I don’t usually go for political articles, but this one deserves mention for the wholesale idiocy about energy on display.
Don Monfort writes: Submitted on 2011/10/01 at 10:24 am
Sorry to stray off topic, but I was flabbergasted by something I just read:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204226204576602524023932438.html
The most flabbergasting part; our energy policy is based on fantasy:
When it was Mr. Hamm’s turn to talk briefly with President Obama, “I told him of the revolution in the oil and gas industry and how we have the capacity to produce enough oil to enable America to replace OPEC. I wanted to make sure he knew about this.”
The president’s reaction? “He turned to me and said, ‘Oil and gas will be important for the next few years. But we need to go on to green and alternative energy. [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu has assured me that within five years, we can have a battery developed that will make a car with the equivalent of 130 miles per gallon.’” Mr. Hamm holds his head in his hands and says, “Even if you believed that, why would you want to stop oil and gas development? It was pretty disappointing.”
America is still going to use oil in 5 years, but I’d rather it be domestic than foreign, wouldn’t you? Alternate technology takes time to develop and there’s zero chance we’ll all be driving electric vehicles in 5 years.
Obama said this when he was running for office:
Obama pledges to end oil dependency
Friday, August 29, 2008 (KGO ABC7 Television)
“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.
…
“If he means what it sounds like it means, it’s impossible,” said Stanford University Professor James Sweeney.
I guess we know what he meant by that now.
When the presidential limo becomes an electric vehicle, I’ll take his pledge seriously.
The vehicle fuel consumption is about 8 miles per gallon which on metric system corresponds to around 30 litres/100 km – source specs
Galane says:
October 2, 2011 at 4:20 am
*****
The oil companies cap wells only when they are not profitable. When the price of oil rises again, they work over the wells and produce oil again. More government regulations aren’t necessary and in fact are undesirable. The companies know when and when not to produce from old wells. Why do people always turn to the government to make things happen that happen naturally by themselves? When you ask the government to do everything for you and take care of you, the government owns you – you are no longer free.
Matthew says:
October 2, 2011 at 8:17 am
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Matthew – you conveniently ignore the many and huge positive externalities. The entire society – every last member of it – have benefited from oil production. It has made us what we are today! You and your high school students don’t consider the positive “externalities” because your brainwashing didn’t, conveniently, include those. You need to think for yourself.
“Pollute me more” the
Plants cry out and dance about.
Animals chew cud.
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Galane
Did you ever think that the logical business approach in remote areas is to first find the oil, determine if it is economic, and then construct a pipeline to bring the oil/gas to shore. In the interim the site needs to be made safe. Only a person with government menality would reverse the process, build the pipeline then look for oil.
I suspect the permits to build the pipeline to bring the oil ashore are also likely time consuming and costly requiring environmental impact studies and years of litigation. Just look at how the enviros and the EPA are trying to stop the Keystone pipeline and that is over land!!!.
Also I suspect that good business practices would try to consolidate one or more well sites to construct a minimum amount of lines to bring the oil ashore. Business works on an economic strategy not like the DOE and Chu shoveling $$ out the door based on cronyism.
Are you in this business and know something that is not obvious?
Matthew says:
October 2, 2011 at 8:17 am
“A high school student who’s sat through just a few hours of introductory economics can tell you that pollution – which relatively simple science has shown, with very high levels of confidence, leads to climate change ”
I agree with you that GCM’s are “simple science”; as only a simpleton can earnestly believe that these models successfully predict anything even over a very short time into the future.
To be more precise, they have exactly NO MORE predictive skill over one year than a model that simply says “in exactly one year, the weather will be exactly like today”.
Just look at Hansen’s guess from 2010 that we will have a strong El Nino in 2011 – this is practically the INVENTOR of GCM’s talking and see how pityful he performs.
Oh Matthew, and if your “relatively simple science” alludes to the infamous “CO2 in a bottle” experiments, and you hold that as evidence that CO2 in a planetary atmosphere leads to such-and-such a climate change, then that proves that you know nothing about dynamic systems, feedback AND chaos, so if you really mean it THAT way, then you should educate yourself about the concepts I mentioned and try to apply them to climate. A good start are always Willis Eschenbach’s essays, e.g. this one
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/28/sense-and-sensitivity/
concerning the “green” efforts by the Govn’t:
“Never ascribe to malice that can be directly attributed to incompetence.”
“Napoleon Bonaparte.”
“Using global warming as one of the mechanisms to accomplish objectives just make the leaders look ruthless, like blatant propagandists and educated fools.”
Even if their motives were so pure, dishonesty will always fail them in the long haul. It’s been a disservice to humanity. A net waste of a lot of good minds.
Moving forward, assuming we will run out of cheap fuel one day (perhaps our grandchildren), the hope (and likelihood) is that market forces will cause us to use energy more efficiently. That’s where the bright minds should be working.
On the supply side, just over the past 10 years the known reserves have increased dramatically thanks to some bright mindes working R&D (ex. fracking). Bright minds are also working on conversion of natural gas to more portable liquid fuels. That will bring a lot of relief near term IMHO.
I’m not the least bit worried for my grandchildren. We humans are at the top level of adaptability.
Smokey says:
October 1, 2011 at 10:14 pm
“And they massively buy and sell futures puts and calls ahead of the changes, easily sucking many $billions out of Western pockets every year.”
Good point. Insider trading all the way. They know exactly when they are going to cut/raise supply, and can thus trade futures without risk.
There is a strategy the US could follow to solve oil supply and the deficit overnight, but of course will not. Set a minimum price for oil and put a 100% tax on the difference. Adjust the minimum price based on percentage of domestic production. If domestic production drops, raise the minimum price (tax). If domestic production increases, reduce the tax.
Overnight there would been massive investment in US oil exploration with tons of jobs created doing something that actually generates wealth, and speculators would be driven out of the market. Their would be a massive worldwide oil glut and prices would fall, and as they did US tax revenues would soar.
While this could be challenged under GATT, the US could claim it was done for strategic reasons, which allows a GATT exemption.
(SarcOn) Obama remembers his youth and those endless days on the beach building towering sandcastles. He also remembers that one of his most enlightening experiences came to him one Saturday morning while watching cartoons on TV and those old, old B&W reruns of the Our Gang Kids from the 1920’s. He swore to himself that when he was King of the World everyone (even pets) would have their very own Infinite Energy Generator (IEG) capable of generating all the energy they ever needed.(SarcOff)
Pics of Patented IEG Models awaiting EPA final approval for $500T investment packages administered by DNC Mules –
1. Senior IEG :
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_mSuZSnBhAVk/SVBo6t4AiSI/AAAAAAAAAfE/H_4uZi7ADgI/s320/ronald_weinland_in_propeller_beanie_hat.gif.
2. Marlboro Man IEG :
http://www.centurynovelty.com/catImages/092-037_large.jpg
3. Pet’s IEG :
http://smalldogmall.com/store/images/hats/propeller_hat_lrg.jpg
jim says:
October 2, 2011 at 8:37 am
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No, you ignore the fact that the positive-negative distribution of historical externalities has shifted very substantially – and very quickly. Sure, 100 years ago the postive effects of burning fossil fuels far outweighed the negative effects, but today (and especially with what we know now vs. what we knew then), it doesn’t make sense to stay on the business-as-usual path.
Onion says on October 1, 2011 at 2:55 pm :
“The battery will get recharged by a solar-powered windmill
There is nothing wrong with the science”
===
That’s right! You tell ‘em the facts! – Its ideal for people like Tom in Florida who wants to open an “electric filling station”. All he needs is a propeller – com – generator set up on each filling point (oh – and maybe a solar cell or two as back up just in case …)
– And think of the spin-off – he’ll be able to operate a thriving camping site business right there at the filling or “charging” station.
And – do take into consideration – “Car theft” will be a “thing of the past” – Well, my computer model says so.
DirkH says:
October 2, 2011 at 8:52 am
*****
That’s the problem with “skeptics” like you, Dirk. Why don’t you take a look at the past, say, 130,000 years of palaeoclimatic data and get back to us.
Do they realise that they will need to double or treble the number of power stations, to generate enough power for transport?
And what form of power generation? If it is fossil, then we gain absolutely nothing, because a battery car will use the same amount of energy as a diesel.
The only wat to make battery vehicles make sense, is through nuclear power – preferably of the Thorium variety.
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Matthew says:
October 2, 2011 at 8:17 am
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Matthew, every paragraph you wrote was ridiculous.
1. Obama is irresponsible NOT because he wants to reduce America’s dependency on oil, but because he wants to, yet introduces useless policies that have no effect – like a $535 million loan guarantee to a solar power company that builds expensive offices and then goes bankrupt laying off 1,100 people. Why not place limits on the minimum fuel consumption allowable for commuting traffic and stand back and watch as people dump their trucks and SUVs for more efficient gas and diesel powered autos (not useless battery powered ones).
2. Reducing oil use may reduce reliance on Middle East oil, but developing green energy doesn’t necessarily reduce oil consumption (as many countries such as Norway are finding out because reliable energy must be on stand-by to pick up the slack from unreliable solar and wind).
3. Your few hours of high school science mixes up energy and pollution. There is a big difference. Tax pollution by all means (as long as the tax goes toward reducing it), but why the need to tax energy (why do we feel we have to punish people for using energy)?
4. This is not a right-left issue any more. Higher energy costs out-live governments. Green energy is only adding to these costs. Where does the money come from to pay for higher energy costs? And what is the carbon footprint and pollution component on the extra money that is needed to support a part of the economy (green jobs) that can only survive on subsidies?
My government raised my hydro bill by 18% last year. Then this year (an election year) they gave me a clean energy rebate of 10%. The government is in serious debt and after the election will have to raise more revenue. They will most likely eliminate the clean energy rebate on the basis that they can no longer afford these subsidies. But wait a minute. They increased my hydro bill by 18% before they gave me 10% of it back. I bet they don’t teach that in high school.
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>> Depending upon a middle east which is unstable for energy is mentally challenged.
Doubly so, when you realise that much of that Middle Eastern money comes back to the West in the form of terrorism. Saudi Arabia spends about $30 billion a year on Wahabi ‘education’, and you can bet your bottom dollar that that ‘education’ is not of the quadratic equational kind.
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Matthew says:
October 2, 2011 at 9:30 am
No, you ignore the fact that the positive-negative distribution of historical externalities has shifted very substantially – and very quickly. Sure, 100 years ago the positive effects of burning fossil fuels far outweighed the negative effects, but today (and especially with what we know now vs. what we knew then), it doesn’t make sense to stay on the business-as-usual path.
What negatives have actually occurred? People have never been healthier and living longer. There is more food worldwide than at any time in history. Billions of people have been raised up from poverty.
Low cost energy has been the solution. 1 person can only produce so much in a day. So, in the past to generate wealth we needed thousands of serfs for every wealthy person. However, by using energy as a multiplier, each person can now produce much more. As such, for every wealthy person you need many less serfs. Thus the creation of the middle class.
We have billions of people on earth living lives that princes and kings could only have dreamed of a few hundreds of years ago. We also have billions of people that need to be raised out of poverty. Look at China and India. They are following the same formula used by the west (COAL) and getting the same positive results. Contrast this to Africa, where most of the economy is renewable, not based on fossil fuel (CHARCOAL and DUNG).
Wind mills in CA have already proven themselves to be a technological and economic fraud. So exactly how are all those electric cars going to be recharged?
How much asphalt for roads is made out of electricity? How much plastic, solvents, fertilizers, etc?
DirkH says:
October 2, 2011 at 8:57 am
****
Cute. Maybe with some hand-waving and Ron Paul 2012 stickers, we’ll solve everything!!!!11!
DirkH says:
October 2, 2011 at 8:52 am
To be more precise, they have exactly NO MORE predictive skill over one year than a model that simply says “in exactly one year, the weather will be exactly like today”.
Just look at Hansen’s guess from 2010 that we will have a strong El Nino in 2011 – this is practically the INVENTOR of GCM’s talking and see how pityful he performs.
The GCM’s are very skillful at predicting what the model builder’s believe will happen. If they were not, the model builders would change them until they did. Thus, what the models predict is what Hansen and Gavin already believe. It is a form of “mind reading”. The most successful fortune tellers are those that tell you want to hear. In climate science the most successful models are those that tell the climate scientists what they want to hear.
Thus, climate models do not predict the future, they “predict” something that is already known. The models “predict” what their builder’s believe will happen in the future. If the models predicted anything else, they would be modified, because the builders would think the models were in error and change them.
ferd berple says:
October 2, 2011 at 9:47 am
*****
You beat me to it, Fred. The so-called poor in the US have color TVs, computers, cell phones, air conditioning, and free food. It’s not exactly like we reverted to the pre-oil daze. The so-called negative externalities are not proven. The huge cost of CO2 mitigation will be a huge negative externality for everyone that could lurch us back into the 16th century. The cost (or benefit) of doing nothing isn’t well established.
pat says:
October 2, 2011 at 9:48 am
So exactly how are all those electric cars going to be recharged?
They will be recharged at night from the down welling IR energy from CO2, which according to climate scientists like Trenberth and the IPCC actually radiates more energy back to the earth than does sunlight.
Climate scientists plan to erect huge reflectors to catch this down welling IR radiation and use it to heat water to drive steam turbines and recharge all the electric cars at night. These companies will be financed by government guaranteed loans, granted to whoever makes the biggest political contributions to political re-election campaigns.
Steve from Rockwood says:
October 2, 2011 at 9:42 am
*****
No. In order:
1. You can’t regulate anything in this country because of Republican/Tea Party nutjobs screaming about personal liberty. That sounds like a cop-out, but just look at people like Joe Barton in TX and his ridiculous tyrade against lower energy lightbulbs. Also, respect yourself more than using one hyped-up instance of green corruption to discredit the whole idea of renewable energy.
2. Actually, green technology does reduce dependence on Middle Eastern oil. Even if oil is used as a “stand-by”, oil consumption will decrease at least a bit for every solar panel or windmill that’s installed. It’s silly to suggest we ignore new technology just because it’s not perfect.
3. I don’t know what science books you’ve been reading, but energy production in America is extremely dirty. How you can be for a tax on pollution (or would it exclude pollution that results from energy production?) and against energy taxes? At least cut some of the subsidies? Middle ground?
4. Like I said earlier, considering the way energy is produced in America, higher energy costs reflect more accurately the actual social costs of energy-related pollution. IDK how to say it a different way…
>>Too little, MPG or vision, the Aptera series 2 electric version should
>>hit the streets at 200MPG equivalent, the gasoline hybrid version should
>>get 130 MPG on gasoline only.
Yes, but these are toys, not cars. Where is the room for the wife and kids, and supermarket swag?
And if you want to make comparisons, then pay fair and compare like with like. The “VW 1Liter”, which is similar to the Aptera, does 280mpg – on good old diesel.
As I said before, battery vehicles make absolutely no sense (except to Greens and Presidents), unless you have nuclear power. Only then, will the extra efficiencies of a battery-electric motor combination begin to shine. But be prepared to have three times as many nuclear power stations, as the current number of fossil power stations.
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ferd berple says:
October 2, 2011 at 9:47 am
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Funny, when I lived in China, I couldn’t jog outside because it tore my lungs up. I had to buy a (very expensive) gym membership where I can run in a room with purified air. Cancer rates are through the roof and the economic consequences for China’s rural class has been disastrous. And you really want to point to India as an economic miracle of fossil fuel usage? Visit a slum in Delhi and see if you’re still willing to stand by that…
Yes, in the PAST, low cost energy (and a disregard for its negative implications) allowed us to create and sustain a middle class. It might be time to reconsider that a bit, though.