American Energy Independence Is A Complete Myth

BusinessInsider.Com ^ | 05/07/2013 | Rob Wile

[DannyTN]

Lots of people think American energy independence is within reach thanks to our shale boom.

...

It's been a long time since producing all your own oil actually made you independent. We spent 40 years transforming global markets so they were integrated and flexible, to give us protection from the vagaries of global oil production, and one of the side effects is we're now part of that, even if we produce all our own oil. ...

[C. Edmund Wright]

I was demonstrating absurdity by being absurd - sorry I whooshed that one by you. The point is that not all Founders agreed on anything, and not everything they stood for would be applicable today, and sometimes they were just wrong. In other words, Dannys particular argument was irrelevant.

[DannyTN]

CATO was founded to promote free trade. That’s their mission. And they’ve done a pretty good job of brainwashing a lot of people.

Doesn’t mean their arguments are truthful or valid.

[DannyTN]

CATO was founded to promote free trade. That’s their mission. And they’ve done a pretty good job of brainwashing a lot of people.

Doesn’t mean their arguments are truthful or valid.

[C. Edmund Wright]

If you put any more straw in your argument, you’ll be flammable! You are laying all the economic problems we have on this? That is absurd. That is ignorant. That is sophistry. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

[DannyTN]

CATO was founded to promote free trade. That's their mission. And they've done a pretty good job of brainwashing a lot of people.

Doesn't mean their arguments are truthful or valid.

If you want to know the real truth about trade history read
Free Trade doesn't work: What should replace it and why.
There are excerpts on the site. The exerpts from chapter 6 on the history of free trade are informative and I'm sure different than the history CATO claims.

[C. Edmund Wright]

You’re the little econ lefty who’s been brainwashed. That is NOT why CATO was founded. That’s NOT their mission. And besides, that’s NOT where I get my free trade cred. I get it from Reagan, Sowell, Friedman, and 30 years of entrepreneurial experience plus that of economic ghost writing and research for a major major major figure. I just pulled their info on the Founders.

[Mr. Lucky]

One of the many problems with social control of the means of production is that it discourages production.

"WE" don't produce oil. Those folks who have accumulated the capital and have acquired the expertise to produce oil will stop producing it and direct their efforts elsewhere if "WE" decide to confiscate it, or its value, for "OUR" social purposes.

[noinfringers2]

If markets were truly/absolutely free, non influenced movements your presentation would be accurate. However, markets as well as production are manipulated many times for gain other than a ‘free’ market system.

[thackney]

There is no such thing as an “efficient” gas powered generating plant.

Natural Gas Turbine Combined Cycle power plants have reached efficiencies of 61%. Can you point me to a single nuclear plant anywhere close to that number?

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/siemens-claims-worlds-most-efficient-gas-turbine

[central_va]

Which dams are they? Example?

[C. Edmund Wright]

That’s true, but that reinforces my argument, it doesn’t weaken it. I’m against all such perversions and artificial manipulations, including excessive tariffs.

[Pan_Yan]

I’d love to see every neighborhood have a micro reactor that every 20 years the homeowners pay to have dug up and replaced. However there are a whole lot of people in government and corporations who make their livings off a large, complicated, inefficient and vulnerable power grid.

[Wyatt's Torch]

From AEI's Mark Perry:

The US technology-driven energy revolution, just not the one expected – Old Energy not New Energy, and it’s just starting

According to data released this week by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) at the Department of Energy:

1) US petroleum imports in March at 9.559 million barrels per day fell to their lowest level in any month in more than 16 years, going back to December 1997 (see top chart above). Over the last year, petroleum imports have fallen by 10% compared to March 2012, and by almost 20% compared to March 2011.

2) Thanks to revolutionary drilling technologies that have radically transformed America’s energy landscape, US petroleum production during the January to March period this year increased to 28.44 million barrels per day, which was the highest level for the first quarter of any year since 1988, twenty-five years ago (see middle chart above)

3) As a result of declining petroleum imports and surging domestic production, net petroleum imports fell during Q1 of 2013 fell to the lowest level for the first quarter of any year since 1991, more than 20 years ago (see bottom chart).

MP: In other words, as the AP article (“Oil and gas drillers make technological leaps, while renewable energy industry struggles“) below points out, the data above confirm the fact that there’s a technology-driven energy revolution happening in America. But it’s not the New Energy revolution of biofuels, solar and wind energy that was expected by politicians and policymakers, it’s a revolution of “Old Energy” (fossil fuels).

Technology created an energy revolution over the past decade — just not the one we expected.

By now, cars were supposed to be running on fuel made from plant waste or algae — or powered by hydrogen or cheap batteries that burned nothing at all. Electricity would be generated with solar panels and wind turbines. When the sun didn’t shine or the wind didn’t blow, power would flow out of batteries the size of tractor-trailers.

Fossil fuels? They were going to be expensive and scarce, relics of an earlier, dirtier age. But in the race to conquer energy technology, Old Energy is winning.

Oil companies big and small have used technology to find a bounty of oil and natural gas so large that worries about running out have melted away. New imaging technologies let drillers find oil and gas trapped miles underground and undersea. Oil rigs “walk” from one drill site to the next. And engineers in Houston use remote-controlled equipment to drill for gas in Pennsylvania.

The result is an abundance that has put the United States on track to become the world’s largest producer of oil and gas in a few years. As domestic production as soared, oil imports have fallen to a 17-year low (see top chart above).

And the gushers aren’t limited to Texas, North Dakota and the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Overseas, enormous reserves have been found in East and West Africa, Australia, South America and the Mediterranean.

“Suddenly, out of nowhere, the world seems to be awash in hydrocarbons,” says Michael Greenstone, an environmental economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The consequences are enormous. A looming energy crisis has turned into a boom. And for renewable energy sources, the sunny forecast of last decade has turned overcast. Technological advances drove a revolution no one in the energy industry expected. One that is just beginning.

[DannyTN]

I'll tell you what I understand. We are at historic low import tariffs, historic high unemployment, historic high trade deficits and historic high government debt. Meanwhile our largest retailer is pull of items made in China.

We buy military parts and even military satellite communications from a communist country.

As Dr. Phil says, "How's that working for ya?"

We started lowering import tariffs about 40 years ago and now where down to an historic 1% tariff.

And in that time, I've watched industry after industry close doors. Sure there are new industries that popped up. But now we offshore those almost as soon as they are born, and our innovation is drying up, because we no longer have the familiarity with the manufacturing processes.

Over the course of those 40 years, employment has became less and less stable. Some instability would have happened anyway, but we have devasted many of our industries and built our communist enemy into an economic powerhouse.

[central_va]

Free Trade doesn't work: What should replace it and why.

Free Trade(not really free but we'll call it that) works for a lot of people for a long while. But but by default it is an unsustainable system for the consuming nation. There is a net wealth drain from the USA to the rest of the world. It can last forever.

There are only 3 ways to CREATE wealth, mine it, make it or grow it. We are throwing away one entire leg of the wealth stool for a few pennies on the dollar. Our national security is at risk and we are f-ed in the long run. 200 hundred years of industrial infrastructure thrown away in the name of "free trade". Other than Europe, who does that?

[thackney]

Can you point to a single technical article of any of the advanced contained reactors that mentioned cheap?

[central_va]

That’s true, but that reinforces my argument, it doesn’t weaken it. I’m against all such perversions and artificial manipulations, including excessive tariffs.

Unless it is another nation like Japan or China tariffing our stuff which they do heavily, then you are all silent. Greedy hypocrites all.

Well you have your way and 100 years from you and your FREE TRADE ilk will be HATED by the citizens of the once great USA.

[C. Edmund Wright]

All that’s true, but you’ve no clue how to connect dots. Everyone who has ever eaten carrots has died, or will die. So, are carrots poisonous? By your logic, they are.

If you feel so strongly about it, STFU, go dig up your own oil, hire your own people, and really learn what liberalism has done to running a company in this country. And when you’ve proven Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan wrong, get back to me!

[central_va]

It can last forever.

I mean it CAN'T last forever.

[SatinDoll]

Nuclear power is 98%.