Paul Krugman’s op-ed, “Natural Born Drillers” (New York Times, March 15), purports to show with a hard look at the numbers why no thinking, perceptive person could possibly believe that “Drill, Baby, Drill” is a solution to the nation’s energy and economic woes: [G]iving the oil companies carte blanche isn’t a serious jobs program. Put it this way: Employment in oil and gas extraction has | Read More »
In May 2009, four months into the Obama presidency, retail gasoline prices averaged $2.32 per gallon. Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) wrote Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to express concern about the impact that the Administration’s budgeted changes in tax policy would have on the oil and gas industry. Secretary Geithner clearly laid out the Administration position in his letter of response (pdf link). That was then, | Read More »
Voters in the November election will be acutely aware of two key economic variables above all others: the national unemployment rate, and the price they pay for a gallon of gasoline. President Obama senses his vulnerability on gasoline prices, and is busy erecting a defense against charges that his actions (or inactions) have contributed to high prices. His weekly radio address focused on the problem | Read More »
Rush Limbaugh is on a rant right now about the Big Energy Lie – President Obama’s assertion that: “We can’t just drill our way out of this problem — while we consume 20% of the world’s oil, we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves,” he said. [Source.] Rush confused the issue with regard to the definition of reserves, suggesting that it has something | Read More »
Irony alert. (HuffPo link. Sorry.) “Anybody who tells you that we can just drill our way out of this problem does not know what they’re talking about, or they’re not telling you the truth — one or the other,” Obama said at an event held in New Hampshire to tout his energy policies. He noted that, in fact, oil production in the United States has | Read More »
Dig the moats, unroll the concertina wire and man the battlements! With the looming possibility of $4.00 per gallon gasoline at the pump, the Left’s defense of President Obama’s disastrous energy policies has begun in earnest. Matt Yglesias unfurled the narrative at Slate.com: Out of Gas, The folly of blaming Obama for higher gas prices. …[T]his should all serve as a reminder that there’s little | Read More »
Tulsa World headline: Obama: No magic bullet to lower gas prices WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says there is no easy answer to the problem of rising energy prices, dismissing Republican plans to address the problem as little more than gimmicks. “We know there’s no silver bullet that will bring down gas prices or reduce our dependence on foreign oil overnight,” Obama said Saturday in | Read More »
We Americans are voracious energy consumers. In 2010, we consumed 98 quadrillion BTUs of energy. In addition to quantity, we have an expectation of quality (read: reliability). When we flip the switch, the light comes on — every time. Gasoline is always available at the pump; we may not like the price, but at least we don’t have to wait in line. Energy reliability depends | Read More »
…[It] was public research dollars, over the course of thirty years, that helped develop the technologies to extract all this natural gas out of shale rock – reminding us that Government support is critical in helping businesses get new energy ideas off the ground. – Barack Obama’s 2012 State of the Union Address On Thursday, Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu visited the National Energy Technology | Read More »
Around these parts, we have a word that aptly describes shale formations: ubitquitious. (sic) Every conventional oil and gas basin must have a hydrocarbon source, and that source is a shale. And since shales are low in permeability, we’re finding that the source rock still contains plenty of hydrocarbons, if you can figure out how to get the stuff out. One of the newly-emerging plays | Read More »
Phelim McAleer and his wife Ann McElhinney are journalists and documentary filmmakers. You may remember Not Evil Just Wrong (2009), their takedown of Al Gore and Global Warming hysteria. Now they want to tell the truth about natural gas development and hydraulic fracturing in a full-length documentary titled FrackNation. McAleer says: FrackNation will skeptically examine some of the scarier claims made by anti-fracking activists and | Read More »
This is an abbreviated version of a post at my personal blog. There you will find more detailed text, additional figures and references. In 1956, M. King Hubbert predicted that crude oil production in the U.S. (ex-Alaska) would peak in rate around 1970, to be followed by a long, irreversible decline. Hubbert nailed the timing of the peak, and in doing so, cemented his status | Read More »
In Tuesday night’s State of the Union Address, President Obama said: Over the last three years, we’ve opened millions of new acres for oil and gas exploration, and tonight, I’m directing my Administration to open more than 75 percent of our potential offshore oil and gas resources. Taking the show on the road, Obama Promotes Energy Agenda in Las Vegas Fending off critics who say | Read More »
We’ve heard it all before, except now the message has been repackaged to deal with the evolving reality in the Energy Sector. In “fossil fuels”, we have two big success stories: the Shale Revolution and the continued success of domestic oil development. What we didn’t hear much about was rebuilding the economy based on Green Jobs. The new Green Economy had more than a few | Read More »
Six House Democrats, led by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D’OH), have filed a bill aimed at controlling gasoline prices. Styled the “Gas Price Spike Act”, H.R. 3784 would establish a “Reasonable Profits Board” which would have the power to confiscate 100% of oil company profits above a level that they deem to be “reasonable”. I know: “You had me at ‘Kucinich’.” Kucinich is either a naive | Read More »
Fact #1: In U.S. waters, the Eastern Gulf of Mexico is off-limits for drilling. The only way to legally drill for oil within 125 miles of the Florida coast is to drill in Cuban waters, which reach within 45 miles of Key West. Fact #2: In 2011, the average price of gasoline was the highest of any year in history, including 2008 when the price | Read More »
Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom were pikers compared to the Government’s “Green Energy” schemes. Bialystock and Bloom plotted to make millions with a guaranteed Broadway flop. Against all odds, Springtime for Hitler became a runaway hit, and The Producers went to jail. But at least Mssrs. Bialystock and Bloom produced something of value – a hit musical. Our Green Initiative produces flop after flop, but | Read More »
In a New York Times editorial celebrating the recent demise of the ethanol subsidy, the Old Grey Lady once again descends into outright falsehood to malign the industry that Progressives love to hate: Congress should now focus on the oil industry, which has long enjoyed a web of arcane and unnecessary tax breaks — deductions for well depletion and intangible drilling costs. They are unique | Read More »
1. Despite a natural gas drilling moratorium in New York, that state’s Chemung and Broome Counties are feeling the economic lift from drilling next door in Pennsylvania. But to the New York Times, the ex-pat workers, largely from Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, have awfully low-brow tastes, don’t you know. (NYT link below the fold.) 2a & 2b. The Daily Beast seems to have turned over | Read More »
On an annual basis, retail gasoline prices hit an all-time high in 2011. The average price for all grades was $3.576 per gallon, vs $3.299 in 2008. Meanwhile, the shale gas revolution has set the stage for declining prices per mmbtu of natural gas.
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