Category Archives: Energy

Economy, Energy, Politics

What’s Another $3 Billion Down The Drain?

It was four years ago that President Obama, through the US Export-Import Bank, extended $3 billion credit to Brazil to finance infrastructure projects and offshore oil drilling. See, he really is for offshore drilling. Just not in his own country.

The money was for Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company. Essentially, it was for Brazil’s top politicians.

In today’s news, four years later, Petrobras can’t borrow money for a used car. Their credit rating is junk. And it all began four years ago with bribes and kickbacks.

Everything he touches turns to . . . No, it’s not gold. Another Solyndra, another Arab Spring, a new Libya, fall of Iraq, rise of ISIS, jobs for terrorists, nukes for Iran. You name it. And that’s just over there. Over here there is chronic long-term unemployment and falling family incomes. Obama’s wealthy donor friends excepted.

And to think we still have two more years with this wrecking ball in The White House.

Links: US Export-Import Bank extends $3 billion credit to Brazil to finance infrastructure projects and offshore oil drilling  |  State Oil Firm’s Scandal Scrambles Brazil’s Offshore Dreams  |  Brazil Petrobras scandal: Top politicians accused

Energy, Politics

Obama’s Energy Rope-a-Dope

President Obama announced today that he is opening up some areas for oil and gas development. Some in the Gulf of Mexico, some in the Atlantic. Alaska, not so much. Alaska needs more study. ‘More study’ is political-speak for ‘it ain’t gonna happen.’

Nevertheless, the President seemed to echo what he said in his State of the Union Address in January.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. (Applause.) It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. (Applause.) It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. (Applause.) And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America. (Applause.)

And today, President Obama said . . .

But the bottom line is this: given our energy needs, in order to sustain economic growth, produce jobs, and keep our businesses competitive, we’re going to need to harness traditional sources of fuel even as we ramp up production of new sources of renewable, homegrown energy.

Don’t think for a minute that the President is serious about drilling. Just like he isn’t serious about nuclear energy. Seen any new refineries being built? Seen any new oil drilling going on? Seen any new nuclear plants being built? NO! What we have seen is ANWR and Bristol Bay being held hostage, and the closing of the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. With no place to put nuclear waste, how many new nuclear plants will be built?

Today’s show at Andrews Air Force Base was a political rope-a-dope. His goal is far from using and getting more of our own energy resources. His goal is cap and trade legislation that will do exactly the opposite of what he said he wanted to do today. It will kill economic growth and jobs, depress business, and raise costs. We will pay more for electric and all other products because of tax pressure put on the industries that produce them. And in the end, the redistribution of wealth in the name of social justice.

NPR is trying to make sense out of Obama’s statement. Here’s what they came up with . . .

Much of the speculation for the administration’s reasoning has been on the need to get Republican votes for Obama’s climate legislation. Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) are trying to hammer out a bipartisan climate bill, but Graham is getting no GOP backing on this, and Graham himself has said that he couldn’t support a bill that “doesn’t have off-shore drilling in a meaningful way.”

The New York Times’ John Broder writes that today’s proposal by Obama could “help win political support for comprehensive energy and climate legislation,” . . .

He is repeating his SOTU line in order to get support from Republicans for his cap and trade agenda. Combine this with Obamacare and the American Dream will be history. America will have its newest founding father.

Links:

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Now consider this. The above article was posted 5 years ago. Have you noticed any progress? Have you noticed his words turning in to action? Now in the beginning of 2015, President Obama is refusing to give the go-ahead for the Keystone XL Pipeline.

Keystone XL Pipeline route maps HERE.

China, Economy, Energy, Politics

Obama Declares War On ANWR

Declaring the oil-rich coastal plain, which was set aside for oil exploration and development in the first place, a “wilderness area,” Obama is effectively preventing any access to it for the purposes it was originally intended. Oil and gas exploration and development.

Time for a refresher on ANWR.   ARCTIC NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE 101

Shutting down energy resources by declaring wilderness areas is nothing new where Democrat Presidents are concerned. Bill Clinton  shut the low-sulfur coal industry completely down by declaring all of it (1.8 million acres) in the United States a “monument.”

For Clinton though, it was more sinister. It was a twofer for Clinton. By declaring the lands where all our low-sulfur coal exists in the United States a “monument,” he hands a world monopoly to a big campaign contributor of his, the Chinese Rhiady family,

Now a quick mineralogical lesson. There are only two known low-sulphur coal reserves in the world, one of which is under the land in Utah that was blocked off by Clinton. And the other is in China. Thanks to Bill Clinton, the U.S. energy sector can buy low-sulphur coal from China, because now, they have to.

Links: Obama Seeks Bigger Wilderness Designation in Alaska Refuge  |  President Obama Calls on Congress to Protect Arctic Refuge as Wilderness

Economy, Energy, Politics

SOTU 2015, His Illness

Media translation service, by me. What we saw in Barack Obama‘s State of the Union show Tuesday night was his admission of his failed policies. When you hear him say there’s still “more work to do,” he wants you to think he’s making progress, and hasn’t stopped yet.

OK, so after 6 years, the middle class and poor have seen their family income fall. The number of people working (labor participation rate) is at the level it was during the Carter administration. As a result, the number of people on food stamps and other government welfare programs are at an all time high. All while he’s trying to add millions more illegal aliens to compete against the middle class and poor for the few jobs there may be.

His mental illness really shone brightly when he took credit for lower gasoline prices. Because he had nothing to do with it, sort of.

He had nothing to do with the increase on the supply side. He did have something to do with the decrease in demand on the demand side. Weak economic activity, high long-term unemployment, falling family incomes all a result of his administration’s attempt at transforming America have the effect of decreasing demand.

Gas and oil production on federal lands are down. Not up. Gas and oil production on private lands are up, and that’s where the increase supply (and jobs boom) is coming from. The media seems to have forgotten that he and his energy secretary said they want the price of gas to be like that in Europe, over $9 and $10 per gallon. And that will help the middle class? It is Obama standing in the way of the XL Pipeline, by insisting on where the oil going through it can be sold. As though he thinks that Canada’s gas and oil belongs to him.

If he cared for the middle class more than his vision to destroy, er “transform” America, he would stop doing what he’s been doing.

Energy, Politics

Power Africa, Not So Much

Africa is beginning to feel about President Obama’s “Power Africa” initiative like Americans feel about his Affordable Health Care Act. They are learning to temper what he says against what he does. And, like Obamacare, the gap couldn’t be more wide.

A year later, the U.S. president’s flagship project for Africa has already achieved 25 percent of its goal to deliver 10,000 megawatts of electricity and bring light to 20 million households and businesses, according to its annual report.

But the five-year plan has not yet delivered the power.

Link: Exclusive: Obama plan to ‘Power Africa’ gets off to a dim start

 

Energy, Media, Politics, Saudi Arabia

Falling Gas Prices, Perfect Storm

During the Bush administration, when gas prices were climbing above $3 a gallon, the Democrat leadership was accusing “two oil men in The White House” for gouging the American people.  And, any suggestion that supply and demand was at work brought out the  economic deniers.

Now that gasoline prices at the pump are falling, where is the media giving credit to President Obama? If the president can increase the gas prices, he can also decrease them.

To be sure, gas prices are falling. The answer is, the president does not want gas prices to fall. That is why the administration is not out there taking credit for it. It could, however, take the blame for it. Watch for this president to somehow support OPEC to get prices back up.

The drop has been driven by a boom in shale production in the United States as well as weakness in some major world economies, causing supply to outpace demand.

Include the United States as one of those “major world economies causing supply to outpace demand.” Demand weakens when you stop driving to work, or take fewer trips in your car, because you do not have a job to drive to.

Link: OPEC Unity Tested by Low Prices, Oil Glut

2014 Election, China, Economy, Energy, Iran, Middle East, Obamacare, Politics, Race Relations, Russia, War On Terror

aSide Order

Iran Wins Another Round With Delay

Ten years and counting. Learning from recent history, when it comes to their nuclear program, Iran knows that this administration is all bark and no bite. The deadline for compliance has come and gone. The solution? Instead of shutting down centrifuges, they have six more months of full-steam ahead development and production. Oh, and the monthly dole-outs of $700 million in frozen funds that began under the temporary nuclear deal agreed on late last year that led to the present talks, continue.

Link: Iran nuclear talks stumble, extended until July

endofstory

So How’s It Going?

Iraq is falling to pieces, again. ISIS and al-Qaeda are growing. Beheadings have become common and, a new normal. Russia is occupying. The Commander-in-Chief cuts military budgets and personnel while expanding their role. After withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, now that the mid-term elections are over, President Obama is sending the new smaller military back. Third Secretary of Defense in six years resigns. Iran continues to ignore the world in rolling back their nuclear weapons program.  China is eating our lunch. No one wants to eat Michelle Obama’s lunch. Not her lunch, the lunch she wants your kids to eat. The economy on Main St. is treading water. Long-term unemployment is growing. Average family income is falling. The “no-energy” energy policy is increasing energy cost. The Affordable Care Act fraud exposed. And cities are burning.

endofstory

Jump Rope Girl – World’s Best Jump Roper!!! Adrienn Banhegyi

2014 Election, Economy, Energy, Media, Organized Labor, Politics

Keystone XL Show In Louisiana

In the news, and not in the news, comes the media’s version of Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) push in Washington to advance the Keystone XL pipeline project. A project that has met all the required tests and gone through all the hoops put before it by the Obama administration. Except for getting the president to sign off on it.

Legislation to approve the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline began racing through the U.S. Congress on Wednesday as Democrats and Republicans appeared to be coming together in a challenge of President Barack Obama’s oversight of the project.

What is NOT in the news about this move is why now? “Why now” is, Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is facing a runoff election for her seat on Dec. 6, and is in danger of losing it to Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA). In response to Landrieu’s action, Cassidy proposed an almost identical bill in the House. The media’s sleight-of-hand is their interpretation, that the two houses of congress are now “working together,” in the aftermath of the mid-terms where Democrats took another pounding.

The timing has nothing to do with congress working together on this subject. There is, and has always been, bi-partisan support for the XL-pipeline. The people want energy independence. Big Labor wants the jobs that it would create. But all that support is not enough for the president to face down the environmentalist lobby that is against it. Landrieu’s move now is just to try and save her job. Her motivation is just too transparent for the media to notice. They wouldn’t be providing the needed cover for Landrieu if they did.

Link: Keystone pipeline approval bills advance in Congress | Reuters.

Economy, Energy, Media, Politics, United Nations

Communist Environmentalist News

According to the United Nations (aka Useless Nations), the end is near, it’s our fault, and we’re all going to die. Well, only one thing there is certain.

From the AP:

Climate change is happening, it’s almost entirely man’s fault and limiting its impacts may require reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero this century, the U.N.’s panel on climate science said Sunday.

Here’s the plan.

  1. Everyone who has anything to do with the United Nations and the IPCC must not exhale for the next 24 hours.
  2. Continue to monitor the weather and take up the matter again in 2214.

Link: UN climate report offers stark warnings, hope

Update: 11/3/2014 Are you suffering from CD? There is help for Climate Depression. Take one of these.

fukitall

2014 Election, Economy, Energy, Politics

Presidential Paralysis Cost Private Sector Billions

TransCanada has waited more than six years for the Obama administration to make a decision on the line, which would take as much as 830,000 barrels per keystone-xl-mapday of Alberta tar sands crude to refineries on Texas’ Gulf Coast.

The delay has pushed up the cost of the line, which would run from Hardisty, Alberta, to near Houston. The company said last month that Keystone XL’s original $5.4 billion estimate is likely half of what it will now cost to build the pipeline.

Trying to make the delay look like an abundance of caution is causing Canada to look for a route to a port of their own. Secretary Kerry’s visit there is nothing more than the optics of giving the impression that the U.S. might actually want the XL pipeline. The real, and only, reason the administration is dragging its feet is because of the environmental lobby. You know, the lobbyists that then Senator Obama said would not be a part of his administration or decision-making. Because they are the only ones that are against it, it is clear that the administration values their campaign money more than the nation’s economy, security, and energy independence.

The delay is really a twofer for the president. Increasing cost on the energy sector is (in his mind) a good thing. Anything that increases the cost of fossil fuel energy is a good thing where Obama’s ideology lives. That the cost increase is not falling on taxpayers’ shoulders, but on the private sector, is the other “good” thing.

Link: Kerry wants Keystone pipeline decision ‘sooner rather than later’