Guest MAGA! by David Middleton
Every now and then, Real Clear Energy carries a story relevant to energy…
DECEMBER 23, 2019
In 2018, the United States consumed more energy than ever beforePrimary energy consumption in the United States reached a record high of 101.3 quadrillion British thermal units (Btu) in 2018, up 4% from 2017 and 0.3% above the previous record set in 2007. The increase in 2018 was the largest increase in energy consumption, in both absolute and percentage terms, since 2010.
Consumption of fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal—grew by 4% in 2018 and accounted for 80% of U.S. total energy consumption. Natural gas consumption reached a record high, rising by 10% from 2017. This increase in natural gas, along with relatively smaller increases in the consumption of petroleum fuels, renewable energy, and nuclear electric power, more than offset a 4% decline in coal consumption.
Petroleum consumption in the United States increased to 20.5 million barrels per day (b/d), or 37 quadrillion Btu in 2018, up nearly 500,000 b/d from 2017 and the highest level since 2007. Growth was driven primarily by increased use in the industrial sector, which grew by about 200,000 b/d in 2018. The transportation sector grew by about 140,000 b/d in 2018 as a result of increased demand for fuels such as petroleum diesel and jet fuel.
Natural gas consumption in the United States reached a record high 83.1 billion cubic feet/day (Bcf/d), the equivalent of 31 quadrillion Btu, in 2018. Natural gas use rose across all sectors in 2018, primarily driven by weather-related factors that increased demand for space heating during the winter and for air conditioning during the summer. As more natural gas-fired power plants came online and existing natural gas-fired power plants were used more often, natural gas consumption in the electric power sector increased 15% from 2017 levels to 29.1 Bcf/d. Natural gas consumption also grew in the residential, commercial, and industrial sectors in 2018, increasing 13%, 10%, and 4% compared with 2017 levels, respectively.
[…]
US EIA
Very good news, despite the decline in coal and rise in renewables, fossil fuels accounted form 80% of our primary energy consumption…
Fortunately, wind and solar continue to be among the least significant sources of so-called renewable energy…
And yet my cost has remained relatively level? Hmmm, a conundrum. How could this be? OHHH!! We live in Pennsylvania!!!!! You’re welcome, we are quite happy to sell the evil gases emitted by the Evil Marcellus Shale at reasonable market price to any who need it.
MAGA #4moreyears
2hotel9
Hey fellow Pennsylvania did you see the BS Senate Bill SB-596 initiated by Creenwashing Republican Bob Mensch he is a Major Greenie and so is Jake Corman Senate Chief—how these bastards got to be Republicans is beyond my comprehension. They are out of control.
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/CFDOCS/Legis/PN/Public/btCheck.cfm?txtType=HTM&sessYr=2019&sessInd=0&billBody=S&billTyp=B&billNbr=0596&pn=1343
Carbon, I don’t pretend to know anything about American politics (except I hope Donald wins again) but it seems to me that you are implying that the republicans you voted in have extremely green tendencies.
It’s the same here in Australia! Our incumbent government is supposed to be around centre or right of centre but some of them are deep green!
We are feeling the same exasperation here and what with the global consensus that ‘climate change’ is causing our bushfires our Prime Minister is under incredible pressure. I only hope he can hold up.
It’s criminal that the MSM don’t present a balanced view. There are alot of fools out there that simply believe the propaganda.
Plenty of RINOs in PA, and as for their comical little bill EVs are a non-starter outside of Phylthidelphia and Harrisburg. Out here in actual Pennsylvania it is gasoline, diesel and LPG to operate vehicles and equipment. Keep explaining to people, until EVs are equipped with some type of internal combustion engine to drive the generator to provide electric to operate it they are simply kicking a dead dog. People don’t like to see dead dogs kicked, that pisses us off.
“DECEMBER 23, 2019In 2018, the United States consumed more energy than ever before”
In the green corner we have all those oh so righteous UN bureaucrats with all those COPs trying to save the planet; and all those oh so smart climate scientists with all that science and all those climate models trying to save the planet; And in the red corner we have Donald Trump trying to save the USA.
And the winner is ….. Donald Trump!
And the winner is – America! And our allies.
I can go one up on that. The population of the planet is the highest it has ever been and has consumed more energy than in the entire history of the planet. This will continue.
How ’bout a little perspective on this.
1,368 W/m^2 w/ 0.3 albedo * 0.7 * 3.412 Btu/h / W = 3,267 Btu/h / m^2 * 8,760 h/y * 1.275E14 m^2 =
3,650,000 Quad Btu/y.
101.4 divided by 3.650E6 = 0.00278% aka 27.8 ppm
Hey fellow PE Nick S. a clarification please– is that ppm carbon or carbon dioxide?
Carbon Bigfoot
ppm cited above is not for Carbon or Carbon Dioxide. It is showing that the Energy used by us is just 0.00278% of the Energy received from the Sun.
note: based on the calculations given above.
If only the Australian farmers were like the USA people and got a share of the natural gas under their land, all this talk about such drilling affecting their water suppl;y would soon disappear, and we would have as much and more natural gas as we needed, so for export.
But we are stuck with the original UK laws that say what is under the land belongs to the “”Crown””. Ie the government, and they are reluctant to give that right up.
MJE VK5ELL
Good point Michael.
Well made.
Of course as a dominion within the commonwealth “the crown” has a deeper meaning. The queen of england is your queen.
No she is not. The Queen may be the head of the Commonwealth but she has little direct power over what happens in Australia with regards to “the crown” these days. The Queen delegates that to the Governor General. People still think she has the power to call up our Prime Minister and tell him he’s fired!
One of the smartest things America ever did was to allow for the private ownership of minerals. Its one of the few countries in the world where an oil company leases directly from “Farmer Jones” rather than from the State or Federal government. Its amazing how much more cooperative the landowner is when he’s about to receive a large bonus check for leasing his minerals with the possibility of a monthly royalty checks for years to come. It also keeps the bonus and royalty money in his local community where he buys new cars, washing machines, clothes etc. Thus making for a prosperous rural community rather than a poor and decaying one. It also keeps all that money out of the pockets of wasteful politicians. Nigeria would be a completely different country if individuals owned the minerals underneath their own land.
”
Michael January 10, 2020 at 3:29 pm
If only the Australian farmers were like the USA people and got a share of the natural gas under their land, all this talk about such drilling affecting their water suppl;y would soon disappear, and we would have as much and more natural gas as we needed, so for export.”
____________________________________
The Australian Farmers know what thei’re doing sending their harvests with Diesel-Elecs to the harbours:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Australian+railroad+corn+transports&oq=Australian+railroad+corn+transports&aqs=chrome.
Good Economy as opposed to the Dems restrictions of prosperity..
Like outlawing Fossil fuels…
We use way more stones now than we did in the stone age. 🙂
Cheap, abundant energy fuels a burgeoning economy.
Of course, we could live as they do in N.Korea, instead.
“Of course, we could live as they do in N.Korea, instead.”
that’s the plan
Wasting energy really shouldn’t be something to be proud of, whether you believe in man made climate change or not.
Waste is waste, we live in a world where it appears that the speed at which resources are transferred from quarry to landfill is seen as a sign of success.
While at the same time producing as much pollution as possible (not CO2, all the other pollutants that are emitted in the processes) just to feed the excessive consumerism that is there purely to perpetuate the infinite growth economic model that we pursue to move the money as fast as possible to the top.
“Wasting energy really shouldn’t be something to be proud of” Wasted? How? Taking advantage of natural resources is not “waste”. And just because YOU don’t agree with how it’s being used doesn’t make it bad. Pious, are we not?
You beat me to it; may I add that even if our consumption is wasteful, the profits fuel the economy that “trickles down” to progress in every field of human endeavor. The capitalist system thrives on waste just as well as it does on “sustainability”, whatever that is.
“The capitalist system thrives on waste just as well as it does on “sustainability”, …”
because capitalism, like socialism, is an artificial and coercive political control of the natural free markets.
free market competition punishes wastes and rewards efficiency, resulting ever in higher quality at lower prices.
politics is plunder.
“free market competition punishes wastes and rewards efficiency, resulting ever in higher quality at lower prices.”
Yes, we want to promote Free Markets, and call it by that name. Capitalism is a pejorative created by the Left to equate Free Markets to the same level of govenment control as Socialism and Communism.
Freedom-loving people reject “Ism’s” and promote Freedom and Free Markets. Socialsm and Communism do not promote Freedom. There is a big difference between Free Markets and Socialism and Communism. Free Markets are sustainable, whereas Socialism and Communism are not sustainable. Things always end badly when it comes to Socialism and Communism.
To flourish, The People of the World need Freedom and Free Markets. They don’t get that from Socialism or Communism.
There’s nothing wrong with the free market, except when all the players decide to work together to ensure that the evil twins of planned and perceived obsolescence con the consumers into making unnecessary repeat purchases of most common household goods.
All this extra unnecessary extraction, production transportation of goods is really wasteful, when a well designed product can be manufactured for only a small amount extra (they only have to replace the one weak part, the part that is designed to fail first) with something more durable or change the position of a component on the circuit board so it doesn’t overheat.
There are many simple and low cost ways the products can be built to last, in the case of removing “countdown to death” chips, the products actually become cheaper to produce.
If producers adopted such a durability strategy, they would reduce their costs of redesigning products only when the technology changes as opposed to every year just to make the previous look old and outdated. Companies would also make considerable savings if they used most of the parts from the previous model, rather than restyling all parts to prevent interoperability with previous models.
Leftists believe themselves to be the standard against which all others must be measured.
If he believes something, it must be considered as true. Proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
If he disagrees with something, the rest of us have no choice but to bow down and chant our agreement.
Fascinating how you manage to go from people celebrating evidence that the economy is improving with a belief that we enjoy wasting energy.
Then you take another logical leap and assume that we also enjoy buying stuff just to throw it away.
I’d ridicule your lack of intelligence, but I doubt you’d be able to understand it anyway.
We live in a world where the economy is hard coded to infinite growth ( a bit like cancer) it needs to continually grow to function correctly, just look at how disruptive recessions are.
Money is lent into existence and must be repaid with interest, the only way that it is possible to repay under such a system is to borrow more to repay the interest, now you have a bigger debt that needs repaying. And so the cycle continues.
Economists have developed strategies to perpetuate this growth at all costs, for example
Planned and perceived obsolescence to ensure that the process of moving material from quarry to landfill is as fast as possible, making products that only last a short while “they don’t mane them like they used to”, something that was made in Victorian times was built to last and be serviceable, these days it’s made to be unrepeatable and disposable.
We even have to import people to maintain the growth!
What is needed is a fundamental change in the way money is thought of, it is in reality a purely faith based system that, as its faith enforced by governments who demand the use of the currency to pay taxes and by traders who will only accept it in exchange for products.
Money should be an economy lubricant rather than a store of “wealth”, money should be “spent into existence” at the bottom and allowed to flow to the top as opposed to being lent int existence at the top and some trickles down.
Spending money into existence would mean that the economy can function OK even at zero growth, as there are no interest payments.
A smaller & slower economy would require a system of Universal Basic income for all to replace the lost income due to there being fewer jobs, those who want more will be able to find work to improve their standards of living, such a system would ultimately result in a far more even distribution of wealth.
It won’t happen of course as there are far too many people who benefit from the current economic model and they would never allow anything that would remove a zero or two off their bank balances.
I am trying to figure out how one replaces that which you admit is gone. How does one replace the lost income in a smaller economy? Is this the preamble to a new fishes and loaves parable?
Think about what money actually is and how it is created, and you’ll understand.
Hint, it exists in bank databases and can simply be created by entering it in to the database.
Money has no real value in the sense that it is only a medium that is used to move wealth around the economy of an individual country, try spending £ notes in a country that uses € for example and they’re mostly worthless. The value of money is like the power of religion, you need to have faith in it for it to work.
The creation of money is in the hands of a select few who maintain that power to ensure that the money has “value” and that people will work long hours to obtain it, while others further up the economic ladder can transfer it between financial institutions selling high buying low, thus accumulating more money than the average working man can in a lifetime in a few hours.
Meanwhile consumers are paying down debt that is then being used by the financial elite to generate more debt.
If we had a “spend into existence” monitory system, then the money is created the same way as it is now, but, unlike now it is not repaid with interest, it is taxed back out of the economy after it has done its task of lubrication the economy.
Without the need to pay interest on money that is “lent into existence and repayable with interest”, there is no longer a need for the economy to grow for infinity to infinity on a finite planet.
The last time I saw so much nonsense, so fervently preached, was at a communist rally.
You’ve been corrected on these errors many times.
I’m starting to believe that you have a psychological need to believe in nonsense.
Economies grow, not for any artificial reasons, but because people want more. It’s human nature. Unless you can redesign people, they will continue to want more. Even your communists couldn’t eliminate this desire.
“Money is lent into existence”, not true, but also not a problem.
Planned obsolescence is nothing more than coming out with improved versions. What’s wrong with that. Once again you find evil plots in what is nothing more than human nature. Let me ask you, are you still using that computer you bought 20 years ago? Why not, it probably still works.
As to the quality of goods, once again you posit to evil forces what is just human nature. Goods that are high quality and last can be found, if you are willing to pay for that quality. Most people aren’t.
What you need to do is chill out and realize that the entire isn’t being organized by evil people for the purposes of making you miserable. You are doing that entirely on your own.
Infinite economic growth in a finite world is a problem.
What with all the communists & evil talk, I never mention communism at all – only you mentioned it.
“Economies grow, not for any artificial reasons”
They grow because they are forced to grow to repay the debt created by governments and individuals borrowing to keep the economy functioning.
” “Money is lent into existence”, not true, but also not a problem.”
Debt is always a problem if you can’t repay it and are forced to borrow more to “service” that debt.
Planned obsolescence is the issue when a product is designed to fail after a predetermined period of use as opposed to becoming outdated, it is wrong when a manufacturer places a countdown to death chip in a printer or battery charger thus forcing its replacement, it is wrong when a manufacturer sends a software update to older products that puts lead boots on them to “encourage” the consumer to bin them and buy a replacement. It is wrong for a manufacturer to make products that cannot be repaired by gluing the case shut or making sure that spares are unavailable at any price or are made that spares cannot be installed.
As for the 20 year old computer, I still have an old PC that has been logging data since 1995 the job it does has not changed, so there is no need to update it at all.
The PC I am using to write this on has a 15 year old case but the internal parts range in age from 1 year to 9 years old. I am not considered a “model” consumer by any means.
I detest unnecessary waste and the means that allow it to proliferate in the modern world
From the article: “The increase in 2018 was the largest increase in energy consumption, in both absolute and percentage terms, since 2010.”
The increased energy consumption comes from increased economic activity in the United States, and President Trump is providing the means for the U.S. economy to continue to grow by freeing up the energy sector.
Trump is setting a wonderful example for the world, but politicians in the Western Democracies are completely blinded to what it takes to make their economies great because they believe in the human-caused climate change hoax, which paralyzes them into inaction.
Those politicians could be freeing up their own nation’s energy sectors and their economies too, but they are apparently too ignorant to realize that this is the step they should take. Be smart, be like Trump. How hard is it to figure out that duplicating a winning formula might put you in the winner’s circle, too?
What a fantastic president Trump is! Please, Lord, give us at least four years and 298 days more of this (298 days to the Nov 2020 election)!
Trump has the Mad Mullahs on the run and the Democrats do what they typically do and take the side of America’s enemies, in this case the Mad Mullahs. I hope everyone has had a chance to see just how unfit the Democrats are when it comes to U.S. national security and the confrontation of dictators. Their rhetoric should leave no doubt they are unfit.
The Democrat’s philosophy is: Give the schoolyard bully your lunch money when he demands it, otherwise he will become violent and hurt you, and us!. Democrats would never think about socking a bully in the nose when he demands your lunch money. They are appeasers through and through and they have demonstrated this all week.
Democrats are incapable of defending the United States because they live in a false reality where dictators are reasonable. They want to pretend dictators can be reasonable because they don’t have the mentality or the fortitude to confront them.
And then they pass a worthless bill trying to restrict Trump’s military actions and protecting the Mad Mullahs (it’s unconstitutional, and the Mad Mullahs will find that out if they try Trump).
What kind of message are the cowardly Democrats sending to the rest of the world? They are sending a message of defeatism; of weakness. They are showing their fear. They empower our enemies. And then they pretend to speak for all Americans.
The Democrats are making Trump’s foreign policy efforts a hundred times more difficult. If the Democrats backed up Trump 100 percent against the Mad Mullahs, then the Mad Mullahs would come to the table, but they no doubt are figuring they should wait awhile to see how things shake out in the United States because of the uncertainty the Democrats have injected into the situation.
I imagine Kim and Xi and Putin and a lot of others are taking note of the weakness of the Democrat Party when it comes to confronting the enemies of the United States.
Don’t elect Democrats. Their dellusional thinking will get us all killed.
I noticed the lone Oklahoma Democrat in the House voted not to restrict Trump’s military actions. She’s been getting an earfull from her constituents over the last few weeks and probably won’t be reelected. Oklahoma is a very conservative state. Don’t know how she snuck into office.
This is the ideal reply to almost any comment to this post…
Because it’s cool from every angle.
The mad mullahs and the deranged democrats have some kind of a bond cultivated by the man whose uncle liberated Auschwitz.
https://youtu.be/SV1sxq8mqvA
Congresswoman Kendra Horn is an endangered Democrat for sure. She is quite likely to lose in 2020.
This seems a good place to reference Michael Hudson on the relationship between the consumption and the politics behind the acquisition of that oil. Who benefits?
https://michael-hudson.com/2020/01/america-escalates-its-democratic-oil-war-in-the-near-east/
Why would this be a good place to reference a total fracking retard?
It really is sad how some people insist on believing any lie, so long as it paints the US as the source of all evil in the world.
About as tragic as believing and repeating lies that paint the US as the saviour of, and model for, the rest of the world. . . Somewhere in between there might be some scraps of sense and maybe also less arrogance founded on ignorance and prejudice.
Excellent news!! Economy moving forward, jobs growing, renewables facing energy reality of high cost and low reliability!!
Thanks, David. Nothing like a happy bedtime story.
I love the power of natural gas. Nothing like turning on the outdoor spa and having it heat up in a short time. The sound of the nat gas heater firing up is a beautiful thing.
Please someone, explain why are wind, solar, etc labeled ‘renewable’? It is as if people caused these forms of energy to created.
Technically, they’re just energy converters – the same way that fossil fuel burners are energy converters.
The difference being that with the exception of the construction and decommissioning phases that consume energy from elsewhere, they produce pure clean energy with zero pollution.
Fossil fuel power stations produce pollution at every stage of their operational life as well.
They are in reality clean energy collectors.
And totally unreliable and insufficient for the energy demand of a modern, technological human race. Actually, why are you using electricity, pharmaceuticals, plastics, running water, sewage treatment,refrigeration, central heating&air, eating crops transported to you out of season, traveling beyond 12 miles per day and accessing the internet? Oh, yea, hypocrisy, got it, sweetie.
Solar and wind systems are not using renewable energy, that is factually correct.
These comments have absolutely nothing to do with the reply I gave to Dean.
Unreliable, not really, correctly placed wind and solar can be very reliable and dependable, it is also possible to provide power 24/7 from some solar installations like this https://www.power-technology.com/projects/gemasolar-concentrated-solar-power/
As for more than 20km a day in an EV, when was the last time you even looked at the range of a typical EV on the current market, A range of between 300 to 600km is common on modern EVs plus with fast charging capabilities of some higher spec vehicles mean that you can add 200km range to the vehicle in about 15 minutes, enough time for a pit stop at most service stations.
He was talking 12 miles as in WALKING since you would be doing everything you do without resorting to the use of fossil fuels. Did your scalp bleed when that went over your head?
@Drake
He can walk if he wants to, I’ll use an EV. Take away the FF subsidies and the difference in costs between FF & wind/solar plus storage becomes far smaller.
It is perfectly possible to maintain a good lifestyle using far less energy, who if stuff lasted longer, you wouldn’t have to go to the shops quite as often.
Of course the notion that clean energy is capable of powering humanity simply can’t be grasped by many here on this forum.
And I will continue to use reliable, economical internal combustion vehicles. You can sit in the mud and wait to starve, the human race will merrily step over your desiccated remains.
Again, unreliable and insufficient for the energy demand of a modern, technological human race, pretend all you wish, reality laughs at your fantastical beliefs. Real people are not going to buy into your EV crapathon. Coal, gas, oil, nuclear and hydro. THESE are the power sources of an advancing human race. Bye, Felicia.
One other thing
When replies get personal, it’s a clear sign that they’ve lost the argument and cannot think of a good answer.
This is only applicable when start out with an argument.
@2hotel9
Clean energy from wind & solar will play an ever increasing part in the energy mix of the future, whether you like it or not, it will happen.
Many EU countries will ban the sale of new ICE cars in and around 2030, so the streets will be full of clean vehicles consuming an ever increasing percentage of their electricity from clean energy sources/collectors.
It has hit its “peak”, without massive government subsidies neither can compete in the real world. Coal, oil, gas, nuclear and hydro are the power sources of a modern and successful human race and will continue to be into the foreseeable future. In spite of leftist fantasies.
Oh Gawd, David has found himself a new gif to add to his Cmdr Data laughing hysterically collection.
It just ain’t fair he can post those and us lesser mortals can’t make pics appear.
Barbarino at his diabolical best!
On a more serious note regarding US Energy Dominance, you’d think all those Ivory Tower economics PhD’s out there, that even one, just one, could be honest and link US’s new found Energy Dominance and the lack of a recession since the fracking boom got its legs by post-2010.
“For the first time in history, the US economy has started and ended a decade without a recession”
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/19/us-economy-avoids-a-recession-for-the-longest-time-ever.html
That is just one of dozens on that subject that can be found on the internet.
You can go through article after article returned from that Google search, and you will not find one main stream media story covering the story of continued economic expansion that the writer admits that energy dominance is the key or finds an economist to admit that it is affordable energy is key.
Yet you can go find piles of academic research that links energy use/consumption and GDP growth. But apparently US energy use, the domestic supply and a linked US economic growth can’t be admitted to because that would support the continued use of fossil fuels.
Despite the trade war Trump introduced with China, PhD economists just can’t bring themselves to admit what is right there in front of them – continued affordable domestically sourced energy, energy that is not subject to the price whims of a bunch of sheiks in the MidEast needing new jets and yachts, is likely the reason that the US hasn’t seen a recession since fracking took off.
Instead the Ivory Tower economists try to invoke accommodative monetary policy. Well that same policy and negative interest rates are in place in much of EU, and it’s not helping them.
The mostly liberal PhD economist community cannot admit to the world what is right in front of their face — the US shale oil and gas fracking revolution and resulting energy dominance has changed the entire equation for US economic expansion. And now we have everyone of the Democrat US Presidential candidates promising to shut that down.
#MAGA.
It was a study that 31 of the 32 down turns, the 31 one were caused by high energy cost, I moved to Western North Dakota in 1980 it did not take me long to figure that, damn when there hard time there is and oil boom, when the boom goes the rest of the economy takes off. Funny when the price of energy is high little money is spent elsewhere, funny people don’t like living in a cold dark house. Isn’t that something.
The only problem is that determining the arrow of causality is difficult.
It’s also possible that a roaring economy increases demand for energy which drives up the price of energy.
When the economy cools off, demand for energy falls, as does the price of energy.
The fundamental difference now with US energy independence (we produce as much as we consume, and since we export a lot of refined products to the Carribean, we also have imports from the Middle East).
What that means now is the energy money stays in the US domestic economy. When world oil prices rise, domestic producers have more cash to spend and incentive to drill more. Their demand for services and employees goes up (the boom cycle). That keeps the US money in the domestic economy rather than sending to oil sheiks in the Middle East. If world oil prices collapse, then so does a contraction in the domestic oil patches (the bust cycle), but people have more money as gas prices ease down keeping domestic consumption and demand up.
US’s newfound energy dominance fundamentally alters the economics of boom and bust cycles in the US oil and gas industry, and the US economy overall. It doesn’t guarantee there will not be a recession in the larger US economy, but it does keep high oil prices from cratering the US economy as the energy money no longer leaves the domestic economy in large amounts to foreign oil producers. High oil prices simply stimulates the domestic oil industry to a boom cycle, and buffering against US gas and diesel pump price shocks that would ripple through the economy to set up a downward cycle of contraction.
To Nick Schroder you divided by a 30% albedo when you should have multiplied by (1-30%)
This means your solar flux figure should correctly be multiplied by 0.3 x 0.7 =0.21
The Queen is a figerhead, the GG is the political power. But as the Whatlam dismissal showed the GG does have real power
The queen has to act on he “”Advise”” of her ministers, no more and no less.
Australia almost became a republic a few years ago, but the problem was the GG, Do we simply change the title and call the GG the President. If so does he or she then have real power, and who appoints him or her.
We do not want the USA system with the President being head of one or the other parties.
Solition proposed was that a two thirds of both Houses, Representatives and the Senate were to vote on who of a short list was to be the President.
But the parties could not agree, so we stayed with this present set up.
MJE VK5ELL
Strange. Yesterday I spent some time gathering data on U.S. electrical energy consumption from 1949 to 2018 to tell a story in a guest blog about a number of interesting observations and to summarize a number of failed predictions during the “energy crisis” of the early 1970s. But, David Middleton beats me to the general topic.
Mr. Middleton, do you actually have a day job? How do you manage to produce so much humorous and informative material?
I think he has a bunch of minions locked away working tirelessly on an infinite number of things and just skims the cream off the top.(now if I could just post a gif of minions chasing each other)
I used to be heavily involved with the Armchair General magazine Internet forumn. One of the lefties used to routinely accuse me of having a research staff, another complained that I unfairly arranged facts to win arguments.
I prefer to arrange the arguments to match with the facts. But to each his choice…
There you go again, using facts and whatnot! No wonder the left is so gross with you. 😉
2hotel9 January 11, 2020 at 7:38 am
I think he has a bunch of minions locked away working tirelessly on an infinite number of things and just skims the cream off the top.(now if I could just post a gif of minions chasing each other):
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+7+dwarfs+video+game&oq=the+7+dwarfs+video+&aqs=chrome.
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&sxsrf=ACYBGNRj2hdQeKOSiPlp2VvT4NjCaxo0Wg%3A1579850558374&ei=PpsqXtbAFq3rrgThv52YBA&q=the+7+dwarfs+video+&oq=the+7+dwarfs+video+&gs_l=mobile-gws-wiz-serp.
I was thinking more of the minions from Despicable Me. Love those guys!
My “day job” has me on a computer workstation from 0600 to 1800 most weekdays and I tend to eat lunch in my office. This affords me plenty of time to work on projects in the background. Plus, I live in Dallas and work in Houston. When I’m in Houston, pretty well all of my spare time goes to my hobbies, like this. Since most of my posts consist of commentary on articles that appear on Real Clear Energy and Real Clear Science, it’s fairly easy to throw them together. Being an oil industry geoscientist, I also know how to quickly access EIA data. The humor just comes from being a sarcastic, obnoxious smart@$$ and I have a large collection of jpg, gif & png images and a lot of YouTube bookmarks.
My more in depth science posts are often the result of months of gathering papers and data; then finding 5 or 6 hours to write them up in a fashion similar to peer-reviewed papers. So I don’t write a lot of these posts.
David, I lived in Dallas (Farmers Branch) for a year. Loved the people and the whole experience.
I love the whole State… Even the Peoples Republic of Travis County.
We travelled around a bit while we were there, but that went over my head.
Travis County is where the State Capital, Austin, and the University of Texas are located. It is as kooky left-wing as the Peoples Republic of California.
Now I get it David, and it brought a smile to my face. Now unlike these politically correct days where you have to twist yourself inside out in an effort not to offend the person you’re talking to, I was raised to understand that I would come across people in life who are different and that’s OK. I have, and it is, we didn’t need labels.
So setting the scene, I spotted an individual when we were driving through Austin and I had to look twice, only because I thought that the person that caught my eye hadn’t decided which gender they wanted to be perceived to be. Of course they’ve added genders/ways of identifying ones self now so maybe armed with added information I would have worked it out. This is going back to 2002.
Anyway this very confident mature aged individual had short hair and a scruffy greying beard, no makeup. This individual also had a figure I’d have been happy to live in (I am female) shown off in an fitted dress worn just above the knee with a nice pair of high heels.
I was talking to a friend the following day and this individual came up in conversation and my friend said that this person had at one time been the Mayor of Austin. That made me smile, to this day I’m not sure if they were ‘pulling my leg’.
It does indeed take all kinds to make up this crazy world. In a good way.
I used to live just outside Austin. Saw Willy Nelson live in a little club there once! And there was good barbecue in Austin. 🙂 That was back in the early 1970’s.
Still a good place for music and barbecue… despite the socialists.
Meanwhile Oz grids are getting fragile if thermal goes out and there’s frequency problems (WA is an islanded State for generation)
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/demand-for-answers-over-mass-blackout-that-left-100000-homes-in-the-dark/ar-BBYQL2B
Perhaps they should have been modernizing the old and building new coal fired and gas fired electric generation plants? You know? Not being utopian idiots? Just sayin’.
Who would have guessed that we burn more biomass for energy today than we did before we started burning fossil fuels? Wood and whale oil were the biofuels of yesteryear.
Source: U.S. Energy Information
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Who would have guessed we’re in the hands of vain foolish green maidens 2000 years after. Again.
https://www.google.com/search?q=the+parable+of+the+foolish+vain+maidens&oq=the+parable+of+the+foolish+vain+maidens&aqs=chrome.
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What is the meaning of the parable of the 10 virgins?
While each of the ten virgins had their own lamps and oil, it means that they had received the Word of God through the grace of the Holy Spirit. But like many who receive God’s word and embraced it, they did not persevere and their oil burned out, just in time when the bridegroom arrived. –> While each of the ten virgins had their own lamps and oil, it means that they had received the Word of God through the grace of the Holy Spirit. But like many who receive God’s word and embraced it, they did not persevere and their renewables failed, just in time when the bridegroom arrived.
“Michael January 10, 2020 at 3:29 pm
If only the Australian farmers were like the USA people and got a share of the natural gas under their land, all this talk about such drilling affecting their water suppl;y would soon disappear, and we would have as much and more natural gas as we needed, so for export.”
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The Australian Farmers know what thei’re doing sending their harvests with Diesel-Elecs to the harbours:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Australian+railroad+corn+transports&oq=Australian+railroad+corn+transports&aqs=chrome.