No they weren't. They may have built new natural gas plants, but they still use the coal burning plants. You wouldn't take a coal plant and burn natural gas in it, doesn't work that way.
Posted on 07/04/2008 10:26:56 AM PDT by kellynla
You would think that this story is right out of science fiction. But the facts appear to be that the US Democrat-controlled Congress intends to destroy the Republican middle class with $11 per gallon gasoline.
The Democrats’ base -- wealthy white “limousine liberals”, and very poor people -- won’t be harmed, but the families who live in suburbia will be devastated.
The multi-millionaires like billionaire Senators John Kerry & Jay Rockefeller, financial speculator George Soros, filmmaker Michael Moore, and actors George Clooney & Meg Ryan can easily pay for their auto and private jet fuel. Poor people are forced to take public transit.
Here’s the reasoning behind the move.
The so-called “Global Oil Crisis” is an invention of the US liberal ruling class, which has successfully managed to export their disastrous ideas worldwide. Oil supply and demand has been on knife-edge balance for years. With the growth of the newly well off Chinese and Indian car-consuming populations, oil consumption has been rapidly increasing in the developing world even as it has been dropping in the US. No wonder India and China, with nearly half the world’s population, refused to sign on to the Kyoto “global warming” treaty.
Cheap energy -- and specifically oil -- is what made America the powerhouse of the 20th century. When gasoline was $1 a gallon in the US, it was $2-3 a gallon in high-tax Europe. Low US excise taxes enabled the country to grow and our vast middle class to prosper. Even today, the American consumer is paying $4-$5 per gallon of gasoline while his European counterpart is paying $10-12.
To meet this new energy shortfall, economists would assume that the rational market would increase the supply of oil and other oil-substitute energy supplies. But they would be wrong.
First, US the anti-nuclear lobby got the nuclear power industry banned from building new safe and clean fifth-generation power plants, abandoning the field to countries like France, which runs its super-fast trains on nuclear plants scattered throughout the country. In fact, fully 90% of France’s electricity comes from 59 non-polluting “carbon neutral” nuclear; they also recycle 99% of the spent fuel into new fuel using a breeder reactor at the La Hague chemical complex. We don’t do this either.
Next, the eco-greens got the drilling for new known American oil reserves in the barren wasteland of the Alaska ANWR’s near-coast sites, and along the east and west-coasts of the continental US, and in the Gulf of America. Now China & Venezuela are set to start drilling off the coast of Cuba - but not Exxon or Chevron. They’re forbidden by law.
Then, the construction of new modern and efficient US-based refineries has been halted for 40 years. So there is a perennial shortage of heating fuel in the winter and gasoline in the summer. One hurricane can take out 5% of the nation’s refining capacity for months. A 5% shortfall can now easily cause a $25 price increase.
Meanwhile, the nation’s electricity generators, primarily fuelled by coal-burning plants, were forced to convert to natural-gas, previously mostly used in industry, agriculture and home heating. This has, in turn, driven the price of natural gas through the roof, from $3 per thousand cubic feet to over $11.
Finally, the hundreds of older existing oil fields and pumping derricks were closed and not allowed to re-open due to “environmental concerns”. California alone has scores of older fields just waiting to be re-opened to increase the US oil supply. And these could be re-opened in a matter of months, not years.
But wait, there’s more.
To make matters worse, Congress then mandated using a toxic and polluting chemical -- ethanol -- inefficiently converted from corn, to help alleviate the oil shortage. Corn farmers promptly sold their commodity to the highest bidder, the ethanol refiners. The price of corn-based foods, like cornflakes - and sugar, chicken, milk, eggs and beef has now shot up.
In the process, a minor supply-demand problem has been artificially legislated into a full-blown crisis. The stock market’s response has been predictable: down, down, down.
The liberal solution, of course, is for Congress to raise taxes, increase the fuel excise tax, and force industry to adapt wacky “carbon credit” schemes to line the pockets of the rich liberals who are capitalizing on the global warming scare by selling newly-invented credits, like Al Gore’s new company is doing. Wrong. This will stress the mostly-Republican middle class even more.
So what is the solution? What’s right for America is wrong for the limousine liberals. It’s simple, really. Unleash the supply-side forces of economics.
Open up domestic oil drilling immediately. Turn back on the older wells now capped off. Fast-track new safe nuclear power plants. Stop creating global food shortages by killing off corn-based Ethanol production. Waive the punitive duty on cheap Brazilian sugar cane ethanol. Plant lots of domestic switchgrass for cleaner & cheaper ethanol manufacture. Begin a crash construction program of 50 new advanced nuclear power plants nationwide. Stop burning up natural gas to generate electricity. Build new clean coal-burning electric power plants nationwide (China is turning one per week for the next 5 years), and construct coal-to-oil conversion plants. The Germans were doing this in WWII. Alternative-energy sources like cheap 4th-generation solar panels will ramp up as their prices continue to fall.
In other words, return to the old policy of cheap domestic energy that has made America the powerhouse (pun intended) that it once was. The US will become oil-independent of our enemies whose treasuries are now overflowing with a flood of newly-printed dollars we’ve been using to pay our oil bills with, and the dollar regain its strength as the world’s reserve currency.
And the irony? All of this can be done now with results beginning in 90 days, and using new super-clean super-efficient and environmentally-friendly technology. The result: oil will drop down to well below $100 per barrel and the economy will once again boom. If France and China and Brazil can do it, why can’t America? Why not indeed?
Oil sells for $145 per barrel mostly because of artificially-created supply-side shortages. A small part of its price is also determined by speculators and uncertainty over a future cut-off of oil from the middle east that a war with Iran could cause. Assuming that Iran’s nuclear bomb program is destroyed by Israel this fall -- with or without America’s help - look for oil to spike up to $250-300. And 40 years of congressional bumbling will be the cause.
ping
To the Democrats, and their fellow-travellers (limousine liberals, eco-fascists, America-haters, etc.) high oil prices are not a problem — they are part of the solution.
—bflr—
BUMP!
The SWHTF before that. With crude at $300 fuel in most of Europe will be around $30 - $35 a gallon. In other words too much.
The cost of fuel to move goods around will be so far out of sync with the rest of the business cycles that everything will just stop moving. No food delivery, no medical supplies, the fuel itself, etc. When that starts to happen, the liberals/socialists/communists will demand emergency procedures and the enviro-whacks will be dumped by the commies around the world.
Then drilling, pumping, uncapping and new exploration will get kicked into high gear.
Agreed.
Higher the cost, the more people will demand to drill at home and the quicker the better.
Crazy huh?
Americans drilling for American oil to sell to Americans.
It... just might work!
I will not mind paying more at all now if the final result is some sensible energy policys.
I’m afraid that the only fix to all of this will be:
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Ropes + trees + Congress + lift up in air by necks = drill here ... drill now.
Pitchforks + torches + Congress + drag out into the streets = drill here ... drill now.
The time is near....
We can start drilling even get the oil on the market in a reasonable time...but to think that it would be sold strictly to Americans is not what’s going to happen. It will go to just about everyone but us. You see...we have to “share”.
BTTT
Public transportation will increase if gas is $11 a gallon, so poor people will still be affected. Not as much though.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
“but to think that it would be sold strictly to Americans is not what’s going to happen. It will go to just about everyone but us. You see...we have to “share”.”
we’ve covered that issue ad nauseum on FR for years...
if you purchased oil from AK, where would you ship the oil to be refined? WA or China?
next...
ping
Probably China. Heavens to Betsy that it should be refined by Americans!!!
The time is near...
I'm beginning to hear a rising chorus of like-minded people.
bump
So what is the solution? What’s right for America is the public execution of each and every limousine lib and eco-nazi. Then we we can get on about our business as a free and prosperous people.
I think he means MTBE. Ethanol is not toxic or polluting.
Liberals have always berated the US for cheap energy. For years, they have wanted us to have "European level" prices for gas and diesel, for what reason, I don't know. I had a liberal friend of mine state that (this is back in the 80's) "Gas is $4.50/gal. in Europe, why not here." I told him, "This isn't Europe, thank God."
High oil prices are not only a "solution" to liberals, they're a "wet dream"....
Ever had a wino breathe in your face?
Cheers!
No they weren't. They may have built new natural gas plants, but they still use the coal burning plants. You wouldn't take a coal plant and burn natural gas in it, doesn't work that way.
Not lately. Ever had a glass of water with MTBE in it?
Cheers!
Not lately. Ever had a glass of water with MTBE in it?
Well, there's your toxic pollution on ethanol, it does kill brain cells and lead to gross neurological effects over time.
As far as your question on MTBE goes...
Probably below the detection limits, I'm guessing you can find pretty much anything in anything at the 0.01 - 0.1 PPB concentration and below.
Cheers!
If you're getting that from the ethanol added to your gasoline, you have bigger issues to worry about.
A lot of the whining the greens do is from potential problems with various materials if there is a spill, or chronic effects of long-term exposure.
And ethanol is hazardous in those terms; but culturally, we're so used to it (except for MADD) that it "doesn't count".
BTW, 'MTBE' != 'ethanol'.
Cheers!
Is that an oil stain on your trousers, or are you just happy to see the latest gas prices?
Unless you are meaning = as an oxygenator, not quite.
What is methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE)?
Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE) is a flammable liquid with a distinctive, disagreeable odor. It is made from blending chemicals such as isobutylene and methanol, and has been used since the 1980s as an additive for unleaded gasolines to achieve more efficient burning.
No, MTBE = methyl tertiary butyl ether.
In long-term studies, MTBE caused lymphoma, as well as liver, testicular and kidney tumors in rats that inhaled or ingested it.
I’ve wondered what the tipping point to start The Next American Revolution will be.
Gas prices ya think?
OT :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2040765/posts
Mite get a spike soon if this one takes the southern
track...
!= denotes "not equal to"
Cheers!
Happy 232nd to you all.
Wow! Who knew that sugar was "corn-based"...LOL!
Here is how much corn (dollar amount) is in each of the products that he mentions:
Gallon of milk: $.13
LB. of hamburger: $.72
Pork chop: $.31
Liter of soda: $.035
Box of cereal: $.15
Eggs (dozen): $.28
So, as you can see, if the price of corn has increased 30% in the past year, that would account for around a dime in the example of the eggs; and around a nickel for a gallon of milk.
If food costs have gone up more than that (and they have), you are pointing at the wrong villain.
In that scenario that will only come after nationalization of the oilcos.
It is meant to be used by the People.
Wisely, they have seen that we will need to take advantage of it in the not too distant future.
I don’t think there will be any such “tipping point” in this population and any armed revolution in a large modern population will end as the USSR in America. 1776’s outcome was possible because the authority cast off was remote and the the colonies were not an urban culture.
I don’t know how it is where you live but in Southern Cali the price of eggs has DOUBLED in the last year.
Milk is up but I don’t know how much...of course we all know that milk is subsidized...so who knows how much the true cost of milk is? LOL
I don’t buy corn flakes or other cereals but I do know that beef has gone up dramatically recently. It just doesn’t make sense to burn a food product to make fuel, especially when it takes more fuel to make ethanol than it produces! DUHHHH!
Bottom line, we just need to DRILL HERE and DRILL NOW
so we’re not funding our enemies every time we fill up!
Happy 4th!
Here too. That was my point....it's the price of oil that is involved in every step of the process from production to packaging to distribution that has caused this. Not the price of corn.
Oh, and ethanol does not take more energy to produce that it yields.
“ethanol does not take more energy to produce that it yields.”
Ethanol Takes More Energy
Than It Gives
“ethanol from corn requires 29% more fossil fuel energy than the fuel produced;
ethanol from switchgrass requires 45% more fossil energy than the fuel produced; and
ethanol from wood biomass requires 57% more fossil energy than the fuel produced.”
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3319ethanol.html
And “Pimentel and Patzek did not include in their calculations the cost of the Federal and state subsidies that are handed out to the large corporate biomass-energy producers. Pimentel, it should be noted, supports the use of biomass (wood) for home heating, just not for producing liquid fuel.”
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3319ethanol.html
That will be the very thing that will not happen. The demand from the world population is the Petrochemical companies have a free hand in producing. Any way, any time and anyhow they choose.
Class warfare is the favorite tool of the Marxist. Unfortunately, there are many Republicans and conservatives who have not invested their money wisely and are now regretting not doing so. Too many will sell their principles and call for government intervention in the economy instead of having faith in the market thus making the problem worse and giving our political enemies support.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/addicted-to-bad-data
Read the entire article...it eventually tells you who these two kooks are. Incidentally, Patzek’s own colleagues at Berkeley released a study debunking him a few years ago. And, Pimentel, in a very recent speech, admitted that ethanol was a net energy gainer.
Gas prices ya think?
I think the next American Revolution will be tied to high food prices, which will occur partly because of high gas prices. The price of food is higher every time I go to the grocery store. If you can't afford to drive to work and if you can't afford to buy food - somthing's going to have to give.
Sounds more like a Marxist revolution.
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