Your Energy Future Under the Democrats

But the American public never pays attention to facts and logic. If it sounds good they buy it hook line and sinker. Always!

Being good stewards of the Earth and being energy independent are NOT mutually exclusive ideas!
If the information about these locations is accurate, we should be beholden to NOBODY for our oil supply...............

Gull Island (Alaska)
http://www.pushhamburger.com/hidden.htm
Bakken Oil Formation (N. Dakota, Montana)
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/bakken-oil-trade/658
Oil-Shale Region (Wyoming, Utah, Colorado)
http://www.dailyreckoning.com/rpt/OilShale.html

With some analysts predicting $200 barrel oil and $5 gallon gas....it is unacceptable that our elected officials are not tapping into vast domestic resources. This should begin immediately while we continue to research and develop alternative energy sources (e.g. wind, solar, bio, nuclear, etc)

One path being pursued to get more energy independence for liquid fuels used in transportation is cellulosic ethanol. If you listened to the President's State of the Union speech, you will remember that he emphasized this option.

Unlike the current ethanol program that uses food grade corn (i.e. the corn niblets), this uses the cellulosic (woody) parts of various plants.

Here is a link http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/105/2/464.pdf to a report on the advances in cellulosic ethanol which demonstrates 540% more renewable energy output than nonrenewable energy consumed from the processing of switchgrass.

Here is another link http://coskata.com/EthanolFeedstockPotential.asp to a process that is at the pilot plant stage designed to produce cellulosic ethanol at about $1.00 per gallon. The E85 vehicles to use it are available at your dealer today.

Ah, socialist norway. With their huge life expectancy, wonderful quality of life and healthcare for all. I think you are just jealous.

Besides cellulosic ethanol, all nations of the world should debunk the myth that 'coal harms the climate' and begin to use more coal. The US, for example, should reopen the Denver River Basin and start producing more coal in the Powder River Basin. This would give the US military (the #1 American fuel consumer), but also others, more coal to produce synthetic fuel. There are many other unexploited coal reserves around the world.

This is precisely the issue that Republican leaders should be using to demonstate the absolute moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Democrats, the MSM, and radical enviornmentalism. We are deliberately starving ourselves of energy, yet nobody is standng up and shouting "no more of this nonsense". We are decades away from oil independence yet sadly, the Republicans have bought into this absurdity that will cause economic upheavel for decades to come. Craven Republicans have abandoned principle for incumbency. We need new Republican leaders and term limits. The former will be coming much quicker than the latter.

My country (Poland) is currently dealing with a coal deficit: it's no less than 7 million tons of coal short this year; therefore, it's forced to import coal. The government has made a mistake by buying it from the Russians.

Successive governments have prematurely closed coal mines, and the current government has also refused to invest in colleries, but the incumbent government did spend 55 mn PLN on a conference about 'global warming'.

As a result, coal and electricity prices are growing.

America is lucky enough that she's enjoying a coal surplus of almost 17 million tons per year (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/special/feature.html). Nevertheless, the US should:
1) increase the quantity of the coal it produces;
2) import coal from Britain, France and Germany;
3) build synthetic fuel refineries.

The unskpoken issue, waiting for Obama or McCain to grab it, is the weak dollar. That is responsible for the doubling of oil and near doiubling of food, and a 50% rise in gold and other commodities, just since August, when the Fed cut rates below CPI to try to bail out the banks and brokerages. When the market loses faith in the value of the dollar, it flees to "real" things like commodities. It used to also flee to real estate, but with real estate falling and leverage crimped, it is all going to commodities, with the results plain to see. Say what you want about Clinton, at least he and Rubin maintained a strong dollar -- which drove gold to under $300 and oil to under $15. And for all the ranting about the oil companies, remember that most of the run-up in gas prices is from the increased cost of the oil feedstock. At $126/barrel, $3 of each gallon of gas is just the raw oil, before refining, marketing, transportation, retail markup, and taxes.

Developing our own oil will not make us independent, because the price of that oil will always be set by the market. What the 86 billion barrels (minimum!) of Outer Continental Shelf oil does represent, however, is an opportunity for the American people to get, assuming a stabilized price of around $75/barrel, $25/barrel in royalties and taxes. Over $2 trillion, which could be used to pay down debt, rebuild infastructure, or fund a transition to private social security accounts.

You can only coast so long on the momentum of previous generations. All these people talking about windmills and solar energy should get out a calculator and run the numbers. You'll see that if you covered the country with both, you'd still have a huge shortfall.

This article is right on the money. There is currently no "third way". Attempts to reduce CO2 emissions to avoid theoretical catastrophes one hundred years from now only exacerbate the problem. Dream your beuatiful dreams of greener pastures - we'll see how dreamy everyone is when GDP starts sliding backwards.

Then again, as we've seen with big city mayors, (D.C., Baltimore), and left-wing scientists, (Population Bomb), being on the left means never having to acknowledge you're wrong. When gas hits 8$/gal.they'll find some way to blaim it on GW.

Another interesting concept is algae as a biofuel.

http://earth2tech.com/2008/03/27/15-algae-startups-bringing-pond-scum-to-fuel-tanks/

From what I understand, it's easier to produce than ethanol, safer to transport, and a bit less taxing on the fields than corn. If this comes to fruition, all we need is any easy conversion kit to take our cars from gasoline to diesel, and we'll be set. However, it might be unpleasant for everyone with a car in the interim.

This would be a great issue for the Republicans if we didn't have a Republican candidate with a moronic energy policy that is geared to be fashionable not intelligent. We can't change the fact that McCain is a strong global warming advocate at a time when the science says cooling is more likely a problem. What a dumbass.

The democrats offer no strategy to provide energy NOW because they really don't want the problem to go away. As long as there is an energy "crisis" it feeds into their politics of blame and division ("big oil") and lets them offer feel-good "solutions" that are in reality completely unworkable -- and the circle is complete.

I don't understand why Republican legislators aren't shouting the facts about our energy situation on every talk show they appear on. We have turned our entire security over to the "Environmental Movement." Enough is enough...Republican legislators should be pummeling Democrats over these facts and this issue.

To Steve,

I cannot share the positive perspective in cellulosic ethanol. As an Extension Ag Economist in the Great Plains region, I along with other university professionals have examined cellulosic ethanol field production, transporation and procurement, and actual ethanol production processes. There are major technological inefficiencies to overcome before cellulosic ethanol can become economically competitive with either regular gasoline or grain based ethanol. Just the harvesting, handling, and transportation issues involved prior to getting this raw cellulosic product to the ethanol plant are extremely problematic and nearly insurmountable. Also, cellosic ethanol production at the plant using low moisture plant materials is markedly less efficient than grain based ethanol. The water required for the biological degradation processes for cellulosic plant materials will become a natural resource relate problem.

If we in the U.S. could grow sugar cane more readily such as Brazil does, or if we would focus our attention more on the use of municipal wastes as a co-product with other cellulosic plant sources, then the prospects for cellulosic ethanol success would be greater. And remember most importantly of all, that in our free market system the switchgrass spoken of in this article will have to economically compete with other viable crops such as wheat, corn, grain sorghum and soybeans - each of which has a higher value to weigh ratio than switchgrass. All this is not to say that cellulosic ethanol will never be economically viable, but rather that our enthusism needs to be tempered until it can be shown to be a viable choice.

Perhaps the reason is the reason that most Republicans do not hammer the issue is because they are not hearing enough complains from their constituents. EVERYONE needs to pick up their phone and demand that their rep does something to help new wells being drilled wherever our natural resources lay, more refineries built and new nuclear plants being built until alternative fuels are able to meet our energy needs and at the same time be cost effective.

Case in point: Arizona Clean Fuels have been trying to build a new refinery since 1998! http://www.arizonacleanfuels.com/

In addition write letters to the editor, post on local newspaper forums. Educate, inform, and act!

The squeaky wheel gets the oil. Time for us to be that wheel

So this is another case of "we can't get there from here"; never stopped the dems before. Must be that right brain/left brain thing.

Thanks for these wide ranging and intelligent comments. And thanks to American Thinker for revamping the website to allow us to have such a spirited conversation!

It is inexplicable why this "Energy Plan" is succeeding.

Oh! The Democrats part in this "energy plan" is clear; they live in a dream world where the government can do no wrong so long as they are in charge. They do not accept cause and effect, because any disastrous consequences can be deflected upon their enemies.

The Leftists never take any responsibility for their actions. They can "have their cake and eat it too." They never ask for "economic impact statements" for their legislation or agenda. A greener America can be had at zero costs to them. They do this by shifting all costs and responsibility onto the shoulders of their political enemies. They can even shift the blame for the ensuing bad economy on the Republicans. Or at least, try to.

It was the Democrats who created the world we live in now. It was they, through their environmental regulations, who locked up America's oil fields in Alaska and on the East and West coast. These are Oil fields capable of supplying all of America's energy needs for fifty years. They prevented any Nuclear Power Plants or new oil refineries from being built. They wasted billions of federal dollars on alternative energy programs which had no chance of producing a solution within this century. Their Icons, like Teddy Kennedy, can promote wind energy, but not in their backyard, because it spoils their view when they go sailing.

They are the friends of the tyrants who control America's foreign oil supply. They are a walking disaster area, yet they get away with it because the Mainstream Media relentlessly promotes their issues while never speaking of the consequences.

What is inexplicable is why the Republicans are also playing this game. Are the Republicans being weak? Are they as delusive as the Democrats? Could it be that they are waiting for "the chickens to come home to roost" for the Democrats?

Are the Republicans being sly and calculating, instead? I don't know. I don't think so, but let us look at the Cause and Effect relationships implicit in high oil prices

1. High oil prices will eventually place a market imperative on the oil companies to develop oil fields not held by America's enemies, such as off the Coast of Brazil. This field is reputed to be larger than in Saudi Arabia.

Many such oil fields will be discovered as happened after OPEC took prominence in the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Five years later, there was an oil glut. Russia and Sweden became the number two and three oil producers in the world after OPEC restricted supplies. Many new sources of oil, such as Canada's tar sands, would not be economically viable without today's high oil prices. Enormous problems must be overcome to make Canada or Brazil into a major oil producer, but those new sources will not be held by tyrants.

One thing to consider is the different between Oil Reserves and Oil Resources. Oil Resources equals the total amount of oil that can be recovered at any price. Oil Reserves is the sum of oil that can be recovered at today's price. A higher price always moves oil from Resources into Reserves. Improvements in technology does likewise. Resources is somewhere between twenty and thirty times higher than Reserves and always has been. The number has slowy grown over the years.

Oil experts have been projecting that we would run out of oil at some time, but Oil Reserves increases over time, so we always have more years before we run out. A higher price also promotes conservation, so that stretches out the supply too.

There are geologists who believe that the Earth is constantly creating a new oil supply, but that is not the norm, yet.

2. Politics is the art of the possible. If it is now impossible for the Republican's to counter the Mainstream Media's control of the news. If they can't persuade the voters that America is in serious danger from its enemies. If they can't overcome the propaganda in the nation's Educational Establishment or the Environmentalist's power in Washington, then the only alternative to give to the Democrats the power to effect change and see them fail to do it. That is, to force the public to see the Democrats fail to do it.

The Republicans must place all the responsibility on the shoulders of the Democrats. This means that the Republicans must lose both the Congress and the Presidency. Obama has all the characteristics of another President Carter. He is the result of fifty years of Political Correctness and minority favoritism.

But, this is a gutsy move. Is it too gutsy? Is the Republican leadership so long sighted that they will allow the Democrats to finally get the "Fruits of their labors?" Will they stop pulling the Democrat's "chickens out of the fire" every two administrations? Are the Republicans willing to trade four years of disastrous Democratic Party control to gain decades of Majority Party status afterwards?

That seems unlikely as a conscious plan. So, I don't expect it. It's just that acting stupid gets it own reward. Acting weak and cowardly plays into the hands of your enemies. And when your enemies are delusive and self destructive, acting weak is the right footing. As Reagan said, "When your enemy insists on shooting himself in the foot, let him."

But, it also works as fallback position.

3. What is necessary for this fallback position to work? The Democrats must be seen as in total control. They must be seen as the problem, not the solution. They must be seen as having unworkable programs.

Their propaganda systems in Hollywood, the Educational Establishment and the Mainstream Media must spend all their moral credit in defending the ensuing economic and military debacle, like how the Feminists destroyed their moral credibility by defending President Clinton's moral impropriety. The Feminists are now considered a joke.

This plan has a number of long term advantages for the Republicans. It provides them with issues which the Democrats can neither fight nor deny. The ensuing economic and military debacle will get the voters angry. It makes them anti-government which produces a new corp of small government Conservatives to rise to replace the current corrupt, time serving, go-along-to-get-along, rent-seeking Big Government Republicans in Washington. It produces feelings of crisis among the public, so that huge electoral gains are possible. It breaks the congressional gridlock. It would give the Republicans in excess of 60 Senators, so they would be filibuster proof. The number of Representatives in Congress would become high enough to survive the normal sixth year reversal of a two term presidency.

An Obama victory would encourage our enemies abroad to strike us repeatedly, so there will be a foreign policy disaster to match President Carter's. America's weakness would be provocative. America and its allies will be hit hard and often.

An Obama Presidency can not cope. Talk will not work. Americans will die, because the Democrats do not believe that we are at war with an implacable enemy, so that governmental efforts to prevent terrorism will slack off. We will be hit in America again. This time, it will be much harder than September 11, 2001. The collapsing of the World Trade Center Towers took Osama bin Laden by surprise. It was a hard act to follow.

Several foiled terrorist plans would have killed more people than 9/11. One plot was only a week away from kickoff time. Al Qaeda seems to be going for a bigger shock effect when hundreds of small attacks would be more demoralizing.

How likely is this scenario? I don't know. Could the Republican leadership be planning for this? I don't think so. But, I am also looking at the unintended consequences of Republican stupidity and arrogance.

Hence, I do not believe this is a conscious plan by the Republican leadership. It requires too much courage and fortitude. They would rather have a McCain Presidency, than a game changing scenario which devastates the Democrat Party. Why? Because that change would also run the corrupt Republicans out of office too. Weakness is, thus, the most likely explanation for the Republican leadership's behavior.

So, if Obama wins, great change is in the works. Just not the kind of change that Obama or any Democrat would want.

Nor would many Republicans. If the Democrat Party stops being a viable electoral force in American, then the Republican Party will split up in ten or so years. Small Government Conservatives and the Big Government Republicans will be at odds. The Conservative Party, representing the common voter, might take off, when now it has no chance. But, the Socialists and their programs must, first, be seen as no threat for that to happen.

Suie Piggy,
You and I and the rest of the western world are reeling from the price of gasoline. It is now $4 per gallon and is suppose to go up; up to what no one knows for sure but there is speculation that it will be approaching $9 per gallon this time next year. At $9 a gallon western civilization will no longer be as you and I know it. Capitalism runs on energy and the cheaper the energy the bigger the rewards. After WWII eastern Europe, Russia, China etc was short on energy and that resulted in economies that were in a stalled state for many years. Travel was non-existent, food was scarce and the governments were in total control. At $9 per gallon we could be in similar situation.

The problem is fourfold:
1. We are not making available the resources in the ground that we have. Estimates are that in the US there is about a 60 year supply of oil available if we were to drill for it. We are not because of government environmental regulations. Liberal pandering is the cause, like it or not it is that simple.
2. Deficient spending is devaluing the dollar. Basically we are owned by China, period. Cheap labor providing cheap goods and political gamesmanship have all but bankrupted us. Result we pay more for oil. Oil prices will continue to rise as oil markets start trading in Euros. Iran is trying it best to make this happen ASAP.
3. Because of the weakening dollar speculators are turning to oil commodities to make money and to protect the assets that they have. This causes panic and thus the price inflates beyond what would be a price driven by supply and demand.
4. Our government poured money into the interstate highway system and few if any dollars into our rail system. Result is that there is more personal travel; which is a good thing. The other result is that our rail system became a shambles. Trucking took over and the gallon of fuel needed per ton of goods moved skyrocketed. Trucks are great for the short haul, but long hauls are irresponsible. Too late to do anything about this on the short term. It would take billons and probably 10 to 15 years to play catch-up.

Notice I said nothing about we are using too much energy. Energy is what makes us great, free, and life enjoyable. It is a ruse put out by the environmental extremist that we need to conserve energy. This is the thinking that will put us back 150 years into the energy dark ages. Energy is needed for technology, for maintenance of our infrastructure, for business, for travel, and for the fun things of life. You can never have too much energy, nor can it ever be too cheap. In a perfect world energy would be endless and free.
Unfortunately we are in an energy crisis, because of poor planning we don't have enough to go around. The only thing for you and me to do is to cut back on our use of energy. That means colder homes in the winter time, hotter homes in the summertime, less personal travel, higher food prices (less to eat and lower quality), smaller homes, smaller cars, two or more families living in single family homes, patched clothing, less meat to eat, fewer luxuries, less technology, energy rationing, food rationing, and the list goes on; are you getting the picture by now? I was recently watching a home movie of my mom and she was telling us what it was like in the thirties for a young family during the depression; the picture is about the same. They lived on beans and fat-back as their staple food. I like beans, but twice a day, seven days a week?

What is the answer? I don't have one and unfortunately the people who are suppose to be taking care of these things don't have the answer either. Most of us have sat on our hands for years and let the extremist in our society highjack our political system and now we have politicians who won't do the right thing for fear of not being re-elected. One thing you can count of for sure, when times get really bad for you and me, our politicians will be just like the politicians in Russia, China, and the other block countries after WWII; they will be living "high on the hog."

I can't believe some of you people think republicans and democrats and the MSM are not all one and the same coruption, and all part of the same problem. If you side with rebub vs demo or vice versa you are a dupe. America needs to get back to the constitution and principles she was founded upon.