Islands Trying To Use 100% Green Energy Failed, Went Back To Diesel

The islands of Tasmania and El Hierro tried to power their economies with 100 percent green energy, but both islands eventually went back to diesel generators after suffering reliability problems and soaring energy costs.
Read more at the Daily Caller Read More......

Energy Poverty Around the World

The global warming/climate change industry has been aggressively pushing renewable energy, wind, solar, and biofuels for a long time even though the economies of various industrialized countries need much more energy than what renewables generate.
Read more at the Canada Free Press Read More......

Climate Alarmists Unnecessarily Condemn Poor to Continuing Energy Poverty

Poverty and energy poverty go hand in hand. It is estimated that three billion people [1] still rely on solid fuel (firewood, cornstalks, etc.) for cooking, which, according to the World Health Organization, causes four million deaths per year from the indoor air pollution.
Read more at CNS News Read More......

California’s Hidden Coal Use

California’s politicians would like you to believe that their electricity comes from non-coal sources. However, while there are very few coal plants in California, making up only 0.4 percent of the state’s generation in 2014[i], California imports electricity from neighboring states and as much as half of Southern California’s electric generation comes from coal-fired generating plants in Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.[ii] Although California is pushing electric vehicles, wanting 1.5 million on the road by 2025,[iii] the greenhouse gas savings from their use will be minuscule if electricity continues to be generated mainly from imports of coal-fired generation and natural gas that supplies the state with 60 percent of its electricity.


Read more at Institute for Energy Research Read More......

Five Points for Resetting America’s Economic Foundation

Speaker Boehner addresses the American Enterprise Institute (AEI):
As reported by Newt Gingrich: Speaker Boehner began with what the House Republicans have accomplished in the last four years, despite Democrats controlling both the Senate and the presidency. Some of their record may surprise you. Republicans cut total federal spending for two straight years--the first time that's happened in half a century. They guaranteed that 98 percent of Americans would not see permanent income tax hikes. And they pushed through free trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia and Panama. These are historic accomplishments. They have real meaning for the lives of millions of Americans. And they create room for future economic growth.

Watch video or read more at www.speaker.gov Read More......

The Problem with a National Energy Policy

By Jim Huffman (Oregon)
At least since the 1973 Oil Embargo there have been calls for a national energy policy. Most proponents of such a policy envision guidelines for the future mix of energy sources, targets for energy conservation, standards for balancing energy production against competing social needs, and recognition of foreign policy considerations.

A 2004 Congressional Research Service report to Congress concluded that over the three decades since the embargo, Congress had periodically responded to instabilities in energy markets but had failed to develop a coherent national energy policy. Now, another decade later, Congress and the President are still urged to come up with of a national energy policy.

What would such a policy look like?

Read more at InsideSources Read More......

‘Twilight for Coal in the United States’: EPA Announces New Regs on ‘War on Poverty’ Anniversary

The Environmental Protection Agency moved forward with a proposed rule to require coal-fired power plants to install a technology aimed at reducing greenhouse gases that the Government Accountability Office found won’t be commercially viable for several years.  The EPA first proposed new caps on carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired electricity generating units in April 2012 and received more than 2.5 million public comments on the rules. In the proposed rule filed with the Federal Register on Wednesday, the EPA said it is withdrawing the 2012 proposal and moving forward with new substitute rules.

Read more at PJ Media Read More......

Obama administration cuts back oil shale development

Controversy is heating up over an administration plan to drastically reduce the amount of federal lands available for oil shale development in the American West.

The Bush administration had set aside 1.3 million acres for oil shale and tar sands development  in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The new Bureau of Land Management plan cuts that amount by two-thirds, down to 700,000 acres, a decision that has prompted industry outrage.

Read more at Fox News Read More......

Todd Wynn: European Lessons on Renewable Energy Subsidies

"Federal and state government officials in the U.S. would be well served to recognize the potential ramifications of overreliance on taxpayer support of green energy. It is time to finally restore sanity to the energy debate and reject budget busting, unreliable policies, lest we follow Europe’s path." Check out these snippets on how Europe is beginning to see the light on taxpayer support for renewable energy at American Legislator Read More......

Agency Confirms: Obama Has Blocked Oil Production

Empty Boast: As we have noted before in our Issues & Insights pages, President Obama has taken credit for an energy boom he had nothing to do with. A government agency now confirms what many have known to be true.

The Congressional Research Service has released a report, "U.S. Crude Oil and Natural Gas Production in Federal and Non-Federal Areas," that corroborates what we've said.

"All of the increase (in oil and natural gas production) from FY2007 to FY2012 took place on non-federal lands, and the federal share of total U.S. crude oil production fell by about seven percentage points," writes Marc Humphries, the government specialist in energy policy who authored the report.

Read more at Investor's Business Daily Read More......

Green Graveyard: ReVolt Technology Bites the Dust

Bringing the number of tombstones in Heritage’s Green Graveyard to 20 is ReVolt Technology, a Portland-based company, which specialized in developing zinc-air flow battery systems.

ReVolt earned its place in the Graveyard when it declared bankruptcy, despite the fact it had been offered a whopping $10 million in funds from federal, state, and local governments. The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy offered a $5 million grant in 2010. Oregon matched the federal government’s promise with $5 million worth of loans.

Read more at The Foundry Read More......

Obama's Great Alaska Shutout

President Obama is campaigning as a champion of the oil and gas boom he's had nothing to do with, and even as his regulators try to stifle it. The latest example is the Interior Department's little-noticed August decision to close off from drilling nearly half of the 23.5 million acre National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

The area is called the National Petroleum Reserve because in 1976 Congress designated it as a strategic oil and natural gas stockpile to meet the "energy needs of the nation." Alaska favors exploration in nearly the entire reserve. The feds had been reviewing four potential development plans, and the state of Alaska had strongly objected to the most restrictive of the four. Sure enough, that was the plan Interior chose.

Read more at Wall Street Journal Read More......

Venezuela’s Amuay Refinery Explosion Shows Why Hugo Chavez's Socialism Is A Powder Keg

Energy: Oil is rising sharply from two disasters in the Caribbean region — one, a fierce storm, and the other a massive blast at the world's second-largest refinery in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. Only one was perfectly preventable.

When the strongman cracked the whip on Venezuela's oil industry in 2003, firing 20,000 experienced oil managers from state-owned Petroleo de Venezuela (PDVSA) to break a strike he admitted he had provoked, he insisted that merit didn't matter anymore, only political loyalty. "There will be no more meritocracy," he told his cheering red-shirts.

Read more at Investor's Business Daily Read More......

PYLE: Energy Department sneaks offshore moratorium past public

While the Obama administration was taking a victory lap last week after the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to uphold the president’s signature legislative accomplishment, Obamacare, the Interior Department was using the media black hole to release a much-awaited five-year plan for offshore drilling. That plan reinstitutes a 30-year moratorium on offshore energy exploration that will keep our most promising resources locked away until long after President Obama begins plans for his presidential library. Given the timing, it is clear that the self-described “all of the above” energy president didn’t want the American people to discover that he was denying access to nearly 98 percent of America’s vast energy potential on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).

Read more at the Washington Times Read More......

You have been fed a load of crap!

You're not supposed to be this well informed! If you agree, don't read this...
2012: The Progressive Elite vs. the American Hard Hat by By Larry Leonard, published by Oregon Magazine

April 21, 2012 — You have been fed a load of crap. It comes to you in two types. The first is in the form of a lie. Something is this, and the liars tell you that it is that. The second type of lie is more subtle, and is created by omitting information from a story. These are known as lies of co-mission and lies of omission. Used simultaneously, they throw a blanket of fantasy over reality. ✧ We’ll use energy as a model for this essay, but remember that the process works in education, campaign speeches, the presentation of history, economics — you name the topic and somewhere in each information pot you will find deception of the type described above.  

Energy and the American Economy - All this week, from all the news sources in America, you have been misinformed by both the liberal MSM and fair and balanced FOX. The MSM did it intentionally. FOX did it unintentionally. To set up this section, here’s something you’ve heard for weeks: “The president says that if he opened up government energy locations, it would not lower the price of gasoline.” ✧ That is a beautiful attempt to sidestep the key political issue today by way of what sounds like a reasonable lie about another, related subject. I’ve been waiting for weeks for FOX to pick it up. They haven’t, so it’s time Oregon Magazine did. Read more at OregonMag.com...

I particularly like Mr. Leonard's summation, "...Euro-socialism or a dynamic economic revival. It’s up to you." --bc Read More......

Expanding Energy Production to Create Jobs, & Help Pay for Better Roads & Bridges

SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER, 2/4/2012 - In the coming weeks the House will vote on the American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act (H.R.7). Removes barriers to job growth by approving the Keystone pipeline rejected by President Obama, lifting the president’s offshore drilling ban, opening a small portion of ANWR, and more. Read more at the Speaker's Blog... Read More......

Samuelson: Rejecting the Keystone pipeline is an act of insanity

WASHINGTON POST, 1/19/2012 by Robert J. Samuelson (Hat tip: John H. Detweiler) - President Obama’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico is an act of national insanity. It isn’t often that a president makes a decision that has no redeeming virtues and — beyond the symbolism — won’t even advance the goals of the groups that demanded it. All it tells us is that Obama is so obsessed with his reelection that, through some sort of political calculus, he believes that placating his environmental supporters will improve his chances.

Aside from the political and public relations victory, environmentalists won’t get much. Stopping the pipeline won’t halt the development of tar sands, to which the Canadian government is committed; therefore, there will be little effect on global-warming emissions. Indeed, Obama’s decision might add to them. If Canada builds a pipeline from Alberta to the Pacific for export to Asia, moving all that oil across the ocean by tanker will create extra emissions. There will also be the risk of added spills.

Now consider how Obama’s decision hurts the United States. For starters... Read more at the Washington Post... Read More......

White House Rejects Keystone Pipeline Project

President Obama announced Wednesday that he will deny a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline, blaming Republicans for imposing a "rushed and arbitrary deadline" which he said did not give officials enough time. ✧ GOP lawmakers immediately excoriated the president for the decision. House Speaker John Boehner said Obama is "selling out American jobs for politics," and said Republicans in Congress would continue to push for the pipeline. Read more at Fox News...

Way to create jobs and energy independence, Mr. President! --bc Read More......

A Fine for Not Using a Biofuel That Doesn’t Exist

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.

But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

Read more at the NY Times Read More......

Johnson: Koch Bros control Congress, push Keystone

Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., protested today on the House floor that the libertarian Koch brothers "control Congress," arguing that the Republican push for President Obama to approve the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to Texas is motivated by a desire to reward the Koch brothers for financing the Tea Party during the 2010 election. Read more at The Examiner...

Rep. Johnson once worried that Guam might 'tip over' if more U.S. Troops and their families were stationed there. --bc Read More......