Archive for the ‘Oil Industry’ Category
Thursday, August 6th, 2020
The Dirty Secrets Of ‘Clean’ Electric Vehicles
I analyze energy economics and related public policy issues
The widespread view that fossil fuels are “dirty” and renewables such as wind and solar energy and electric vehicles are “clean” has become a fixture of mainstream media and policy assumptions across the political spectrum in developed countries, perhaps with the exception of the Trump-led US administration. Indeed the ultimate question we are led to believe is how quickly can enlightened Western governments, led by an alleged scientific consensus, “decarbonize” with clean energy in a race to save the world from impending climate catastrophe. The ‘net zero by 2050’ mantra, calling for carbon emissions to be completely mitigated within three decades, is now the clarion call by governments and intergovernmental agencies around the developed world, ranging from several EU member states and the UK, to the International Energy Agency and the International Monetary Fund.
Mining out of sight, out of mind
Let’s start with Elon Musk’s Tesla. In an astonishing achievement for a company that has now posted four consecutive quarters of profits, Tesla is now the world’s most valuable automotive company. Demand for EVs is set to soar, as government policies subsidize the purchase of EVs to replace the internal combustion engine of gasoline and diesel-driven cars and as owning a “clean” and “green” car becomes a moral testament to many a virtue-signaling customer.
Yet, if one looks under the hood of “clean energy” battery-driven EVs, the dirt found would surprise most. The most important component in the EV is the lithium-ion rechargeable battery which relies on critical mineral commodities such as cobalt, graphite, lithium, and manganese. Tracing the source of these minerals, in what is called “full-cycle economics”, it becomes apparent that EVs create a trail of dirt from the mining and processing of minerals upstream.
A recent United Nations report warns that the raw materials used in electric car batteries are highly concentrated in a small number of countries where environmental and labour regulations are weak or non-existent. Thus, battery production for EVs is driving a boom in small-scale or “artisanal” cobalt production in the Democratic Republic of Congo which supplies two thirds of global output of the mineral. These artisanal mines, which account for up to a quarter of the country’s production, have been found to be dangerous and employ child labour.
(more…)
Posted in Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Government Regulation, Industry, Oil Industry, Regulations, Technology | No Comments »
Monday, February 25th, 2019
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The Green New Deal’s Impossible Electric Grid
Renewable energy can’t consistently balance power supply with demand.
The San Gorgonio Pass wind farm in Palm Springs, Calif., Jan. 6. PHOTO: RUARIDH STEWART/ZUMA PRESS
The Democrats’ Green New Deal calls for a fully renewable electric power grid. Regardless of the economic or political challenges of bringing this about, it is likely technologically impossible.
An electric power grid involves second-by-second balancing between generated supply and consumer demand. In the case of a sudden imbalance—such as from the loss of a generator’s output—all the remaining generators on the grid instantaneously pool together. Each one pitches in a small part of the required power to make up for the lost generator fast enough to keep supply and demand balanced.
This doesn’t work for wind and solar because you can’t spontaneously increase wind or sunshine. Hydro power is limited and unevenly distributed around the country. And for safety reasons, nuclear power—even if the Green New Dealers accepted it—can’t be cranked up to neutralize imbalances. Nor can consumer demand be suddenly reduced enough.
Fossil-fuel turbines, by contrast, very naturally compensate for sudden supply outages. The inertia of the spinning mass of rotors provides the extra energy needed to compensate for the loss for the first few seconds. (Wind-rotor inertia is too short-lived.) Meanwhile the generators’ on-line reserve capacity kicks in, giving a rapid boost in power output to prevent the turbines from slowing down. That substitute power, called “governor response,” lasts as long as 15 minutes. During that time a single replacement generator ramps up to compensate entirely for the loss. All the turbines on the grid are thereby restored to their original speed, and the governor response is rearmed for the next disturbance.
An all-renewables grid would require prohibitively expensive battery storage to compensate for sudden power losses. Even with batteries, the lost power would have to be fed through “inverters”—a technology that converts variable-wind-speed alternating current, solar-power direct current, and battery-power direct-current into alternating current—to allow for synthetic inertia and governor response in the case of a disruption.
Opinion: The Green New Deal Gets a Senate Vote
Posted in Agenda 2030, Big Government, Congress, Democrats, Economy, Energy, Environmental Issues, Global Warming, Government Regulation, Industry, Liberalism, National Defense, Oil Industry, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Regulations, Technology, Women Candidates | No Comments »
Sunday, December 2nd, 2018
AMERICAN THINKER
December 1, 2018
Palin Was Right: ‘Drill, Baby, Drill!’
Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor’s Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
Like the rooster that takes credit for the sunrise, President Barack “You Didn’t Build That” Obama woke up the other day and decided to take credit for another thing he had nothing to do with. The president who said that companies like Solyndra were the hallmark of a future in which workers drove Chevy Volts, predicted that manufacturing jobs of the past could not be brought back, not only took credit for an economy he didn’t build, but also for the energy boom he opposed which is fueling it.
Back in 2012, geologist Barack Obama, poster child for the “peak oil” crowd, told us that calling for increased production as Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin did. by increased drilling – “drill, baby, drill,” she called it — was not a plan, but rather “a bumper sticker.” Obama assured us, “You know, we can’t just drill our way to lower gas prices,”
Well we have, just as those manufacturing jobs that weren’t coming back have come back. So now Obama would have us forget what he said about the fuels of the past, as he massaged his ego one more time:
Former President Barack Obama on Tuesday took credit for booming U.S. oil and gas production, telling investors to “say thank you” to him.
Obama spoke in Houston at an event hosted by Rice University’s Baker Institute, where he praised his administration’s commitment to the Paris climate agreement before taking credit for the United States being the biggest producer of oil and gas during his administration.
“I was extraordinarily proud of the Paris accords because — you know, I know we’re in oil country and we need American energy, and by the way, American energy production,” Obama said.
“You wouldn’t always know it, but it went up every year I was president. That whole, suddenly America’s like the biggest oil producer and the biggest gas — that was me, people.”
Sorry, Barack, but the man who blocked the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines doesn’t get to take credit for the oil that soon will be running through both. Nor is the president who opposed two technologies developed by private industry, fracking and horizontal drilling, get to take credit for the abundance They have produced,
Obama tried to kill off fracking with a rule designed to burden the oil industry with excessive reporting requirements which would allow the EPA to delay and derail new exploration and drilling. It was designed to kill fracking, a key part of America’s energy resurgence, based on unfounded environmentalist fears, namely that fracking poisons drinking water, accelerates climate change, and causes earthquakes. As Investor’s Business Daily commented on the Obama fracking rule enacted in 2015:
(more…)
Posted in American History, Democrats, Energy, Environmental Issues, Environmental Protection Agency-, Foreign Policy, Fracking, Liberalism, Middle East, National Defense, Obama, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Oil Industry, Progressive Movement, Sarah Palin, Technology, U.S. Presidents | No Comments »
Saturday, November 10th, 2018
Trevor Loudon speaks of the Far Left in our government and how they work with the Marxists and the Islamists. He names influential members of congress and those running for congressional seats in last weeks election. Absolutely frightening. Please share with your email lists. Nancy
Trevor Loudon America Under Siege
Posted in Acorn, American History, Antifa, Big Government, Bill Ayers, Border Security, CAIR, Clinton, Cloward-Piven, Community Organizers, Congress, Corruption/Crime, Deep State, Democracy, Democrats, Demographics, Department of Education, Dept of Defense, Diversity, Donald Trump, Education, Election 2016, Election 2018, Electoral College, FBI, Florida, Global Warming, Globalists, Globalization, GOP, Healthcare, Hillary Clinton, History, Illegal Immigration, Indoctrination of students, Intelligence, Islamic Refugee Migration, Jihad, Justice Department, La Raza, Legal Issues, Liberalism, Linda Sansour, Marxism, Media, Minority Candidates, Mitt Romney, Muslim Brotherhood, National Defense, Obama, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Oil Industry, One World Government, Open Borders, Planned Parenthood, Political Correctness, Political Corruption, Politics, Populism, President Ronald Reagan, Progressive Movement, Racism, Radical Islam, Radical Left, Republican Governors, Sanctuary Cities, Saul Alinsky, Social Justice, Socialism, Southern Poverty Law Center, Sovereignty, Tea Party, Transparency, UN Agenda 2030, Unions, Videos, Vietnam | No Comments »
Monday, July 10th, 2017
Thanks to Charlie Hendrix of Ohio for sharing this excellent article. Nancy
July 9, 2017
Trump Grinds the G20, the Bureaucratic Underground, and CNN into Hamburger
This was a week of startling contrasts. The President reasserted (against a decades-long leftist attack on it) the significant achievements of Western civilization and the need to vigorously defend it. His speech prefaced the G20 meeting in Hamburg, where leftists rioted, burned, and looted while the G20 leaders ponced about and wined and dined in style, apparently oblivious to the havoc which their open border policies and multiculturalist mindset had birthed. As Trump worked successfully on trade and defense issues in Europe, his administration was quietly plugging security leaks and maladministration in our own bureaucratic underground.
A. Poland
Western Europe has been blinded by ideological nonsense. On the one hand it has worked assiduously to separate religion and politics. On the other hand, it has welcomed in hordes of Islamists. In contrast, to quote Zoltan Balog, Hungary’s Minister for Human Resources “in the case of Islam it is religion that determines politics.”
Eastern Europe, in particular Poland, was the right place to defend Western culture and values. And Trump did so brilliantly to the great delight of the thousands who flocked to hear him.
(more…)
Posted in A Force for Good in the World, Border Security, Caliphate, Conservatism, Democracy, Dept of Defense, Donald Trump, Energy, EU ( European Union), Europe, Foreign Policy, Fracking, France, Globalists, Globalization, Islamic Refugee Migration, Jihad, Legal Immigration, Liberalism, Migration - Islamic, Military, Missle Defense, Multiculturalism, National Defense, Nuclear Energy/Weapons, Oil Industry, Open Borders, Progressive Movement, Radical Islam, Radical Left, Russia, Socialism, Sovereignty, Terrorism, U.S. Presidents | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 14th, 2017
Posted in Agenda 21, Agriculture, American History, Anti-Capitalists, Big Government, Cloward-Piven, Democracy, Economy, Elitism, Energy, Environmental Issues, Environmental Protection Agency-, Europe, Financial Meltdown, Free Trade, Global Warming, Globalists, Globalization, Government Regulation, Government Waste and Fraud, Indoctrination of students, Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), Liberalism, Marxism, National Defense, Obama, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Oil Industry, One World Government, Open Borders, Political Cartoons, Political Corruption, Progressive Movement, Radical Left, Redistribution of Wealth, Regulations, Saul Alinsky, Social Justice, Socialism, Tyranny, Videos | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 7th, 2017
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
The News You Didn’t Hear
Reporters only want to talk about Russia, instead of what Team Trump is getting done.
June 2, 2017
Here is what Americans this week were told counted as “news”: Jared Kushner’s past meetings. Russians. James Comey’s upcoming testimony. Russians. Hillary Clinton’s latest conspiracy theories. Russians. Bob Mueller’s as-yet-nonexistent investigation (into Russians). Kathy Griffin, Mr. Met and, of course, “covfefe.” Total words printed on these subjects? At least a duodecillion.
Here’s what actually happened this week, the “news” that holds real consequences for real Americans:
• Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke signed an order to begin reopening Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve to oil and gas exploration, reversing the Obama administration’s ideologically driven 2013 shutdown. The order even aims at opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to production—a move that is decades overdue. This could not only buck up the listless Alaskan economy but cement the U.S. as an oil and gas powerhouse.
• In related news, the Dakota Access Pipeline finally went live.
• The Fish and Wildlife Service took steps that may stop the Obama administration’s last-minute endangered-species listing for the Texas Hornshell, a freshwater mussel. That listing, based on outdated science, threatens significant harm to the Texas economy and was done over the protest of state officials and local industry.
(more…)
Posted in Dept of Defense, Donald Trump, Economy, Energy, Free Trade, GOP, Legal Issues, Missle Defense, Nuclear Energy/Weapons, Obamacare, Oil Industry, Russia, Technology | No Comments »
Wednesday, June 7th, 2017
May 23, 2017
Forget What You Hear: Our Narcissist President Is Winning
I first became aware of Donald Trump in the late seventies. I was not impressed. In fact, I didn’t like him. I thought he was a braggart and a man who went out of his way to disrespect women. I wouldn’t have said so at the time, but he was clearly a narcissist.
Growing up in an Italian neighborhood in the Bronx, I have been around men like him all my life. They’re going to do this; they’re going to do that. They have this; they have that. I took him to be a person so full of himself that his company would be unbearable.
I didn’t give him much hope of winning the presidency, either, but as election day neared, friends would ask what I thought a Trump presidency would look like. Forced at that point to think about it, I would say that as a businessman, at least he would make quality appointments to the power positions in his administration – you can’t run a successful business without being able to delegate authority to a strong team of employees.
As far as Trump’s narcissism, I’m not sure that hurts him as a president. Sure, he could show better discretion with what he says – he does seem to have an almost Plaxico Burress-type dedication to shooting himself in the foot (see L’Affaire Comey). Yet I think you need to have a certain amount of narcissism to be a successful president, although it doesn’t guarantee success.
Just look at our second-most recent president, a solipsist so narcissistic he actually thought his mere presence would slow the rise of the oceans and heal the planet. Barry took narcissism to a new level, seemingly believing himself some kind of god, a belief fed by the nearly total hagiographic coverage he received from the Fourth Estate, our once nationally treasured free press, reduced to sycophantic (more like “sycofanatic”) exaltation of the “light bearer,” the man with the “crease.”
The difference between Barry’s narcissism and Trump’s is this: Trump is the guy who looks at the most beautiful girl at the party and says, “I can get her number.” Barry would look at the same girl and say, “She wants me.” Trump would then pursue the girl, and Barry would walk away, because obviously, she is not good enough for him, and besides, someone told him there’s a mirror in the next room.
(more…)
Posted in Asia, Big Business, Big Government, Border Security, China, Congress, Democrats, Donald Trump, Election 2016, Energy, Environmental Issues, Environmental Protection Agency-, Foreign Policy, GOP, Government Regulation, Illegal Immigration, Judges, Liberalism, Middle East, Obama, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Obamacare, Oil Industry, Open Borders, Regulations, Resistance, Saudi Arabia, Sovereignty, Supreme Court, Taxation, Taxes | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 27th, 2016
What I learned about Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson after spending a week on jury duty with him
What I learned about Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson after spending a week on jury duty with him
Nine years ago, I showed up to the Denton County Courthouse for jury duty and got myself picked for the job. A young girl had accused her mom’s boyfriend of sexual assault, and the case was being brought to trial.
If you’ve ever served on a jury trial before, you understand the almost immediate yet very temporary bond that ties 12 strangers together who are randomly chosen from each of their private lives to fulfill a solemn public purpose.
One of our first tasks was to choose our jury foreman. Perhaps it was his business suit, his impressive stature, or his charisma, but almost everyone in that jury room suggested that this middle-aged man with graying hair was likely the most fit for the task.
Thanks, but I decline. I’m not interested in the spotlight, he told us. I didn’t think anything of it.
Posted in Donald Trump, Election 2016, Foreign Policy, Industry, Oil Industry, Trump Cabinet Members | No Comments »
Thursday, October 20th, 2016
What it’s like to be a college professor who supports Donald Trump
On campus, it’s led to hostility or silence.
By Daniel Bonevac October 12
Daniel Bonevac, author of six books and editor of four others, is professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.
Posted in Donald Trump, Economy, Education, Election 2016, Foreign Policy, GOP, Hillary Clinton, Military, National Defense, Obama, Obama Administraiton and Policy, Obamacare, Oil Industry, One World Government, Open Borders, Political Correctness, Taxation, Taxes, U.S. Presidents, Uncategorized | No Comments »