Nuclear Power: Now is the time

Freezing in the dark because wind turbines and solar panels are frozen or not usable? The greenest of all power sources and one that works winter, summer, spring and fall. From the Hoover Institution and retired Admiral James Ellis:

Energy Policy: What "Green Jobs" Revolution in the U.S. Economy?

Too bad this editorial Green jobs fading from the 27 Oct 14, Oil And Gas Journal is hidden behind a subscription wall because more Americans need to be aware of the expensive sham of alleged "green energy" jobs that has cost them billions:

While campaigning for election to his first term, President Barack Obama promised to create 5 million green jobs in 10 years. Once in office, he maneuvered Congress into passing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, a $840-billion spending spree that included about $90 billion for energy and, of course, green jobs. Results have not been spectacular. In fact, they testify to core problems of governmental profligacy.
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So how many green jobs did the munificent government create with AARA energy money? An administration proudly dedicated to transparency must find that question disturbing.

In March 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, part of the Department of Labor, reported employment associated with production of green goods and services in 2011 amounted to 3.4 million jobs. That was an increase of 158,000 jobs from the prior year, corrected in both cases to account for adjustments in estimation methods. But what jobs were being counted? The BLS explained its definitions and methods elaborately. By the time it issued its report for 2011, however, the validity of those methods had been shredded.

In a June 6, 2012, hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Chairman Darrell E. Issa (R-Calif.) elicited an illuminating sequence of confessions from acting BLS Commissioner John Galvin, now deputy commissioner. A person could be counted by BLS as holding a green job, Galvin had to admit, if he or she swept floors in a solar-paneled facility, drove a hybrid bus in public transportation or even a school bus, pumped fuel into a school bus, worked in a bicycle shop, sold recycled goods in an antique store or Salvation Army outlet, or collected garbage. These revelations discredited official numbers, formerly flaunted, about green jobs. Responding to spending cuts mandated under sequestration provisions of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, BLS made its green-job report for 2011 the last.

Program troubles didn't end there. In June last year, the Government Accountability Office raised questions about the $501 million of targeted ARRA funds Labor spent on training for green employment. Required by the statute to act quickly, GAO said, Labor implemented several programs simultaneously. "As a result," it said, "in some cases Recovery Act training programs were initiated prior to a full assessment of the demand for green jobs." And in this program, too, definitions were flexible. According to GAO, "Labor created its green jobs definitional framework to provide local flexibility, and grantees we interviewed broadly interpreted Labor's framework to include any job that could be linked, directly or indirectly, to a beneficial environmental outcome."

At the time of the GAO report, incomplete data made results of the training effort uncertain. Information from grant recipients reporting final outcomes indicated slightly more individuals than projected had received training, GAO said. But job placements were only 55% of the target level.

Let me direct you to this series of articles (full disclosure they written by my brother, a long-time reporter for the L.A. Times) on one example of "stimulus money" gone awry:

. . . the federal Department of Energy in 2009 and 2010 pitched in with $9.9 million in stimulus grants — part of the Obama administration effort to create jobs and revive the American economy.

To date, however, not one of the proposed North American Power Group plants has been built. The stimulus grants — ostensibly to study carbon sequestration potential on the Two Elk site — were suspended by the DOE in January 2012 because of numerous accounting irregularities.

But that was not until $7.3 million of the stimulus money had already been spent, much of it on inflated salaries . . .

A couple of million here, a couple of million there. Pretty soon it adds up. Not necessarily in job creation, though.

In the meantime, job growth largely fueled by the private energy industry due to fracking and the development of shale gas sites has been significant:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that U.S. annual natural gas production will increase from 23.0 trillion cubic feet in 2011 to 33.1 trillion cubic feet in 2040, a gain of 10.1 trillion cubic feet (44.0 percent).2 More than 87 percent of this increase is due to growth in shale gas production, whose share of total natural gas production is projected to reach 50.4 percent by 2040.3 Because of this rapid growth, the oil and natural gas industry has experienced large employment and wage increases over the past few years. Many of these increases have occurred in areas outside the “oil patch” region, which produces a substantial amount of U.S. oil and natural gas and comprises the states of Oklahoma, Texas, and Louisiana.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics kindly produced the following chart on such job growth:

You might note those are just jobs in the "oil and natural gas industry" and does not, apparently count jobs of people in industries who provide services to those oil and gas workers. Heck, if you count floor sweepers, motel clerks, school bus drivers, etc, those numbers might even be higher.

And, before you go off on the hazards of "non-green" energy (which I would assert you need to be careful in doing when natural gas is involved), you might be interested in the huge pollution bomb that is China:

China's emissions already exceed the US and EU combined, it emits more per capita than Europe and could overtake America by 2017.

Well, of course, there is a big capita difference involved.

Can you say "misguided" and ""unsupervised?" That seems to be the theory behind throwing "green job" stimulus money around. If you need to review it, there's a pretty good look at the $535 million Solyndra Scandal from the Washington Post:

Meant to create jobs and cut reliance on foreign oil, Obama’s green-technology program was infused with politics at every level, The Washington Post found in an analysis of thousands of memos, company records and internal ­e-mails. Political considerations were raised repeatedly by company investors, Energy Department bureaucrats and White House officials.

Sure, old news. But we are still paying for it - especially, I would argue, in the reduced funding for national security matters, including readiness.

UPDATE: Changed link to Rone Tempest Wyofile articles to give you the best possible access.

Energy Wars: Marcellus "Miracle" Continues

Was it only a few short years ago that there was concern over "peak oil" and worry over the dwindling supply of U.S. natural gas? Why, yes it was.

Then along came shale oil and gas.

A revolution that changed everything, as noted in this Oil and Gas Journal article, "Marcellus continues to defy expectations, driving US gas production ever higher":

Shale has been the primary driver of US gas supply growth since 2007, and the Marcellus shale has been the largest single contributor to rising production.

Marcellus production topped 14.5 bcfd in March and is expected to account for nearly one fourth of all US gas output by 2015, according to a report by Morningstar Inc.

The Marcellus's eminent position stems, in part, from the ability of wells in the formation to come online at high initial production (IP) rates and to sustain those rates for longer than wells in other shale formations.
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The Marcellus stretches across portions of Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and New York. Moody's Investor Service figures the formation holds an estimated 141 tcfe of recoverable reserves.

Marcellus output climbed from virtually nothing in 2007 to 9 bcfd in 2013, equivalent to the combined production growth of the Haynesville (4 bcfd), Eagle Ford (3 bcfd), and Barnett (2 bcfd) shales. According to Morningstar, output from the formation helped boost US production 14 bcfd, or 25%, during the 6-year period, more than offsetting declines from conventional reservoirs and the Gulf of Mexico.

If not for the Marcellus, Morningstar found, US gas production would likely have peaked in late 2011 or early 2012 as producers reduced gas-directed drilling in response to weak domestic gas prices.
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The Marcellus shale has fundamentally altered the outlook for the US natural gas industry. The US is emerging as a low-cost chemicals producer and is poised to become an exporter of natural gas—a feat unthinkable just 5 years ago when it was widely believed that increasing LNG imports would be needed to meet domestic demand.

According to Hanson, "In short, the growth of the Marcellus over the next several years is likely to be nothing short of astounding."

Europe ought to be happy, too, if the U.S. can get its LNG export business in motion. The Russians? - well, not so much.

Feds Don't Want to Share Offshore Oil Monies with Adjacent States

I suppose that one could look at this as the federal government looking out for the interests of the citizens of states without offshore oil and gas development, or I suppose one could view it as another means of the feds grabbing money that can then be redistributed to -uh- "favored" entities. In any event, Nick Snow at the Oil and Gas Journal reports, "Administration opposes bill to share OCS revenue with coastal states":

“The revenue-sharing provisions of S. 1273 would ultimately reduce the net return to taxpayers in every state from the development of offshore energy resources owned by all Americans, have significant and long-term costs to the federal treasury, and increase the federal deficit,” said Pamela K. Haze, deputy US Interior secretary for budget, finance, performance, and acquisition.

“In addition, the bill does not appear to be targeted to achieve clear conservation or energy policy outcomes,” Haze said, adding, “For these reasons, the administration cannot support the bill.”

But the bill’s sponsors—Lisa Murkowski (R-Alas.), the committee’s ranking minority member, and Mary L. Landrieu (D-La.)—countered that coastal states in general and communities in particular are asked to withstand energy development impacts without getting any of the revenue directly.

“It doesn’t make any difference if your project is one, three, or 20 miles offshore,” Murkowski said. “It still uses coastal communities’ resources, and their assets are limited. We know there will be infrastructure impacts because we can see what’s happened to states farther south.”

Landrieu said, “Whether you’re standing on the coast of Oregon, Florida, Louisiana, or Alaska, you can see oil and gas platforms and windmills generating revenue for the federal government, but not for the communities that can’t afford an emergency room at their local hospital.”
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Cathie J. France, deputy director for energy policy in Virginia’s Mines, Minerals, and Energy Department, said, “I’m always taken aback that we have to pick winners and losers, and that there’s this false line 3 miles offshore.”

She added, “Virginia has one of the most robust ports on the East Coast. With offshore energy production—whether oil, gas, or wind—upgrades will need to be made to bring that energy to all the other states. Giving the states an unfunded mandate to do that is false and ingenuous. It has to be a true partnership to mitigate impacts on coastal communities.”

The discussion is largely academic if most of the federal OCS remains closed to energy resource development, noted National Ocean Industries Association Pres. Randall B. Luthi. “Companies invest capital where they’re allowed to work. This could divert operations to other countries,” he warned.

“It’s only by providing additional oil and gas access that this theoretical resource revenue can become reality,” Luthi said. “Congressional delegations from South Carolina and Virginia have introduced legislation to open areas off their shares. Only in Washington, DC, do we think that getting 100% of nothing is preferable to getting 60% of something.”

Gasoline prices? "More regulation is, in fact, not always good"

Oil and Gas Journal editor speaks on the rise in the price of gas at the pump, which may become permanent. Watch this boringly titled piece "More gasoline price elevation due from Tier 3 regulation":


The regulatory scheme meant to assure air quality has long since passed the "low hanging fruit" and have now moved into the "great cost, low impact" zone.

UPDATE: Nice following editorial "Fright in perspective":

Fright is the go-to tool of environmental activism. When pressure groups want to stifle something—oil well drilling, pipeline construction, whatever—they first arouse fear about the activity among local populations. Then they besiege public officials with their coalition of the frightened.
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Industrial societies must be able to assess the industrial activity central to their progress with informed judgment. Those too easily frightened lose that ability and too readily foreswear work.

Rumors of ghoulies and ghosties have long been used to keep people scared - and under control.
If you don't think so, try telling the "true believers" you are a man-made global warming agnostic.

Discussion Points: "If I wanted America to fail"

Here's the note from the YouTube site:

The environmental agenda has been infected by extremism—it's become an economic suicide pact. And we're here to challenge it. On Earth Day, visit www.freemarketamerica.org.