Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

A great post, Okie, concerning the ever rising need for oil from foreign sources.

I think that Obama's quixotic push for an unsustainable enerby policy is doomed to fail. It will die in December when the world Global convention on the alleged global warming takes place.

Anyone who has followed the news from China and India know that even if the USA cuts emissions so deeply that we will never recover economically, the failure of China and India to participate in the drive to curtail emissions will end the Goreista hysteria.

India and China consider themselves developing countries. As such, they do
not feel that they need to sacrifice their growing economies.

Perhaps, to assuage some of the Goristas, China may propose a reduction in co2 emissions but currently it appears that they will only do so if countries in the world help "developing countries" by offering one half to one percent of their countries' GDP to cause such reductions.

I was rather proud of it myself. I came up with the analogy, so its an original.

I doubt Obama could grasp the meaning very well?

Parados and the other Global Warming Hysterics just refuse to look at the evidence,Okie.

Note the column by the Washington Post columnist- Robert Samuelson. He gives facts and figures which supplement your argument.


By Robert J. Samuelson
Monday, May 4, 2009

Considering the brutal recession, you'd expect the Obama administration to be obsessed with creating jobs. And so it is, say the president and his supporters. The trouble is that there's one glaring exception to their claims: the oil and natural gas industries. The administration is biased against them -- a bias that makes no sense on either economic or energy grounds. Almost everyone loves to hate the world's Exxons, but promoting domestic drilling is simply common sense.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the United States still has huge oil and natural gas resources. The outer continental shelf (OCS), including parts that have been off-limits to drilling since the early 1980s, may contain much natural gas and 86 billion barrels of oil, about four times today's "proven" U.S. reserves. The U.S. Geological Survey recently estimated that the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana may hold 3.65 billion barrels, more than 20 times a 1995 estimate. And there's upward of 2 trillion barrels of oil shale, concentrated in Colorado. If only 800 billion barrels were recoverable, that would be triple Saudi Arabia's proven reserves.

None of these sources, of course, will quickly provide oil or natural gas. Projects can take 10 to 15 years. The OCS reserve estimates are just that. Oil and gas must still be located -- a costly and chancy process. Extracting oil from shale (in effect, a rock) requires heating the shale and poses major environmental problems. Its economic viability remains uncertain. But any added oil could ultimately diminish dependence on imports, now almost 60 percent of U.S. consumption, while exploration and development would immediately boost high-wage jobs (geologists, petroleum engineers, roustabouts).


Though straightforward, this logic mostly eludes the Obama administration, which is fixated on "green jobs" and wind and solar energy. Championing "clean" fuels has become a political set piece. On Earth Day (April 22), the president visited an Iowa factory that builds towers for wind turbines. "We can remain the world's leading importer of oil, or we can become the world's leading exporter of clean energy," he said.

The president is lauded as a great educator; in this case, he provided much miseducation. He implied that there's a choice between promoting renewables and relying on oil. Actually, the two are mostly disconnected. Wind and solar mainly produce electricity. Most of our oil goes for transportation (cars, trucks, planes); almost none -- about 1.5 percent -- generates electricity. Expanding wind and solar won't displace much oil; someday, electric cars may change this.

For now, reducing oil imports requires using less or producing more. Obama has attended to the first with higher fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles. But his administration is undermining the second. At the Interior Department, which oversees public lands and the OCS, Secretary Ken Salazar has taken steps that dampen development: canceling 77 leases in Utah because they were too close to national parks; extending a comment period for OCS exploration to evaluate possible environmental effects; and signaling more caution toward shale for similar reasons.

Any one of these alone might seem a reasonable review of inherited policies, and it's true that Salazar has maintained a regular schedule of oil and gas leases. Still, the anti-oil bias seems unmistakable. Conceivably, Salazar may reinstate administratively many restrictions on OCS drilling that Congress lifted last year. Meanwhile, he's promoting wind and solar by announcing new procedures for locating them on public lands, including the OCS. "We are," he says, "setting the department on a new path" -- emphasizing renewables.

It may disappoint. In 2007, wind and solar generated less than 1 percent of U.S. electricity. Even a tenfold expansion will leave their contribution small. By contrast, oil and natural gas now provide two-thirds of Americans' energy. They will dominate consumption for decades. Any added oil produced here will mostly reduce imports; extra natural gas will mostly displace coal in electricity generation. Neither threatens any anti-global warming program that Congress might adopt.

Encouraging more U.S. production would also aid economic recovery, because the promise of "green jobs" is wildly exaggerated. Consider: In 2008, the oil and gas industries employed 1.8 million people. Jobs in the solar and wind industries are reckoned (by their trade associations) to be 35,000 and 85,000, respectively. Now do the arithmetic: A 5 percent rise in oil jobs (90,000) approaches a doubling for wind and solar (120,000). Modest movements, up or down, in oil will swamp "green" jobs.

Improved production techniques (example: drilling in deeper waters) have increased America's recoverable oil and natural gas. The resistance to tapping these resources is mostly political. To many environmentalists, expanding fossil fuel production is a cardinal sin. The Obama administration often echoes this reflexive hostility. The resulting policies aim more to satisfy popular prejudice -- through photo ops and sound bites -- than national needs.

This from your linked article, genoves:

"The president is lauded as a great educator; in this case, he provided much miseducation. He implied that there's a choice between promoting renewables and relying on oil. Actually, the two are mostly disconnected. Wind and solar mainly produce electricity. Most of our oil goes for transportation (cars, trucks, planes); almost none -- about 1.5 percent -- generates electricity. Expanding wind and solar won't displace much oil; someday, electric cars may change this. "

This is so obvious, and is the primary point I have made here, including to Parados, of course to no avail. Being partisan spinners, they instead find a way to spin some kind of convoluted argument that wind, solar, and biofuels will accomplish miracles, but common sense tells us otherwise. At the margins, wind and solar may increase in contribution, but will not do much to replace oil anytime soon.

Exactly, Okie and do you know who is causing Barack Hussein Obama so much trouble in the legislatures? It is the moderate Democrats--many of whom are from the Middle West and represent states which will be severely hurt by Obama's machinations.

Note; Great Article from the Wall Street Journal by Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana( closely aligned with Senator Bayh, of course)
****************************
OPINION MAY 15, 2009 Indiana Says 'No Thanks' to Cap and Trade
No honest person thinks this will make a dent in climate change.
By MITCH DANIELS
This week Congress is set to release the details of the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act, a bill that purports to combat global warming by setting strict limits on carbon emissions. I'm not a candidate for any office -- now or ever again -- and I've approached the "climate change" debate with an open-mind. But it's clear to me that the nation, and in particular Indiana, my home state, will be terribly disserved by this cap-and-trade policy on the verge of passage in the House.

The largest scientific and economic questions are being addressed by others, so I will confine myself to reporting about how all this looks from the receiving end of the taxes, restrictions and mandates Congress is now proposing.

Quite simply, it looks like imperialism. This bill would impose enormous taxes and restrictions on free commerce by wealthy but faltering powers -- California, Massachusetts and New York -- seeking to exploit politically weaker colonies in order to prop up their own decaying economies. Because proceeds from their new taxes, levied mostly on us, will be spent on their social programs while negatively impacting our economy, we Hoosiers decline to submit meekly.

The Waxman-Markey legislation would more than double electricity bills in Indiana. Years of reform in taxation, regulation and infrastructure-building would be largely erased at a stroke. In recent years, Indiana has led the nation in capturing international investment, repatriating dollars spent on foreign goods or oil and employing Americans with them. Waxman-Markey seems designed to reverse that flow. "Closed: Gone to China" signs would cover Indiana's stores and factories.

Our state's share of national income has been slipping for decades, but it is offset in part by living costs some 8% lower than the national average. Doubled utility bills for low-income Hoosiers would be an especially cruel consequence of the Waxman bill. Forgive us for not being impressed at danglings of welfare-like repayments to some of those still employed, with some fraction of the dollars extracted from our state.

And for what? No honest estimate pretends to suggest that a U.S. cap-and-trade regime will move the world's thermometer by so much as a tenth of a degree a half century from now. My fellow citizens are being ordered to accept impoverishment for a policy that won't save a single polar bear.

We are told that although China, India and others show no signs of joining in this dismal process, we will eventually induce their participation by "setting an example." Watching the impending indigence of the Midwest, and the flow of jobs from our shores to theirs, our friends in Asia and the Third World are far more likely to choose any other path but ours.

Politicians in Washington speak of a reawakened appreciation for manufacturing and American competitiveness. But under their policy, those who make real products will suffer. Already we observe the piranha swarm of green lobbyists wangling special exemptions, subsidies and side deals. The ordinary Hoosier was not invited to this party, and can expect at most only table scraps at the service entrance.

No one in Indiana is arguing for the status quo: Hoosiers have been eager to pursue a new energy future. We rocketed from nowhere to national leadership in biofuels production in the last four years. We were the No. 1 state in the growth of wind power in 2008. And we have embarked on an aggressive energy-conservation program, indubitably the most cost-effective means of limiting CO2.

Most importantly, we are out to be the world leader in making clean coal -- including the potential for carbon capture and sequestration. The world's first commercial-scale clean coal power plant is under construction in our state, and the first modern coal-to-natural gas plant is coming right behind it. We eagerly accept the responsibility to develop alternatives to the punitive, inequitable taxation of cap and trade.

Our president has commendably committed himself to "government that works." But his imperial climate-change policy is government that cannot work, and we humble colonials out here in the provinces have no choice but to petition for relief from the Crown's impositions.

Mr. Daniels, a Republican, is the governor of Indiana .

don't you get tired of posting that over and over, massagato?

Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana, massagato's apologist in the article he has cut-and-pasted somewhere around a half dozen times now, presides over a state with four out of the fifty dirtiest power plants in the nation, including two of the top ten dirtiest in terms of emissions, far out of proportion in terms of their population.
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2007/2007-07-26-05.asp
In other words, Waxman-Markey would finally make them clean up their act and stop, among other things, giving increased rates of lung disease to those of us who live downwind of them (as well as reducing their carbon footprint). Cheap power for Indianans has screwed over the rest of the country too long. It's time they were called to account and became responsible citizens.

It has yet to be established beyond reasonable doubt that our 'carbon footprint' NEEDS to be reduced, much less eliminated. And, given that the world population continues to grow, it is far more likely that we will run out of carbon based fuels before the world will reduce its human-generated greenhouse emissions. Long before that happens, we will have developed the technologies necessary to carry on. Humankind has proved again and again its capacity to innovate and adapt as necessary.

It is easy to quantify the 'dirtiest' plants via emissions, but the article you cited doesn't specifiy how much 'offense' such plants produce but rather only specifies that they produce more than other plants. Our own Four Corners power plant, for instance, is dubbed the worst in the nation, but is in a very sparsely populated part of the world where it is unlikely to cause problems for much of anything. And how much is the worst of the worst worse than the best? Wouldn't that be constructive to know?

Houston is dubbed one of the world's 'dirtiest' cities, but our Houston relatives seem to live to a ripe old age with no more medical complaints than usual. Meanwhile a huge percentage of the nation's refineries are located right there and I doubt either the nation nor Houston would choose to do without them. So even though it is the 'dirtiest', how much dirtier is Houston than the 'cleanest'?

It's all relative and rarely as simple as the religionists would try to make it.

hmm, I see, so Houston's higher-than-normal non-cigarette-smoking --related lung cancer deaths couldn't have anything to do with all that crap in the air there, eh, fox?

http://www.lungcancerfact.com/articles/?post_id=19

you get all anecdotal on us, I'll get all medical study on you.

Author assumes there will be no electric cars in 10-15 years in spite of the current autos projected to be sold in 2011. 5% of vehicles being electric would eliminate 5% of projected oil needs. The goal of 20% reduced emissions would do even more.
Yes, and the author already stated it will take 10-15 years so the only solution today is using less. I'm not really clear how that is, since the author states will be 10-15 years before we can produce in those fields.



In 2009, so far the amount of power produced by wind is about 1.6% of the total US electric.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html
spreadsheet - ES1.B

Yes, but not for at least 10-15 years.
Unsourced and it makes no sense based on US labor statistics
http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag211.htm
167,000 people employed in oil and gas extraction in the US according to the BLS.
That compares to May 2008 using the BLS occupation tables.


A 5% rise in actual oil extraction jobs is not 90,000 jobs, but is only about 8500 new jobs. The author must be including gas station workers, delivery and refining jobs which will NOT increase if we shift the source of our crude oil.

I guess we should believe it can't be done because someone wrote an editorial and clearly misrepresented their numbers to prove it couldn't be done.

Do you really want me to take seriously a website put up by personal injury attorneys hoping to capitalize on 'negligence' cancer cases?

Let's go with this one instead:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/4/376

Fox, yes, it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that carbon footprint has to be reduced. The anti-global-warming religionists like yourself refuse to accept that, but the rest of the world does.

Further, just because your power plant is far away from major concentrations of people does not mean a thing. New England is a thousand miles away from the Midwestern coal plants, but we're downwind, and their byproducts reach us. Suflur and nitrogen compounds produce acid rain, which kills our forests, and smog which kills our lungs. You claim you're an environmentalist. I suggest you look at the effects on national parks, like the Grand Canyon, which notoriously, though hundreds of miles away from power plants, or any industry, has lousy air quality from them anyway.

And you wanted some statistics? Try these. Amongst the dirties coal power plants, looking at the top 86 (of about 1500 in the US), the dirtiest produce four times the sulfur emissions of the less dirty (and that's not considering the other 1400 or so). And the governor of Indiana, whom genoves/massagato cites again and again and again, as an opponent of the Waxman/Markey energy bill, governs the state with 5 of the 12 dirtiest coal plants in the country (stats at http://www.lungcancerfact.com/articlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_coal_power ). His state has been a bad citizen for the rest of us, and it's going to raise their costs to even comply with the Clean Air Act of 1975, but they've been screwing everybody to the east of them for so long, that they deserve exactly no sympathy from us. A typical tainted spokesperson for genoves/massagato's screeds.

Fox, the facts come from studies by the Texas Department of State Health Services--part of TX state government, not trial lawyers. You wanna dispute them too?

MJ I am a passionate, dedicated, and pretty fanatical environmentalist. I am NOT opposed to clean air, clean water, clean soil, aesthetic beauty despite my acknowledged 'conservative' credentials. I INSIST on these things and will go to bat against those who violate my environmental conscience.

But I also put people first and their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Yes cap noxious, poisonous, and otherwise harmful emissions. The USA has been cleaning up its air, water, and soil at an amazing rate for decades and will certainly continue to do so. Albuquerque was plagued with chronic smog when we first moved back here in 1984, but by capping industrial emissions, putting some burning restrictions into place, etc. I can't remember the last time we had a bad air quality day.

But we need to use the resources God provided to us too, and oil and coal in the ground serves no purpose whatsoever. So why doesn't it make sense to learn to use what is cheap, plentiful, and available in environmentally friendly ways? CO2 is NOT a pollutant no matter what the Supreme Court said. It is a necessity of life and I think the jury is still out as to whether humandkind is producing enough of it to be harmful to anything or anybody.

Then provide some links to the Texas Department of State Health Services report instead of interpretation by lawyers who rip off the people with class action suits.

Not to mention the fact that the NEJM study only deals with ONE aspect of power plant byproducts, fine-particle emission. There had been some question as to what effect they had on the death rate. This deals with that. Yes, they cause deaths. Less emissions means fewer death. Bravo.Why are there fewer emissions. Because the government started regulating them / The power companies didn't reduce them out of the goodness of their hearts. They have kicked and screamed the whole way. The NEJM article does NOT deal with other coal emissions notably sulfur compounds, nitrogen compounds, uranium, thorium, mercury, and larger particles, all of which can have health effects. It is, in other words, essentially useless in the topic.

No, fox, they cited the source. You show me that the source is reported inaccurately.

I refer you to my previous post--today--dealing with all noxious and poisonous emissions and noting that we have made huge strides in reducing or eliminating for generations now. Certainly those in violation should be dealt with and if we know something is hurting people, we need to stop doing that.

Then please refer me to the concern and desire to eliminate their industrial complex on the part of the City of Houston. I am guessing that consumption of red meat and McDonald's combos are killing more people in Houston than anything being emitted from those factories.

I have no problem with laws that intelligently control substances harmful to people. I have a HUGE problem with fanatics who want to close down our industrial base and return to the pre-industrial age rather than look for solutions to live in harmony with prosperity.

Fox, the problem is that coal is cheap, plentiful, and readily available, but it is NOT environmentally friendly--failing your criteria.It not only produces the most CO2, it also produces the most other pollutants. There are environmentally friendlIER (not "friendly") ways to use it, but the US is abysmally backward in using them. Who is seemingly the greenest in using clean technology? CHINA, whom genoves/massagato loves to hate. I suggest you look up his citation from the NYT a couple pages back, and actually read it, which I don't think he did, then google "ultra supercritical coal power" and read aboout that (it sounds like some sort of superhero secret weapon, but that's actually what advanced coal power plants are called) . As far as I can determine, ALL the proposed coal plants, and the ones currently undeer construction in the States are conventional. Those are two generations behind the technology. China has at least four ultra supercritcal plants in commercial operation, and they brought them on line three years ago. They plan on building 40% of future plants as USC ones, and their building plan is so large that they get ec onomies of scale and can build them for nearly a third less than a conventional plant.

Since they run temperatures and pressures as much as three times larger than conventional plants, they get more power from a given amount of fuel, they burn it more completely, and they produce significantly less harmful byproducts, including CO2. The coal industry in the US got 5 billion dollars in subsidies from the Bush administration to R&D and demo clean technologies. So far I can find no evidence of all that "socialism"--in your terms--by the Bush administration having produced a damned thing from our domestic industry.

Al Gore is once again being proved right. He said that those who develop green and clean and carbon-reduction technology are going to make lots and lots of money. Unfortuantely, since the US has pissed away so many chances to do it, it looks like China and Siemens, which builds their stuff for them, are going to be making the bucks and getting all the export business. Too bad the US, and all the denialist religionists, didn't listen a little harder.

Al Gore is a fraud and a dishonest opportunist.

Why doesn't it make more sense to focus on technology that will allow us to use that cheap, plentiful, and readily available coal in environmentally friendly ways? Because there's no political capital to be traded for that and no way to control the people with that and no way to increase one's power with that.