Guest post by David Middleton
Donald Trump has promised to roll back regulations and unleash an energy revolution in America — but economists have their doubts about the plan.
The Republican presidential candidate says he will boost America’s economic output, create millions of new jobs, and put coal miners back to work. But the windfalls Trump touts originate from a report commissioned by a nonprofit with ties to the energy industry and whose findings rely on a forecasting model that often overstates the benefits of increased drilling, according to economists who have researched the U.S. shale oil and gas revolution.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Immigration and trade have dominated much of the policy conversation this campaign season, but the next president will take office at a crucial time for the energy industry. America’s revolution in high-tech oil production has been sidetracked by — and has contributed to — a two-year crude price rout that has bankrupted dozens of domestic energy companies.
While outlining his economic blueprint last month, Trump said that lifting restrictions on oil and gas would increase GDP by more than $127 billion, add about 500,000 jobs, and increase wages by $30 billion each year over over the next seven years.
Those figures come from the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit that advocates for a free-market approach to energy. It typically casts fossil fuels as the most economic form of energy generation, promotes research that says green energy jobs are unsustainable, and claims there is an “enormous volume of sensationalized, simplistic and often plain wrong information” on climate change.
[…]
Firstly, it’s impossible to overstate the benefits of drilling more economists…
Secondly, fossil fuels are the most economic form of energy generation; green energy jobs not just unsustainable, they are a boondoggle and a drain on our economy; and there absolutely is an “enormous volume of sensationalized, simplistic and often plain wrong information” on climate change. If this is the “economists” point of contention, they are wrong.
The IER report in question projects the economic benefits of opening up all Federal lands (apart from National Parks and other specifically protected lands) to oil, gas & coal leasing…
The IER study does not actually attribute the gains to a lifting of restrictions, as Trump indicated, but to opening all federal lands to oil, gas, and coal leasing. It is currently barred or temporarily blocked in some parts of the U.S. lower 48, the outer continental shelf, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Alaska National Wildlife Refuge includes a barren stretch of coastal tundra known as ANWR-1002. ANWR-1002 is Prudhoe Bay’s next-door neighbor. Geologically speaking, it would almost be regarded as a “step-out” from Prudhoe Bay.
The USGS estimates the P-mean recoverable resource potential of ANWR-1002 assessment area to be in the neighborhood of 10 billion barrels of crude oil. Which means that the oil & gas industry would probably find about 40 billion barrels, if we were allowed to look.
At $45/bbl, 10 billion barrels of crude oil is worth $450,000,000,000… Nearly half-a-trillion dollars. The opening of ANWR-1002, all by itself, would generate a lot of economic activity and the Treasury would collect a lot of royalty and tax revenue. Sounds like a win-win. On top of that, the failure to open ANWR-1002 soon will eventually force the premature shutdown and dismantling of the Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS).
A premature end to TAPS would strand about 30 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of natural gas under Alaska and its OCS (outer continental shelf).
• The Trans Alaska Pipeline System’s (TAPS) minimum flow rate of about 300,000 barrels of oil per day will be reached in 2025, absent new developments or reserves growth beyond the forecasted technically remaining reserves. An Alaska gas pipeline and gas sales from the Point Thomson field and the associated oil and condensate would provide another boost to oil production and extend the life ofTAPS for about one year to 2026. A shut down of TAPS would potentially strand about 1 billion barrels of oil reserves from the fields analyzed.
Page ix
• For the complete study interval from 2005 to 2050, the forecasts of economically recoverable oil and gas additions, including reserves growth in known fields, is 35 to 36 billion barrels of oil and 137 trillion cubic feet of gas. These optimistic estimates assume continued high oil and gas prices, stable fiscal policies, and all areas open for exploration and development. For this optimistic scenario, the productive life of the Alaska North Slope would be extended well beyond 2050 and could potentially result in the need to refurbish TAPS and add capacity to the gas pipeline.
• The forecasts become increasingly pessimistic if the assumptions are not met as illustrated by the following scenarios.
1. If the ANWR 1002 area is removed from consideration, the estimated economically recoverable oil is 29 to 30 billion barrels of oil and 135 trillion cubic feet of gas.
2. Removal of ANWR 1002 and the Chukchi Sea OCS results in a further reduction to 19 to 20 billion barrels of oil and 85 trillion cubic feet of gas.
3. Removal of ANWR 1002, Chukchi Sea OCS, and the Beaufort Sea OCS results in a reduction to 15 to 16 billion barrels of oil and 65 trillion cubic feet of gas.
4. Scenario 3 and no gas pipeline reduces the estimate to 9 to 10 billion barrels of oil (any gas discovered will likely remain stranded).
Some combination of these hypothetical scenarios is more likely to occur than the optimistic estimates.
Page viii
At $45/bbl, 30 billion barrels of oil is worth $1.35 trillion.
At $2.70/mcf, 137 TCF is worth about $370 billion.
$1.7 trillion sounds like real money to me… And this is just for the Alaska North Slope and northern OCS regions.
The CBO estimates that the full opening of the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and ANWR Area 1002 to exploration and production would quickly generate more than $35 billion per year in Federal revenue from lease bonuses and royalties…
On top of that, the BEA estimates that it would also generate more than $24 billion per year in Federal tax revenue…
That’s about $60 billion per year of government revenue… Just from taxes and royalty payments. So, the economic activity which generated those government revenues would have to be at least a bit larger.
If we add up the estimated undiscovered technically recoverable resource (UTRR) potential under the US and its OCS and the Green River Oil Shale, we come up with about 1.3 trillion barrels of oil. 76% of this is currently off limits to exploitation,
At $45/bbl, 974 billion barrels of crude oil (and high grade refinery stock) is worth $43.8 trillion dollars… Almost enough money to totally decarbonize US electricity generation. Even if it took 100 years to find, produce and sell that oil that still works out to $438 billion per year. $438 billion in gross revenue will drive an awful lot of economic activity.
So, what exactly, do the “economists” take issue with?
The IER report uses a method of forecasting called the input-output model, which is frequently used by consultants and government agencies to make projections about the effects of economic activity.
But a number of economists say that model is not well-suited to predicting how more drilling will produce windfalls in other sectors, and academics are skeptical of the method because the results, or outputs, rely so heavily on the assumptions, or inputs.
“This is not academic research and would never see the light of day in an academic journal. The pioneering research … from years ago is rarely employed any more by economists,” said Thomas Kinnaman, chair of the Economics Department at Bucknell University, who reviewed the IER report for CNBC.
Kinnaman said the technical assumptions used throughout the study are not “egregious,”
I wonder if Dr. Kinnaman knows that “egregious” used to mean the exact opposite of what it means today… Let’s assume he’s using the modern definition and IER’s technical assumptions aren’t wrong in any way than he can identify. So, what’s his beef?
but he noted that the paper makes no attempt to weigh the environmental and social costs of opening federal lands against the benefits.
He is taking issue with IER’s failure to consider phony economic metrics in their analyses. I wonder if he endorsed HRC’s fantasyland energy proposals.
Featured Image Borrowed From Econosseur.
While I cheer on energy independence for the USA, if these reserves are all opened up, once the oil/natural gas starts to flow, won’t that start to drop the price of the commodity? Supply/demand? I know the demand is ever increasing, but when the oil started flowing from the shale deposits out west, that helped lower the $$/Barrel. Although Saudi Arabia helped a bit trying to drive it low enough to force our production to stop. It worked so well that the price lowered so much that some facilities couldn’t be profitable and stopped production.
What I don’t understand is whenever the price of crude drops, so does my stock portfolio. I thought that if energy costs lowered, then businesses would be more profitable with lower energy bills. Why does the stock market drop with crude price drops, can someone explain that for me?
Consider the hit taken by the energy industry and all peripherals, which is a major portion of the US economy. There’s a huge ripple effect, not the least of which are State Gov’t budget shortfalls in the energy producing states. Everyone appreciates lower prices at the pump, but when prices fall so far that the energy infrastructure can’t be supported, then there is a problem. Boom and bust.
The stock market drop is a mere fluctuation, to be ignored by any serious long-term investors. In the long run, lower oil prices are beneficial for the economy, and sooner or later, the stock market.
Bruce:
Maybe but I don’t think so – at least not in Canada. Too many interlinked industries. Stock answer used to be that lower oil prices would benefit manufacturing – but it appears that many manufacturing industries were/are tied to the oil/gas industry sometimes with several degrees of separation. Plus the manufacturing centre in Canada is beset with Alternative Energy Driven YUUGE price increases so Manufacturing isn’t going anywhere (except moving offshore). The Athabasca Oil Sands and the US shale plays provided significant economic spin offs. Manufacturing has not offset the losses and the loss to the economy affects many things right down to automotive demand. If you look back at what happened in 1983, it took 10 plus years to recover. Expect history to repeat itself. And with manufacturing moving to lower energy and labour cost environments, maybe much, much longer. We need higher oil prices to stimulate the economy, as much as that may seem backa$$wards to many folks. IMHO.
“What I don’t understand is whenever the price of crude drops, so does my stock portfolio. I thought that if energy costs lowered, then businesses would be more profitable with lower energy bills. Why does the stock market drop with crude price drops, can someone explain that for me?”
Lower gasoline prices are a net positive for the economy, and helps the poorest in the nation the most.
Your stock portfolio, in the shortterm, is not determined by how the U.S. economy is doing, but by how your stocks are doing. Naturally, when oil prices go down, the price of oil company stocks and related industries go down in unison. You, no doubt, are invested in some of these stocks so your portfolio value decreases. If you don’t want to be subject to this fluctuation, then invest in companies not associated with oil production. Invest in companies that benefit from lower gasoline prices. Then, when the oil price goes down, your portfolio goes up.
I know the business channels always seem to hype the higher oil prices. They do this because most of the time oil prices can give you a window into how the economy is doing. So if oil prices are high, that must mean the economies are booming, and if they are low, the economies must not be doing so well. That’s why they focus on the oil price.
High oil prices may be good for stock traders and oil companies, but they are *not* a good thing for the U.S. economy under any circumstances. The lower, the better.
Given that most economist are indoctrinated in the finer points of Marxist economics, and have likely read one or more of Paul R. Ehrlich’s books, why does anyone take notice let alone listen to them?
During my Economics education, we did 2 whole weeks on Marxism. Several years on market economics and government regulation. Whole classes on optimization of production (“linear programming”).
I’m sure it is the other way around in Russia and China, but please do remember there are also The Chicago School and The Austrian School economists who revile Marxism.
Oh, and necessary mention of the British Keynsians who seem to run most central banks…
BTW, I’m pretty sure I never read Ehrlich. Looked at the liner notes and saw no need… He did the Doom From Population stuff, IIRC. It was thought very stupid in the demographics discussions in classes that covered demographic issues.
That was a few decades ago, though, so no idea about current colleges.
There is also a wild card against Trump and that is the questionable funding to NGOs like Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Tides and the Clinton Foundation from countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Russia who do not want to see Tump in the big chair.
nc September 7, 2016 at 1:21 pm
In regards to Russia I think they may prefer Mr Trump.
I do not know if they are behind any of the DNC “hacks” but the Dems are pulling out all the stops to blame them.
Mr Putin seems to think that all of the leaks are a good public service, show the American voters what type of human being Hillary Clinton real is. Also I don’t think they like her.
michael
Sigh really not real
Bull
“In regards to Russia I think they may prefer Mr Trump”
I don’t think the Russians prefer Trump. They would rather have Hillary Clinton, who is much less likely to use force. She has already said she would not put U.S. troops in Iraq (last night) to fight the Islamic Terror Army. She didn’t explain what she would do with the U.S. troops already there.
No, Russia wants someone they can push around, like they push Obama around. That person is much more likely to be Hillary than Donald Trump.
Some seem to think Hillary is a war hawk, but that’s really not the case. They cite her pushing the effort to depose Libya’s Kadaffy as a case of her aggression. But if you look at what she actually did, then you see the same “minimalist” approach to warfare as President Obama. Both Hillary and Obama favor attacking the enemy from the air, especially when the enemy has no way to stop U.S. aircraft from flying over them. That way they can appear to be taking it to the enemy without suffering any consequences such as U.S. casualties.
Bombing Kadaffy was all Hillary was willing to do. As soon as Kadaffy was killed, Hillary and Obama wanted nothing more to do with the situation, and allowed Libya to fall into the chaos we see today. Hillary would never have considered using U.S. ground troops in this battle or any battle. She will only do military moves that fit in with the anti-war Left’s ideology which is to do as little as possible (see Iraq and Afghanistan).
The problem with Hillary and Obama take on the subject, is we CANNOT win a war without using U.S. ground troops. Air attacks don’t cut it. Bill Clinton tried air attacks over Kosovo when he was president. He bombed the hell out of the Serbs, which did nothing to shake the Serbs resolve. Clinton refused to send in U.S. ground troops, when it became apparent that bombing was not going to fix the situation, and NATO wanted to send in troops. NATO finally told Clinton they were going in with troops with or without the U.S., and Clinton finally relented and added U.S. troops to the mix.
Clinton’s reluctance caused a most fortunate circumstance. Since Clinton had at first refused to include U.S. ground troops, the NATO allies had gotten together and formed up their own team, including their own commander of the force, a British General (sorry, I don’t recall his name, and I should). This had the effect that when Clinton finally decided to join, the force already had a commander, and Clinton’s general, Wesley Clark, was made second in command rather than the commander.
Within a matter of weeks after NATO ground troops went into Kosovo, the war was over because the Serbs surrendered, and the casualties on both sides were very light. The Serbs would never have surrendered had they not been confronted by an overwhelming NATO ground force. This is something Leftwing appeasers like Obama and Hillary Clinton do not understand. They don’t understand the psychology of war. Psychology is 90 percent of the game. This makes them unsuitable for planning and running the nations national security, as should be obvious from Obama’s last eight years.
During the course of the NATO ground invasion, at one point, NATO troops had Russian troops surrounded in an airport in Kosovo. NATO wanted the Russian troops out, and Clinton’s general, General Wesley Clark recommended to the British commander that the NATO troops attack the Russian troops in order to get them out of the airport. The British general told Clarke he was not prepared to start World War III, right there in Kosovo. Now aren’t you glad General Wesley Clarke was not the one to make that decision? A couple of days later the Russians agreed to withdraw from the airport. General Wesley Clarke is used by the Leftwing media as a expert in military affaris to this very day. Yeah, he’s an expert in really screwing up big time. Good thing he didn’t have a chance to work his will in Kosovo.
The Russians want Hillary.
When the government says ‘economist’, what they mean is ‘propagandist’. They write models with built in conclusions and economic data is so noisy that the slightest bias can often give you whatever result you want.
Hold the presses! This just in:
Billions of Barrels of Oil Discovered in Texas
A U.S. energy company just discovered a “world class” oil and gas resource in west Texas, out on the fringes of the already prolific Permian basin. The WSJ reports on Apache Corp.’s encouraging new find:
“The discovery, which Apache is calling “Alpine High,” is in an area near the Davis Mountains that had been overlooked by geologists and engineers, who believed it would be a poor fit for hydraulic fracturing. It could be worth $8 billion by conservative estimates, or even 10 times more, according to the company. […]
“The company has begun drilling in the area and says the early wells, which produce more natural gas than oil, are capable of providing at least a 30% profit margin at today’s prices, including all costs associated with drilling. Some are so prolific that they can break even at a price of 10 cents per million British thermal units, according to the company. Natural gas futures closed Tuesday at $2.72. […]
“The new play is a short distance from extensive drilling operations and is likely to stoke the speculative fever that has recently engulfed the Permian, a vast swath of geology in West Texas and New Mexico that has been gushing oil and gas for almost 100 years. The Permian has become popular again because producers have found ways to use newer technologies to extract oil from the area at a profit, even at current below-$50-a-barrel prices.”
The oil industry has a long history of big discoveries that haven’t panned out, but there’s already a lot to be excited about with the Alpine High resource. For one, the first wells are already proving profitable, even at today’s bargain hydrocarbon prices. Secondly, the field’s proximity to existing drilling operations will make it easier to source the necessary transportation and services.
Speaking of long histories, this is yet another example of those “peak oil” decriers looking foolish. Gaia’s riches continue to surprise even the more bullish analysts among us, and the shale revolution put an end to the notion that the planet’s energy carrying capacity was somehow tapped out. In reality, large new reserves of oil and gas are being discovered all around the world. We’re living in an era of extraordinary energy abundance, and thanks to a market environment that has accommodated a deep pool of companies interested in exploring and inventing new ways to drill more with less, the United States stands at the center of this renaissance.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/09/07/billions-of-barrels-of-oil-discovered-in-texas/
Time will tell if this is the next Eagle Ford or the next Monterrey Shale.
“Then time will tell just who fell
And who’s been left behind
When you go your way and I go mine”
Bob Dylan
IN the context of renewable energy, and Bob Dylan, I prefer ‘idiot wind’
http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=9918f4017043
Making energy less expensive, also means that our exports become cheaper compared to the rest of the world.
And less expensive energy will attract industries from around the world to come to the U.S. to take advantage of the lower costs of doing business.
So, better the green/clean blight than Nature’s crude? It’s certainly more profitable, assuming that China continues to accede to regulatory disparity, and the environmental lobby can suppress the ecological disruption caused by low-density, large-scale green/clean energy converters.
The pretension of an ivory tower expert is that he “knows” or can divine things. BS. The oil glut has been a surprise to most experts operating within generally shared parameters.They were flying blind weren’t they. Drill responsibility.
Open our lands. Allow us to honor our
ancestors as we burn the sacred earth fuels sending our prayers to the heavens. Ha. We should sue along those lines.
I love the part where they say that the “input-output” model doesn’t work, and fail to realise that this is exactly what climate science has been using all along.
The economists give economics a bad name. They don’t like oil and gas development, period. The environmental and social costs are nonexistent – just the opposite. The social benefit is the enhanced employment and large paychecks. The environmental benefit is the high-tech engineering and development techniques used in modern oil and gas production. This project is a win-win for all concerned except the far-left zealots who are mindlessly against everything.
This discussion doesn’t delve much into what effect a come-back of coal might have on the oil industry. Is oil anti-coal?
I’m pro-low electricity rates. This means that I am generally pro-coal.
There is no doubt that with sane particulate filters and de-sulphurization kit, the USA should continue to burn open-cast coal for a few decades yet.
The fly ash can then be mined for uranium before being turned into insulated ash blocks for house construction.
Caleb says, “Is oil anti-coal?”
There was some attention on natural gas interests being big players in the assault on coal, several years ago.
I am using a touch screen so I won’ t be leaving links. It’s way too hard. Cheers.
OIl is not anti-coal.
Oil is too expensive to burn in power stations and is not a good reducing agent for industrial processes.
Gas however competes directly with coal.
What is the main difference between coal and gas?
Coal produces per unit energy 2-3 times more carbon dioxide.
Coal is about half the price.
If you were gas, wouldn’t it be a good idea to hire Gore, make a film about ‘global warming’, get CO2 declared a pollutant, and this justify taxing coal into uncompetitiveness?
It’s the oil & gas industry… not two separate industries.
A Trump presidency with a Republican Congress may end the climate madness. Think of all the useful research those $billions of research funds and thousands of scientists could be doing instead of spinning the climate wheel.
Madness never ends. If elections could end madness, we would have been madness-free since January 20, 1981.
Gary Johnson has just committed Presidential suicide…
“Johnson says he believes catastrophic “man-caused” global warming is occurring and that a carbon “fee” is one “free-market solution” that could help save the planet.”
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2016/09/07/gary-johnsons-carbon-tax-sink-campaign/89928632/
No options left, Hold your nose and vote Trump to save America..PERIOD !
The good thing about Trump is that in the end he knows he can’t possibly do any of the things he promises. And will be smart enough to do almost nothing.
The terrifying thing about the Clitorall Hinny is that just possibly, she might.
IN my life, the worst governments are always those that Do Something. A policy of masterful laissez faire until and unless deep crisis looms, is usually best. Let people sort themselves out.
All I need a candidate to promise is that he/she will encourage free markets and competition among energy producers through the easing of regulations and the offering of tax incentives. Oil, coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, solar, wind – let them all compete on an equal playing field to give us the cheapest energy possible. Somehow I don’t see dear Hillary and the Dems allowing that, but if they did, I’d vote for ’em.
The blowback to Gary Johnson on Facebook for his “Carbon Tax” support is growing rapidly…
https://www.facebook.com/HeartlandInstitute/?notif_t=notify_me_page¬if_id=1473174032900796
We have May and they have Clinton with Trump or Corbyn. We are all doomed.
..Liberals worldwide have been mocking Trump about his plans to build a wall to protect Americans from illegal aliens….And now….
“Taking a page from Trump? UK building ‘big new wall’ to stop illegal immigrants”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/09/07/taking-page-from-trump-uk-building-big-new-wall-to-stop-illegal-immigrants.html
ROTFLMAO !!!
There are all kinds of border walls going up in Europe. Trump’s idea is becoming mainstream. Necessarily so.
..WOW !! Peak Oil doesn’t mean what it use to … LOL…
Apache Corp. is reporting it just found, in the Delaware Basin, a massive 75 TRILLION cubic ft. of Natural Gas and 3 BILLION barrels of oil….Stock jumps 10% in one day…
Only Trump will let us have it !
peak, and you will find it.
There’s very little that the Feds can do to prevent Apache from exploiting Alpine High. That said at this point, it is little more than a press release.
And the greens seriously undersold the benefits of renewable energy? Of course it is oversold but the question is there a net benefit as clearly we now now renewable energy is a net cost with no benefits at all.
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jun/28/solar-power-energy-us-utilities-environment-climate-change
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2016/09/07/iowa-sees-explosive-growth-solar-wind-energy/89922476/
Renewables are going to be the bulk of new Us power generation
Not even with Her Hagness’ plan to… “Generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America, with half a billion solar panels installed by the end of Hillary’s first term.” (That would mean installed solar PV capacity of 140 gigawatts by the end of 2020, up 700 percent from current levels and well beyond most forecasts.)”
US coal is in decline because of shale gas and renewables…
Trump can’t halt all renewables, because they increasingly make financial sense – people are installing them without regard to subsidy (oh yes they are!)
Especially coal can never regain ground while natural gas price continues low…
Even if you argue with me over renewables, you can’t say coal will get that ground back in power generation from shale gas…
As to oil, the price drives the economics of exploration – if its too low it won’t be economic to start exploiting more arctic reserves (exploration/exploitation even in a warming arctic is difficult).
I can’t see a further increase in oil until a price recovery and if I could forecast that, I’d be planning on spending the millions I’d make in the markets…
Trumps coal plan can’t work…
No one can predict oil prices. Long term plans have to be based on the current strip and inflation assumptions. Basins with the potential for giant discoveries (ANWR,Alaska OCS,etc.) are attractive in almost any price environment.
Shell’s major problems in the Chukchi Sea were regulatory malfeasance, too much ice and too short of a drilling season (summer). Warming would actually facilitate drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.
Coal could compete with cheap natural gas in a free market. It would be tough competition, but it would be competition. Coal can’t compete against Mordor-on-the-Potomac and cheap natural gas.
Renewables, apart from wind in a very few places, are irrelevant.
I don’t see how coal could compete?
As I don’t see how there isn’t a free market in the US in coal/gas…
I take it you think the government has a hand on the scales??
Coal is cheap. $2.18 per million btu for electricity generation. Natural gas currently costs $2.70 per million btu at the wellhead and about $9-10 per million btu for electricity generation.
The only reason that coal-fired power plants have become uneconomic is due to regulatory malfeasance. One of the benefits of the acid rain scam is that it forced coal-fired power plants to pretty well eliminate most potentially harmful emissions. This was accomplished at a relatively modest cost.
The only reason that coal has become noncompetitive is the moronic war against the AGW myth. This had led to a decade of increasingly stringent regulations that have made it almost impossible to build new coal-fired plants and will force the early retirement of many existing plants.
“I don’t see how coal could compete?”
http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/Markets/coal-investment-commodities-imports/2016/09/09/id/747430/
Coal Rises From Grave to Become One of Hottest Commodities
Economists: put them end to end and they never reach a conclusion
Despite low prices, some exploration continues and Apache Corp. just made a 3 Billion barrel discovery: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-07/apache-discovers-3-billion-barrel-field-in-texas-shale-country
This was already noted up- thread by Walter Sobchak:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/09/07/trumps-energy-plan-overstates-benefits-of-more-drilling-economists/#comment-2294883
More drilling is limited not by environmentalists only, but by the Middle East, where Obama flooded the market with trillions of barrels of oil to finance terrorism. As long as such international events occur, the US cannot compete. If Trump somehow got a tax on imported oil and managed to shut down the environmental protests, drilling might work. Perhaps Saudi Arabia will bankrupt itself eventually, as some predict. In spite of claims to the contrary, there are no politicians in places of power that want an energy independent US. They love the dependency on foreign oil and will maintain it as long as possible while decrying it. I doubt Trump can overcome the gravy train built over the last four or five decades.
The renewables subsidies and mandates (please don’t use one term without the other) have been a failure in Spain and in any country where they have been imposed.
We need to trust the voters to see the failures of renewables and to recognized a ruined economy when they see one.
There actually is no reason why energy prices can’t come down with fracking and if the coal miners and plants have the prohibitive regulations lifted. This must be done before they get their assets stripped and sold to China.
And it is also time to recognize that after adding these worthless wind turbines and solar panels which reduces and volitilizes supply and price, and after adding electric cars to increase demand, the brown outs and black outs will come.
When the black outs come, then the politicians will all become battery salesman. This is a wreckless unknown expense. No engineer would build a system that does not supply services until a later, unknown infrastructure is added. But that is what subsidies and mandates (force) is accomplishing. An engineer would never practice again if he built a building in that way.
Then the politicians will all become Smart Meter salesmen. This is a method of rationing and controlling all of the appliances within the house remotely.
Smart Meters are the ultimate goal in all of this. This is expected to be a world wide market and the meters have been developed to be able to withstand very high temperatures; I expect that is to keep them from being disabled or removed by unhappy home owners who are having their energy use and appliances switched on and off.
Yep. None of this green schist will work unless Big Brother can reach into our homes with a remote “Off Switch.”
The article says that the Smart Grid is a good thing because it will prevent the utility nightmare that could result from widespread use of electric vehicles (EV’s).
Paying up to $1 trillion in higher taxes and/or electric bills for a gov’t-controlled remote control to my circuit breaker box so that the gov’t can switch off some people’s power so a bunch of greenies can charge their EV’s at night should be a bad thing to anyone who pays taxes and/or an electric bill.
Obama’s future-vision will lead to “neighborhood concentrations pulling new EV loads at 6 p.m. on still-hot afternoons” which “could be disastrous for local distribution grids.”
That’s why we supposedly need the Smart Grid, the projected cost which has climbed from $338 to $476 billion since 2004. The odds are that the cost will ultimately be more than $1 trillion.
The Smart Grid will supposedly return $1.2 to $2.0 trillion in benefits… Although those benefits never show up on consumer electricity bills…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/SmartGrid.png
A 12% hike in my electric bill would be a Helluva lot more than $145/year. And, why on Earth would I want to pay 10% more for electricity, just so the gov’t can shut off my AC or pool pump when they think I’m using too much electricity? The projected benefits to the consumer/taxpayer are all speculative, useless, intangible and/or mythological.
Building fires caused by electrical infrastructure
Increase GDP from reduced electricity cost
Environmental Impact: SO2, CO2 and NOx
NOx and SO2 were already well below the national standard and declining before Obama sent the EPA on an Enviromarxist jihad against American industry. SO2 is at, or very near, an irreducible level.
CO2 is only a pollutant in the imaginations of Al Gore and the EPA.
This “benefit” is idiotic…
Access to competing suppliers
I already have “access to competing suppliers.”
The article says, “The private sector can and will invest in all this energy-saving… but it will all happen much faster if the federal government provides, or continues, incentives and policies to spur it.” Irrespective of the degree to which the private sector and/or federal gov’t funds it – The cost will be born by the taxpayers and/or the consumers – Who often happen to be the same people.
The purpose of the Smart Grid is 100% driven by the zero-sum steady-state economic philosophy of Enviromarxism, “with FERC insisting that grid operators treat removing load on par with adding generation.”
The sole purpose of the Smart Grid is to give the gov’t the equivalent of a remotely operated main disconnect switch for every privately owned circuit breaker box in the nation… So that they can forcibly or coercively “treat removing load on par with adding generation.”
Doesn’t have to be very smart at all. Who would we be impressing? Today, Zambia has massive “load-shedding” (power outage) for something like 20 hours out of every day, imposed on the general population. I presume that government facilities are exempt, in line with the usual standards of behaviors. No fancy technology required. Everybody knows what is going on, but nobody can do anything about it.
Steve T
September 7, 2016 at 2:47 pm
And SteveT, there is the factor that a certain percentage of voters don’t say they will vote for Trump. Like all sensible people, I’ve been disappointed in Trump’s self immolating statements that have held him back. He seems to be on the rails now though. Even as he was, I saw him as the best bet, not just for USA, but western civilization! I give kudos to UK for Brexit (and honorary mention to Eastern Europe, too) otherwise I would have assumed the Great Political Correction to come was completely Trump’s doing. What’s left of the EU will be saved against its will like the endangered Nile crocodile, who would be snapping at conservation biologists’ A55E5 while the rescue is going on. Trump will win!
That is what they said about Fracking. It changed the world.