The irony is, we are being told the polar ice is melting at an unprecedented rate, so why are they worried about needing an icebreaker again? The whole thing is bollocks. On one hand we have Obama telling us we need to end our dependence on foreign oil…
“I will set a clear goal as president: in ten years we will finally end our dependence on oil in the Middle East,” said Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. ” Source here
….then we have the EPA pulling this crap to prevent domestic oil production with the help of NGO’s.
EPA Shuts Down Drilling in Alaska
by Brian McGraw on globalwarming.org
Shell announced today, for now, it must end a project to drill for oil off the coast of Northern Alaska, because of a decision made by an EPA appeals board to deny permits to acknowledge that Shell will meet air quality requirements. This is not part of ANWR.
Companies that drill for oil must go through extensive permitting processes and invest billions of dollars as payments for leasing the land, exploring for possible oil fields, equipment, etc. This is all done with the understanding that assuming they follow the letter of the law, there is a chance that this investment won’t be flushed down the toilet at the end of the tunnel. It appears that in this case Shell has followed procedure and that emissions will be below any standards required by the EPA:
The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling.
“What the modeling showed was in communities like Kaktovik, Shell’s drilling would increase air pollution levels close to air quality standards,” said Eric Grafe, Earthjustice’s lead attorney on the case. Earthjustice was joined by Center for Biological Diversity and the Alaska Wilderness League in challenging the air permits.
Talk about moving the goalposts. They must have been really desperate to cancel this project given that this was the best straight-faced excuse they could muster. Not only do you have to be below the legally required emission limits but you must also not even be “close” to the limits, as defined by unelected officials, one of whom is a former attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund.
Events like this are a prime example of why many in Congress want to strip authority from the EPA. Shell had reportedly invested over $4 billion in this project. When companies make investment decisions, consideration is given to whether or not bureaucrats can make arbitrary decisions to shut the project down halfway through a multi-year process. There are many other countries with natural resource reserves who do not subject economic activity to such unpredictable insanity, and in the eye of a corporation, after an event like this these locations begin to look more preferable to dealing with the United States.
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Events like this are a prime example of why many in Congress want to strip authority from the EPA. Shell had reportedly invested over $4 billion in this project.
Ya think?
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danj says:
April 26, 2011 at 4:46 pm
2. I wonder if they will return Shell’s $2 billion lease payment that they put up for the right to explore and drill on the leases. (Probably not, huh?)
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I hope they sue to get the $2.2 billion back, and maybe the whole $4 billion. Then we might see what the EPA is actually worth in dollars, beside f***-all these days.
Here is the link for another EPA plan to stop drilling in Texas via the 3 inch Lizzard
@danj
http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=US
Shale oil isn’t crude oil, its kerogen first of all, second of all the flow rate is abysmal and will never reach any meaningful levels and the actual recoverable reserves are far less than 800 billion barrels. All oil grades are not the same nor are the fields they are found in comparable. The US is down to just under 5 million barrels per day or crude + condensate production, been falling since 1971. Flow rate is the name of the game and the US lost the ability to boost production enough to overcome the decline rate of existing fields a long time ago.
the OCS reserves are puny as well, small, expensive, short lived describes them best
The US peaked in domestic production not due to drilling restrictions but because it simply ran out of the easy to get to plentiful oil fields with large reserves just like every other nation that hit their peaks which about 40 nations at this point.
There appears to be big money to be made by shutting down legitimate industrial activity.
http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/2011/04/telling-grants-from-usa-foundations.html
elbatrop,
America is a “Can Do” country, and if the government simply gets out of our way there will be ample energy. The problem is that Obama is doing his level best to neuter our great exceptionalism. He is a craven traitor IMO.
PaulH says:
April 26, 2011 at 4:43 pm
The USA can buy ethical oil from the Canadian oil sands today, instead of grappling with the EPA who prefers Middle Eastern oil.
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From a still frozen Canuck:
Not really, the US, including Obama have called Canadian Oil Sands “Dirty Oil” along with other sources and are delaying/blocking approval of pipelines to ship Canadiab oil to US refineries. So, Canadian, European and Asian countries are looking at shipping oil west and east instead of south as it is getting ridiculously difficult to ship south. It the US doesn’t want our “Dirty Oil” regardless of its origin, then it will go elsewhere and more high paying US refining jobs will be lost. The Obama government is pretty much sticking to the plan they laid out pre-election. A lot of people must not have read his platform before the election as I told a lot of my US cousins to read it before they voted …. but all they heard was the rhetoric and they didn’t read it. Obama is just doing what he said he would before he was ever elected.
So next election …
The minuscule CO2 emissions from an icebreaker?
That makes less sense than fining someone for p*ssing in the middle of the Pacific.
Shirley they must be joking.
elbatrop says:
April 26, 2011 at 6:50 pm
…second of all the flow rate is abysmal and will never reach any meaningful levels and the actual recoverable reserves are far less than 800 billion barrels.
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You are right about not being able to recover all of the 870 billion barrels of shale oil reserves I referred to. You can certainly, according to experts, recover a third of that amount. That leaves over 200 years worth of oil if it offsets the current rate of 10 million barrels a day of imports (and some of the imports, like those from Canada, are safe and secure.) And, again, that is not counting any other oil reserves either onshore or on the OCS. It can be done if government lets it happen…
People need to understand that this sort of thing is right out of the Socialist playbook. Obama is deliberately creating confusion and uncertainty about as many issues as possible. That’s how you bring about “Fundamental Change”. Pay attention folks. It’s working.
Obama promised:
“I will set a clear goal as president: in ten years we will finally end our dependence on oil in the Middle East,”
Yet his policies are diametrically opposite to his promise.
He committed to reduce oil imports to the United States by a third over the next 10 years.
Yet he is hindering fuel development at every turn, directly opposite his commitments.
See Globalwarming.org
“Talk about moving the goalposts. They must have been really desperate to cancel this project given that this was the best straight-faced excuse they could muster.”
This is a severe abuse of the rule of law.
For a glimpse of the challenge before us, see Robert L. Hirsch The Impending World Energy Crunch.
The real challenge is that domestic consumption by oil exporting countries will be reducing global oil exports by about 9%/year.
See: Brown et al. 2010
“Peak Oil Versus Peak Net Exports–Which Should We Be More Concerned About?”
He cannot prevent the US from descending into severe financial depression unless he sets a total moon shot goal for liquid transport fuels on a war time footing.
I strongly challenge those aspiring to President or Congress to grasp a hold of this challenge and rise to the challenge.
Screw up your courage, grab a hold of the challenge, and do it!
We have about 18 months to grease those rails in DC. If the Democrats were surprised in 2010, I think they will be absolutely “gobsmacked” in 2012.
Let’s see, Shell share holders just lost $4 billion. I wonder how they will make that up?
End users get the big wazoo once again. Thank you Mr President, may I have another!
elbatrop,
Unfortunately you are not “talking” to the uninformed on this site. Very few will buy the Kool Aid from the administration and the MSM. There are just too many restrictions on drilling to believe your claim. While in the house Obama was pushing a bill to prevent new technology being used to survey not recently surveyed. Also Oil/gas production increased as the result of Bush policy of opening up lands during the last high price gas crisis. Prices came down to circa $1.80.
Do you really believe that the Environmental policy of taking so many promising energy producing sites off the table has not significantly affected our oil and gas reserve/production? This administration has significantly expanded the acerage where exploration and production has been banned. Just read the posts listed here to learn about some of the areas that have been declared off limits by the Goverment. If there really is no oil there, take the royality payments to enrich the treasury, and let the oil companies go broke.
What are you afraid of, Just open up these areas and then maybe you can prove your point. The drilling ban is a self fufilling prophecy re peak oil.
For a list of recent bans by the Administration check this site out:
http://media.www.claremontindependent.com/media/storage/paper1031/news/2011/04/12/Editorial/Tapping.Obamas.Will.To.Drill-3993944.shtml
“This figure (Obama’s false claim the US has only 2% of reserves), much bandied about by environmentalists, is misleading, as it includes only the proven reserves where drilling already occurs, ignoring those (like in Alaska, the Outer Continental Shelf, and the shale deposits in Wyoming, Utah, and Colorado) where drilling has been banned through executive fiat. These reserves, worth some 900 billion barrels, languish untapped. They could change America from a net importer to net exporter of oil. But Obama remains uninterested. In fact, his Secretary of the Interior canceled 77 leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah as one of his first acts on the job.”
Time for some honesty.
Won’t Shell just write it off as a business loss and write it off on their taxes ? Oh I forgot does Shell actually pay any business taxes (I know GE dosn’t) ???
Damn government departments – just spoke to a colleague in the West Australian Department of Mines, who wise cracked that the Mine-safety rules applied to exploration would mean no one could do any exploration field work. My sarcastic response was that this is probably the goal. (Conversation was about my field crew being stranded in a country town with the latest Landcruiser utility (16,000km on the clock, brand new sort of) that had a flat battery. Flat battery and US battery literally means no go for the modern computerised engine management systems.
The long term game plan is to shut down the mining industry (including petroleum) by locking us out of our own countries, or making life so intolerably difficult for safety concerns.
Yup there is an agenda here.
Imagine if the EPA had been around when the Mayflower was preparing to sail.
It would never have left port and would instead have been broken up and tossed in a compost heap.
It is very clear that the EPA and Obama want to separate the US from any and all activities relating to Energy. Oil happens to be target #1. They are just getting started.
Does anybody else notice that, once again, opaque and unquestionable “computer models” are used in a government decision as a substitute for facts or evidence in order to expand the power of government? Maybe we need a Constitutional amendment specifying that computer models are not admissible in any court or government decision-making body.
Any time an advocacy group is involved you can bet it is in anything but the public interest and only in the interest of that group or its position. ANWAR is a red herring too, all sides in this are suspect. If we are serious about energy independence then we need to do several general things. 1. Get busy with increased development of convention crude in places like the Williston basin and enhanced recovery techniques. 2. start developing resources like coal and keragon shale as sources of fuel liquids. 3. Natural gas is another source. 4. increased efficiency is always good. 5. lots of possibilities in recycling like tires and other stuff and bio-waste. 6. Hire me to advise you.
elbatrop posted:
Shale oil isn’t crude oil, its kerogen first of all, second of all the flow rate is abysmal and will never reach any meaningful levels and the actual recoverable reserves are far less than 800 billion barrels.
Source? Because it appears to me we have ~270 YEARS of 100% of our needs locked up in our shale oil reserves. We could be a net-exporter of petroleum on the scale of Saudi Arabia if we really wanted to, and have abundant oil at under $30/barrel (gas down around $1 per gallon) if desired.
elbatrop says:
April 26, 2011 at 6:50 pm
Shale oil isn’t crude oil, its kerogen first of all, second of all the flow rate is abysmal and will never reach any meaningful levels and the actual recoverable reserves are far less than 800 billion barrels. All oil grades are not the same nor are the fields they are found in comparable. The US is down to just under 5 million barrels per day or crude + condensate production, been falling since 1971. Flow rate is the name of the game and the US lost the ability to boost production enough to overcome the decline rate of existing fields a long time ago.
the OCS reserves are puny as well, small, expensive, short lived describes them best
The US peaked in domestic production not due to drilling restrictions but because it simply ran out of the easy to get to plentiful oil fields with large reserves just like every other nation that hit their peaks which about 40 nations at this point.
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Sorry, but your link itself clearly shows that the U.S. reversed its crude production decline in 2009. This was due to both shale oil and those “little” OCS fields like we saw in the BP blowout.
Thirty years ago, Brazil had ZERO deepwater oil reserves. Today, it produces over 2 million barrels/day -on the way to becoming a member of OPEC. You have to explore before you have have proven reserves. Over 85% of the U.S. Offshore is off-limits to all exploration.
Even with these severe restrictions, the U.S. is the Third largest oil producer in the world. Lack of domestic oil production is a self-induced political problem -not a resource problem.
Sunspot:
Royal Dutch Shell paid about $17 billion in income taxes last year. Of course, their CEO isn’t buddy-buddy with our President, either…
Flashback, only 2 years ago scientist on a “Climate Tour” joy ride on an Icebreaker got stuck. Clearly the emissions of that Icebreaker have been of the non polluting kind.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/05/27/cold-irony-arctic-sea-ice-traps-climate-tour-icebreaker/
Just yesterday, April 25, 2011, I and many fellow hobby farmers received in the mail from a county clerk a new bill (tax) of $72 a year for managing rain run-off water from our roofs. (I live in the country outside city limits far away from any storm sewer system.) This is the first of many unfunded mandates that are coming down from the EPA to state departments of ecology and to local municipalities with heavy penalties for non-compliance. PLEASE! Could someone advise us as to how best to combat this creeping taxation without representation? Congress is not doing its job.
We need to let other countries find the oil in the Arctic, drill for it, and sell it to us. This is a form of wealth redistribution, and it’s probably being done in part for our colonialism sins.