Category Archives: lies told by energy companies

SB 1821 Is Dangerous – Carbon dioxiode sequestration is wrong

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I know. Barack Obama, Dick Durbin and every other person on this planet is in favor of this Clean Coal technology. But how advanced is it to use a process created in the late 1800s in 2011. The easy answer is it ain’t. Please call your representative to protest.

http://www.riverbender.com/news/wbgz/rfullstory.cfm?newsfile=2011-03-20-20_FutureGen%20Pipeline%20Issues

FutureGen Pipeline Issues

WBGZ Radio | Mar 18, 2011

The pipeline that’s going to carry carbon dioxide from one place to another as part of the FutureGen clean-coal project is the subject of a bill which has passed a Senate committee.  The bill writes a process for Illinois to oversee the construction and operation of such a pipeline.

“This bill is patterned after what the Illinois Commerce Commission currently does with regard to petroleum pipelines, crude oil, water utility lines, and electric transmission lines,” said sponsoring State Sen. John Sullivan (D-Rushville). Opponents include farmers in Morgan County, where the pipeline would be built.  They say the property owners who do want it are the ones who don’t live there.  FutureGen would use a former Ameren plant in Meredosia to convert coal into carbon dioxide, which would be stored near Alexander.  SB 1821 has passed the Senate Executive Committee.

(Illinois Radio Network)

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More tomorrow.

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Cheap Energy Is The Problem – Until we change that more disasters await

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This is an excellent article on why we have had the disaster in Japan.

http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2011/03/17/how-much-are-you-willing-pay-nuke-free/

How Much Are You Willing to Pay to be Nuke-Free?

Posted by Robert Rapier on Thursday, March 17, 2011

A Plan to Phase Out “Dirty” Energy

After the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico, someone said to me “We have to stop all offshore drilling.” My response was that I could get behind that idea, but I wanted to know what sacrifices the person was willing to make. That turned out to be the end of the conversation, because usually the people campaigning against these sorts of things believe that the consequences will be all good (no more oil spills) with no real downside (like less energy available). I can tell you with absolute certainty that we can live with no offshore drilling, but I can also tell you that the price of your fuel would be greater — and probably far greater — than it is today.

Nuclear power plants fill a need — cheap energy — that consumers demand. Are you willing to give it up?

I believe that the reason we have so much “dirty” energy is that we demand cheap energy. I spoke to a reporter in Japan this week about the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, and he said he couldn’t help but notice that despite some rolling blackouts now, Japan remains very much a country with all of the lights on.

Root Cause: Consumers Demand Cheap, Abundant Energy

This gets right to the heart of why we have nuclear power: We demand cheap energy; energy so cheap that we can afford to leave all of the lights in the house on all day long. Both coal and nuclear-generated electricity are viewed as cheap relative to many other options — admittedly debatable given charges of government subsidies and the occasional environmental calamity — as well as reliable (again, environmental calamities notwithstanding).

My response to the reporter was that I love lobster, but I rarely eat it because it is so expensive. If they served $2 lobster at McDonalds, we would all consume much more lobster and of course the supply of lobsters would be under pressure. If we all demanded cheap lobster and got angry when our lobsters became more expensive, politicians would work to give us what we want lest they be voted out of office. We would see all sorts of lobster-related subsidies designed to bring us all cheap lobsters (which have to be paid through taxes and/or deficit spending). Consequences of our cheap lobster demands — higher deficits and possibly no more lobsters — would be pushed onto another generation.

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What he does not say is why we were sold cheap energy. That is sold on the idea instead of sustainability. It’s because resources are seen as free. Buy them, dig them up and sell them. More next week.

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Sane Energy Policy Eludes US – Cap and Trade Works

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It’s the coal boss. It’s the oil boss. It’s the natural gas boss. We have allowed industry to control this country for decades and now we reap the profits. Congratulations America.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/01/carbon-survey-idUSLDE7202I020110301

UPDATE 1-Carbon market puts brave face on headwinds

* Japanese, U.S. cap and trade schemes on hold

* Attendance down at flagship industry conference

* Global carbon price seen at about 30 euros in 2020

(Recasts, adds background, analyst quotes)

By Gerard Wynn and Ivana Sekularac

AMSTERDAM, March 1 (Reuters) – Carbon trading firms remain optimistic about a European market, after a 50 million euros cyberattack, but have given up hope on a U.S. cap and trade scheme, they told an industry conference on Tuesday.

Perhaps indicative of the problems facing carbon markets, attendance was well down on previous years at the Point Carbon conference, at nearly 800, compared with 1,700 in 2008.

The reputation of carbon markets has faced headwinds following the hacking in January of electronic emissions permits from a European scheme, the hub of global trade, as well as dimming expectations of a federal U.S. market.

In addition, hopes are fading that the world will agree on an extension after 2012 to the Kyoto Protocol, which sets binding emissions targets for industrialised nations and so drives demand for international carbon offsets.

“It did not impact trading volumes as much as it damaged credibility and that is the big problem,” said Stig Schjolset, a senior analyst at Point Carbon, of the thefts.

“But that problem can be solved.”

A European Union official said on Tuesday that its executive Commission was working on boosting security. [ID:nLDE7201RE]

The thefts were a jolt to the market which recently suffered a 5 billion euros ($6.91 billion) tax fraud, as well as a scandal involving the re-sale of used carbon credits and a phishing scam. [ID:nLDE70J1KT]

“It’s very, very clear that emissions trading has lost a bit of momentum,” said Ruben Benders, head of carbon markets at the trading firm Mabanaft.

Nevertheless, carbon market practioners felt the European scheme, which was launched in 2005, was still solid, said Point Carbon’s Endre Tvinnereim

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More tomorrow.

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Karl Rove – Cheney’s demon spawn on the darkside

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This is an excerpt of an article written the day after the fall elections. This is klassic Karl krowing.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/business_breaking/20101103_Rove_to_drillers__Expect_sensible_regulation.html

Posted on Wed, Nov. 3, 2010

Rove to drillers: ‘Expect sensible regulation’

By Andrew Maykuth

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

PITTSBURGH – Karl Rove, the Republican operative and former senior adviser to President George W. Bush, today told an appreciative Marcellus Shale natural gas conference that the sweeping Republican victory on Tuesday would put an end to most of the industry’s legislative threats.

Rove said a new Republican House of Representatives supportive of the energy industry “sure as heck” would not pass climate-change legislation that the outgoing Democratic Congress had been unable to pass.

“Climate is gone,” said Rove, the keynote speaker on the opening day of a two-day shale-gas conference sponsored by Hart Energy Publishing L.L.P. And Rove told the trade show, “I don’t think you need to worry” the new Congress will consider proposed legislation to put the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing under federal rather than state regulation. The procedure, known as “fracking,” is responsible for the dramatic growth of shale-gas drilling in formations such as Pennsylvania’s vast Marcellus Shale.

“I think we’re back to a period of sensible regulation,” said Rove, a commentator on Fox News and in the Wall Street Journal.

While Rove spoke, several hundred colorfully dressed anti-drilling activists protested outside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, but their drum beats could not be heard inside the conference as about 2,000 people dined on steak and potatoes, followed by Rove’s analysis of Tuesday’s election.

dot dot dot says he

This  man (Obama) can not try to pass a major piece of legislation without demonizing some group of people and making them a target,” said Rove, citing Obama’s targeting of the health insurance industry, Wall Street bankers and energy companies to advance his agenda.

more dots

Rove lavished praise on the gas-drillers, who he said were bringing prosperity to parts of Pennsylvania.

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For more Republican juvenile giggles and fart jokes please see the entire article because in a very short speech he manages to offend almost everyone. More tomorrow.

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This Is Probably A Huge Exaggeration – But

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But sometimes the Peak Oil people get all wound up and I want to put their stuff up in a timely fashion. So without further adieu (god I have always wanted to say that ) here it is:

http://phoenixrisingfromthegulf.wordpress.com/

The Gulf of Mexico is Dying

A Special Report on the BP Gulf Oil Spill

It is with deep regret that we publish this report.  We do not take this responsibility lightly, as the consequences of the following observations are of such great import and have such far-reaching ramifications for the entire planet.  Truly, the fate of the oceans of the world hangs in the balance, as does the future of humankind.

The Gulf of Mexico (GOM) does not exist in isolation and is, in fact, connected to the Seven Seas.  Hence, we publish these findings in order that the world community will come together to further contemplate this dire and demanding predicament.  We also do so with the hope that an appropriate global response will be formulated, and acted upon, for the sake of future generations.  It is the most basic responsibility for every civilization to leave their world in a better condition than that which they inherited from their forbears.

After conducting the Gulf Oil Spill Remediation Conference for over seven months, we can now disseminate the following information with the authority and confidence of those who have thoroughly investigated a crime scene.  There are many research articles, investigative reports and penetrating exposes archived at the following website.  Particularly those posted from August through November provide a unique body of evidence, many with compelling photo-documentaries, which portray the true state of affairs at the Macondo Prospect in the GOM.

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dot dot dot as they say
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As the diagrams clearly indicate, the geology around the well bore has been blown.  This occurred because of drilling contiguous to a salt dome(1), as well as because of the gas explosions which did much damage to the integrity of the well casing, cementing, well bore, well head, and foundation around the well head.  Eighty-seven straight days of gushing hydrocarbon effluent under great pressure only served to further undermine the entire well system.  Finally, when it was capped, putting the system back under pressure forced the upsurging hydrocarbons to find weaknesses throughout the greater system, which revealed all sorts of compromised, fractured and unsettled geology through which the hydrocarbons could travel all the way to the seafloor and into the GOM.

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This is a really long post and a really long blog space so I can not really do it justice. Please go there and read it all. Is it truth. I don’t know but there is a lot of destruction in the Gulf with or with out some kind of continuing seepage. More tomorrow.

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I Just Had An Unexpected Experience With An Astro Turf Group

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You won’t believe this, what with Google’s image as Mr. Clean and Green. BUT when you type in the simple phrase “household energy usage” into their search engine, the first hit you get is Energy Citizen. This is the astroturf  nonprofit front group sponsored by the Koch Brothers, Don Blankenship and Peabody Coal that wants the Federal Government out of the mining business. They want safety laws repealed and they detest global warming and Cap and Trade policies. Massey Energy is up for sale by the way so Blankenship may not be able to play with the big boys much longer…Ahhh poor baby.

http://energycitizens.org/jobs-red/default.aspx?utm_campaign=Q4_2010&utm_source=EyeTraffic&utm_medium=SEM&utm_content=ENERGY&utm_term=Domestic-Energy&gclid=CIWdkNbLt6UCFcms7QodoA00Gw

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Not only that but they land you write on the “To Join” page without even a chance to be repelled. How repelling is that?

Help Keep Our Recovery Going … Join Energy Citizens.

Businesses can thrive and create new jobs when energy is affordable and available. But when lawmakers hinder energy development, we all lose.

We need YOU to help Washington hear our message: American families and communities need sensible energy policies that power our economy and create jobs. Become part of our movement today — join Energy Citizens and let Congress hear your concerns about American energy and American jobs.

We need solutions that increase access to all reliable domestic energy: wind, solar, nuclear, and — yes — oil and natural gas. Our nation has ample energy reserves that can contribute to our economy for decades to come.

The tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico underscores the risks involved in energy development — and the need for improved safety. But this tragedy should not make us forget that our economy and way of life depend on affordable energy. We must not allow opponents to use the tragedy to stop domestic oil and natural gas development. Even with increased conservation, our nation’s energy needs are growing.

You can make a difference by joining our citizens’ movement for sensible energy policies. Help us win a national energy plan that creates jobs, promotes economic growth, and increases our security. Please join us TODAY — and tell Congress where you stand

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Instead of here, where at least you can reject the party line if you want to.

http://energycitizens.org/ec/advocacy/default.aspx

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Google should be ashamed of themselves. More tomorrow.

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The ANWR Is Nothing But One Giant Dry Hole

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Oil People are nothing but proven liars. There is always “oil down there” they tell investors. But only 10 or 20 of the holes they drill actually produce any oil, so is it any wonder that they are unprepared when they come in? Especially in the case of the Gulf Spew if they come in violently.

http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/7696-the-peak-oil-crisis-the-leading-edge.html

The Peak Oil Crisis: The Leading Edge

By Tom Whipple
Wednesday, November 03 2010 01:01:22 PM

Do you remember the furor over drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge a few years back? The whole country was up in arms. At various times some 50 to 60 percent of Americans favored drilling in the area as they were told this would result in lower gas prices.

Last week the USGS lowered its estimate of the amount of oil that could be extracted from the region all the way from 10 billion barrels down to less than one billion, making drilling in the area uneconomical. By the way, the amount of crude being pumped down the Alaskan pipeline now has fallen from 2 million barrels a day (b/d) when the pipeline first opened back in the 1970’s to about 600,000 b/d in recent weeks. The trouble is that when the flow of oil falls below a quantity estimated to be 200-300,000 b/d (some say 500,000) the line will have to be closed as there will simply not be enough hot oil being sent down the pipeline to keep it from freezing in winter.

Last week an organization in California, The Post Carbon Institute, released a new book, “The Post Carbon Reader,” which draws a much broader picture of the serious issues facing mankind. With 30 authors, each specializing in some aspect of the multiple troubles we face, the scope of the book touches on nearly every aspect of our civilization that is out of balance, unsustainable, and headed for a fall. The basic proposition of the book is that the world has reached the limits of growth in terms of its population, economic activity, and the ability of the atmosphere to absorb more carbon emissions. Either the world’s peoples must transform themselves into a sustainable number living in a sustainable manner or there will be many dire consequences right up to the possibility that the human race itself could become extinct. Clearly, this is serious stuff.

As long as a problem is perceived as being decades, or even a few years away, it is not a concern.

Some hold that our sustainability problem started when we first started planting crops and domesticating animals 10,000 years ago. This thesis says if we had stuck with hunting and gathering as a race we would have been able to sustain our act indefinitely, but then we would never have had enough surplus energy to learn reading & writing, and to build cities, the Internet and space ships. Our immediate problem, however, started in earnest with the industrial revolution about 200 years ago when we first started digging up prodigious quantities of coal and feeding it into steam engines. It wasn’t long before we struck oil and the rest is history. The world’s population went from an estimated 5 or 10 million when we first started farming, to a billion when we started serious coal digging, to about 7 billion today. We also got incredibly richer in terms of material goods and could sure get around much faster.

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More tomorrow.

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Drill Baby Drill – ANWR yields dry holes

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I said all along that the idea that there were huge new oil fields in Alaska was both dangerous and wrong. Dangerous, because if there was oil there, drilling could destroy the ecosphere. Wrong, because like the North Sea, the oil companies always claim there is “oil next door” and then drill dry holes. I have often thought they use this technique to drain capital from smaller investors.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/27/alaska.oil.reserves/index.html

Alaska’s untapped oil reserves estimate lowered by about 90 percent

By the CNN Wire Staff
October 27, 2010 1:35 a.m. EDT

(CNN) — The U.S. Geological Survey says a revised estimate for the amount of conventional, undiscovered oil in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska is a fraction of a previous estimate.

The group estimates about 896 million barrels of such oil are in the reserve, about 90 percent less than a 2002 estimate of 10.6 billion barrels.

The new estimate is mainly due to the incorporation of new data from recent exploration drilling revealing gas occurrence rather than oil in much of the area, the geological survey said.

“These new findings underscore the challenge of predicting whether oil or gas will be found in frontier areas,” USGS Director Dr. Marcia McNutt said in a statement. “It is important to re-evaluate the petroleum potential of an area as new data becomes available.”

The organization also estimates 8 trillion cubic feet less gas than a 2002 estimate of 61 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered, conventional, non-associated gas — meaning gas found in discrete accumulations with little to no crude oil in the reservoir.

“Recent activity in the NPRA, including 3-D seismic surveys, federal lease sales administered by the Bureau of Land Management and drilling of more than 30 exploration wells in the area provides geological information that is more indicative of gas than oil,” the geological survey said.

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Of course the nutcases still believe this and will until their dieing days.

http://www.pushhamburger.com/hidden.htm

Huge Alaska Oil Reserves Go Unused

After 30 years, an insider finally acknowledges the United States
has all the oil and gas it needs.

By Marie Gunther

The United States has more oil reserves than Saudi Arabia but this happy though shocking information has been covered up for years.

The wells have been drilled, it’s merely a matter of turning on the faucets to supply America’s needs for 200 years.

These astounding revelations have been confirmed by a 30-year veteran oil exe cutive with leukemia who has decided to speak out.

In 1980, Lindsey Williams wrote a book, The Energy Non-Crisis, based upon his eye witness accounts during the construction of the Trans-Alaska pipeline. As a chaplain assigned to executive status and the advisory board of Atlantic Richfield & Co. (ARCO), he was privy to detailed information.

“All of our energy problems could have been solved in the ’70s with the huge discovery of oil under Gull Island, Prudhoe Bay, Alaska,” Williams said. “There is more pure grade oil there than in all of Sau di Arabia. Gull Island contains as much oil and natural gas as Americans could use in 200 years.”

Oddly though, immediately after this massive discovery, the federal government ordered the rigs to be capped and oil production shut down.

Developing Alaskan oil would make the United States completely independent of oil imports, Williams said in his book.

Why is the government covering up such good news? Why does it want to be dependent on imported oil? Do international financiers who are heavily invested in the oil industry want to keep the supply limited and prices up?

Will the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, chaired by Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), investigate what could be a criminal cover-up? Will the appropriate House committees in quire? Or the Justice Department? Since the cover-up has extended through four presidential administrations, only public outrage can force action.

“Everything you hear on the evening news and out of Washington is garbage,” said Jim Lawler, an oil production manager with ARCO. “Eight wells have already been drilled in the areas environmentalists are claiming we must not go in. We have already been in and out. There was no damage done. All we need to do is start production.”

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More tomorrow

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Global Resource Depletion OR Recycling A Waste Of Time – Which is it

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shhh It’s Jam Band Friday – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hntXAO_Rq7c

OK so which is it, are we running out of stuff or not? Is 6 Billion people too many or not? Have we cut down way too may trees or not? I believe these answers are knowable. Are the Ocean’s fished out or not?  Is Global Warming happening? The issue seems to be Price. If Global Warming were happening then carbon would be expensive. But what if price isn’t the issue when capitalists and nations treat resources as if they were “free”.

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http://www.planetthoughts.org/?pg=pt/Whole&qid=3267

Blog item: Recycling? What A Waste.

By Jim Fedako

This fall, school kids across the country will again be taught a chief doctrine in the civic religion: recycle, not only because you fear the police but also because you love the planet. They come home well prepared to be the enforcers of the creed against parents who might inadvertently drop a foil ball into the glass bin or overlook a plastic wrapper in the aluminum bin.

Oh, I used to believe in recycling, and I still believe in the other two R’s: reducing and reusing. However, recycling is a waste of time, money, and ever-scarce resources. What John Tierney wrote in the New York Times nearly 10 years ago is still true: “Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America.”

Reducing and reusing make sense. With no investment in resources, I can place the plastic grocery bag in the bathroom garbage can and save a penny or so for some more-pressing need. Reducing and reusing are free market activities that are profitable investments of time and labor.

Any astute entrepreneur will see the benefit of conserving factors of production. Today, builders construct houses using less wood than similar houses built just 20 years ago. In addition, these houses are built sturdier; for the most part anyway.

The Green’s love for trees did not reduce the amount of wood used in construction; the reduction was simply a reaction to the increasing cost for wood products. Using less wood makes financial sense, and any entrepreneur worth his profit will change his recipe to conserve wood through better design or by substituting less dear materials for wood products.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pojL_35QlSI&feature=related

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http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-10-20/global-resource-depletion

Published Oct 20 2010 by The Oil Drum: Europe, Archived Oct 20 2010

Global resource depletion

by Ugo Bardi

André Diederen’s recent book on resource depletion

I have been thinking, sometimes, that I could reserve a shelf of my library for those books which have that elusive quality that I could call “modern wisdom”. Books that go beyond the buzz of the media news, the shallowness of politicians’ speech, the hyper-specialization of technical texts. That shelf would contain, first of all, “The Limits to Growth” by Meadows and others; then the books by Jared Diamond, James Lovelock, Konrad Lorenz, Richard Dawkins, Peter Ward and several others that have affected the way I see the world.

I think I’ll never set up such a shelf, I have too many books and too few shelves; many are packed full with three rows of books. But, if I ever were to put these books together, I think that the recent book by André Diederen “Global Resource Depletion” would make a nice addition to the lot.

The subject of resource depletion, of course, is well known to readers of “The Oil Drum”. So well known that it is difficult to think of a book that says something new. Diederen, indeed, succeeds in the task not so much in reason of the details on the availability of mineral commodities that he provides, but for the innovative way he describes our relation to the subject. In other words, Diederen’s book is not a boring list of data; it is a lively discussion on how to deal with the implications of these data. It is a book on the future and how we can prepare for it.

To give you some idea of the flavor of the book, just a quote:

(p. 43) “… it isn’t enough to have large absolute quantities (“the Earth’s crust is so big”) and to have all the technology in place. (p. 33) … we have plenty of water in the Mediterranean or Atlantic Ocean and we have ample proven technologies to desalinate and pipe the water to the desert, so, why isn’t the Sahara desert green yet?”

This is, of course, the crucial point of resource depletion: what counts is cost, not amounts (I plan to use this example in my next talk!). Diederen is an unconventional thinker and he goes deeply into matters that, in some circles would be thought to be unspeakable; for instance (p. 41)

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Price? Really. More next week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9mx1IVZzU&feature=related

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