar is a pollutant, one could claim that this is a clean up rather than a mess.
I am less familiar with current tar sands projects but believe that they involve deeper oil and are therefore surface mining is not used but rather technology like steam injection. Others more familiar can elaborate as needed.