The ironies abound, everything was going so well. The media was having a field day with Rick Santorum’s nuttiness, expressed in private moments among those who shared his language. Satan and birth control, and all that. If there were any unncongenial analogies to Reverend Wright’s fiery sermons, full of race-hatred and seething resentments, or to bitter clingers of guns and religion, they were not drawn.
Then the governor of Virginia had the temerity to back a bill that required a better look at what it was that was being destroyed in utero. In response, trans-vaginal sonograms were analogized as virtual rape to those who violently attack any theory that abortion might represent actual murder. On the radio yesterday I heard a woman from the pro-choice camp label this as a stealthy attack against “abortion care.”
Abortion care.
Add that to your list of oxymorons, alongside “giant shrimp,” “military intelligence” and “country music.” Let us not forget “communist intellectual”, “postal service” and “feminist sensitivity.” For the aviators among us, just to keep things fair, I throw in “crash landing”.
These are the kinds of things that whip passionate partisans of a certain camp into, well: Passion. As though they needed any further goading. But they also concern the vast, muddled middle, the deciders of elections, those who’d rather not make a value decision, or follow someone else’s to its logical terminus. Those who live their quiet and sheltered lives in the passively cultivated fields of “well, I just don’t know,” and “who’s to say?”
But then the prices at the gas pump jumped, and changed the dialogue entirely. A president who had surveyed his challengers and then cheerfully assured the media that he’d be hanging around the Oval Office for the next five years, suddenly found himself on the defensive. It is an election year after all, and while some may be passionately pro-choice, and some may be passionately pro-life, and some may not quite be sure, everyone pays for gasoline, whether at the pump or at the market. Rising gas prices are a tax on just about everything that moves towards your household further than the backyard garden to the table. And even then you have to buy the seeds.
It has been the goal of the Obama administration all along to make petroleum-based fuels more expensive. Whether by increased federal taxes, or by federal subsidies to alternative sources of energy that are not now economically competitive. When I say “federal”, by the way, what I really mean is your money. The government may print money, but it sure as hell doesn’t make any. Or perhaps, given our generation’s fiscal indenture to China, and our patent inability to pay that down, your children’s money.
Sorry, dears. Mummy and daddy went on a social spending binge and left you with the tab. It was great for us while it lasted, now run along and pay your college loans, we’ll be calling on you later.
But what’s driving oil prices now has less to do directly with supply and demand – supply is up, due to policies put in place by the president’s predecessor, and demand is reduced, due to the latest cycle of economic distress – but with forces outside of our control. There is instability in the Middle East of course. There is the gross deflation of the oil market currency represented by repeated bouts of quantitative easing of the US dollar. “Printing money”, they called it in Weimar Germany, and we know how that wound up. And there are speculators in the free market. This is apparently a novel discovery, as is the realization that what goes up may come down, and crashingly so. Leaving some risk-takers richer, and others destitute, such are the consequences at playing markets.
And this is what must really rankle: The extra moneys going towards the pump are not going towards the latest green energy enthusiasm. They are not paying the salaries of the latest green energy czar, his banner bearers and their thralls. No. They are going towards all the wrong sorts of people, people not even in government. They may even be going to bitter clingers. And it’s all in the news, there’s no hiding from it. People know.
Which is why it’s so important to get ahead of the story:
Obama spoke as gas has reached the highest price at the pump ever for this time of year: an average of $3.58 per gallon. White House advisers see it as a cyclical occurrence but knew Obama had to address the topic, one of deep concern to consumers and growing fodder for Republicans seeking to unseat Obama.
Obama said gas prices were “like a tax straight out of their paychecks.” He promoted an energy agenda of oil, gas, wind, solar, nuclear and biofuel energy.
And he took aim at Republicans.
“You can bet that since it’s an election year, they’re already dusting off their three-point plans for $2 gas. I’ll save you the suspense: Step one is to drill, step two is to drill, and step three is to keep drilling. … We’ve heard the same thing for thirty years. Well, the American people aren’t stupid.”
Oh, but he’s counting on the fact that they are. Or if not stupid, then preoccupied and forgetful. This is, for better or worse, a petroleum-based economy. A preponderance of experts in the field will tell you that if you want more oil, you will have to drill for it. It isn’t just laying about.
Just last year we were told that a pipeline from Canada to Louisiana could bring us jobs and help secure us from foreign disruptions. But gas pump prices were momentarily unobjectionable, there was an election forthcoming and the right class of pets had to be petted. In 2007 the oil markets were roiled, and there were those on the left – our president among them – who said that drilling now would not bear fruit for five to seven years. And yet here we are, five to seven years later. Blame speculators if you’d like, but there is no upside to speculative risk when there is domestic surplus. We have none, and so the American people pay taxes to the mad mullahs of Iran, as well as interest to the Communist Party of China. There’s no future in any of that.
For thirty years people have said that nuclear energy, despite its risks, was the only hope of reducing our dependence upon foreign tyrants and their associated lunatics. In return the president’s party put on their Three Mile Island fright masks, and thus the only significant sources of domestic nuclear energy ply the seas launching strike fighter aircraft, or swim beneath them, quietly awaiting Armageddon, when they aren’t lying peacefully pierside in Norfolk and San Diego.
Solar power, yes, fine. Wind, wonderful. Thermal, even. Some day, if things remain on their current trajectories, and oil prices continue to rise, these may well keep our compact fluorescent light bulbs dimly burning in our freezing hovels during scheduled hours of service. While the political class jet-sets back and forth from Copenhagen and Davos, trying to sort out how to pry what’s left in our first world purses and hand it over to third world kleptocrats.
In the meantime, pay up. And if it hurts, lie back and think of the flag.
I didn’t know Lex had petitioned the courts to have his name changed to Lilly Tomlin!
Wow. No one could have said it better.
Best brief on the situation that I have read.
Beautifully written, but the sheep won’t care until the end is imminent and uncomfortable.
Wow.
And I am glad to know that Obama finally realizes that the American people aren’t stupid. Hope it comforts him when he joins the ranks of the unemployed come January 2013.
Roger that my fellow Bostonian…Reading the idiocy written in the ” Boston Glob” trying to prop up the dip-shite trio of Obama, Deval ” Spend it all” Patrick (Obama’s BFF Guv of Massachusetts) and Granny Elizabeth Warren has been beyond belief.
Deval Patrick wants to add taxes onto candy, soda and other consumer goods to pay for the budget. Meanwhile the Boston Herald reported that since 2007 when the governor first took office, the number of state workers earning at least $100,000 has skyrocketed by 38 percent, or almost 2,000 employees, according to a payroll analysis. A total of 6,878 workers are raking in six-figure pay.
These idiot POLS need to be put on the unemployment rolls as they feel our money means nothing more but sky-high salaries for them & their ilk.
I now work in Oil & Gas. You have done an excellent job of laying out the factors at play.
In addition: Demand for oil from China & India- yes for fuel, but also for the plastics that come from the refining process. Lack of refining capability in the US. We have fewer refineries now that we had in the 1970′s. And each major metro area of the US has a different fuel mix (required by the EPA) so that further restricts the supply. Ethanol: You’re not paying for 100% gasoline. You’re also paying for the inclusion of ethanol into the mix. (that’s a whole other story).
Oops..I just mentioned the things that drive up the production cost…But we shouldn’t forget that we have a host of Federal, State & Local fuel taxes that are included in that cost per gallon.
He must be smart! Because I would’ve guessed that step one was was to quit threatening thinly veiled price controls, step two install the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, and step three was to drill. But apparently you just need to drill! The things you can learn listening to that guy, I tell you, it’s just amazing!
Less sarcastically, if you get the chance you might want to go check out the indie documentary spOILed. It’s a fairly straightforward look at energy and oil resources as they actually are, instead of how we might wish they were. If you’ve got more time to spend, the book Power Hungry is good, in a similar vein, and goes into greater depth.
Tar Sands, Bakken,Shale Gas. all have already changed the picutre.Not even mentiong the Gulf..
What we have is Gas resources for at leat 100 years- that
we know of..
Thorium reactors, been around saw a working model years ago
at Hanford.
but the Greens don’t want a high level civilization only for them.
“Happiness is a Warm Fast breeder.”
They had a Molten Salt reactor at Oak Ridge. They pulled the plug back in the late 60s, early 70s IIRC. The salt was easily treated, and the Thorium fuel left almost no radioactive waste. Thorium reactors are safe, the fuel doesn’t have to be enriched, and there is more Thorium than we know what to do with. It’s also a far safer reactor than the traditional Uranium fueled reactor. We could easlity have a bunch of thsoe things up and running, and we would be able to shut down the coal fired plants soon thereafter.
But, the green loonies can’t abide the idea of fission at all.
China is quite aware of the advantages of thorium reactors
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8393984/Safe-nuclear-does-exist-and-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html
Lex … Great summary of the situation. And Holdfast…Oh, my goodness. What the leftist Moonbats are studiously ignoring is how the price per gallon is made up. I asked my-husband-the-oilman {retired} about price-per-gallon-of-gas figures, remembering some articles I wrote years ago. It’s simplest to use Exxon figures, because Exxon has gone entirely to wholesaling gasoline and that simplifies the financial picture. Downs said that seven years ago when he wrote an article about this, if one could rent a big gasoline truck and fill it up at the gasoline storage site, your gas would cost you about seventy-five cents a gallon. By the time you buy it at the pump, about 40% of the per gallon price represents various taxes and fees imposed by various government entities. The taxes and fees may vary from state to state, but the base wholesale price per gallon is pretty much the same: seventy-five cents a gallon.
It being an election year, and the so-called free press functioning in its usual way as a left-liberal fan magazine, you won’t see any of the mainstream media covering this somewhat shocking fact. The Wall Street Journal may choose to do so [I hope they do] and the American Petroleum Institute does have materials available describing this, [Yes, Virginia, they are an advocacy organization, albeit a responsible one] but by and large, neither the “mainstream media” nor George Soros and his Media Matters cheerleading staff want the general public to know about this. It gives them the shivers to think that the voting public might become more indignant with their politicians about the hardships imposed on them.
I wish some of the “loyal opposition” would discuss it however. A stiff dose of reality is more and more necessary as this political charade goes on.
Marianne
Oh Marianne. Well said Madame. Your intellect is a treasure.
There are far too many diverse factors involved with the current rising price of gasoline, to lay the blame at the foot of our president. Indeed we have had energy crises in the past, but we didn’t really learn from them. The spike in gas prices and the long lines at the few open gas stations of the early 1970s when Obama was a little kid should have told us something.
Regardless of whoever is president, someday we will eventually have peak oil. Regardless too are the countries like China who triple their usage of gasoline in a year, not to mention the vast and rising demand from evolving third world countries. The pipeline is more about politics than it is about jobs or energy. It solves little.
This graph says a whole lot more about factors other than who is president that impact the price of oil, regardless of how much we drill. And whoever are the presidents for the next decade, you can rest assured they will have to battle even higher oil prices and gasoline prices.
Keystone or not, and regardless who is president, it was easy to see the current rise in gasoline prices coming. That is why I have been investing in oil related companies for the past year and a half.
We have had too many wakeup calls to still be trying to have the same, less than adequate answer of merely drilling more.
Here are the things we *can* lay at the feet of the president:
1. The Keystone Pipeline will bring down the price of gas at the pump the day it is *approved*, never mind built. Why? For the same reason that a threatened war in the Middle East drives the prices up. Markets are largely based on perception.
2. The shale oil that we *know* is under several states will bring down the price of gas immediately upon approval of the leases. Why? Markets are largely based on perception.
3. Opening up the ANWR to drilling will bring down the price of gas immediately upon approval of the leases. Why? …see above…
4. Restoring the permits for offshore drilling in the Gulf and other places will immediately drive down prices at the pump. Why? …well…
Yes, many of these projects will take five to ten years to produce oil. Every significant accomplished milestone along the way will drive down prices as the world market sees we are SERIOUS enough about energy independence to take concrete action, rather than just giving speeches and promising to be a great customer of foreign oil.
The President can act on these now. All we get instead are speeches and finger-pointing. That lays squarely at the feet of the President.
MMiller – You raise excellent and valid points.
As you indicate, markets are based upon perception in addition to facts. And it is perception more than facts that drive oil and gasoline speculation.
What you indicate the President should do and say would not alter the facts, but would indeed alter the speculators’ perceptions. Yes, it would result in an immediate decline in prices. But it would be only short lived, as the underlying facts would take hold over the long run, regardless of the potential new oil sources over the years.
The President has a longer-term strategy, based upon the preferences of the majority who elected him and those who advise him. Statements by him resulting is short term fluctuations would be more political, than strategic and would ignore the growing problem. Rather than quick fixes that won’t work and have unexpected consequences, his strategy is more prudent for the long term.
The point has been made that in 2007 a push was made to drill and it was stopped in part by the Left saying “it will take 5-10 year to see the result of the action (figures which are debatable)”. Is that not a longer term strategy? Here we are, 5 years down the road, in the same situation and yet the same argument is being used as to why it is not a feasible strategy. So in another 5 years are we going to hear the same argument?
If the longer-term strategy is the “clean fuel” strategy I’ve heard coming from the White House, it will take a lot longer than 5 or 10 years for the energy density of wind and solar to reach the point where they will offset, never mind replace petroleum. And electric cars? They just transfer the problem elsewhere, and rather inefficiently. The power to drive the car comes from somewhere, be it power from a plug on the wall transferred to a battery (for a whole 40 miles) or an internal combustion engine.
The president’s attempts in these arenas to date have been feckless at best, criminal at worst. We’ve seen government “solar” loans rigged so that when the company goes bust, the president’s friends get paid before the public treasury. His policy on Keystone, if not cut short by an election, will have China happily getting the oil from Canada.
Meanwhile, folks like some in my family give 1/3 to 1/2 of their income simply to get their cars to work and back. Under Obama’s policies, this will continue and get worse for 5 – 10 years (a wildly optimistic estimate to this engineer) while we get his green dreams developed to the point where they make a difference to the common man. I dunno, maybe they’ll just get used to it and quit complaining.
You posit that the effects of the measures I propose would be transients. I disagree heartily. Every measure taken to approve, build, drill, etc. will build on the last. Pressure will be brought to bear on the overseas exporter to lower prices in an attempt to make domestic recovery impractical. If we stick to our guns and keep building, the prices will stay low until we turn on the spigots for ourselves. Relief starts now, and increases all the way up to the point where the flow of oil starts.
Flit, I do not trust the President’s “advisors” from Tim “We don’t have a plan but we don’t like yours” Geithner on down. I believe the President’s actions are more pandering than planning. He and his “advisors” can’t chart a course to prosperity that is backed by either history or generally accepted accounting practices.
The Repubs “all of the above” energy plans all stand head and shoulders above anything announced by Washington. Real people need real relief right now. As your man has stated, “We can’t wait!”.
fliterman, you seem to be unaware of a few things. Like how commodities markets and futures contracts work. These aren’t casinos for “speculators.” That seems to be a common misperception among people who find these alien concepts.
Here’s a link to a one minute video that shows the economic function of commodities markets and futures contracts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=nQLZ_XV8hE8
Manufacturers and service providers that use huge volumes of petroleum products have to trade in these for planning purposes. You simply can’t run an airline, say, and expose yourself to market volatility. You just won’t be able to budget.
What Barack Obama did was to introduce a lot more volatility into the market by cancelling the Keystone pipeline, exploration and drilling permits in the Gulf, Arctic Ocean, and every piece of public land that he could. Which means market players like the airlines know that in the out years they must depend on the overwhelming majority of oil production to remain in unstable regions of the world. On the other hand, had Obama not killed US oil production to the maximum extent he could, market players like the airlines who really drive the prices would have been unwilling to agree to such high prices in the out years as the supply would not be guaranteed to be so unstable. And the price you and I are paying at the pump now would have come down.
Also, the peak oil theory is dead. It’s been killed by technological advances.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/23/peak_oil_is_dead_citigroup/
I’m sure you’ve heard Obama say we can’t drill our way out of this because we only have 2% or so of the world’s proven oil reserves. You may have believed him. What Barack Obama is taking advantage of is that most people don’t know what the term of art means. Proven oil reserves are deposits of oil that can be accessed using existing technology, profitably under current economic conditions, and within current regulations. There is a lot of oil in the ground that we could extract if Obama wasn’t using regulations to keep those deposits off limits. We have far more oil and other fossil fuels in the ground than you have been led to believe. In fact we could be energy independent in a short time and have centuries of supply if only Obama would get out of the way.
Barack Obama does not have a strategic vision for the future. He is essentially a luddite. His energy policies are quite honestly deranged; they are based upon pure fantasy. He, and people who agree with him are the true anti-science faction.
So now “speculators” has replaced “fat cats on Wall Street” as the favorite scapegoat? Sorry, Flit, this doesn’t even pass the laugh test.
The Progressives have been doing every thing they can to kill energy production in this country for over 30 years, including no new refinery capacity, no nuclear plants, and removal of 99% of Federal lands from drilling. That’s not to mention Obama’s policies driving all the oil rigs out of the Gulf after the BP spill.
Obama said during the 2008 campaign that our energy prices will “necessarily have to rise.” That’s one of the very few campaign promises he’s kept.
For all the hand-waving & BS about Keystone, etc, the Democratic Party has consistently blocked exploitation of energy resources in this country if they weren’t politically correct like wind or solar. Remember a dozen years ago when Democrats kept poo-pooing the idea of drilling in ANWAR? HM? Favorite talking point: “it will be over 10 years before we gain any benefit, so what’s the point?” Point is that right now we would be enjoying the production of cheaper domestically-produced oil.
Likewise for Keystone. It’s not “domestic,” but it’s a lot cheaper than the other options. Now -because Obama has been bound & determined to kill the project- Canada is now working with fracking China to sell their oil there. That’s just fabulous. Brilliant example of that famous “smart diplomacy,” no?
I believe that Jerry Pournelle has written, that abundant cheap energy produces prosperity. The Administration in Washington now wants to make energy expensive. Are those people against prosperity?
This morning, one of the oil guys on TV claimed that NORTH AMERICA could be totally independent from foreign oil in TWELVE YEARS, if we’d just go ahead and get the energy resources we have in our two countries.
North America is three countries…all fairly well endowed with hydrocarbons.
The problem is one of them, Mexico, hates gringos. I think they have some reason to do so, but they also hate us because they have acted stupidly in their government, far more than ours has, but Obama is trying hard to rectify that evil situation.
There you go again, Qm, gettin’ all rational, and all!
Its a world market–any petroleum produced here reflects world cost. Part of the rise is our war talk on Iran and the export of diesel and gasoline to third world countries. We now produce more oil than in the late 1990s and our gasoline demand is at 1997 levels. It is not a country by country supply and demand issue.
Saying all that–with our new found natural gas surplus why electric cars instead of natural gas powered ones?
There is something not being mentioned. Inflation. (Food and fuel which, by-the-way, are not counted into the “official inflation numbers”)
This morning I saw silver was selling at $35+ an ounce. A 1964 dime, and earlier, is 90% silver. Drop 10% off the price of silver – $31.50. So, here in Doity Joisey gasoline is a hair over 10 cents a gallon. Not too shabby if you have a roll or two of “real money dimes”.
Actually, I was kind of going after the inflation angle here, however indirectly:
Print money, but don’t feign surprise when the price of things goes up.
Yes. I know you were. But the older I’ve gotten, the more I look back to see how much has changed from when I was a boy.
Using the “silver dime” is one of my ways of measureing that change. It happens so slowly, we hardly notice.
The country I was born and raised in has slipped almost entirely away.
Oh, and I forgot to mention, your post was excellent. Thank you.
Keep in mind that in 1964 base pay for an E1 was about $78/mo. It’s about $1500/mo now. A skilled worker, like a welder or machinist, earned maybe the equivalent of $1.50/hr then, and should be approaching $30/hr now. That cup of coffee for a nickle represented two minutes worth of earnings then, and the $1.75 cup of coffee represents about two minutes worth of earnings now. Lots of other things have gotten quite a bit cheaper over the years, such as consumer electronics and appliances, while others like food and energy seem to follow the inflationary curve.
Take automobiles, as an example. People point to Henry Ford who claimed he was making a car the common man, one of his workers, could afford. The standard Model A of 1909 cost $850, or four month’s pay for the average line worker. That $850 would be about $22K today, or an average line worker salary of $66K which doesn’t seem too far off. Think you can buy a new car for under $22K these days? The Ford Fiesta lists for about $14K right now.
Even more interesting, a third of what you earn to pay for a car would be just over $12K a year if you’re a welder today. That works out to a car payment of about a thousand bucks each month. If Ford would finance you for three years that’s still just over $300/mo, which is pretty much what the average car payment is today.
Finally, for your consideration, I’m only about 45 years old. I remember pumping gasoline at $0.15/gallon. I remember earning money walking beans and throwing hay bales for $2.50/hr, and later $3.00/hr. When the Federal minimum wage went to $3.50/hr nobody wanted me to walk beans or throw hay bales. They bought herbicides instead, and round balers that pumped out 1200lbs bales they could move with a loader or skid-steer. Those mandatory minimum wages priced our unskilled labor right out of the market and out of seasonal jobs.
If you look at prices and salaries over time, it all pretty much evens out. In the short term, it can take a bit of shock to recover from spikes in costs versus compensation.
– Max
Max;
On today’s Barnhardt.biz there is this:
A “benign” 2% annual inflation rate means that over a 45 year earning life, the earner will experience 143% inflation. A 3% annual inflation rate translates to a 278% inflation rate over an earning life. ANYONE WHO SAVES FOR RETIREMENT IS WILLFULLY, INTENTIONALLY RAPED BY THE FEDERAL RESERVE. Why was this paradigm established? TO FORCE DEPENDENCE ON THE GOVERNMENT.
…And, I’m 74 and remember having to grab the pump handle at the side of the pump to fill up the big glass container at the top so gravity would empty the continer into my tank. (Don’t remember the price)
…And as a high school kid I worked one summer for a Neon Sign company cutting out shapes out of huge sheet metal to be bent later into fuse boxes. (Got a dollar and hour) This left me with a grip that could bring a grown man to his knees if I wasn’t careful.
The point is: inflation is the tool governments use, (all governments), to steal the people’s wealth and leave them “subjects” dependant on their masters.
A little bit of inflation is a little like being “Only a little bit pregnant.
As Lex says with his reference to the Weimar Republic, “This will not end well”.
All things in moderation.
While stretched references to extreme Weimar-style inflation are absurd, indeed some reasonable and moderate level of inflation is good for the economy. Especially within certain times of the business and economic cycle.
A little bit of inflation is much better for our economy than a little bit of deflation.
And COLAs mitigate small inflation effects on retiree income.
flit, that must be some real good kool aid you’re drinking.
A smarter man than me said, “If all the economists in the world were layed end to end they still couldn’t reach a conclusion”.
The point is: inflation kills the need and the desire to save or invest. In an attempt to “stay ahead”, people take on more and more risk. And, in this atmosphere of higher “risk taking” we get “bubbles” aided and abetted by those taking advantage. This usually ends in a panic. And then, the meltdown followed by the “adjustiment” which is really painful – a lot worse than deflation.
As far as COLAs are concerned, they are a temperory fix; a fake fix at that to keep the “subjects” quiet.
The guys setting the COLAs are also the same guys making up the inflation numbers so they can continue to steal.
You think we’ll see the day when the $500 bill or $1000 bill is reintroduced?
This will not end well.
…..A further thought:
This morning I bought a large regular coffee to-go from the local Diner – $1.70.
Useing the same arithmatic, that cup cost me a hair over a nickel.
Remember: “Hey mister? Can you spare a nickel for a cup of coffee?”
There are lies, damn lies, statistics and bovine scat.
Our currency has been totally debased. Based on metal prices a nickel is now worth about 8 cents just for the nickel content. Pretty sad when a abse metal is worth more than your coinage.
Thank you Dimocrats and Rethuglicans for your attention to our currency. If you gave anymore it would probably be utterly worthless rather than partially so.
Actually, a nickel is worth about 5.7 cents, but your point still holds.
james, my friend … Yes indeedy, I have questioned the pushing of the public to buy electric cars. I think it would take us awhile to develop the supporting marketing and availability of natural gas as an automobile powering fuel, although it can be done. But why must we do this when under our own soil from Texas to Pennsylvania are shale oil and gas fields which are rich in petroleum and natural gas that we already own? These are what the oil industry refers to as “proven reserves” meaning that we know already that they are there. This eliminates the necessity of drilling exploratory wells which might prove to be dry holes. [The usual rate of oil finds is one well in 12 exploratory wells drilled, IIRC] The Wall Street Journal did a whole section on shale oil and gas about 6 or 8 months ago, suggesting that, in toto, we have available more petroleum through shale fields than the entire Mid East can offer to the world oil market.
I wish I could give you the link thingy to that Wall St. Journal article or articles, but by now you must realize that I’m only semi-literate in computers, since I was fairly old already when they became omnipresent in our lives. But I’m sure you could easily find the links yourself.
The technology for slant drilling has been known and perfected for many years before the general public found out about it [thank God], so the environmentalists have had to scurry about to find something to delay the exploitation of our own proven reserves. But “fracking” is a relatively benign production technique, and the shale layers which contain oil and natural gas are hundreds of feet below the water table.
Marianne
There is the Marcellus Shale find(?) under a large part of Ohio. I’d like to see this stuff extracted. Ohio could have a renaissance of jobs as a result. Of course the greens, who want people to live in caves, are now claiming fracking causes earthquakes and are enlisting the courts to stop drilling. Idiots.
Thorium reactors would be a good start.
I recall, back in the mid 70′s, ideas and proposals to place solar power satellites in geosynchronous orbits to gather solar radiation and beam it to earth to be used as electricity. I think that would make a great Manhattan Project for the early 21st century.
Solar power is the realm of idiots and fools because of the limited density of said energy. To get 1000Mw out of solar you need to build a solar panel array of something along the lines of 150 square miles. By the time you put that much copper, aluminum, concrete, and steel into the land you could have built a couple of nuke plants at 1000Mw on far less land. And land isn’t getting cheaper. Likewise, this idea of bio-fuels is really just taking solar energy, reducing it by the 4% efficiency of photosynthesis, and then reducing it further by the conversion losses of corn fermenting into alcohol.
The nukes make sense. The renewable sources make none so long as other sources remain.
– Max
Greens, greens, greens. How can it be that “conservationistas” can be so far from “conservatives”? From the “Snail Darter” to “Fracking”, they have taken hold of the rudder of our Ship of State and are steering us away from the prosperity and pursuit of happiness that we all treasure.
The burning desire of millions of Americans is to regain control, and yet it seems to be so difficult and far away. Perhaps if we could just win fliterman over, we’d have made a beginning. Alas, his consistent “liberalness” reminds us so of the challenge we face.
Peter, the Greens are not Conservationists. People like Ducks and Trout Unlimited, The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and such are conservationists. The Greens are preservationists. A preservationist hates human beings because we prevent preserving the pristine environment, that was ever all that pristine to begin with. Certainly not after the fall.
Preservationists are a completely owned subsidiary of the loony left.
Conservationist: key part “Conserve”
Environmentalist: key part “Mental”
Exactly, dollar value down, they want more of them for a barrel. Same for stock prices,gold, etc. Is the market up or just repriced?
Anyway, to add to “counting on them being stupid”.
Heard a soundbite, White House spokesman talking about gas prices. Loosely quoted “The president has done all he case, last year he released 30 million gallons from the gas reserves”
1. It are the Strategic Oil Reserves of course
2. It was probably barrels not gallons, but he said gallons, so I wonder how many thought “Wow, 30 million gallons! That had to have had an effect !”
I figure roughly 75 million people driving to work and back each day. Each one using at least a gallon getting there so 30 mln gallons would last about 15 minutes.
We need a new word, because pathetic just ain’t gettin it. They throw stuff like this out constantly.
Obama 2012: The competency of Carter, the ethics of Nixon.
The secret is simple.
Don’t let liberals use gas, oil, or electricity. Or eat food produced by their use.
Problem solved.
Well, the American people aren’t stupid.
Au contraire, el Presidente. Your presence in the White House is testament to enough of the polity who would fall into the ‘stupid’ category.
In 1979 we had a serious accident at a nuclear power plant. But by an amazing stroke of luck, the sitting President at the time just happened to be nuclear trained. Damn….someone must be looking out for the United States as we have the one person in a position of power/authority who can reassure the American public about the risks associated with nuclear power.
Oh wait…..that isn’t what happened.
Frack.
A once in a lifetime opportunity for the right person in the right place to be able to have an adult conversation about nuclear power and have the moral high ground of actually been nuclear-trained and Carter blew it. This is where I cannot forgive him….he had a golden opportunity and blew it. We are still paying for that missed opportunity decades later and from the looks of things will continue to pay for it for a couple more decades.
As a thought experiment, how high does a gallon of gas have to go to at the pump before nuclear power starts looking attractive?
The way I see it is this:
The QE of our currency is in a lot of ways to blame for our predicament. Just imagine how bad it’d get if the exchange currency for oil was no longer the dollar. Damn.
We’re not exploiting our resources here at home. The Looney Greens believe that we are a pestilence on this Earth and that if we ceased to exist, the Earth would go back to a pristine state, ala the Bruce Willis/Brad Pitt movie “12 Monkeys.” Say what you will about them, but their constant opposition to any sort of progress and views on abortion lead me that conclusion.
All of this Green energy nonsense is exactly that. The wind doesn’t blow all of the time. Geothermal is pretty rare. The tides aren’t always going in and out. If you live in Alaska or the Pacific Northwest, the sun rarely shines. Biofuels have little shelf life and cost more to make than gasoline and also increase the prices on foodstuffs. It’s funny that they want us to drive these miserable hybrids and electric cars with enough range to get you to the grocery store and that’s it, yet they want us to rely on a power grid fueled by such inconsistent sources of energy. Nuclear is too awful. Hydroelectric is bad for the fish, m’kay. Natural gas pollutes. Coal is the worst of all, gotta shut those down, said the President.
But hey, those folks gave handsomely to his campaign. And since he sees himself as King Barack, father of our nation, he’s going to make sure that we take the icky medicine we deserve and that our standard of living takes a hit because it’s so unfair to the rest of world. Assume the position. Thank you sir, may I have another.
As for hybrids, you’re lucky to get 100,000 miles out of the batteries before they go tits up. See any old Priuses or Insights? I didn’t think you would. And the disposal costs on those cars when they go to the chopper? You think the crinkly CFL lightbulbs filled with dangerous mercury and miserable dim light that bother my eyes are bad…haaaaaa!
But the President doesn’t care. He’s never worked a day in his life or earned anything. He’s never had to make a car payment or pay up when a fillup costs twice what it did the year before. He’ll have a car drive him around for the rest of his miserable life. He’ll have a guarded home, insulated from the horrors of his policies. He won’t have to put kids through college or worry about retirement. Every time the accursed, greedy Feds take out of your paychecks, you’re further insulating that smart aleck from reality.
Having the courage to point out facts will not win votes; enlarging the tits upon which the electorate can suckle wins votes…sigh.
Dang, Cap’n! I do thank you for that, which just warms my cockles.
Have you peeked through the curtains lately, to see which gangs of thugs in armored Suburbans are out there on the street, arguing amongst themselves to decide who gets to kick yer door down and bust in first?
Probably best that the Governor of the Commonwealth backed down…maybe he was concerned that ultrasonographers would be going to jail, per the VA code:
“Title 18.2-67.2 Code of Va.
INANIMATE OBJECT SEXUAL PENETRATION
Definition: Penetration of the vagina or rectum with any object by force and against the will of the victim.
Penalty: 5 years to life imprisonment”
“against the will of the victim.” Seems like a good law to me. Of course, I don’t think it will cover the Flight Physical, which Our Captain has complained about at least once, here.
One small nit to pick, Lex. Shouldn’t the aviator oxymoron be “alert pilot”