Posted on 03/26/2014 7:40:00 PM PDT by blueplum
(Additional reporting by Adrian Croft, Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Paul Taylor)
(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama told the European Union on Wednesday it cannot rely on the United States alone to reduce its dependency on Russian energy, as relations with Moscow chill over its seizure of Crimea from Ukraine.
Speaking on a visit to Brussels to discuss trade relations and the Ukraine crisis, Obama said concluding a new transatlantic trade pact, now under negotiation, would make it easier for Washington to license more gas exports.
:snip:
During a 65-minute lunch, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso pressed Obama to step up U.S. gas exports, but he responded bluntly in telling the Europeans they needed to take politically difficult steps to develop their own resources.
EU ambassador to Washington Jose Vale de Almeida quoted Obama as telling them: "You cannot just rely on other people's energy, even if it has some costs, some downside," in a clear reference to opposition in parts of the EU on environmental grounds to nuclear power and the extraction of shale gas.
The issue will also be discussed next week at a special meeting of EU and U.S. energy ministers, officials said.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I am sure the Europeans marveled at obozo’s eloquent intelligence!
Build windmills?
Yes! GE windmills built in China.
Sell them some of ours. We benefit and so does Europe. Sell to Ukraine also.
The only loser is Putin.
Hey Germany; hows that decision to close all of your nuke plants looking now!
Fools...
Lemme guess. They need more “Venezuela”.
Maybe if they had the technology to use coal.
The Germans are abandoning nuclear power and are beginning to realize the huge consequences of that shortsighted decision. Fifteen years after Kyoto and five years after the Copenhagen conference and the huge enthusiastic devotion to solar and wind energy, Europeans have been reminded that they must obey the laws of physics. Green energy simply cannot power a modern industrial society. Today they are more dependent than ever on carbon fuels and Russian carbon fuels to boot. Putin holds the trump card and Obama really cannot and will not help. There will be much whining and pouting but there will be no sanctions.
Obama and his regulators will continue to do everything they can to block energy production in the U.S. So, if he has his way, how does he think he can help the E.U.?
Does anyone think he or his jackass Secretary of State will approve the Keystone XL pipeline, for instance? Or stop shutting down coal plants? Or block drilling wherever they can?
Every time the EU countries build a wind farm or a solar field, right next to it goes a gas-powered turbine. When the weather conditions fail to produce enough power (which is always, pretty much), the gas-powered turbine spins up to handle the excess demand.
You can’t really use coal, oil or nukes for this work because they are suited to come on-line rapidly to handle sudden and unexpected loads. So, as the amount of “green” power goes up, the number of gas turbines also increases. And Putin laughs all the way to the bank.
BTW, have you noticed that most of the observed global warming data comes from Russian weather reporters? A coincidence, I’m sure...
they already did the windmill thing - and then they sold all that equipment to us. You probably already know this, but for the casual reader, here’s an article from the Telegraph from a few years ago that explains the problem with wind and solar quite well.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9559656/Germanys-wind-power-chaos-should-be-a-warning-to-the-UK.html
Drill baby, drill
Why wasn’t he telling them this five years ago?
chuckles - cuing up the SNL “cowbell” skit?
no.no.no.no; Hussein... Your party has been telling American's for decades that we receive no gain from drilling our own oil because it would post no return for "ten years". New refineries? Nope, no good would come for 10 years. New drilling? Nope, nothing would come of it for 10 years. SO, the EU is supposed to NOW work for 10 years while Russia runs rampant? Eat a bag of d*cks.
I guess that means he’s changed his mind on the Keystone Pipeline, right?
No wonder the EU thinks so little of us now. We have these huge resources that bummer denies to all of us. Russia will laugh and laugh.
Bummer is like the little boy in a group of neighborhood baseball players where Putin has the bat, gloves, ball and playing field and bummer has nada
Who is going to be more popular?
Don’t hold back now. Tell us how you really feel ;)
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