Posted on 06/13/2008 6:58:46 AM PDT by K-oneTexas
Greens Thwart Gasoline Production By Steven Milloy
Four-plus-dollar gasoline is forcing Americans to realize that we need increased domestic oil production to meet our ever-growing demand for affordable fuel. But even if the greens lose the political battle over drilling offshore and in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, they nevertheless are way ahead of the game as they implement a back-up plan to make sure that not a drop of that oil ever eases our gasoline crunch.
The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council, or NRDC, successfully pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block ConocoPhillips’ expansion of its Roxana, Ill., gasoline refinery, which processes heavy crude oil from Canada, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The project would have expanded the volume of Canadian crude processed from 60,000 barrels per day to more than 500,000 barrels a day by 2015. After the Illinois EPA had approved the expansion, the green groups petitioned the federal EPA to block it, alleging ConocoPhillips wasn’t using the best available technology for reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
Apparently, the plant’s planned 95 percent reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions and 25 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides wasn’t green enough. NRDC’s opposition is quite ironic since ConocoPhillips and the activist group actually are teammates in the global warming game. Both belong to the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a coalition of eco-activist groups and large companies that is lobbying for global warming regulation.
So even though ConocoPhillips is aiding and abetting the NRDC to achieve the green dream of absolute government control over the U.S. energy supply, the enviros still are in take-no-prisoners mode, refusing to allow the expansion of a single refinery.
Imagine what the rest of us can expect from the greens.
Meanwhile, in California, green groups are working through the state attorney general’s office to block the upgrade of the Chevron refinery in the city of Richmond. The $800 million upgrade essentially would expand the useable oil supply by permitting the refinery to process lower-quality, less-expensive crude oil.
California Attorney General, ex-Gov. and climate crusader Jerry Brown claims the upgrade will produce an additional 900,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. But Chevron says the upgrade actually will reduce the emissions by 220,000 tons.
Whose figure is closer to the truth?
It’s hard to know for sure at this point, but it’s worth noting that material false statements made by Chevron are prosecutable under the federal securities laws and California state law, while Brown and the activists pretty much can say whatever they want without legal accountability.
Whatever the facts are, Brown and the city of Richmond insist that Chevron eliminate 900,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions so that the upgrade will be "carbon neutral." While the greens remain vehemently opposed to the project, it seems their plans for blocking the refinery might go awry as Brown and the local government eventually may side with Chevron rather than the greens, but only because the company has deep pockets and is open to being shaken down.
Brown and the city have proposed that Chevron ensure that half the total emissions-reduction projects be undertaken on-site at the refinery and the other half be done either in the city of Richmond itself or elsewhere in California.
Translating the latter part of this "offer that can’t be refused:" Chevron essentially must purchase 450,000 tons of "carbon credits" annually from the city of Richmond or the state. As the street value of carbon credits is about $10 per ton, Chevron is being "green-mailed" to the tune of perhaps $4.5 million per year to upgrade its refinery — amounting to perhaps a 1 percent annual "tax" on the gains in gross revenue produced by the upgrade. And the local government officials are not the least embarrassed about this extortion.
"When you’re dealing with a refinery where the project will cost close to a billion dollars and someone like Chevron with tremendous resources, that’s not a constraint, so they should do everything possible," an unidentified state official told Carbon Control News in a June 9 article.
The farcical nature of the entire transaction is underscored by that state official’s apparent lack of understanding about how greenhouse gas-induced global warming is supposed to work.
The official told Carbon Control News that the greenhouse gas emission reductions "are vital to protect low-income minority communities in the Richmond area, which already suffer disproportionate pollution impacts."
Climate alarmism, of course, is based on the notion of global emissions causing global warming, not local emissions causing local warming; moreover, the allegation that low-income minority populations are disproportionately harmed by industrial emissions — the basis of the so-called "environmental justice" concept of the 1990s — hasn’t stuck since no scientific evidence supports it.
Though green and local government shenanigans can be a source of endless amusement, let’s get back to the main point. As the 2005 hurricane season dramatized, oil production, itself, is only one factor in determining gasoline supply and prices.
Damage to Gulf Coast refineries by hurricanes Katrina and Rita reduced gasoline supplies and increased prices worldwide — a real problem given that U.S. refineries operate at or near capacity thanks to other green constraints.
We may produce all the oil we need, but if we can’t refine it, then it won’t do much for reducing gasoline supply problems. So while working to expand domestic drilling, we’ll simultaneously need to expand domestic refining capacity.
It will be quite the Pyrrhic victory to finally produce oil from ANWR and then not be able to do anything with it.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The very first sentence shows this guy has no clue. How can demand for a finite resource be ever-growing? He might as well write, "Americans have realized that it is necessary to break the laws of physics." Just cause you want reality to change doesn't mean it will. Saying let's drill the last reserves is like saying "one more hit man, just one more hit is all I need".
If I were Chevron, I’d move to a friendlier “environment”..............
SAVE THE PLANET. Neuter a greenie weenie.
“How can demand for a finite resource be ever-growing?”
Uh, because more people want some.
“Saying let’s drill the last reserves..”
Who says they are the last reserves? Peak oil nonsense. Oil is not an addiction, it is a commodity.
There's no economic law of which I'm aware that says demand for something cannot increase forever. We already have evidence of a 25,000 year history of an "ever-growing" demand for food. The rub comes with the ever-growing supply supply of a resource.
Umm... Demand is quite independent of supply. That's how economics works.
"Finite" describes the supply of a commodity, not the demand. There are plenty of commodities with high demand and lower (even "finite") supply. That's what makes them expensive. (Diamonds, Ferraris and Blu-Ray disc players are good examples) So, the author is quite correct in that regard.
However, I disagree with the sentence for another reason. The increasing price of gasoline is not "forcing" anyone to comprehend basic economics. A large chunk of government-educated voters (and even FReepers, sadly) are sure that the price of gasoline is just the result of a conspiracy among BIG OIL fat cats. Increasing prices are just making them hate capitalism and eeeeeeevil corporations more, not making them demand an increase in domestic oil production.
Bkmrk for later.
Drilling ANWR and the entire shoreline of the USA still wouldn't get more gasoline and Diesel fuel out of our refineries.
Second, even if the supply is finite, conservative estimates indicate that we have, right under our own soil and just off our shores, enough oil and natural gas to power our country for centuries - plenty of time to develop more efficient methods of utilizing oil and natural gas, and to develop other means of energy production.
And if it turns out that oil and natural gas ARE natural byproducts of geological reactions, and if it turns out that CO2 is NOT causing global warming (and there's more than a little evidence on that score), then the only "crisis" we face, is the imbeciles who insist that we hamstring ourselves on energy while the rest of the world passes us by.
The point is that there is absolutely NO reason for this energy "crisis" that we're seeing today, other than the fanatical, short-sighted, idiotic obstructions thrown up by environmentalists, liberals, and their democrat (and too many Republican) stooges in government.
That is true ... a refinery hasn’t been built in the US since 1979 or 1989. Either year is too long ago. Although I do seem to remember reading that Marathon Oil is building some, even though the number will not be sufficient to make much of a difference.
while Brown and the activists pretty much can say whatever they want without legal accountability.
Brown and the local government eventually may side with Chevron rather than the greens, but only because the company has deep pockets and is open to being shaken down.
Chevron essentially must purchase 450,000 tons of "carbon credits" annually from the city of Richmond or the state. As the street value of carbon credits is about $10 per ton, Chevron is being "green-mailed" to the tune of perhaps $4.5 million per year to upgrade its refinery — amounting to perhaps a 1 percent annual "tax" on the gains in gross revenue produced by the upgrade. And the local government officials are not the least embarrassed about this extortion.
We may produce all the oil we need, but if we can’t refine it, then it won’t do much for reducing gasoline supply problems. So while working to expand domestic drilling, we’ll simultaneously need to expand domestic refining capacity.
It will be quite the Pyrrhic victory to finally produce oil from ANWR and then not be able to do anything with it.
YEP! Somehow, we in America, are such stupid people, that any oil exploration, refining, etc, CANNOT be trusted to US, on OUR land....BUT, we CAN save the world, otherwise.....they'll miss us when we're gone....
Do you have any idea at all the amount of oil natural gas and coal that are off our shores and inside America there are and that our TRAITORS are keeping us from using? Enough to last us at least 1000 years at our current rate of use!
Not to mention the onerous task of the numerous "special blends" required.
the world is going to have to learn to play hardball with these green lunatics. One possibility: threaten to shoot and/or poison everything non-human which moves in ANWR if drilling there is not allowed.
Plans are moving ahead for the construction of the county’s first new oil refinery in 30 years to be built near Elk Point, SD. While the county’s voters approved a rezoning and the state is proceeding with the approval process, the Sierra Club and other outside environmental groups are vowing to stop this project too.
Sierra Club sues over Big Stone power plant pollution (eco-hobbits at it again)
http://www.twincities.com/allheadlines/ci_9551773
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