Biden’s War On American Energy Gets Crazier

AMAC Newsline ^ | 30 Jan, 2024 | Ben Solis

[MtnClimber]

Biden’s obsession with so-called “green” energy policies is thus costing the United States on two fronts. At home, American producers are struggling under a regulatory onslaught and open hostility from the White House – despite literally keeping the country’s lights on this winter. Meanwhile, America’s adversaries are taking full advantage of this weakness abroad, as China in particular seeks to step in and fill the void left by decreased U.S. energy exports.

Amid the cold snap that gripped the nation in early January and sent temperatures plummeting below zero for millions of Americans, the country’s power grid largely held up – barely – thanks to natural gas and other traditional sources of energy. Just after the new year, much of the country saw temperatures that were up to 25 degrees below normal, along with bone-chilling winds that made some places in states such as North Dakota feel like 70 below zero.

In Texas, the cold snap evoked fears of a similar winter storm as the infamous one in 2021 that caused the state’s power grid – largely reliant on wind and solar energy – to collapse, leading to more than 240 deaths. Many tragically froze in their homes.

Following the disaster, energy companies in Texas devoted significant resources to “hardening” the state’s power grid – primarily by ensuring a steady supply of natural gas and other fossil fuels to power stations.

As David Blackmon, a 40-year energy industry veteran, wrote shortly after this year’s deep freeze hit, the added investment in fossil fuels proved crucial for Texas. The morning of the first day of cold temperatures, fossil fuels “were kicking in 84.9 per cent of total [power] generation, with a whopping 67.2 per cent coming from the state’s natural gas industry.”

Although it went largely unremarked on by the corporate media, this was a shining moment for natural gas and the fossil fuels industry. Without them, Texas might well have seen a repeat of 2021.

Joe Biden appears not to have gotten the message either. On January 26, the White House bowed to demands from environmental groups and paused all natural gas exports – a major blow to the U.S. natural gas industry, which has already been hampered by three years of Biden administration policies.

The move is expected to send energy and gas prices in the United States even higher, with Reuters predicting that gas prices may hit their highest level since December 2022.

A German senior energy analyst, Dr. Rolf Werner, who advised Texaco in the 1980s, told me that scarce investment in gas infrastructure means coming price hikes could be here to stay. “They are long term,” he said.

Biden’s decision to stop natural gas exports comes as the latest broadside in his war on American energy, ranking alongside other decisions such as revoking key permits for the Keystone XL pipeline and pausing oil and gas leases on federal lands.

While American companies can make their own decisions, Biden’s regulatory agenda and hostility toward fossil fuels companies have hamstrung the industry and even caused some insurers and banks to withdraw their involvement from fossil fuels projects.

Meanwhile, as Biden continues to target domestic energy suppliers, countries in Africa and Asia – primarily China – are sensing an opportunity.

One of the most prominent petroleum-producing countries in Africa is Uganda, with an estimated 6.5 billion barrels of oil reserves. Chinese companies control about eight percent of all of Uganda’s oil projects, and last month Uganda granted the China National Offshore Oil Corporation a license to construct a new facility in the western part of the country that will ship natural gas to the coast in Tanzania.

Professor Otieno Sekibo, a retired Tanzanian economist who advised the International Energy Agency in the 1990s, told me that China had won a double victory in securing this contract to build a new facility and export natural gas. “It boosted the job market at home [in China] weakened by a high youth unemployment rate,” he said. “It also won jobs for Chinese nationals who would fill all positions from top managers to medium-skilled employees.”

Moreover, as the World Bank reported this month, even as the global economy is headed for its weakest five-year performance in three decades, “Uganda will benefit from infrastructure investment ahead of new oil production,” with growth expected to be relatively strong at six percent this year.

Elsewhere in the world, while Biden was harassing U.S. energy producers, Russian and Chinese companies were engaging with top Iraqi government officials to extract oil and natural gas. On January 1 of this year, Exxon Mobil handed over to PetroChina operations of the world’s largest oil field, West Qurna 1, in southern Iraq, which produces around 550,000 barrels per day.

An Iraqi subsidiary of PetroChina also recently took control over the massive Nahr bin Umar liquid gas field with the capacity to produce 150 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

It is now clear that, both at home and abroad, Joe Biden’s energy policies are failing. The only questions is if it will take a disaster on an even larger scale than the 2021 Texas blackouts to force a course correction.

[MtnClimber]

Wouldn’t it be funny if the power failed on a very cold day at the White Hut.

[nopardons]

BTTT

[old-ager]

How does lowering exports (which increases domestic supply) increase the domestic price?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wow...

On January 1, 2024, Exxon Mobil handed over to PetroChina operations of the world’s largest oil field, West Qurna 1, in southern Iraq, which produces around 550,000 barrels per day.

An Iraqi subsidiary of PetroChina also recently took control over the massive Nahr bin Umar liquid gas field with the capacity to produce 150 million cubic feet of natural gas per day.

We were in the Iraq war for almost nine years, spend a TRILLION dollars, lost 4,400 soldiers and 32,000 wounded in action and what do we get 13 years later? China taking over the energy industry in Iraq. During the war, there were many who argued we should take over their energy industry but we took the high road and said "No" to that.

[budj]

You can bet they have 100,000 gallons of diesel to run their generators.

[GOPJ]

DC ‘elites’ know how to take care of themselves...it’s the rest of us who will do without.

[Democrat = party of treason]

The current “Biden Administration”, the puppet and his handlers, are nothing but TRAITORS to their Country...

[PIF]

lowering exports

means lowering demand. Prices have to rise domestically to meet costs.

[Nateman]

This Climate Scam and its evil effects get me angry all over again every time I read about it. There is no end to the bad things they are willing to do based on this bogus science.

[Nateman]

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H. L. Mencken

[SunkenCiv]

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  :NeverTrumpin':

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[Tell It Right]

Yet to this day, the left uses the refrain “war for oil”.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Yep. “No war for oil” was the constant drumbeat.

So China gets all their oil and gas, makes China a lot more powerful on the world stage, and sets the stage for a major China - USA war with China hold a lot of the necessary energy assets.

It was all so predictable. We are sure a f#$%ed up country. We should have taken over all their energy assets as payment for ousting Saddam.

[wild74]

There currently i a big surplus of gas, a lot of the drilling is or was expected to send a lot of the excess to over seas destinations who pay a premium price and a good return for US gas companies. If they don't have a alternative to recieving a higher price they will just stop drilling and send the excess into storage until the excess is gone and the price starts going back up, that will take a while. Take away the insentive drilling will stop.

[Tell It Right]

The main thing we should do is drill baby drill and mine baby mine. Drill for oil and natural gas. Mine for coal and for the materials needed for electronics, including EV's. Get the government out of picking winners and losers in car types and get the government out of manipulating the energy market.

If America's energy producers and car producers can operate under the free market there would be plenty of energy like America wants and plenty of car materials for what America wants, including all car types based on whatever the demand is for that type. I don't see what the left has a problem with everybody getting what they want.

[linMcHlp]

The “pause” is punitive economic warfare against Texas, for the state daring to defy the leftists and Biden Admin.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“I don’t see why the left has a problem with everybody getting what they want.”

What? Leave things to the “invisible hand” of the marketplace? No, no, no. Our government betters know what is best for us and exactly how to produce it.

They wouldn’t be leftists if they didn’t make every decision in your life for you.

[Eva]

I think that it takes two weeks to fire up a natural plant, so they either have to watch the weather or have seasonal energy plans. It just proves that zero fossil fuel use is never going to happen.

[Eva]

You know that they have back up power generation that is probably dual fuel, gas or gasoline. You know before that big Texas snow storm that shut down Houston a few years ago, they warned residents to prepare with generators. They knew that their test of green energy was likely to fail.