Archive for Key Issue: Energy Independence

Some Thoughts, Facts, and a Proposed Common Goal for Non-Extremist Environmentalists and Conservative Americans

Written on May 8th, 2014 by Randy Harod Add / See Member Comments (0)

(Name redacted)

  • Randy-
  • I’d like to take back the country from the oil barons, if that’s what you meant.
  • Fracking is a fine way to extract this oil.  All the oil barons need to do is explain how they continuously check for ground water pollution, how they reduce the release of methane, and what happens to all the to the contaminated product that remains.  In terms of the last item we haven’t figured out what to do with nuclear waste but you’d think contaminated water and other material would be easier.

Thank you for your points above that are succinctly presented.  My article that you responded to showed how there is no financial reason to continue to have $3.50+ a gallon gas, versus the $0.86 a gallon we had in my town before 9/11/2001; especially since we have found the US has more oil than the rest of the world put together.  My comments  did not address the millions of new US jobs and trillions in new revenues to the states and federal government to revive our economy with new US oil production, or your safety concerns.

It is important to look at the impact of not doing things as well as doing them.  Allow me to respectfully respond to some of your comments and fill in some of the blanks.  Hopefully you are not so dug into your feelings or any political party sound bites that some facts will fall on covered ears.

First, you have ignored the significant human impact since 2001 of new higher gas prices imposed on our poor and Middle Class .  The increased costs means they have to divert $250 a month more per car from their budgets just to buy gas.  That is horribly significant to over half the country and is equivalent to a $1.56 an hour pay cut for full time workers.  In addition, fuel costs and subsidized ethanol have doubled the price of food and raised the cost of all other things in the stores about 15% due to higher trucking costs.  You and I and many adamant environmentalists may be comfortable, but most of the country, including the additional 10 million out of work are suffering greatly.  And this is before addressing sending $450 billion a year overseas for oil to terrorist supporters that helps fund destroying us like they have sworn to do.

Second, it is a popular fallacy in some social circles to claim we do not know what to do with waste from nuclear energy plants.  Meanwhile, France converted 75% of their electricity supply to nuclear power plants; which represents 39% of their total energy usage for all purposes.  http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Country-Profiles/Countries-A-F/France/ .  They have no problems disposing of their waste according to the World Nuclear Association, and they figure disposal into their electricity costs, which are the lowest in Europe.  http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Nuclear-Wastes/Radioactive-Waste-Management/  It is time to revisit why there have been no nuclear energy power plants built in the US since 1974, while France built 59 and operates them safely—just as the 100  pre-1975 plants in the US do, but can’t get permits to modernize.  Why are we going backwards for 40 years?  Three Mile Island was a near miss nuclear accident in which no one died, or suffered radiation complications.

Americans would be well served to dig deeper into why Yucca Mountain has been delayed for years to appease environmentalist extremists and some politicians; including identifying who benefits financially from having fewer nuclear power plants.  The studies show Yucca would be a safe waste disposal, and this is explained by the Nuclear Energy Institute.  http://www.nei.org/Issues-Policy/Nuclear-Waste-Management/Disposal . This delay violates the law passed by Congress  in 1988 and it was illegally put on hold indefinitely by President Obama in 2010; who is also closing coal plants that produce 60% of our electricity, delaying the pipeline from Canada, and spent $billions on failed solar and wind power “alternatives”.  Thousands of new Federal regulations since the 1980’s that no one voted on have essentially shut down any new power plants or oil refineries in the US.  The net result is an energy vacuum that is producing much higher fuel and electricity costs—just as President Obama stated in 2008 that his policies “would necessarily result in skyrocketing electricity prices”.  Isn’t it time to re-look at just what this accomplishes for Americans in the short and long run, and if this change is critically necessary, and not just a harmful ideology or undisclosed agenda?

Now back to increasing or decreasing US oil production.

A wise person once said “follow the money.”  The US oil and coal industries have been well established for over 75 years.  Voters have stopped politicians from raising taxes on gas and coal for years, so this is a blocked source of new “revenue” for our government.  Nor is there a lot of new stock being offered that investors can make new billions on.  However, so called “new energy alternatives” solve these “problems” for the government, big  investors, and politicians who would get new lobbying money and fund raising benefits.  Ethanol was pushed as a major reduction in the need for oil, with taxpayers subsidizing $0.45 a gallon.  It has proven to be worse for the environment than oil, wasteful of our water supplies, and destroying the food market by tripling the price of and removing 37% of the corn crop from animal feeds and human consumption.  But some chemical companies are making billions with new GMO corn, as are early investors in ethanol production who want it to continue.  But wait!  Worse yet, there is a little known new boondoggle enacted by Congress during Bush’s time in office and recently blessed by Obama’s EPA to replace ethanol with government subsidized mandated GHG corn crops to burn in cars as bio-fuel.  Read this written by a Liberal American.   http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/01/ethanol-subsidies-not-gone-just-hidden-little-better

Solar and wind power offered billions in new taxes and behind the scenes deals.  Unfortunately for the investors and US taxpayers, they are not scientifically or commercially ready for prime time, have as many minuses as positives, and primarily only serve as “reasons” to try to justify more delays in expansion of proven energy resources for an unproven claimed betterment of our environment. Not only have solar bankruptcies like Solyndra wasted billions in our taxes, but even most minor successes have been exported for manufacturing in China due to costs and US business taxes.  The amount of land and dollar investment required just for delivering electricity from a wind farm system is staggering.  Plus solar energy is still tied to dangerous production of mercury batteries, and wind farms result in wide spread destruction of birds.  So where is the government push to develop clean hydrogen power with the resolve we used to land on the moon?  FYI, here are some pro and con facts on” fracking” from Popular Mechanics. Knowledge is power.   http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/coal-oil-gas/top-10-myths-about-natural-gas-drilling-6386593#slide-1

Taxes are money too.  It would be unwise to ignore the renewed clamoring for new “carbon taxes” by some of our US politicians and the United Nations.  Their key assumption is that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels contributes to their global warming models and should be taxed to force its reduction by developed countries and the taxes distributed by the UN to underdeveloped countries.  Hence also supporting the call for Americans having a lower lifestyle until new alternative energy sources are perfected, or from paying more for energy as fossil fuels are made unavailable by our government’s fiats.  But the key idea here is “selling” a new tax through guilt placed on Americans who have refused more new taxes and are voting politicians out of office for raising taxes anyway.  So governments and environmental zealots have spent $billions’ that’s with a “B”, in research  grants and news marketing trying to make the average person believe their claims.  Unfortunately for them, their gloom and doom timelines have passed without their foretasted  calamities occurring.  Despite screams that “Global warming is proven and a settled science.”, actual facts have proven them wrong and most scientists in fact do not agree with it, and many who do, still live off grants trying to prove it–and the UN’s IPCC is a political, not a scientific organization as it claims.  “Global Warming” is simply an unproven and flawed mathematical model to support their claims and call for a world-wide carbon tax with a percentage paid to the UN.  Even the scientist who invented the model now says it is wrong.   Before that fact angers you, or either side starts repeating their “accepted” sound bites, everyone would do well to read some facts presented here: http://www.globalresearch.ca/copenhagen-and-global-warming-ten-facts-and-ten-myths-on-climate-change/16467  Next, pause just a moment and remember that humans exhale carbon dioxide and plants depend on it to survive.  What a “brilliant” new thing to tax because it can never go away, and despite proof that plant life is thriving more world-wide due to the slight increase in carbon dioxide from the Industrial Revolution. It is amazing egotism to assume that man has the power to change the entire earth’s environment like we are gods, or that cutting back in America will stop developing countries from polluting as fast as they can grow their economy and build more fossil fuel plants— Nov 19, 2012 – India is planning 455 new (coal) plants compared to 363 (more) in China—versus 600 total now in the US.   Finally, the “gloom and doomers” ignore that new coal burning is clean and safe today, and cows produce more methane than industry.

So, no more new oil production, shut down more existing US coal plants, prohibit new nuclear power plants and oil refineries with no proven alternatives, and complete the destruction of economic success and growth in America.  Saying we must use solar or wind or bio-fuels  before we can economically do so, is like saying we must mandate to stop growing all meat to satisfy PETA demands and save humans from themselves.  Personally, I don’t want to build a memorial on the side of the road to commemorate 600 turkeys that died in a truck crash in Utah,  have $5+ a gallon gas ($50+ if there is a Mid-East conflict), or triple electricity rates to satisfy a loud minority of idealists that are sure they know better than anyone who dares to disagree with them.  I don’t like Christian or Atheist religious zealots, or environmental or political zealots who support winning and imposing their ideals at all costs. The ends do not justify any means.  I am weary of having my retirement and everything I worked for and my grandchildren’s futures destroyed by already failed Socialist and Environmentalist ideals– and politicians needing more taxes to buy more votes to stay in power and get even richer.  If it works, it is ridiculous to break it in the hope the vacuum will create something better, or per an old siege proverb, don’t throw out the old water before you have the new.

 Please give me substantiated hard facts, not “feelings”, to prove my comments and research is wrong, or help take back America in 2014-2016 from the media propaganda outlets, crony capitalists, self-serving minority causes, and crooked politicians currently installed in Congress.  Will you choose to support more truth and prosperity in America, or to join those who insist we should be punished for being more free, successful, and happier than they are?