Obama to Get Harsh on Energy in Second Term

Despite Obama's claims to have increased oil & gas production in the US, in reality he had nothing to do with it. But Obama is poised to begin shutting energy production down. And he knows exactly how to do it: through regulation and executive order.

Obama is expected to tighten rules and regulations governing energy exploration, actions that may add billions in costs for oil and gas companies.

ClearView Energy Partners analysts, in Washington, expect the president to “continue prosecuting energy policy through regulation and administrative action, with only the courts as a check on that agenda,” according to a note sent to clients last week.

Tougher restrictions are expected for companies drilling on federal lands as well as more rules governing water management and methane emissions. Any new rules related to hydraulic fracturing may drive up costs for active drillers including Chesapeake Energy Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp. _Reuters_via_GWPF

Campaigns are one thing, but fulfilling promises to your big money campaign backers and get-out-the-vote enforcers is something else again. You gotta dance with them that brung you.

...Obama is deemed by opponents to have waged a “war on coal” over the past four years, particularly through stricter Environmental Protection Agency regulation. Hal Quinn, president of the National Mining Association, criticized Obama for not living up to a 2008 promise to develop clean coal technology. “Current administration policies virtually preclude the construction of new, cleaner coal-based plants that are the necessary platform for the technology the president advocated,” Quinn said. “These same policies have skewed the market against coal.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce pointed to estimates of up to 33 gigawatts of coal-fired electricity generation due to be retired – about 3 percent of total U.S. power capacity. While tougher regulation has played a part, cheap natural gas as an alternative power source is also driving that change. _Reuters_via_GWPF

For the first time in Obama's short political life, he does not have to campaign for election or re-election to anything. That leaves a lot of time for golf, vacations, and lavish parties. And it gives the activist bureaucrats in his administration a free hand to do their worst. And that is what they have been waiting for.

More: Taxpayer funded EPA witch-hunts do not promote prosperity

Fiscal Breakeven: Why War Is Inevitable

Many people are confused between the concept of oil production costs and the concept of fiscal breakeven, for countries that rely on oil production to finance their government budgets. The graphic below looks at fiscal breakeven for a number of oil states belonging to OPEC.

Real Clear Energy

This is how much each nation must charge for a barrel of oil to support its government budget. For Russia -- not a member of OPEC -- estimates for fiscal breakeven vary between $125 and $150 per barrel.

The price of oil is currently around $85 per barrel, which means that all the countries to the right of Saudi Arabia are losing ground. This is where Hulbert sees the a pending instability. He writes:

"A key outcome of the Arab uprisings has been a significant increase in the prices needed by the producers to manage their fiscal position. This is a serious indictment of the producers' failure to diversify their economies away from a dependence on oil revenues over the past 20 years.

“If the oil price goes much lower, three scenarios could ensue sequentially: a price war forcing prices even lower, a period of internal repression as revenues fail to buy compliance among populations, and internal unrest among producers, which could lead to supply disruptions followed by prices bouncing back." _RCE

Contrast fiscal breakeven levels as pictured above, with upstream production costs for various regions: Costs for Producing Crude Oil and Natural Gas, 2007–2009
2009 Dollars per Barrel of Oil Equivalent¹

	Lifting Costs	Finding Costs	Total Upstream Costs
United States – Average	$12.18	$21.58	$33.76
On-shore	$12.73	$18.65	$31.38
Off-shore	$10.09	$41.51	$51.60
All Other Countries – Average	$9.95	$15.13	$25.08
Canada	$12.69	$12.07	$24.76
Africa	$10.31	$35.01	$45.32
Middle East	$9.89	$6.99	$16.88
Central & South America	$6.21	$20.43	$26.64

_USEIA
Keep in mind that for the US, Canada, most of Europe, etc. the concept of fiscal breakeven does not apply, since these nations do not depend upon oil sales to finance their governments. The concept of upstream production costs, of course, still applies.

The reason that war is inevitable, is that nations such as Iran, Venezuela, and perhaps Russia, are losing money at current oil prices. And yet, oil production is set to increase from North America to Iraq to Brazil to the far East.

Russia is struggling to produce as much oil as it can, using an infrastructure that should have been replaced over 20 years ago. Red Queen Russia is faced with the need to lure more competent international oil companies into the country to upgrade badly deteriorated oil & gas infrastructure. But Russia has a bad reputation of stealing foreign investment outright -- without apology. Getting insurance to do business in Russia can be difficult, for that reason, and due to rampant organised crime, violence, and extortion.

Is there any wonder why Russia is egging on Iran to build nuclear weapons, or supporting Syria's bloody suppression of a popular uprising? Russia thrives on the geopolitical risk premium built into the price of oil -- between $15 and $30 per barrel in some markets. Russia seeks to push that risk premium even higher, to avoid being forced to curtail its ambitious military and nuclear upgrades.

The same dynamic is at work in the thinking of the dictatorships of Iran, Venezuela, and other oil tyrannies. These despots may understand that wars often grow out of control and consume those who sought to gain from them. But some of them may see no other way out of their fiscal trap.

For Europe, North America, Oceania, and East Asia, the lesson is clear: Develop your own energy resources. Conventional and unconventional oil & gas, coal, nuclear, bitumens, kerogens, gas hydrates, biomass, geothermal . . . . Everything must be on the table -- except for the intermittent unreliables which are more destructive than constructive.

It is time for the more advanced nations to decouple themselves from the incredibly unstable OPEC / Russian oil & gas producers -- as much as possible. That is the only way to prevent the inevitable war from spreading out of control.

Sad Energy Tales of Denmark, Spain, Germany, & California

Renewables are barely halfway to the goal of getting 40 percent of [Germany's] electricity from renewable energy by 2020. (The current 25 percent figure is highly dubious since not much of the old stuff has been shut down and new coal plants are actually being added to keep the lights on.) Germany already pays the second highest electrical rates in Europe, almost twice what France pays with its 70 percent nuclear. (Just who’s #1 we’ll get to in a moment.) German industries are already complaining they won’t be able to compete anymore in the world market.

Spain paved the way to its current financial meltdown by deciding to become the “solar capital of the world” in the middle of the last decade. The government subsidized a huge homegrown industry, with whole new towns springing up around new manufacturing plants. The whole enterprise lasted about five years until high electrical rates started driving industries to France and the government ran out of money. The subsidies disappeared and the entire industry collapsed, leaving ghost towns in its wake. By the time it was over, Spain was on the critical list of Europe’s ailing economies.

Denmark has littered the landscape with windmills so that it is hard to go anywhere in the countryside without being in sight of a 40-story whirling tower. The country claims that wind to provide 20 percent of its electricity but this is deceptive. Wind generates a 20 percent equivalent of Denmark’s electrical needs, but only about half of this is actually consumed in Denmark. The rest is dumped into Sweden and Germany at giveaway prices, leaving wind’s actual grid contribution at only 5 to 10 percent. All this is made possible only because neighboring Sweden has lots of hydroelectric power available for immediate backup when the wind dies. Norway also has lots of pumped storage to handle Denmark’s surpluses. The result of all this is that Denmark is the only county with electrical rates higher than Germany.

Our own domestic version of Germany and Spain is California. The Golden State created the California Electrical Crisis of 2000 by refusing to build anything medium-sized small industrial co-generation plants and pitifully small renewable projects from 1980 to 2000. Since then it has stampeded into natural gas, so that 45 percent of its in-state generation now comes from this one source, double the national average. Californians pay twice as much for electricity as surrounding states and Governor Jerry Brown is now wrestling with an annual budget deficit of $30 billion and a total state debt of $1/2 trillion. Spain, with a 25 percent more population, has an annual deficit of $46 billion and a total debt of $1 trillion. _William Tucker in Nuclear Town Hall

Green idiocy is the bane of Europe and California, not to mention Obama's Washington DC. Green government policies have a way of destroying everything they touch, eventually becoming the victims of their own hidebound ideological thickness.

It would be nice if national electorates were intelligent enough to vote for a better class of political leaders, but that may be asking for two much, given the abominable state of modern journalism, academia, popular culture, and bloated government bureaucracies.

And in the EU, of course, the people have little say about the decisions made in Brussels regardless. Corrupt from the shell to the core.

When governments become so intent on carrying out an ideological agenda that they sacrifice the well being of the people, they are digging their own graves -- one way or another.

Romney vs. Obama on Energy: Guest Author Geoffrey Styles

The following is an analysis of Mitt Romney's energy policies, by respected energy analyst Geoffrey Styles

After last week's review of President Obama's energy record and campaign materials on energy, Governor Romney's energy plans present a sharp contrast. They are based on a fundamentally different view of energy and the economy, relying on markets to allocate capital to the most productive opportunities, rather than on government to guide a mix of public and private investments along specific paths towards designated ends. They also emphasize technologies that are already deployed at scale today, not those still under development or striving to attain scale. Implicitly, the Romney plan prioritizes supplying the energy for a robust economic recovery over programs designed to address long-term environmental challenges like climate change. These positions present voters with a serious and consequential choice on November 6th.

The Romney campaign's website on energy arrays the candidate's ideas mainly in words, rather than with the kind of images and interactive features that dominate the Obama campaign's sites. Energy is the first plank of Governor Romney's five-point "Plan for a Stronger Middle Class", though it requires a little work to explore the details of his energy program. A list of bullet points is backed up by a lengthy policy paper with numerous references to external sources, but you have to look for it.

The Romney energy plan focuses mainly on oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy, which together meet 91% of current US primary energy demand and which the Department of Energy projects will still provide nearly 90% in 2020 under the policies in place today. You won't find much on his campaign's website about the new renewables that generated electricity equivalent to 2% of our energy use last year, beyond a critique of the administration's investment in Solyndra and a commitment to R&D on new energy technologies.

Among the details of his plan are support for expanded offshore drilling, including areas such as offshore Virginia that were originally in the Obama administration's early-2010 offshore development blueprint, along with a comprehensive assessment of US resources using current technology, rather than further extrapolations based on 1980s technology. Governor Romney proposes expanding energy cooperation with both Canada and Mexico and would approve the entire Keystone XL pipeline. His goal of attaining North American energy independence is aggressive, yet recent analysis by Citigroup puts it within the realm of possibility. It appears to be based on an assessment by Wood Mackenzie, a top-notch energy consultancy, indicating that US oil and natural gas liquids output could expand by 7.6 million barrels per day, with 6.7 million of that coming from federal lands and waters currently off-limits to development. That compares to US net petroleum imports of 8.5 million barrels per day in 2011.

Another aspect of the plan aimed at streamlining the permitting of energy projects could be just as useful for utility-scale renewable energy projects as for oil and gas exploration and production. Regulatory and permitting delays are among the key reasons it takes longer and costs more to develop crucial energy and infrastructure projects here than in many of the countries against which our competitive standing has been slipping. Governor Romney also proposes giving states greater control of permitting on their non-park federal lands. That could substantially increase energy access and output, especially in the west, where the federal government owns over 280 hundred million acres, or 37% of those 11 states, net of tribal lands.

There are also some missing elements. I would have liked to see more about how renewables fit into Governor Romney's vision. He apparently supports the Renewable Fuels Standard but is silent about the increasingly urgent need to reform it. He is on record against the extension of the wind Production Tax Credit (PTC), a 20-year old subsidy roughly equivalent to the current price of natural gas, yet misses the opportunity to explain how all types of energy would be treated under his proposal to reduce corporate income tax rates while broadening the tax base--policy-speak for closing loopholes and eliminating incentives. In last night's debate he said, referring to the $2.8 billion in annual tax incentives for oil and gas identified by the Department of Energy, "... if we get that tax rate from 35 percent down to 25 percent, why that $2.8 billion is on the table. Of course it's on the table. That's probably not going to survive (if) you get that rate down to 25 percent." I'd also like to hear more about how Governor Romney would address greenhouse gas emissions once the economy returns to stronger growth.

Superficially, much of the Romney energy agenda evokes a return to the pre-2008 status quo: heavy on oil, gas and coal, light on renewables, and largely ignoring climate change. I see it from a different perspective: When Barack Obama began running for President in 2007, the US was considered by many to be tapped out on conventional energy, with domestic oil and natural gas production exhibiting signs of deep and permanent decline. In that context it made sense to look beyond those resources to the potential of renewable energy and vehicle electrification, even if the transition involved would be lengthy. That approach also appeared synergistic with reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and a strategy was born. In the meantime, however, it turned out that US oil and gas were far from exhausted, and the most productive new energy technology of this decade wasn't wind, solar or biofuels, but the combination of hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") and horizontal drilling that has unlocked hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of shale gas and tens of billions of barrels of shale oil or "tight oil" resources. Since 2008 the expansion of shale gas drilling has added as much new US energy production as over 250,000 MW of wind turbines or solar panels--8x the wind and solar power added in the same interval. To the surprise of many, the big global energy opportunity of the 20-teens is US hydrocarbons. The Romney plan reflects the unexpected energy transformation we're experiencing.

As in 2008, this blog isn't in the business of endorsing candidates. Energy remains an issue that, like the Cold War, demands bi-partisan cooperation and some level of consistency from one administration or Congress to the next. However, that doesn't prevent me from observing that the energy agendas of the two campaigns are not equally well-suited for a period of serious US fiscal constraints and shrinking federal discretionary expenditures, in which our energy security and economic growth will still depend largely on fossil fuels. In that context, it's highly relevant that the "all of the above" credentials of one candidate depend on oil and gas outcomes that his policies did little to support. Of course, energy isn't the only issue that matters, but then you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't think it was important. _Geoffrey Styles

Go to the original article for links to supporting materials and references.

Al Fin commentary on above article:

There is little doubt that Obama's vague "energy plan" was never more than a corrupt political payoff to campaign bundlers and political supporters. Obama's energy policies have added virtually no jobs, no useful energy, and no boost to the economy -- nothing but more debt.

Obama's approach resembles the disastrous German green boondoggle, a slow motion economic and industrial train wreck -- mitigated only by Germany's pragmatic willingness to forsake "greenness" by a rapid buildup of coal power plants.

Sure, the US has experienced a resurgence of energy jobs due to the shale revolution -- but Obama's EPA is waiting in the wings to cut the legs out from under shale, once Obama is safely re-elected.

Americans have a clear choice on energy policy: Obama's green energy starvation, or Romney's pragmatic attempt to use strong energy production to revive a fading national economy.

Graphic Illustration of Why Wind Doesn't Fit the Grid

The electrical grid is a high-wire act in which supply must be matched with demand on a minute-to-minute basis. _RealClearEnergy

Wind is highly unpredictable, and cannot be controlled. Human demand for electrical power is only somewhat unpredictable, and can be planned for ahead of time if humans have access to power sources that they can control -- "dispatchable" power sources -- in addition to power sources that remain on virtually all the time -- "baseload" power sources. Using these two types of power sources together, grid managers can meet a somewhat variable and unpredictable demand.

But wind energy is neither dispatchable nor baseload. Wind is unpredictable and highly variable, making it a poor match for finely balanced power grids.

Real Clear Energy

The electrical grid is a high-wire act in which supply must be matched with demand on a minute-to-minute basis. If supply surges above demand, electrical equipment everywhere can be damaged. (That’s why you have a “surge protector” between your computer and the wall outlet.) If supply slumps below demand, brownouts and blackouts can occur.

Although windmills have great energy potential, they produce electricity that is not “dispatchable.” In other words, it cannot be called at will by the operator but comes and goes as the wind blows. As wind energy becomes a larger and larger part of the electrical grid, the problem of matching supply and demand will become ever more difficult.

To illustrate the problem, the PJM (Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland) regional grid has produced a line graph matching showing how actual demand compares with the projected output of a grid powered 100 percent by windmills.

The horizontal axis represents the two factors over a period from December 18, 2008 to January 22, 2010. The red line represents grid demand, which varies between 50,000 and 100,000 megawatts (MW) on a seasonal basis. The blue line represents wind’s output over the same period. Output varies wildly, from highs of more than 300,000 MW to lows of nearly zero. It is important to remember that these are not necessarily seasonal or even daily variations. The output of a windmill can fall from full capacity to zero in a matter of hours.

In all those periods where output falls below demand, wind will have to be supplemented by other forms of generation, most likely natural gas. In periods where its output exceeds the demand, the surplus electricity will have to be dumped unless technologies for utility-sized electrical storage can be developed. Currently, the only technology is pumped hydroelectric storage, which requires a large reservoir in a mountainous area, a rare combination. _Real Clear Energy

We feel compelled to go over these issues repeatedly, due to their immense importance to the future costs and reliability of the electrical power grid. If government policies degrade the usefulness and reliability of something so important to a society's well-being, such governments should be replaced.

Energy and Its Sworn Enemies in Government

Brian Westenhaus presents an interesting look at natural gas prices around the world, and wonders why the US government is dragging its feet on LNG exports to the gas-hungry nations of Asia and Europe.

For one answer to that question, one needs to look at the policies and behind-the-scenes machinations of the Obama administration and the US Democratic Party controlled Senate.

One must assume that the Obama DOE and the US Senate have good reasons for obstructing policies that would increase prosperity for companies in the US private energy sector, but rational reasons for Obama's actions do not readily jump into the conscious mind.

New Energy and Fuel

North America and much of the rest of the world are poised to begin producing significant new hydrocarbon resources -- beginning somewhere around the year 2020 -- assuming that today's governments (such as Obama's) move away from current policies of "energy starvation":

By 2020 or so...a flood of new oil and gas production will begin to wash over the world. Rather than general economic mayhem, there will be an economic shift: some rich countries will weaken, and hitherto marginal nations will take center stage.

Under this new scenario, oil prices could average $80 a barrel, compared with $110 for Brent benchmark crude today. Gulf monarchs untouched by the Arab Spring could face unrest, as shrinking oil revenues limit their scope for giving handouts. Mozambique—yes, Mozambique—could become one of the most important petro-states on the planet. China could more congenially assume a top rung among global powers. And the US could untether itself from some tyrants.

This vision of energy abundance stems from a series of new finds. Already, a natural gas revolution is under way in the US, where drillers armed with the new technology of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, are pumping enormous volumes of natural gas from dense shale rock. America, on the verge of a gas deficit a few years ago, now has a century-long supply of the fuel. And fracking has now spread to shale oilfields. In states like North Dakota and Texas, it has brought an astonishing boost to US petroleum production.

But shale is only the beginning. There has been a flurry of discoveries and new production elsewhere—in Canada’s oil sands, the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, the Equatorial Margin of eastern South America, in offshore Brazil, deepwater Angola, west and east Africa, the eastern Mediterranean waters offshore from Cyprus and Israel, and more. Some of these new reserves may not start producing oil and gas until the 2020s, but when they do, they could spark the types of geopolitical disruption described above. _Quartz

Obama is closing hundreds of coal powered electricity generating plants in the US -- creating the potential for dangerous instabilities in the 3-part national power grid structure. Obama has devastated the US offshore oil & gas industry, has stonewalled pipeline projects that would boost energy production from new US shale oil and Canadian oil sands projects, and has blocked a large number of proposed energy projects on federal lands. While talking in favour of shale gas out of one side of his mouth, his EPA is moving to make shale oil & gas production much more expensive.

Across the board, the US Obama administration has blocked viable energy projects from hydrocarbons and nuclear sources -- while wasting many billions of stimulus dollars on big wind and big solar crony companies that are either already bankrupt or soon to become so.

The long term effects of such energy starvation policies will result in widespread economic slowdowns and unnecessary human suffering. Is that what the Obama administration wants to happen? No one knows, or if they do, they are not telling.

Perhaps It's EPA Officials Who Should Be Crucified

Oil and gas companies have good reason to worry about costly punitive EPA practices under the Obama administration. Their Dallas Regional Administrator, Al Armendariz, expressed this take-no-prisoners philosophy at a taped city council meeting two years ago. The strategy described was to single out an oil company accused of a rule infraction and “punish it as hard as you can” as an example to scare others into submission. He explained: “The Romans used to conquer little villages in the Mediterranean.” Armendariz continued, “They’d go into a little Turkish town somewhere, they’d find the first five guys they saw, and they would crucify them. And then you know that the town was really easy to manage for the next few years.”

...An estimated 50% of East Coast refinery capacity is predicted to shut down in June thanks to EPA regulatory restrictions on new refinery plant construction and upgrades, along with others that discourage Gulf Coast suppliers from piping gas into to this fuel-starved region. Unsurprisingly, the Energy Department warns that the resulting shortage will cause pump prices to spike, and “While the short-term effects of the idled Philadelphia-area refineries will be concentrated in the Central Atlantic, their long-term impacts will be more evenly spread throughout the entire East Coast.”

... in addition to CO2 emission restrictions, EPA’s sulfur reduction requirements could also have significant adverse impacts on refinery operations. Initial costs could reach $17 billion, with recurring costs of between $5-13 billion, translating to higher product costs of around 5-35 cents/gallon of petroleum. Such added costs could lead to a reduction of gasoline supply from U.S. refiners of up to 14%, placing domestic refineries at a competitive disadvantage with foreign refineries that are not subject to EPA rules.

Over the past 60 years, the U.S. has seen the number of refineries cut almost in half, down from 324 to 149. The last facility to be constructed, the Ashland refinery near Garyville, Louisiana, was completed in 1976. As a result, disruptions of production due to maintenance, accidents and natural disasters at one or more plants can create shortfalls and price hikes with regional and national impacts.

...Combined with a raft of new Obama administration regulatory restrictions on drilling, EPA constraints on refinery development and expansion will predictably increase our dependence upon foreign sources. Huge plants now under construction in India, Asia, and the Middle East will produce countless tanker loads of less expensive gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel…. And they won’t be worrying about environmental non-compliance penalties.

...EPA’s ultimate regulatory role and policies will be decided by a higher tribunal. That American Body Electorate must be prepared to live with its own November 6th decisions…the most important rulings of all to determine our energy future. _Forbes

Of course, US voters are not required to demonstrate any knowledge or wisdom before being allowed to vote. More and more, they are not even required to demonstrate citizenship or prove their identity.

US President Obama and his faux environmental accomplices inside and outside of the US government clearly represent a threat to the energy, industry, and private sector economy of the US. Whether American voters will recognise the threat and take the appropriate measures is far from certain.

What we are seeing in the Obama administration is the rise of eco-fascism:

...Let’s sum up for a moment: burning houses, threats to life, limb, business, destroying careers, inflammatory rhetoric, deception, lies and preventing free speech. The message from the eco-fascist Left is resolute: don’t mess with us, or else. These are not guys Joe Public would want to break bread with.

...In April the US Department of Homeland Security released its Environmental Justice Strategy. It makes provision to incorporate the notion of “environmental justice” as a “homeland security” issue. If you thought Homeland was all about keeping citizens safe from terrorists, think again. Under President Obama they are about to create local “federal law enforcement” agents empowered specifically to enforce green laws and regulations in the name of “securing the homeland”. In short, a green police force. If it can happen in the land of the free, how long before the cop green-print recycles to socialist Europe? _EnergyTribune

President Obama said in his first presidential campaign that he wanted to build a US civilian (paramilitary) force as strong and as well-financed as the US military. Perhaps that was not an empty threat, to those who fear the rise of a US KGB or a US Gestapo? And all under the guise of "homeland security???" The path Mr. Obama has chosen to achieve his long cherished goals is nothing if not serpentine.

Doctors for Disaster Preparedness Take a Hard Line on Frivolous Energy and Climate Policy

Apparently the group "Doctors for Disaster Preparedness" is concerned about the humanitarian danger of slashing back on reliable energy supplies in the name of carbon hysteria and green energy starvation. Such policies are beginning to devastate European industry and the European economy, with Australia and the US firmly in the sights of green energy starvationists and carbon hysterics.

Most of the "Doctors for this" and "Doctors for that" groups are trumped up green energy starvationist groups. But the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness appear to be concerned about genuine potential disasters -- chief among which would the a long term loss (or diminution) of reliable energy and fuel supplies to the advanced world. It is unfortunate that much of the leadership of the advanced world does not share similar concerns.

unreliable energy supply is now “the top risk for Germany as a location for business, says Hans Heinrich Driftmann, president of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce (DIHK). All industrial sectors are threatened. The metal industry is already migrating to countries with cheaper electricity (Spiegel Online 2/24/12). In an attempt to fill the gap created by the post-Fukushima shutdown of eight nuclear power stations, Germany is developing its lignite resources (Impulse 3/6/12). That is “brown coal,” the most carbon-intensive fuel known (Lawson, op. cit.). It also imports large amounts of power generated at nuclear stations in France and the Czech Republic, and had to fire up an old oil-fired plant in Graz, Austria, when solar panels were generating virtually no energy last December (Spiegel Online 1/18/12).

Because of its “green” policies, the UK faces an energy shortfall by 2015 if not before. In a cold winter, factories would be closing, and elderly people swathing themselves in blankets (Alex Brummer, Daily Mail 3/27/12). The economy as a whole is flat-lined. Business-wrecking energy policy includes a 20% “stealth tax” on the electricity bills of business consumers, which could rise to 70% by 2020. Green policies threaten some 30,000 existing British jobs; there is no net job creation, and the subsidy for “new” jobs averaged £54,000 per worker in 2009-2010 (Conservative Home 9/18/11).

A growing backlash against the £400 million annual subsidies for wind technology is causing many companies to place wind investments on hold (Daily Telegraph 2/27/12, cited by CCNet 2/27/12). Yet a vast expansion of wind power, bankrolled by taxpayers, is required to meet the pledges in the Climate Change Act, in which Britain signs up for emissions cuts by 2050—the only country in the world to do so. Even the site heralded as “the birthplace of democracy in England”—the battlefield on which Oliver Cromwell defeated King Charles I in 1645—is slated for devastation by a wind farm.

“It is unbelievable that one planning inspector can overrule all elements of democracy,” stated MP Heaton-Harris (Sunday Express 1/22/12, CCNet 1/23/12).

In Scotland, mandated wind energy will cost consumers £120 billion by 2020; the same amount of electricity from gas would cost £13 bn. Carbon emissions might drop 2.8% with wind—or they might increase owing to the need for inefficient back-up power. Household energy costs now take an average of 14% of household income, up from 8% in 2005; 900,000 families are now in “energy poverty” (Scotland on Sunday 3/11/12).

Placing the needs of their people above the EU’s carbon allowance, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, and Romania challenged the European Commission’s ceilings on greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, the European Court of First Instance ruled that the ceilings should be scrapped, but the Commission appealed.

Poland may be “riding to the defense of Europe again” (TWTW 3/10/12, www.sepp.org). In 1683, King Jan Sobieski led a cavalry attack on Ottoman forces that were assaulting Vienna, saving European civilization. On Mar 9, Poland was the sole holdout against the EU demand in “Energy Roadmap 2050” for reducing CO2 emissions to 80%–95% of 1990 levels. Coal is used to generate 90% of Poland’s electricity. _Doctors for Disaster Preparedness

Is Mexico Ready to Emerge from Its Self-Induced Energy Slump?

Mexico's energy production has been steadily falling, despite massive new discoveries of hydrocarbons. In order to develop its assets and allow its people to profit from its natural resources, Mexico must step back from its self-imposed energy isolationism. The curse of oil nationalism has made Mexico corrupt and lazy. The country needs outside investment and expertise in a very bad way.

For the first time in 74 years, Mexico may allow private investment in its oil and gas, the third-largest reserves in Latin America.

...Selling shares in the largest oil supplier to the U.S. will open a Mexican industry experiencing an eighth year of declining output, hurt by faltering investment and lack of technology and experience for the deepest offshore wells. The cash can fund Gulf of Mexico and shale gas production using techniques Brazil and the U.S. employed to revolutionize their energy markets.

“The taboo has been broken” on private investment, Pemex board member Hector Moreira said in an interview. “People talking about private stakes -- it’s a first step. And it’s a step that’s not prompting a negative reaction from the public.”

...Energy Minister Jordy Herrera said last month that the company’s budget to tackle all the challenges is “notoriously insufficient.” Pemex needs to change the law to get more funds and create a “model similar to Petrobras (PBR) (PBR) or whatever we decide,” he said, referring to the state-backed oil company in Brazil.

While Pemex wanted to invest more than $30 billion this year, the federal government cut its plans to about $23 billion, and even those funds are not available at the speed or with the flexibility that the company requires. Pemex paid almost 60 percent of its revenue in taxes, cash used to finance a third of the nation’s public budget. _BusinessWeek

Mexico's corrupt and inept national energy system has prohibited outside investment for almost 75 years. And Mexico has paid the price in lost opportunity and in the national laziness that infests all governments and societies that become overly dependent upon a nationalised industry such as oil.

How Obama Could Help US Energy: Get Government Out of the Way!

Without his nose growing visibly, the President claimed the government was behind the technological advances that led to the current shale gas boom, and even suggested that he might take credit for the rise in domestic oil production. In fact, Mr. Obama's administration has hampered and castigated oil companies at every turn. In the light of the hysterical grandstanding over the BP Gulf spill (whose impact proved to be greatly exaggerated), it was ironic indeed to hear the President now declare a great opening up of offshore exploration.

The industry has responded to attacks by becoming more innovative and productive. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, between 2007 and 2010, U.S. oil production grew from 5.1 million barrels a day (mbd) to 5.5 mbd. The agency predicts domestic production will hit 6.7 mbd by 2020, helping take imports down to 36% of domestic usage in 2035 from 60% in 2005. So much for peak oil. Meanwhile, the EIA also predicts that by 2016, thanks to the shale boom, the U.S. will be a natural gas exporter. _NatPost

In other words, the US oil & gas sector has grown and prospered despite Obama's agenda of energy starvation. Imagine how much healthier US energy and US industry would be without vicious governmental harassment and regulatory handicapping.

After taking credit for prosperity that has occurred despite everything he could do to shut it down, Mr. Obama goes on to promote the green energy scams which are helping to kill Europe, and which will certainly destroy any economy foolish enough to depend upon them.

One wonders if the President has the slightest clue about the flagging state of the wind and solar industries in Germany, or that what is boosting China's alternatives industry is government subsidies ... from other countries.

The President announced a plan to devote huge swathes of public land to the development of clean energy to power "three million homes." He also apparently committed the Navy to buying a chunk of this power, as if it weren't expensive enough to guard the Strait of Hormuz.

Mercantilist alternative energy strategies represent - as Jimmy Carter famously suggested - the "moral equivalent of war." The problem is that it is war on one's own economy. At least, with his partial ceasefire against the oil industry, President Obama is now only shooting himself in one policy foot rather than both. _NatPost

Obama says he is promoting clean oil technologies, and takes credit for the economic success of technologies which he has tried to kill, but more intelligent people can see through his endless crap. Obama's ongoing (although publicly undeclared) war against coal, oil sands, oil shale kerogens, shale oil & gas, advanced nuclear power, arctic oil, offshore oil, etc. etc. amounts to a total policy of energy starvation -- relentlessly pursued by the EPA, NRC, Interior Department, and a score of other agencies and politically controlled bureaucratic entities.

Warren Meyer: Obama Deserves No Credit for US Oil & Gas Boom

Master Resource: Did the Government Invent the Shale Gas Revolution?

US President Obama Misrepresents His Own Record on Oil & Gas in Televised Speech

Big Wind and Big Solar: Big Disappointments to Taxpayers

Powerlineblog_via_DirectorBlue
The best way of comparing energy subsidies is per unit of energy produced. The US would appear to be getting its money's worth for all forms of energy except big wind and big solar. US taxpayers are getting shafted up the kazoo when it comes to so-called "green energy" projects. Not only is "green energy" unreliable and intermittent -- a hazard for power grids -- but it is exorbitantly expensive, and too often fails in the marketplace. Obama's green jobs plan has been a disaster for everyone except Obama himself, and his cronies.

Crony capitalism–in its full-blown version, national socialism–is always and everywhere a failure. You cannot create wealth by subsidizing the inefficient production of energy–a fundamental rule of economics that the Obama administration, sadly, has yet to learn. _Powerlineblog

It would be best for government to get out of the act of subverting the energy marketplace so as to stop wasting taxpayer money, stop energy starvation, and stop destroying the economy overall.

Wind Energy Facts

Why wind and solar cannot run an advanced economy

Why Obama's green energy policies are so idiotic

H/T DirectorBlue

Obama's Energy Starvation Agenda: Still Killing Jobs

... the most activist Department of the Interior in our nation's history is trying to change the rules and seize from Exxon Mobil one of the largest oil finds ever in the Gulf of Mexico. I thought that we were a better country than that. The Department of the Interior under the Obama administration has cost this country hundreds of thousands of jobs with their regulatory overreach. Not only has their ban on offshore drilling cost us thousands of jobs, it now appears that they are trying to take back leases from Exxon Mobil on a never before used technicality that will steal billions of dollars of profits from this US corporation that has acted in good faith. _FXStreet

Mr. Obama's agenda of national energy starvation continues to generate an economic recession without end. The Obama regime's relentless attacks against coal, oil sands, shale gas and oil, offshore oil, nuclear, oil shale kerogens, and every conceivable form of energy which is reliable and affordable are helping to destroy the US economy, bit by bit.

The ongoing battle between the Obama - Salazar US Department of the Interior, and Exxon Mobile, over billions of barrels of oil in the Gulf of Mexico Julia field, is a prime example:

ExxonMobil, and its Norwegian partner Statoil made the biggest discovery of all — a field worth a billion barrels of oil — 7,000 feet below sea level in its "Julia" field in 2007.

Exxon tried to keep its discovery secret to keep marauders away. Sadly, the pirates in this instance are U.S. regulators — and their aim is to stop them.

That's right: Instead of marvel at the continuing treasures of the New World, or hail the human ingenuity that made retrieval of so much oil possible, or simply quantify how this discovery will boost U.S. energy security, Interior Department bureaucrats moved instead to snatch Exxon's permits and shut the whole thing down.

...in the Obama era, which demonizes oil production in American waters by American companies, the bureaucrats came up with this permit technicality to effectively expropriate the entire operation.

Exxon is now fighting the permit action in a federal court in Lake Charles, La., calling it "arbitrary," "capricious" and "an abuse of law." It's also a textbook case of the anti-business climate fostered by the Obama administration which should be bending over backward to help Exxon create jobs and profits. _IBD

Obama should be helping Exxon to create new, lucrative US jobs, to help boost the depressed Gulf of Mexico and national economies. Instead, the regime is pursuing -- energy starvation.

Exxon has been keeping this huge oil find a secret, and is only coming out in the open due to the need to sue the Obama regime in court, in order to maintain its right to develop the Julia field.

... the fact that Exxon had made perhaps the largest discovery ever in the Gulf, and one of the largest in the company’s century-long history, wasn’t revealed until it sued the Interior Department in a Lake Charles, La., federal court last week over leases for the oil.

The find was made in 2007, and Exxon and Statoil did disclose it in January 2008, calling it significant. But the possibility of one billion barrels wasn’t spelled out.

... Exxon had kept mum on two 2009 and 2010 discoveries in the Hadrian prospect until it could resume drilling in the area after the end of a months-long exploration moratorium. Last June, after it found a third prospect that confirmed the area contained 700 million barrels of recoverable oil and gas, it announced the finds with great fanfare.

But Exxon’s reluctance to talk openly about the huge 2007 find, known as the Julia field, was also a result of circumstances. The oilthat Exxon found there is in a deeply buried layer of rock known as the Lower Tertiary, which is far from shore and requires large investments in pipelines and remote platforms. So Exxon may not have known for a while how much oil it could get out of the ground, or whether it had the technology to do so, say analysts who have talked with the company _GCaptain

The Julia field likely holds the potential to produce far more than 1 billion barrels, due to the conservative nature of oil geologists when quantifying reserves, and due to the "long tail" phenomenon of oil field production over time.

There are undoubtedly many more "billion barrel fields" sitting around, waiting to be found by competent, ambitious, and "hungry" oil explorers and prospectors. Some of them will be far offshore, such as Julia. Others will be in shallower waters or on land, but perhaps lying deeper beneath the surface.

Over the next 20 years, proven global oil reserves are likely to continue growing. Most of this growth in proved reserves will come from improved drilling and recovery technologies, in previously discovered fields. But as oil exploration technologies continue to develop and improve, expect large new oil field discovery to ramp up once again.

Bill Gates Backs the Traveling Wave Reactor from TerraPower

Mr. Gates got the project rolling with seed money in the tens of millions of dollars. Venture-capital firms Charles River Ventures and Khosla Ventures invested $35 million last year. Nuclear-industry veteran John Gilleland is TerraPower's chief executive; a network of part-time researchers and scientists around the country offer input. _WSJ

The Traveling Wave Reactor is designed to run for decades, using depleted uranium as fuel. With such reactors, Iran would have no need for its elaborate and expensive uranium enrichment facilities -- at least if all Iran wishes to do is to produce electricity from nuclear fission power plants.

Obama's NRC is unlikely to certify such a design for many years -- if ever. The NRC as it currently exists is conservative to the point of being fanatically obstructive to newer, safer, more economical and sustainable nuclear power designs. Only big players who have established an inside political position with the Obama administration -- such as General Electric -- need apply.

The traveling-wave reactor is still virtual, existing only in software on computers at TerraPower headquarters. Mr. Myrhvold says there is a basic design, not a full blueprint. But it's enough for the next step: building a test version of the reactor. TerraPower is looking for a customer, such as an electric utility, and a country that is willing to house an experimental reactor.

The company has made pitches in France and Japan, Mr. Myrhvold says; both have big nuclear-power industries. He's also made the rounds in Russia, China and India, he says. So far, there have been no takers.

One country he is certain won't be a customer anytime soon is the U.S., which doesn't yet have a certification process for reactors like TerraPower's. It would likely be a decade or more before the reactor could be tested on U.S. soil. "I don't think the U.S. has the willpower or desire to build new kinds of nuclear reactors," Mr. Myrhvold says. "Right now there's a long, drawn-out process." _WSJ

The current US government -- at least the executive, regulatory branch -- is antagonistic toward any type of energy which is reliable and affordable. Which means that only exorbitantly expensive and unreliable wind and solar are actually favoured within the inner circle of the Obama administration.

That is an unfortunate attitude for any government to take, in the face of a potential multi-decadal global cooling spell. How much worse when such a government is the executive branch of the world's only superpower. The coming days and years may not only be cold and dark, but downright unruly.

Important Article at Idaho Samizdat: NEI Seeks Consensus on Licensing SMRs

The Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes blog has posted an extremely important article on the struggle to get small modular reactors licensed by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).

The struggle is being enjoined by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry group, and it faces a very difficult uphill battle. Why? Here's an excerpt:

In an exclusive interview with this blog, Paul Genoa, Director of Policy Development at NEI, (right) emphasized the serious nature of the work.

"This isn't a forum for people to trade marketing slides," he said. "We are looking for ways to meet the NRC's requirements, but in new or innovative ways that don't impose unnecessary costs on small reactors."

What NEI hopes to do, according to Genoa, "is to create a new regulatory paradigm for small reactors," and to do it in the next 18 months.

NEI's priorities are laid out in remarks Genoa made to the SMR conference last February. In this interview, he ticks off the items at the top of the list including annual fees, decommissioning costs, emergency response, and modularity, e.g., how to manage multiple small reactors at a single site.

Other issues include design certification, the licensing application process, and Price-Anderson liability issues. The last one will be tough, Genoa said.

"It is hard any time you have to make a statutory change."

That doesn't mean it will be easier to change the regulatory requirements to adapt them to SMRs. The NRC has a mature view of reactor safety issues especially for LWRs. Genoa said the NRC "is doing a good job to encourage the industry to organize itself to address the issues." Despite this assessment, the industry still has to make its case with the agency.

Part of it is what the NRC calls a “chicken and egg” issue. The agency wants to see customers showing interest in SMRs before it commits itself to diving deep into the regulatory issues for them. _IdahoSamizdat

The US federal government is largely composed of overpaid ass-kissers who exist to work their way up the civil service ladder to the ultimate golden pension, and take great pains not to stand out from the crowd more than can be avoided. Expecting the NRC or any other US governmental agency to adopt rational and progressive changes in a regulatory framework in order to free up the private sector to innovate and produce, is the height of naivety. That is why the NEI's effort to achieve a breakthrough within 18 months is so monumental.

This is a campaign that will be worth following. Thanks to Idaho Samizdat for their coverage.

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is Sub-Par

Don't hold your breath waiting for a nuclear renaissance to spring up in the USA anytime soon. It almost seems as if the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission intends to make sure that nothing so hopeful will occur, if they can do anything to stop it.

Here is Obama's NRC commissioner in his own words, explaining why safe and affordable small modular reactors are likely to take a far back seat in any considerations for new reactor licensing.

Here is Rod Adams explaining a small part of NRC policy as regards to nuclear entrepreneurs:

Unfortunately, new license applicants have a good reason for being reluctant to get too specific too early with the NRC - as soon as discussions move past general questions, the NRC requires the project to be docketed. That starts the billing clock and puts the applicant on the hook for paying the government $259 for every regulator hour - with no ability to control the number of hours expended. _RodAdams

US Senator George Voinovich is a rare promoter of small, modular nukes -- along with Senator Lamar Alexander:

Well friends, I think we need to have a more aggressive approach to these SMRs than we’ve got today. As I said, the DOE budget calls for about $40 million/year for SMRs. My bill funds an SMR program at $100 million/year for 10 years so that we can accelerate the development of several types of SMR designs. I am very much a fiscal hawk, but in this case I think that what is at stake merits funding this program at a higher level.

Honestly, I’m hell-bent to accelerate this SMR development effort. As I’ve said, nuclear is vital to the interests of the United States! If you look around the world, in the countries that are actively moving forward with new nuclear power plants, the projects are backed and funded by their governments. Strategically, these new reactors represent a real opportunity for us to re-establish U.S. global leadership in nuclear power. We can’t let these other countries take over the world market. We need to seize the day, and we need the funding in this title to help us do that! _Voinovich

Of course Voinovich takes the big-government approach to promoting small modular reactors -- he is a big government kingpin, after all. But in reality the best thing the government could do in regard to safe and affordable SMRs is to quickly see that they are safe, certify them, and then Get Out of the Way!

The NRC has gotten fat from doing nothing. Sitting in huge, expensive, lavish new headquarters, NRC commissioners are enjoying the rich, secure life of tax - supported top bureaucrats, while actually not having any appreciable responsibility to the taxpayer who supports their lavish lifestyle.

The US government is destroying the US economy, destroying the futures of US citizens and taxpayers. The NRC is but one small part of this ongoing destructiveness of government, but it is a significant part all the same.

NRC commissioners should get off their lazy butts and make the way clear for safe, affordable new nuclear power reactors. And quickly. Else, get out of the way and allow civilian certifying agencies to spring up to do the job the way it should be done.

Nuclear news from Russia:

Russian nuclear engineering group Rosatom launched the world's first floating nuclear power plant Wednesday, according to The Voice of Russia. Photos show the Akademik Lomonosov, a 21,500-ton barge equipped with twin 35-megawatt light-water reactors, slipping into the water at St. Petersburg's Baltic Shipyard.
The Akademik Lomonosov represents a particularly flexible example of the small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear power plants that are under development worldwide. _IEEESpectrum

Sure, Greenpeace and the rest of the faux environmental Luddites will try to stop safe, clean, cheap nuclear. In fact, the faux environmental lobbies probably have more influence at the US NRC under Obama Pelosi than does the entire nuclear industry, or the utility industry. Speaking frankly, the faux environmentalists have more influence on the Obama Pelosi regime than the best interests of the American people and the US itself. What did you expect?

When the US Government Forgets Who It Works For

A Finnish electric car company that is backed by Al Gore, is receiving a $500 million stimulus check from Obama's DOE, while American companies are languishing. This half billion will go with the billions of stimulus Obama is sending to Brasil to help them with their offshore oil drilling. Like Mr. Obama says: "either you pass my stimulus plan, or unemployment in the US will go over 8%!" Memo to Mr. Obama: US unemployment was at 9.7% at latest tally. But then, with all the emphasis shifting to saving Obamacabre, Cap 'n Trade, and ACORN, those early "vital" stimulus plans seem to have dropped under the radar.

The US Government offered $529 million loan to an Al Gore-backed company making $89,000 all-electric sports car in Finland, while US projects for US jobs go unfunded.

...The DOE denied that politics played a role in the decision, saying that a “detailed technical review” took place, and that the bulk of loan proceeds for the Silicon Valley-based Fisker will go towards development of a $40,000 family sedan.

There’s only one catch. According to the Journal, the family sedan has not yet been designed. _BiofuelsDigest

This little stimulus grant to Finland has "political payoff" written all over it -- like almost everything else the Obama / Pelosi reich has done during its short time in power. Chicago payoffs and paybacks at home. Neville Chamberlain and Jimmy Carter appeasement abroad. Sounds like a quick road to utter collapse.

Cross-posted to Al Fin

Sources of Oil Used in the US

Image SourceThanks to the Obama administration, US oil companies are restricted from pursuing profitable offshore oil fields. Oil companies are restricted from developing rich deposits of oil shale. Nuclear plants are hamstrung by regulation, prevented from building safe new reactor designs. Coal power plants are being driven into bankruptcy, intentionally.

Meanwhile, the Obama administration plans to give many billions of dollars to Brazil to develop its offshore oil fields. This money will be borrowed from China, then forwarded to Brazil. US taxpayers will be left holding the bag, and will eventually have to pay exorbitant prices to Brazil for its new oil.

Your tax dollars at work. Your elected officials looking out for you.

We know that solar and wind are unreliable and exorbitantly expensive. Eventually -- if not blocked by environmental lobbyists -- alternatives to petroleum fuels will be affordable and available.

But until that time, only a government with a death wish for its own economy and citizens would promote the energy policies of the current US reich.

More on Obama's Disastrous Energy Policies

With the appointment of extremists like climate czar Carol Browner and science adviser John Holdren, Obama has placed his administration's environmental policy in the hands of radicals. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar proposes replacing oil and coal with windmills. Yet Barron's recently reported that America would need to build 500,000 giant offshore windmills and transmission lines to produce Salazar's specified 1,900 gigawatts of electricity. In contrast, oil and gas drilling could provide hundreds of thousands of solid, well-paying blue-collar jobs. Washington Post economics columnist Robert Samuelson explains this in "The Bias Against Oil & Gas," describing how alternative energy job creation is miniscule compared to what an expansion of oil production would create. Meanwhile, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) have proposed legislation giving legal standing to allow Americans to sue any company that produces "greenhouse" gasses. _Reason

What are some of the problems with Obama's clown troupe of incompetents ideas?

Forbes recently detailed the problems with windmills. First, they depend upon a two-cent-per-kilowatt taxpayer subsidy to remain competitive. They also require backup gas generators (in case the wind isn't blowing when needed) and new transmission lines running from windy places to population centers. And while new technologies to store wind-generated electricity are in the works, they have so far proven uneconomical. Nor does this even begin to consider the years of legal delays that would likely result from litigious neighbors opposed to new transmission towers. Solar power is even more expensive and would also require additional billions for backup generators and new transmission lines. Compare those unseen costs to the clear benefits of coal and gas plants where transmission lines are already built.

New oil and gas technologies could also help the U.S. from importing so much oil. But the Obama administration is stalling and trying to stop the offshore drilling approved by the previous Congress. The White House has also shut down previously permitted onshore drilling and burdened drillers with costly new restrictions. Meanwhile, $80 billion in stimulus spending has been earmarked for "renewable" energy. The plan is to give a 30 percent tax credit for the associated costs.

JB Utley, author of the Reason article above, presents links to several supporting articles that are worth looking at. Utley's main problem is that he doesn't understand biology and what biology can offer to the energy picture -- first at the local and regional level, and later scaled for larger impact.

The US is truly in the hands of incompetent clowns from top to bottom. The few competent government employees in mid and upper level positions are experiencing increasing pressures to conform to the dominant idiocy of the clown regime. And this regime intends to grow large enough to envelop all of the private sector, if it has time.

All of which tells you that if you want to get anything done, learn to bypass the government.

Obama is Not Smart On Energy

When a powerful nation elects a complete clown as its leader, there are bound to be unfortunate repercussions -- immediately, and for a long time to come. While the new US president is quite incompetent on the economy, he is a complete nincompoop on the issue of energy. Obama's fixation on carbon dioxide obscures his view of the critical issues of energy, and causes him to obsess on forms of energy that will never be able to deliver the growing levels of reliable baseload energy the country desperately needs.

--President Obama wants to hit the oil and gas industry with an additional $26 billion in taxes. He calls tax breaks for the industry "unjustifiable loopholes," though he has no problem with massive taxpayer-funded subsidies for unfeasible wind and solar power.

--The president's "cap-and-trade" plan to force massive cuts in carbon dioxide emissions would slap huge new costs on coal-fired power plants by making them buy allowances to emit more than they are permitted. Those costs -- in effect, an energy tax -- would be passed on to consumers.

--He has declared that Yucca Mountain -- an isolated area in Nevada which U.S. taxpayers have paid $14 billion to prepare to receive nuclear waste -- should not be allowed to store waste after all. That will complicate plans to expand nuclear energy production.

--He has proposed slashing a program that helps utilities plan and certify new nuclear power plants. If Mr. Obama wants to end subsidies, that's fine. But should he not start with the most impractical subsidies -- the ones going to unproven energy sources that cannot meet our energy needs? And why not dump the requirement that corn-based ethanol be added to our fuel supply? The 43-cent federal subsidy for every gallon of ethanol produced has raised food prices, and the fuel harms small engines and reduces mileage. _EnergyCurrent

Unfortunately, devastating the nation's energy supply in the middle of a depression is one of the worst possible things a leader could do. It is only what we expected of him, however.

An incompetent president would be manageable, if he were alone in his incompetence. Unfortunately, Obama is surrounded by incompetence of all varieties -- from the incompetence of inexperience to the incompetence of destructive ideological mind-binding.

Humans who care about the future will have to work through parallel channels to safeguard resources for the future, and to develop effective technologies for the day when a freer and more rational society can evolve.

Large Scale Wind Power Is a Nightmare! How to Manage the Green Disaster

Wind energy is fine for small, off-grid applications or for small grid - intertie. But on a large scale, wind power is an unpredictable whipsaw of a disaster -- almost impossible for a power utility to manage.

"It's a war zone, trying to keep the lights on," said Philip LeGoy, senior consultant, Electricity Supply Board International (ESB), in Dublin, Ireland. "We are reacting out of panic. I feel like a member of a platoon, not an engineering group."

Speaking at the Renewable Energy World Conference & Expo. held March 10 to 12 in Las Vegas, Nev., LeGoy was not talking about a battle with guns and explosives. He was explaining how difficult it is to balance the Irish grid now that wind power generates 25 percent of its power. The wind availability in Ireland is typically around 30 percent, while traditional thermal plant has generation availability of about 85 percent.

Peak demand on the island of Ireland is about 6.5 GW. The system itself is practically an isolated island, with just a small 400 MW interconnector between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Before 2000, there was practically no wind generation. Today, more than 800 MW of wind is connected to the system with variability that runs from practically zero to more than 700 MW—and the government has set targets of 3,000 MW of wind generation and 500 MW of ocean energy generation by 2020.

"It's a shock to the grid," said LeGoy, "and what Ireland is going through is a good example of what's to come for others." _PowerEngineering

One possible solution for both wind and solar energy on the utility scale, is the use of a new technology called reversible fuel cells. When the wind or solar arrays are producing excess power, the reversible fuel cell will be in electrolyser mode: producing hydrogen. When the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, the fuel cells will switch to fuel cell power generation mode. As a load leveling method for wind and solar, such reversible fuel cells -- if scalable -- hold the potential to open these technologies up to the larger world. Without such utility scale regenerative power storage systems, large wind and solar will remain overpriced disasters.