Posted on 04/13/2008 10:45:45 AM PDT by papasmurf
I don't think any reasonable person would dispute that we are in an energy crisis. We are, in fact, being held political hostage by those that control the world's oil supply. Add to that my belief that the market has been manipulated by those that wish us harm. (think Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and certain camel riding folks with big bank accounts, a laptop and a satellite connection, here)
The market has responded to the political machinations of the suppliers of oil and the manipulators in a very expected way, IMO.
We are constantly being bombarded with so called "solutions" by everyone from the Speaker of the House, to liberal boot heel licking media types and, even, Joe Blogger. Our President has been, sadly, in the background telling us all will be okay and we should use more "alternative" fuels. In the meantime, Corn, Rice, and other BioFuel/Agrofuel making materials have skyrocketed in price, keeping pace with rise in gas prices, all along.
I am very interested in reading what FReepers, men and women whose opinions, experience, and education, I highly respect, have to say and what their opinions to solutions are.
I think it all needs to start with the President publicly acknowledging that we are, in fact, in an energy crisis, and drastic measures are needed to prevent the economy and infrastructure of our Country from implosion.
So, in my mind...
Step 1 A Declaration of a State of National Emergency.
Step 2 A Presidential Order, requiring refineries to process crude for Domestic consumption on a "Priority" basis, ahead of crude destined for other than American markets.
Step 3 A temporary suspension of the requirement by some States for blending and distribution of "Boutique" fuels.
Step 4 A Presidential Order authorizing "Fast Track" approval of proposed refineries currently in the proposal and/or planning stages. And, emergency priority consideration for building new refineries.
Step 5 Using the powers of the Presidency, during wartime and in a National Emergency, authorize the immediate drilling and recovery of any and all known recoverable crude in any or all U.S. State, Territory or, Protectorate.
Step 6 Again, and in order to address the core issue, that is-the diminishing of the world's oil supply, the pollution that using crude based energy causes and, the dependency on the "goodwill" of foreign Nations, the President needs to authorize "Fast Track" priority to the building of regional Nuclear power generation plants.
Step 7 To emphasize our seriousness and the seriousness of this crisis, which is also worldwide, the President needs to...
a)Have an emergency session of the United Nations called, and speak before the body.
b)Hold several live press conferences and talk directly to the people, make his case, and ask for our support.
c)Have a very public response (defense/offense combo) for each and every liberal remark and/or statement made.
Now, I'm a very realistic man. I know, full well, that most of what I've suggested may not be legal or, within the scope of the President's authority or, doable. I also know that even if the President could, and does, do all of what I've suggested, most of it would never come to pass, nor would it need to. But, it does send an extremely strong message to the rest of the world, most importantly, those that control the supply and those that wish us harm.
Lastly, just the announcement of the President taking such strong actions, IMO, would drop the price of crude on the market faster than bubba goes through cigars.
Discussion?
any questions?
Al Gore, is that you?
If you see fit, please ping your lists.
Thanks,
papa
First, we are not in a crisis, there is plenty of energy.
Second, deregulate fuel. If you allow anything to be used as fuel an alternative will be found when it is needed.
If pollution is your concern deal with that at its source, tail pipe, smokestack, etc and don’t regualate what happens before there.
Off to work
JLT
Here's what copper has done in the last five years:
If you look, other commodities have done the same.
Step one should have been enacted 20 years ago..
But enacted now couldnt hurt..
Add to that enormous building of Nuclear plants nationwide.. even development of micro nuclear plants for rural customers..
That and ALL gov't taxes on any energy should be suspended.. and made ILLEGAL..
Since Bush will no longer be president in a few months he has no real authority to do much of anything since the next prez. or congress can undo or block any actions he takes now. “lame duck”?
It IS a crisis. It’s not that there isn’t enough, there isn’t enough American oil on OUR market. We have plants closing, truckers going under, Airlines bankrupt, food prices escalating rapidly, even our utilities have gone up 30% in the last two years.
IMO, we just don’t have, as a Nation, the capacity to absorb this level of price hikes in this amount of time.
Perhaps you do, and I think that’s awesome, but you are not representative of the typical American household, if you do.
A fifteen year energy independence moonshot that includes nuclear, coal, biodiesel, and hydrogen research. New nuclear and coal plants go up as fast as we can build them. No red tape. More grants for alternative energy research.
I don’t imagine many other FReepers will see it as a crisis, either. That’s the result of most FReepers being smarter than the average Yogi bear. :)
The first move would be to declare there is no energy crisis.
The second would be to arrest every journalist who has written a piece on an energy crisis and let their lawyers howl for a few months while the gag order prohibiting them from mentioning anything related to energy is in effect..
The third would be to sign an executive order setting aside all nitpicking design criteria for nuclear power plants. The Tennessee Valley Authority would be directed to immediately begin round the clock work on all standby units with the objective of having them on line ASAP and certainly within one year.
The resrictions on drilling off shore would be lifted by executive order.
State laws mandating all sorts of special gasoilne formulations would be lifted and national standrsd in all states would be placed in effect.
Tap liberals for methane. They ought to provide plenty because they’re so full of s***.
Leave the Gummint out of it except they should remove all barriers to building many new nuclear power plants right now. Then buy much uranium ore from my mining company.
Excellent points.
Thank you.
If I may add:
1. Start building nuclear power plants under your step 1.
2. While I see where you are coming from, I would personally skip 7ª. The UN has no business in our business. They are crooks and useless and have no need to know. We owe them no such courtesies.
What I have been reading for a couple or years is the following: (I offer this article because it is a good read. Rush has been saying the same thing for sometime.)
BLACK-GOLD BLUES
Discovery backs theory oil not ‘fossil fuel’
New evidence supports premise that Earth produces endless supply
Posted: February 01, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com
A study published in Science Magazine today presents new evidence supporting the abiotic theory for the origin of oil, which asserts oil is a natural product the Earth generates constantly rather than a “fossil fuel” derived from decaying ancient forests and dead dinosaurs.
The lead scientist on the study ? Giora Proskurowski of the School of Oceanorgraph at the University of Washington in Seattle ? says the hydrogen-rich fluids venting at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in the Lost City Hydrothermal Field were produced by the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in the mantel of the earth.
The abiotic theory of the origin of oil directly challenges the conventional scientific theory that hydrocarbons are organic in nature, created by the deterioration of biological material deposited millions of years ago in sedimentary rock and converted to hydrocarbons under intense heat and pressure.
While organic theorists have posited that the material required to produce hydrocarbons in sedimentary rock came from dinosaurs and ancient forests, more recent argument have suggested living organisms as small as plankton may have been the origin.
The abiotic theory argues, in contrast, that hydrocarbons are naturally produced on a continual basis throughout the solar system, including within the mantle of the earth. The advocates believe the oil seeps up through bedrock cracks to deposit in sedimentary rock. Traditional petro-geologists, they say, have confused the rock as the originator rather than the depository of the hydrocarbons.
Lost City is a hypothermal field some 2,100 feet below sea level that sits along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge at the center of the Atlantic Ocean, noted for strange 90 to 200 foot white towers on the sea bottom.
In 2003 and again in 2005, Proskurowski and his team descended in a scientific submarine to collect liquid bubbling up from Lost City sea vents.
Proskurowski found hydrocarbons containing carbon-13 isortopes that appeared to be formed from the mantle of the Earth, rather than from biological material settled on the ocean floor.
Carbon 13 is the carbon isotope scientists associate with abiotic origin, compared to Carbon 12 that scientists typically associate with biological origin.
Proskurowski argued that the hydrocarbons found in the natural hydrothermal fluids coming out of the Lost City sea vents is attributable to abiotic production by Fischer-Tropsch, or FTT, reactions.
The Fischer-Tropsch equations were first developed by Nazi scientists who created methodologies for producing synthetic oil from coal.
“Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water and moderate amounts of heat,” Proskurowski wrote.
The study also confirmed a major argument of Cornell University physicist Thomas Gold, who argued in his book “The Deep Hot Biosphere: The Myth of Fossil Fuels” that micro-organisms found in oil might have come from the mantle of the earth where, absent photosythasis, the micro-organisms feed on hydrocarbons arising from the earth’s mantle in the dark depths of the ocean floors.
Affirming this point, Proskurowski concluded the article by noting, “Hydrocarbon production by FTT could be a common means for producing precursors of life-essential building blocks in ocean-floor environments or wherever warm ultramafic rocks are in contact with water.”
Finding abiotic hydrocarbons in the Lost City sea vent fluids is the second discovery in recent years adding weight to the abiotic theory of the origin of oil.
If you think this is a “crisis”, I’d hate to see how you act when the sh*t really hit the fan. Currently, we have a series of price increases due to increased demand for energy. This could be remedied by increased production of present energy sources and by switching to different energy sources, that is, more oil drilling and building more nuclear power plants, wind power, solar power, etc. The main problems are the expense of adapting new technology and, as always, government interference in the marketplace.
Use the oil in California and quit using ethanol.
Put environuts in that rendering plant that turns turkey scraps into crude oil.
File criminal charges against Gore for fraud.
I would hope so, but the number of citizens that have fallen for the "cornholio" savior is appalling.
Papa,
Your assessment echos that of a west-coast hedge fund manager I’ve long respected: Mark Boucher.
Here’s his take on energy for 2008 (written in January).
>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<
The world needs a Manhattan Project for alternative energy. Whereas in past conflicts historically, the U.S. has had capitalism on its side and its opponents have not, this situation is different. Islamic Fundamentalists benefit from providing oil as the lifeblood of global capitalism to a growing world. Until clean coal or some other fuel becomes competitive with oil and the U.S. develops more self-sufficiency in energy, the free-world is captive to its enemies in a way it has never been before.
Major suppliers of oil include unstable countries such as Nigeria, Venezuela, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Clearly Nigeria could blow at any time, and is threatening to do so now with increasingly sophisticated military action being taken against the Abuja and oil facilities in Port Harcourt early this year - and threats of more. As we’ve discussed in the past, the oil in Nigeria falls under land of tribes that are not in power. They are receiving almost nothing from the government who takes oil from them and they have little to lose in formenting violence and oil disruptions.
Nigeria is one of the top ten suppliers of oil to the U.S. and is a top supplier of Chinese oil as well. Venezuela is ruled by a Marxist madman, who is intent upon opposing the U.S. at every possible turn although the U.S. is one of Venezuela’s largest export markets.
Iran is still attempting to become the hegemonic power in the Middle East and the Levant, and many intelligence services still believe it is pursuing nuclear weapons in a way that could require further military action in the next few years, and could even lead to global war.
The war on Islamic Fanaticism in Iraq and Afghanistan have deteriorated in 2007. Although the surge has had some success at slowing insurgency, without an agreement with Iran the war effort is likely to once again have to shift objectives towards keeping a force in Iraq that is there mainly to oppose aggression by Iran. Sunni versus Shiite tensions could still flare, and the U.S. would likely step aside if they did. Look for President Bush to focus heavily on garnering an agreement with Iran to try and save a legacy for his administration this year.
While al Qaida have been marginalized in the developed world somewhat, they appear to be focusing their efforts more on maintaining strongholds in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The killing of Bhutto likely marks a shift in strategy for al Qaida of striving to influence these regimes more overtly. These are tinderboxes therefore.
Meanwhile, Israel and Hezbollah are digging in for their next round of war sometime in the years ahead. The Middle East geopolitical risk premium therefore obtains for oil prices, and though it may lessen if President Bush gets an agreement with Iran later in 2008, a political risk premium is likely to be embedded in oil prices for many years to come.
As we emphasized in last year, oil and natural gas giant Russia is consistently playing the oil card politically to push its will upon Europe and former CIS nations. Gazprom, the state-run energy giant that Putin “took” from Khodorkovsky, is essentially a Kremlin run operation and tool of power, and Norilsk Nickel is likely being accumulated by Putin, who will remain the background power in Russia despite his handpicked successor being President. It remains quite possible that the Kremlin views the Western-sponsored multi-colored revolutions as a non-military attack upon Russia itself, and that it plans to use oil as the new nuclear weapon of an energy Cold War of sorts against the West. If Gazprom were a country its gas reserves combined would rank third in the world, as it controls 20% of the world’s natural gas production and 16% of world natural gas reserves. It is not impossible that further “nationalizations” or “purchases” of Russian oil into Gazprom will make it an even larger oil force in the world. Gazprom also owns media and has been described by some analysts as an octopus with tentacles made of pipelines with the Kremlin as its brain.
Russian political uses of its natural gas and oil card have prompted the EU to move towards a fast utilization of biofuel, but even if the lofty objectives of these programs are met in the years ahead, Europe will still be dependent upon Russia for energy.
While Russia and China are trying to consolidate as much oil power as possible in the world, the U.S. and the West still appear to be mostly sleeping - unaware or in denial over the potential consequences.
Oil is a REAL wild card and major risk to any macro-economic scenarios.
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