Redstate

Posted at 6:22pm on May 12, 2008 Your Tax Dollars at Work: Energy Subsidies

By Vladimir

Wind ($23.37) v. Gas (25 Cents)

That's a link to a Wall Street Journal editorial that is guaranteed to make the top of frequent poster moderich's head explode.

It is a look at how much energy we're getting for our subsidy dollar. An exhaustive look, by the Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the Department of Energy.

Posted in alternative energy | Energy | Tax Policy — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 12:15pm on May 11, 2008 Clarity About Crude Addictions

By ntrepid

This is most likely way out of context but I recently read something where the author was stressing the importance of the ability (and I’ll add desire) to see the world clearly and then to draw the correct conclusions from that information.

That line of thought emerged from my memory banks yesterday and my heart warmed as I heard a Fox News Channel Market/Stock-type talking-head nearly come to tears while she lamented that we (the United States) have not taken important steps to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by maximizing drilling here at home.

Wait a minute…that’s not what she said.

Unfortunately, she was really quite adamant that we (the United States) need to increase gas taxes “to the hilt”…presumably to encourage and immediate reduction in our (the United States) demand for that vile substance because, all together now, WE ARE ADDICTED TO OIL.

Those last five words are absolutely true but absolute clarity on the subject requires a step back to look at it from an even larger perspective. (Brace yourself.) The world…the entire civilized world as well as great portions that remain uncivilized…is addicted to our consumption of oil. And, unfortunately for the “addicted to foreign oil”-chicken little’s and Fox News talking heads out there, this is not going to change in any meaningful way for at least another 50-75 years. Probably much longer.

More...

Posted in Energy — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 3:05am on May 10, 2008 Corn on the Cob, NOT Corn on the Car

By Warner Todd Huston

So, here is the rub, you think you're saving the planet and, therefore the human race, by proposing that we grow our gasoline in our corn crops instead of using those eeeevil fossil fuel, right? You say let's make ethanol from our corn and all will be in balance? You feel really, really good about yourself -- after all "feelings" are what counts, not results.

But, the next thing you know, they are starving in Haiti and rioting over the 40% rise in basic food costs because of you and your neato ethanol idea.

Posted in Energy — Comments (4) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 1:21pm on May 9, 2008 OPEC to World; Up Yours - Again

By Marcus Traianus

As if OPEC needed any more image challenges in the current energy environment we now had this. Here’s the salient quote;

This year, the U.S. had contributed $362.7 million to WFP just through May 4, according to the website. That figure does not include another $250 million above the planned yearly contribution that was promised by President George W. Bush in the wake of WFP’s April warning that a “silent tsunami” of rising food costs would add dramatically to the world population living in hunger. Nor does it include another $770 million in food aid that President Bush has asked Congress to provide as soon as possible.

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia, with oil revenues last year of $164 billion, does not even appear on the website donor list for 2008.

Yes, but they all really like us; well at least the one's Obama wants us to talk to anyway.

Please do read on

Posted in Energy — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 2:31pm on May 7, 2008 Conservation is not enough

By Josh Painter

With all the kerfuffle over high gasoline and diesel prices, I've heard it said and seen it written that if only we Americans would use less oil, prices would drop like a stone, and we could return to the good old days of two-dollar gas.

Unfortunately, that's not true, and it's not that simple. We need to reduce our consumption, yes, but we also need to increase domestic production and refining. Unfortunately, we've been going in the other direction for way too long a period of time. From 1990 to 2007, US production decreased by 31% at the same time as consumption increased by 24%.

Posted in Energy — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 7:51am on May 7, 2008 John McCain, Read This - Is Washington and Big Oil Burying This?

By GordonTaylor

When I received an email from a friend of mine in Alabama, I was skeptical about it's contents, it was a cut and paste for a newspaper article claiming a Tifton, Georgia man had discovered a way to may $0.25 a gallon fuel.

So, I visited my local Yahoo search engine, and it appears the story is true, at least at face value.

It seems the only outlet to pick up the story was the WND.

Some snippets and a link to the article.

Posted in Energy — Comments (30) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:56am on May 6, 2008 You And What Army?

By Repair Man Jack

"We’re going to go right at OPEC," she said. "They can no longer be a cartel, a monopoly that get together once every couple of months in some conference room in some plush place in the world, they decide how much oil they’re going to produce and what price they’re going to put it at," she told a crowd at a firehouse in Merrillville, IN. - Hillary Rodham Clinton (5 May 2008)

Posted in Energy — Comments (54) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 6:48pm on May 5, 2008 All Right, Enough With the Global Warming Nonsense

By patriotroom

Almost every week we get more evidence from the Global Warming Deniers (pronounced with slitted eyes and a sneer) that we are simply in a natural cycle of cooling and warming. Yet the Goracle and his legion of fanatics stand there, fingers in ears, saying La-La-La-La-La - I can't hear you. The lastest data from NASA, well known tool of the right, is that cooling began in 1998 and is expected to continue until 2030. From Canada Free Press.

Posted in Energy — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 5:01pm on May 3, 2008 Corn Ethanol: Maybe Not Such a Good Idea After All

By Vladimir

Well, the love affair between the Senate and corn-based ethanol appears over almost before it started. This, from the Wall Street Journal. Link requires subscription. Emphasis added.

Corn Ethanol Loses More Support

Two dozen Republican senators on Friday -- including Republican presidential candidate John McCain (R., Ariz.) -- asked the Environmental Protection Agency to ease requirements mandated by Congress in 2007 to blend more ethanol and other renewable fuels into the gasoline supply.

Posted in Alternative Fuels | Energy | Ethanol — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 8:53am on May 2, 2008 Kyoto Signatories Churning Out Self-Congratulations...And Carbon Emissions

The Kyoto Fig Leaf

By Dan McLaughlin

OK, so maybe the "Climate Change" crowd is having trouble proving the existence of the problem. But surely, at least their solution, expensive as it is, would take us in the right direction?

Not really:

Yes, signatories to the Kyoto Protocol have been increasing their "greenhouse gas" emissions at triple the rate of the United States. (Source; H/T) Because when you can claim that you were prevented from solving a problem by somebody else not going along, it's easy to tell yourself you don't actually have to do anything else. 'Hey, we signed an agreement. What more did you want?'

Posted in Energy | Global Warming | Kyoto — Comments (24)/ Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 4:39am on May 2, 2008 Calibrate your BS detectors!

By Josh Painter

From motortrend.com:

SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Dec. 5 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Research findings released today show that mid-range ethanol blends--fuel mixtures with more ethanol than E10 but less than E85--can in some cases provide better fuel economy than regular unleaded gasoline, even in standard, non-flex-fuel vehicles.

Previous assumptions held that ethanol's lower energy content directly correlates with lower fuel economy for drivers. Those assumptions were found to be incorrect. Instead, the new research strongly suggests that there is an "optimal blend level" of ethanol and gasoline--most likely E20 or E30--at which cars will get better mileage than predicted based strictly on the fuel's per-gallon Btu content. The new study, cosponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and the American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE), also found that mid-range ethanol blends reduce harmful tailpipe emissions.

Whoa, time out! The American Coalition for what? For Ethanol? What a relief to find that one of the co-sponsors of the study has no axe to grind. As for the other co-sponsor, DOE, wasn't that the agency of the federal government that has been hyping the use of ethanol as a motor fuel for years?

Excuse me, my BS detector is in the red zone...

You don't have to be a node on the Psychic Friends Network to see what's behind this new PR offensive by the ethanol lobby and its bought-and-paid-for politicians. Recent news reports of the spike in food prices and the rising number of the world's hungry have put Big Ethanol in a bad light. The short-sightedness of the rush to use ethanol as a motor fuel is being exposed, and the folks who were making out like bandits over the diversion of corn from food crop to fuel crop are worried - very worried.

Notice that the news release pushes the idea of E20 and E30 as "optimal" blends of ethanol and gasoline. This is important for several reasons. First and formost among them is the fact that Big Ethanol has taken a fallback position. Things are looking so bleak for them that they are no longer touting E85 as the energy savior of the world. They are seriously trying to cut their future losses here. They realize that the amount of ethanol in a gallon of gasoline needed to replace MTBE as an additive to oxygenate gasoline (as mandated by Congress) is less than 4% or 5%. E10 is the traditional "gasohol" mixure of 10% ethanol in every gallon of gasoline, and they are afraid that when E85 is abandoned - and it will be abandoned soon - we will settle on E10 as the standard blend. So now they are promoting stronger doses of their bad medicine - two times and three times the amound of ethanol than in E10 as that which is "optimal" for todays cars. Their proof? Read on...

The University of North Dakota Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) and the Minnesota Center for Automotive Research (MnCAR) conducted the research using four 2007 model vehicles: a Toyota Camry, a Ford Fusion and two Chevrolet Impalas, one flex-fuel and one non-flex-fuel. Researchers used the EPA Highway Fuel Economy Test (HWFET) to examine a range of ethanol-gasoline blends from straight Tier 2 gasoline up to 85 percent ethanol. All of the vehicles got better mileage with ethanol blends than the ethanol's energy content would predict, and three out of four actually traveled farther on a mid-level ethanol blend than on unleaded gasoline.

So, "researchers" at state universities in two of the corn-growingest states in the union found that cars which are specifically tuned for ethanol perform better in economy tests on ethanol than they do on gasoline. Well, duh! Cars actually perform better on the fuel they are tuned for than on the fuel they are not tuned for. What a shocker!

Expect much more of the same kind of bogus "studies" like this one in the near future. Meanwhile, real research is showing some promising new technologies are moving forward which can, among other things, lead to producing "green" gasoline directly from cellulose. No conversion to ethanol needed, thank you very much. This has Big Ag beside itself. After all, states where food crops don't grow without intensive inputs of fertilizers, pesticides and, yes, energy, can grow switchgrass without much trouble. Along with weeds, chips from scrap wood and other cellulosic "wastes" are perfect feedstocks for these emerging processes.

Big Ag is afraid that it will soon be reduced to doing what it has bragged about doing in its past TV commercials - feeding a hungry world. There's not as much quick profit to be made there than in producing a fuel feedstock which is an inefficient use of time, land, chemicals and farm fuel. Especially if ADM and other big farmers have to go back to producing more food, thus increasing the supply and driving down prices.

Posted in Energy — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 9:19am on May 1, 2008 WaPo Columnist Robert Samuelson Channels RedState's Vladimir

By Vladimir

To the moderators: Maybe I'm flirting with Fair Use here, so feel free to edit if necessary. Mr. Samuelson did such a good job of encapsulating the current energy picture that it was hard to cut anything.

Start Drilling

...The truth is that we're almost powerless to influence today's [oil] prices. We are because we didn't take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.

Posted in ANWR | Energy — Comments (15) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:48am on Apr. 30, 2008 Chuck Grassley versus America's dinnertables.

By trevino

This was originally posted at Grassley Watch, where we're trying to get Iowa's Republican Senator to .... act like a Republican.

Americans -- and especially Iowans -- know full well that there's a food crisis underway. Every mom who shops for groceries knows it, as does every restauranteur, and every worker who puts in some overtime to afford the next meal knows it.

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Posted at 6:34pm on Apr. 29, 2008 What's the Over/Under on the Ethanol Mandate?

By Vladimir

How long will our crazy rush to corn-based ethanol last?

Environmentalists don't seem to like it; it takes too much water to grow and process, and it doesn't help with the global warming bit. It seems to be an inefficient and nasty fuel, when you get down and deal with the practicalities of it.

Now ADM is playing defense:

Archer Daniels defends ethanol in wake of rising food costs

Posted in Alternative Fuels | Energy | Ethanol | Scam — Comments (21) / Email this page » / Read More »

Posted at 11:16am on Apr. 29, 2008 Judge Orders Polar Bear Decision by May 15

By Vladimir

Just how much do environmentalists want energy to cost?

Judge gives government until May 15 to decide whether polar bears are threatened species [emphasis added]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Associated Press) -- A federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to decide within 16 days whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming.

Posted in Endangered Species Act | Energy | Junk Science | Polar bears — Comments (0) / Email this page » / Read More »