“Renewable
sources (except hydropower) continue to offer more potential than actual energy
production, although fuel ethanol has become a significant factor in
transportation fuel. Wind power has also grown rapidly, although it still
contributes only a small share of total electricity generation.” (Carl E.
Behrens and Carol Glover)
The
reality is simple: renewable energy is not sufficient to power the largest
economy any time soon. I am yet to drive a wind or solar powered car. Electric
cars, if they do not “brick” themselves (the engine dies and must be factory
rebuilt for $40,000), do not go very far between charges. Hybrids do not get
the mileage per gallon claimed and their batteries are toxic to the environment.
The
pie-in-the-sky wind energy can be expensive. Windmills are noisy, people nearby
complain of headaches and insomnia from the constant hum, propellers kill thousands
of birds, particularly endangered species, and nobody wants wind farms in their
own back yards.
The
maligned fossil fuels are the engine of our economy. Gasoline provides
transportation and electricity generation. Natural gas provides home heating,
industry and electricity generation. Cars, vans, trucks, and buses can be
retrofitted to run on natural gas. Coal generates electricity exclusively and
so do nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.
Since
1950, crude oil provides 40 percent of U.S. energy. In spite of political fear
mongering, we are not running out of oil as we were told since the 70s. We have
discovered new reserves in deep-sea waters, Mexico, oil sands in Canada, and
heavy oil in Venezuela.
Different
sectors of the economy consume different types of fossil fuels. Many products
that hypocritical liberals use abundantly are made from petroleum, yet they
support green energy.
Diesel
fuel is used in many transportation sectors. Railroads utilize diesel and
diesel-electric power. Marine transportation, large commercial trucks, and some
cars use diesel. Most of the food brought to the American table is ferried by
eighteen-wheelers. Aviation uses 99 percent jet fuel. Some airlines are advertising
the use of bio-fuels. (U.S. Energy: Overview and Key Statistics)
The
Keystone pipeline was nixed by this administration, bent on increasing the
price of oil, making energy skyrocket, and bankrupting the coal industry. The
Arab Winter turmoil interfered with Libya’s oil production. We freed Iraq but
it is selling oil to China. President Obama is cutting back on domestic oil
production with every opportunity by imposing a moratorium on domestic drilling
in the Gulf and using EPA’s regulations to prevent new oil leases on federal
lands and sometimes on private lands.
According
to Joe Miller, “Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic,
resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. The seven endangered islands in
the Arctic Ocean and Bearing Sea include one large island the size of Rhode
Island and Delaware combined.” The Russians are going to get Wrangel, Bennett,
Jeannette, Henrietta, Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock, and Sea Otter Rock and
“tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich sea beds surrounding the
islands.” Estimates by The Department of Interior include billions of barrels
of oil.” (World Net Daily)
The
Joint Ocean Commission Initiative recommended that the United States give its
oceans to the regulatory power of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty
(LOST) which would control oceans, connected waterways, and any oceanic
economic activity including passage, fishing, mining, and exploration of fossil
fuels.
“Obama’s
plan is still in draft form. It calls for an executive order to be issued for a
National Ocean Policy that will determine how the ecosystem is managed while
giving the federal government more regulatory authority over any businesses
that utilize the ocean.” The executive order will draw on Obama’s 2010 Interagency
Ocean Policy Taskforce and Executive Order 13547 of July 2010, “Stewardship of
the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes.” (Aaron Klein, World Net Daily)
Sierra
Club is blocking the natural gas liquefaction facility of Virginia-based
Dominion Resources Inc. at Cove Point, Maryland because it would “change the
footprint” of this “natural heritage area.” Dominion wants to export by 2017 750
million cubic feet of gas per day from the Marcellus Shale to Asia. (Ben
Wolfgang, The Washington Times)
Sierra
Club argues that Dominion’s hydraulic fracturing (fracking) would pollute the
Chesapeake Bay and cause irreversible environmental damage to many adjacent
areas. The air and drinking water would be poisoned by the process of injecting
water, sand, and harmful chemicals to crack deep underground rocks that would
release the natural gas.
“Supporting
Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas
Resources,” President Obama’s Executive Order passed on April 13, 2012, aims to
control the natural gas market that delivered 25 percent of our energy in 2011.
Environmentalists cannot let cheap natural gas interfere with their stated plans
to de-develop the United States as punishment for 235 years of ecological
imperialism and social injustice.
Many
solar energy storage companies, alternative energy companies, and solar panel
manufacturing companies that were backed by the Obama administration and
heavily subsidized by the Department of Energy have sought bankruptcy
protection. Several government subsidized German manufacturers of solar panels
have also gone bankrupt.
According
to Christopher Bedford, China stopped expansion of its wind and solar energy production,
concentrating on nuclear, hydroelectric, and fracking. China has 14 nuclear
power plants and 25 under construction. U.S. has 104 nuclear power plants,
built prior to 1974, with two new ones scheduled to operate in Georgia in
2016-2017. Unlike China, who is the largest producer of hydroelectric power in
the world, we do not build hydroelectric power sources, we blow up dams in order
to comply with the EPA Endangered Species Act.
Daniel
Kish explained that China is making cheaper solar panels and windmills in order
to sell them to western countries that impose renewable energy and clean energy
standards on their citizens.
“It
is getting tougher and tougher for the Obama administration to argue that
somehow we’re in this big race for green power worldwide when the rest of the
world seems to have decided that the race isn’t worth winning.” (Daniel Kish,
Institute for Energy Research, Daily Caller)
In
the meantime, we are experiencing unnecessary high prices at the pump when we
could be energy independent, if our administration cared more for the U.S.
economy and its citizens and less for the United Nations dictates, treaties,
and laws.
It
is true, there are other variables that affect the price of oil, such as
exchange rates (oil is priced in dollars, a very weak currency right now), OPEC
policies, a changing commodities market, inelastic demand for oil products (consumers
must buy gasoline whether they like the price or not), and federal taxes on
gasoline (18.4 cents per gallon).
The
main impediment to our energy independence is the federal government’s policies
of green energy, wind, solar, renewables, and out-of-control regulatory
agencies such as the EPA and federal bureaucracies like the Department of
Energy.
The
EPA will use any tactics, including “crucifixion of Big Oil,” to enforce
draconian rules and to bring coal, oil and gas companies into submission, in
order to fulfill Obama’s “dream of a green planet” devoid of polluting humans.
Americans will pay dearly for his dreams.
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