In the 1980s, Congress, searching for domestic energy supplies, created incentives in the form of production tax credits for ethanol and for unconventional natural gas. The history of those two programs, and the current state of affairs in the energy world, speaks volumes about the relative merits of these two fuels. Tax-paying capitalists find tax credits highly motivating. Whereas deductions reduce your taxable income, | Read More »
By including areas of the East Coast, Eastern Gulf of Mexico and offshore Alaska in its new Five Year OCS Leasing Plan, the Obama Administration would appear to be throwing a bone to the “Drill. Baby, Drill” crowd. Of course, everyone expects that there’s a quid pro quo in the deal: in exchange for this Open Access, you will support some form of Cap and | Read More »
Remember the State of the Union, way back in January? President Obama shared a vision of our nation’s energy future: But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. That means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and | Read More »
There seems to be a pattern here. Just when President Obama expresses his support for an issue, said issue turns to ca-ca. Less than one month ago in his State of the Union address, the Rookie President read the following from TOTUS: But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new | Read More »
The President’s proposed 2011 Budget has tax-raising bulls-eye squarely on every demagogue’s favorite target, “BIG OIL”. Nobody likes Big Oil, right? They’re the Shells, the Exxons and the BPs who keep jacking up gasoline prices, right? WRONG. Regardless of what you think about Big Oil, those companies will hardly notice this tax increase. No, this baby will fall squarely on the backs of smaller, non-integrated | Read More »
Wednesday’s State of the Union address was as much about the subjects the President avoided as about the issues or policies he proposed. The word “wind” occurs not once in the speech. References to solar energy have to do with the number of jobs created building solar panels. Gone are the promises of a future of Rainbows, Unicorns and Magic Windmills; the Administration seems to | Read More »
Oil spill specialists and the U.S. Coast Guard are working to contain an 11,000 barrel* spill in southeast Texas near Port Arthur. The inbound tanker, the Eagle Otome, flying a Malaysian flag, was struck by a barge. More details below the fold. We have to import oil in boats because 1) many Americans are averse to exploring for it domestically, and 2) regardless of our | Read More »
From Wikipedia: The winter of 2009–2010 in the United Kingdom (also called The Big Freeze by British media) is an ongoing meteorological event that started on 10 December 2009, as part of the severe winter weather in Europe. A persistent pattern of cold northerly and easterly winds brought cold moist air to the United Kingdom with many snow showers, fronts and polar lows bringing snowy | Read More »
This week, several news stories converged on an odd topic: hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, has been used since the 1950s to stimulate oil and gas wells. The process involves pumping a sand-laden slurry into a well and subjecting it to enough pressure that the rocks in the productive formation fracture, or break. The purpose of the sand is to prop open the fracture, | Read More »
US climate bill on back burner – Upstream Online US Senator Byron Dorgan [D-ND] said today he did not think the Senate would pass climate change legislation this year, but instead would focus on separate energy legislation that would require more electricity supplies to be generated from renewable sources and expand offshore drilling into the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Sen. Dorgan: Drop Climate Bill, Energy | Read More »
Governor Sean Parnell has learned the lesson succinctly stated by my governor, Bobby Jindal: When you want less of an activity, tax it. When you want more of the activity, reduce taxes on it. In this instance, the tax in question is “Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share”, or ACES. It has been mischaracterized as a Windfall Profits Tax, but the effect is much the same. | Read More »
The Big Energy Lie goes something like this: The United States has only 2-3% of the world’s oil reserves, but consumes 25% of global production. Those words have been uttered by our Dear Leader as well as his Secretaries of Energy and Interior. The idea justifies “progressive” Administration policies ranging from “green jobs” to Cap and Trade to foreign affairs. And they are deliberately designed | Read More »
An article in the Oil and Gas Journal reveals the thinking processes of some of our leaders on Capitol Hill. And it’s not a pretty sight. Speaking at a forum on energy and climate policy co-sponsored by Newsweek magazine and the American Petroleum Institute, Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA), Chair of the Subcommittee on Energy and Environment, and co-author of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade Bill | Read More »
We often fall into the trap of acting on emotions, not facts. It certainly makes us feel good to feel like we’re doing something positive. But being a grownup requires discipline, common sense and thinking instead of feeling. Nowhere is this more apparent than in our approach to energy and environmental policy. One example: the “eat local” movement seems to be getting some traction among | Read More »
Natural gas currently satisfies nearly a quarter of the country’s total energy needs. Gas is clean-burning and has less environmental impact than either oil or coal. We have a secure and abundant supply in North America, the technology to drill and produce it efficiently, and a robust distribution network to deliver it to market. Natural gas drilling could generate new, good-paying jobs by the thousands, | Read More »
On Thursday, I wrote about the announcement of a new giant oil field discovered by BP in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s in 4,100 feet of water, and the well is over 35,000 feet deep. If it turns out to be as big as BP hopes it is, it might be BP’s biggest Gulf find and deliver half the output of Prudhoe Bay. Big field. | Read More »
On Tuesday, British Petroleum (a/k/a BP, or “Beyond Petroleum”) announced a large oil discovery at its Tiber Prospect in the Lower Tertiary trend, deepwater Gulf of Mexico. The new field could rank as BP’s top property in the Gulf. To put the engineering achievement in perspective, imagine what it takes to make a hole in the ground that is deeper than the height of Mount | Read More »
Back in May, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner penned a letter that lays out in glorious detail the misconceptions and wrong-headed thinking that pervade the Obama Administration’s approach to energy and the environment, taxation and to the economy in general. The letter was a response to one written by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA7) (a member of the Ways and Means Committee), expressing his concern for the | Read More »
So there’s this Canadian fellow named Steve McIntyre, who works with an organization called Climate Audit. Climate Audit’s interest is not in debunking Global Warming. Rather, they audit the data in an effort to make sure the conclusions derived are unassailable. To that end, Steve contacted the Climactic Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, the repository of the data that underlie the | Read More »
Noted energy expert, environmental Luddite and hypocrite Robert Kennedy, Jr., aims to stymie natural gas drilling in New York State by hyping unrealistic and irrational fears of environmental contamination. At issue is the method used to stimulate production in gas wells known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”. Truth be told, Kennedy and the greenies would find something objectionable in anything an energy company would propose. | Read More »
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