EXCELLENT KEVIN!!!! I'm signing and I'm emailing!!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Nation must move to energy independence First published: Monday, June 2, 2008
Do you not remember the oil embargo of the '70s? I was in nursing school and remember the lines at the gas stations. I also remember the government saying how we needed to become independent of foreign oil. We were going to make fuel-efficient automobiles. We were going to explore for more oil in our own county. We were going to find alternative energy sources. That was 30 years ago. Why are we just now starting to wake up? Big business runs this nation and not the puppet leaders we vote in after listening to the ads paid for by these very same big businesses. Our generation is getting what we deserve for our stupidity, but what about our sons and daughters? Do they not deserve better?
Are we going to do something about this or leave it in their laps? What say you? PETER MASTI Ravena
June 2, 2008 -- SKYROCKETING energy prices are hammering Americans. Five years ago this week, gasoline cost an average of $1.43 a gallon at the pump; this week, it's $3.94. And home electricity averaged 5.43 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2003; it was up to 10.31 cents in December.
The underlying cause, of course, is that oil, coal and natural-gas prices have all gone berserk - with no relief in sight.
What to do?
Individually, of course, most of us will start conserving - people are already driving less, buying more fuel-efficient cars, etc. We'll keep on finding ways to save as prices stay high.
Should the government mandate even more conservation? No, "too much" conservation is as economically harmful as "too little." Just consider the economic harm that would be delivered by, say, capping speed limits at 30 miles per hour, or banning recreational long-distance travel. Both would save gobs of energy - but at the cost of doing more harm than good.
The only thing government should do on this front is ensure that prices are "right" - that is, that they reflect total costs. That's mainly an issue for electricity, where retail power prices typically bear little relation to wholesale prices. State governments need to encourage real-time pricing of electricity - so that consumers will get the signal to, for example, run the clothes dryer at night, when power is cheaper.
(Incidentally, those who argue that gas and diesel prices don't' reflect important "external" environmental and national-security costs are simply wrong - at best, those added costs are trivial on a per-gallon basis.)
But there's a fair bit to do on the supply side. Congress could take four positive steps - if it really wants to bring prices down.
Open up key areas for oil and gas exploration and development. Washington has declared the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and 85 percent the outer continental shelf off-limits. It's absurd for our politicians to fulminate about the need for more oil production from OPEC when they won't lift a finger to increase oil production here at home.
That said, it will take years to get these fields on-line (all the more reason to start now!) - and they'll do more for natural-gas prices than for oil.
By the time those new fields would be producing, global oil production will probably be about 100 million barrels per day. Optimistically, the fields would yield about 3 million more barrels a day - for a long-run cut in the price of crude of about 3 percent.
But US natural-gas reserves are almost certainly far greater - and gas prices are highly sensitive to regional (rather than global) supply and demand issues, so we'd likely see far greater reductions in electricity prices.
Open up the West to oil-shale development. The United States has three times more petroleum locked up in shale rock than Saudi Arabia has in all its proved reserves. But this US oil is costly to extract. Oil prices need to be at at about $95 a barrel to allow a reasonable profit from extracting oil from Rocky Mountain shale.
Well, it's probably profitable now; there's undoubtedly great investor interest in harnessing shale. Only problem: It's mostly on federal land; Washington has so far said, "Hands off!"
Environmentalists object to both these first two ideas - insisting that the wilderness that would be despoiled by energy extraction is worth more than the energy itself. That's nonsense - faith masquerading as fact.
How much something is worth is determined by how much people are willing to pay for it. If these lands were auctioned off, energy companies (the market representatives of energy consumers) would outbid environmentalists for virtually all of them.
Empty out the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This now holds 700 million barrels of oil; draining it could add add up to 4.3 billion barrels of crude a day to the market for about five months. That's nothing to sneeze at - it's about half of what the Saudis now pump and almost twice what Kuwait puts on the market.
At the very least, this would bring gasoline prices down. And if the theories of a speculator-created "oil bubble" are true (I doubt they are), it would pop the bubble and send prices tumbling.
What of the national-security risk? Another myth. As long as we're willing to pay market prices for crude oil, we can have all the oil we want - embargo or no embargo.
A real US physical shortage is impossible unless a) all international oil actors refused to do business with us - which won't happen, or b) a foreign navy stopped oil shipments to US ports - which is the US Navy is more than competent to prevent.
Opening this spigot now also means a $70 billion windfall for the US Treasury.
Suspend (or end) federal rules that force refiners to use only low-sulfur oil to make gasoline and diesel. This is easily the best short-term fix for high gas prices.
Refiners were once relatively free to use heavy crude to make transportation fuel. Today, environmental regulations make it difficult and costly. And there's actually a (relative) glut of heavy crude right now.
Light-crude oil markets are incredibly tight, with no real excess production capacity. Heavy-crude markets are robust, with plenty of crude going unsold for lack of buyers.
Suspending low-sulfur rules would bring those heavy crudes into the transportation fuels. Oil economist Phil Verleger says it could well send gasoline and diesel prices plummeting.
TODAY- in London gas is 1.25 Pounds per litre- -thats almost 10 bucks a gallon-
And are we suppose to feel better with this information?
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Outdated pumps that couldn’t price gasoline above $3.999 a gallon can now post the half-gallon price, according to the state Department of Agriculture and Markets’ Division of Weights and Measures.
This will work until ya hear "they told me......I didn't know"----those folks will be the government fed mules.......not necessarily on services but on the 'thought'.......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Blame Congress for High Oil Prices By MACKUBIN THOMAS OWENS May 29, 2008; Page A17
Gasoline prices are through the roof and Americans are angry. Someone must be to blame and the obvious villain is "Big Oil" with its alleged ability to gouge consumers and achieve unconscionable, "windfall" profits. Congress is in a vile mood, and has dragged oil industry executives before its committees for show trials, issuing predictable threats of punishment, e.g. a "windfall profits tax."
But if there is a villain in all of this, it is Congress itself. That venerable body has made it impossible for U.S. producers of crude oil to tap significant domestic reserves of oil and gas, and it has foreclosed economically viable alternative sources of energy in favor of unfeasible alternatives such as wind and solar. In addition, Congress has slapped substantial taxes on gasoline. Indeed, as oil industry executives reiterated in their appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 21, 15% of the cost of gasoline at the pump goes for taxes, while only 4% represents oil company profits.
To understand the depth of congressional complicity in the high price of gasoline, one must understand that crude oil prices explain 97% of the variation in the pretax price of gasoline. That price, which has risen to record levels, is set by the intersection of supply and demand. On the one hand, world-wide demand has accelerated mainly due to the rapid growth of China and India.
On the other hand, supply has been curtailed by the cartel-like behavior of foreign national oil companies, which control nearly 80% of world petroleum reserves. Faced with little competition in the production of crude oil, the members of this cartel benefit from keeping the commodity in the ground, confident that increasing demand will make it more valuable in the future. Despite its pious denunciations of the behavior of U.S. investor-owned oil companies (IOCs), Congress by its actions over the years has ensured the economic viability of the national oil company cartel.
It has done so by preventing the exploitation by IOCs of reserves available in nonpark federal lands in the West, Alaska and under the waters off our coasts. These areas hold an estimated 635 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas – enough to meet the needs of the 60 million American homes fueled by natural gas for over a century. They also hold an estimated 112 billion barrels of recoverable oil – enough to produce gasoline for 60 million cars and fuel oil for 25 million homes for 60 years.
This doesn't even include substantial oil shale resources economically recoverable at oil prices substantially lower than those prevailing today. In an exchange between Sen. Orin Hatch (R., Utah) and John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Company during the May 21 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, the point was made that anywhere from 800 million to two trillion barrels of oil are available from oil shale in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.
If Congress really cared about the economic well-being of American citizens, it would stop fulminating against IOCs and reverse current policies that discourage, indeed prohibit, the production of domestic oil and natural gas. Even the announcement that Congress was opening the way for domestic production would lead to downward pressure on oil prices.
There is an historical precedent for such a step: Ronald Reagan's deregulation of domestic crude oil prices at the beginning of his first term. At the time, thanks to the decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to curtail output, the price of oil was at a level that in real terms is only now being matched. Domestic price controls ensured that the OPEC cartel would face little or no competition in the production of oil.
Price controls were exacerbated by other wrongheaded policies stimulated by the two "energy crises" of the 1970s. One of the most egregious was the infamous "windfall profits" tax, designed to punish oil companies for alleged profiteering. But since it applied to even newly discovered oil, its main impact was to discourage the exploration and drilling that would have increased oil supplies.
Although the energy problems of the 1970s were traceable to government policies, Reagan's decision to deregulate oil prices was ridiculed by policy makers, especially those who had served in the previous administration. For instance, Frank Zarb, who had been Jimmy Carter's "energy czar," predicted that decontrolling the price of crude oil would lead to gasoline prices of $10 a gallon. Instead, the world price of oil plummeted, helping to fuel the extraordinary economic growth of the 1980s.
Reagan's deregulation of crude oil prices created incentives for domestic producers to invest in exploration and to increase production. The threat of increased output by non-OPEC producers destroyed the discipline among OPEC members necessary to restrict production to maintain high prices. Facing the likelihood that an increase in supply would lead to lower future prices, OPEC producers increased output in the hopes of maximizing profits before prices fell. The cascading effect caused oil prices to tumble.
As in the 1970s, U.S. energy policies have essentially restricted the exploitation of domestic sources of energy. Curtailed supplies have combined with rapid, world-wide energy demand to increase the price of oil and other sources of energy. This provides leverage to foreign producers and threatens U.S. energy security. Freeing up domestic energy resources will do today what President Reagan's decision to deregulate oil prices in 1981 did then: cause oil prices to fall, thereby enhancing U.S. energy security.
Mr. Owens is a professor at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I., and editor of Orbis, the journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia.
We have to give the tree huggers much of the credit for crisis with our energy today. They made sure everything but the American resident is protected and now we're in deep trouble with no quick fix.
ELK POINT, S.D. -- Flashing a smile, Joyce Bortscheller briefly hugged Hyperion Energy Center executive Preston Phillips as she greeted him in the backyard of her home here.
Bortscheller, president of the Elk Point City Council, had invited about 250 supporters to an outdoor barbecue Tuesday to await the returns for arguably the most important election in Union County's history. The big crowd didn't leave disappointed.
As midnight approached, they popped the champagne corks, celebrating a hard-fought victory that keeps alive the county's chances of landing the nation's first all-new oil refinery in 32 years.
By a solid 58 percent to 42 percent margin, county voters approved Hyperion's request to rezone 3,292 acres of farm land for a new classification, Energy Center Planned Development.
"What happened tonight, we were not supposed to be able to do," Phillips told a cheering audience. "Development projects like this are supposed to be outright rejected by residents and neighbors. But this project is a testament to our balancing the needs for growth and for protecting the environment."
At stake was billions of dollars in capital investment and thousands of high-paying jobs. From the beginning, Hyperion executives said they would abandon its Union County site, just north of Elk Point, if a majority of voters failed to give their blessing to the rezoning.
While conceding defeat, opponents vowed to keep fighting the controversial project on every imaginable front, pressing on with a lawsuit it filed against the county over the zoning procedures and opposing Hyperion as it applies for a bevy of state and federal permits.
"We have strategies in place to slow or delay all the permit processes," Ed Cable, chairman of the anti-Hyperion group Save Union County, said after the vote.
Tuesday's historic election culminated a months-long, emotionally charged campaign that pitted neighbor against neighbor in this extreme southeast South Dakota county.
Supporters cited the once-in-a-lifetime economic opportunities the $10 billion project would bring.
An average of 4,500 construction jobs would be required over four years. With the refinery up and running, Hyperion pledges to create 1,826 full-time jobs at hourly wages of between $20 and $30.
"I think it would be a great opportunity for young people to stay in this area instead of leaving for other states," Kelly Hoekstra, 31, of Dakota Dunes said after casting a vote in favor of the rezoning.
Opponents argued the massive development would not be worth the pollution and other troubles they claimed the refinery would bring. The health risks traditionally associated with a refinery weighed heavily on the minds of some voters.
"I live out here. I don't need the pollution," said Jim Schroeder of McCook Lake, after voting against the rezoning.
The contentious issue largely broke along urban and rural lines, with residents living the closest to the Hyperion site fighting the hardest to keep the refinery out of their backyards.
Tuesday's record turnout largely reflected that split, with early returns from the mostly rural precincts putting the "No" votes squarely in the lead. As votes were tallied in the more populated area, particularly in the southeast tier closest to Sioux City, that lead was slowly erased.
The ordinance took a slim 205-vote lead after 11 of the 13 precincts reported. Hyperion supporters declared victory after the Elk Point precinct results came in, increasing the rezoning lead by 150 votes.
Last to report was voter-rich Dakota Dunes, where an unusually large number of absentee ballots slowed the counting. In the Dunes, the ordinance easily passed, 1,017 to 236 votes.
"That's huge," Phillips told the cheering crowd.
The final tally was 3,932 votes in favor of the ordinance and 2,832 against.
Hyperion touted the so-called "green" technology in its proposed energy center, which it claims would be the world's cleanest. The refinery would process 400,000 barrels of tar sands crude from Alberta into low-sulfur gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Supporters argued that tapping into reserves from our neighbor to the north would reduce the nation's dependence on Mideast oil and add badly needed refining capacity in the U.S., where the last all-new refinery was built in 1976.
Both sides flooded the county's nearly 10,000 registered voters with paid ads, direct mailers and door-to-door stops, combining to raise and spend more than $100,000.
A ballot question committee formed by Dallas, Texas-based Hyperion alone poured in at least $45,000.
"It was close, and one of the reasons why was negative campaigning worked," Phillips told supporters. "We have always taken the high road, and we will continue to take the high road."
Hyperion project executive J.L. "Corky" Frank, a former Marathon Oil executive, joined Phillips for Tuesday night's celebration, where supporters enjoyed music, food and drink and regularly checked their cell phones for up-to-date election numbers.
Addressing the audience, Phillips thanked the local supporters, including Bortscheller and her husband, Gary, for hosting the party.
Last summer, after Hyperion publicly announced its interest in the Union County site, Bortscheller, who is also a local economic development leader, organized a barbecue for Hyperion CEO Albert Huddleston to introduce him to local residents.
"From the very beginning I was on board because I felt it was the right thing for our county," Bortscheller said early in the evening.
Journal staff writer Michele Linck contributed to this story.
Now if we can only vote out Tedisco, Amedore, Farley, Shurada, and Santabarbara then we can get some more go get some more of those Dumocrats in there and then you will see the real change! Hahahahahahaaa Because you see the conservatives we have are not conservative enough so lets dump them now and start fresh with liberals who would have us all on buses and trains and take away our cars. This I see is the thinking of this board because I tell you all that the socialist ways were not created in a day nor will they be reversed in a day but we do get tons of talk here about ridding the impurities out of the local conservative system. See where the great America goes (just the same place that the once great Schenectady went too) HELL, when you dump your own and replace them with the liberals (true liberals like Godlewski and Savage) because they aren't doing enough to make you all smile. This is what is going to happen when the Democrats get their Obama in with a full house of Democrats in the congress and Senate to back him up. Wait and see how the EPA stops this here refinery. And there will be no republicans or conservatives left at all then to put brakes on. Because of you conservatives who don't want McCain or this one or that one because they arent the true conservative you all wished for. But who really is?
A true conservative doesn't exist, there are just NIMBY's.....as for the socialists....that is a train ride to hell if you ask me---JMHO
our leaders aren't born and raised in vacuums.....they are us.......generation X,Y, Z or P,D,Q or whatever we choose to label them......hippy, yuppy, rich, poor, mogul, bleeding heart or whatever......but, there is one truth that exists-----no one but ourselves puts food in our bellies or turns on our tvs/computers(ok maybe 2truths----we all die).......WE ARE PIONEERING AMERICANS......
the pendulum ALWAYS swings back.......
The only thing that will make us turn 'green' are greenbacks......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
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