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Townhall...
Welcome to the Third
World
By Paul Driessen
As Britain suffered through its coldest December in a century, families
were forced to choose between keeping homes warm and feeding their
children nourishing meals – thanks to climate policies that have forced
extensive reliance on wind power and deliberately driven energy prices
skyward.
Barely two months later, the UK’s power grid CEO informed the country
that its days of reliable electricity are numbered. Families, schools,
offices, shops, hospitals and factories will just have to “get used to”
consuming electricity “when it’s available,” not necessarily when they
want it or need it. A new “smart grid” will be used to allocate
decreasing electricity supplies, on a rolling basis or according to
bureaucratic determinations as to which consumers most need available
power – mostly from wind turbines that provided a pitiful 0.04% of
Britain’s electricity during its coldest days last December.
Meanwhile, the EU’s Energy Commissioner warned that German electricity
prices are already at “the upper edge” of what society can accept and
businesses can tolerate. Taxes, levies and regulations imposed in the
name of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming are
forcing companies to relocate to other countries and causing “a gradual
process of de-industrialization” across Germany.
Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a full and
independent investigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, its practices and suspect science. The IPCC no longer has
integrity or credibility, he said, and some of its researchers “have
shown themselves to be fraudsters.”
To all of which, the autocratic European Commission essentially said
“Drop dead.” The EU, it decreed, will spend $375 billion (€270 billion)
annually to slash CO2 emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by
2030, and 80% by 2050.
Welcome to the Third World, Europeans, where costly electricity is
available only from time to time, at unexpected hours, depending on
bureaucratic whims and how much power wind turbines and other
“environment-friendly” generators can muster.
Is the USA next in line? The United States is reaping imaginary
bounties from its $814-billion “stimulus” spending orgy. It hemorrhaged
$223 billion in red ink during February alone – on its way to a
projected 2011 deficit of $1.5 trillion, the Congressional Budget
Office reports.
Over 13.7 million Americans remain unemployed; another 8.3 million are
involuntarily employed only part-time; black unemployment stands at
15.3 percent; and gasoline prices have hit $4 per gallon, foretelling
more rough waters ahead for the still fragile US economy.
America depends on abundant, reliable, affordable energy – 85% of it
hydrocarbons. Coal generates half of all US electricity, and up to 90%
in its manufacturing heartland – versus 1% from wind and solar.
Newfound natural gas supplies promise a sea change in US energy
supplies and electricity generation. However, oil still powers
transportation, shipping and petrochemicals – and in 2010 the United
States exported $337 billion to import 61% of this precious liquid fuel.
Thankfully, the Obama Administration, environmentalists and (mostly
Democratic) politicians take this situation very seriously, and are
doing something about it … according to their parallel universe.
Democrats are willing to trim up to $5 billion from the $3.8 trillion
2011 federal budget (0.15%), while Republicans insist that $57 billion
(1.5%) should be “slashed.” As to reducing the deficit by increasing
revenues, most of that discussion still centers on raising taxes on
whatever “rich” people are still out there. On the energy front, things
are truly disconnected from reality.
Unlocking America’s still abundant hydrocarbon resources and unleashing
our innovative, hard-driving free enterprise system would generate
hundreds of billions of dollars in leasing, royalty and tax revenues
for federal, state and local governments. It would put millions back to
work … help stanch the flow of red ink … keep tens of billions of crude
oil spending and investment in America … and create enormous new
wealth, instead of redistributing a dwindling pool of old wealth.
We must drill safely, use fuel more efficiently in vehicles and power
plants, and get more from every underground reservoir. And we could do
so, if government would allow it.
Just consider the incredible revolution that the genius of American
capitalists has presented the world: hydraulic fracturing or “fracking”
to tap previously inaccessible oil and gas deposits. This technology
has turned “depletion” and “sustainability” claims upside down. It has
already doubled US natural gas reserves and given North America over a
century of recoverable gas, at current consumption rates.
It is also unlocking oil wealth in the vast Bakken shale formation of
Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan. Oil production there has
already soared from 3,000 barrels a day five years ago to over 225,000
today. The US Energy Information Administration says it could reach
350,000 barrels a day by 2035; industry sources say it could top a
million barrels by 2020. Related oilfield employment has soared from
5,000 to over 18,000 in the same five-year period, and could eventually
reach 100,000 jobs. At $100 a barrel, even 350,000 barrels a day could
mean $1.6 billion in annual royalties, from Bakken oil alone.
The new Made in America technology is already changing energy, economic
and political landscapes in Europe, and will soon do so across the
globe. It is a technologically possible and economically affordable
solution that generates bountiful jobs and revenues – as opposed to
pixie dust solutions that require perpetual subsidies and address
speculative problems. Offshore and ANWR drilling could do likewise.
Unfortunately, the White House, Environmental Protection Agency,
Interior Department, and too many in Congress, courts and state
legislatures are determined to restrict and obstruct this hydrocarbon
revolution. They want to select business winners and losers, force
America to convert to expensive, subsidized, unreliable, land-intensive
wind, solar and ethanol power – and tell people how much energy they
can have, and when.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is using groundless claims about
possible groundwater contamination to delay fracking operations.
Because Congress rejected cap-tax-and-trade, she has rewritten the
Clean Air Act to label plant-fertilizing carbon dioxide a “pollutant”
and restrict CO2 emissions from power plants, refineries and other
facilities. That will further increase energy costs for families and
businesses, forcing more companies to lay more people off or close
their doors – even as China and India build new coal-fired power plants
every week, sending global CO2 levels higher and higher.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has shut down leasing and drilling in
the Gulf of Mexico, put tens of thousands out of work, ignored court
orders to end his moratorium, and issued decrees that make millions of
additional onshore and offshore acres off limits to drilling. He has
blocked exploration in ANWR because its oil riches won’t make us energy
independent (as though even massive wind, solar, ethanol and electric
car programs would do so).
President Obama wants oil, gas, coal and electricity prices to
“skyrocket,” to make “green” energy appear more attractive. Energy
Secretary Steven Chu wants to “boost the price of gasoline to levels in
Europe” – over $8 per gallon! Most of all, these anti-hydrocarbon
politicians want a self-sustaining
political-environmentalist-industrial-public sector union complex based
on government subsidies to favored industries and companies, in
exchange for campaign contributions that will keep them in power.
This palpable, intolerable insanity must end. It’s time to tell
Congress we need real energy for real jobs, real revenues and a
revitalized America. And we need it now.
Read it at Townhall
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