Saturday - June 07, 2008

It’s a Gas

via Power Line:

Congressman Roy Blunt put together these data to highlight the differences between House Republicans and House Democrats on energy policy:

ANWR Exploration
House Republicans: 91% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Coal-to-Liquid
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 78% Opposed

Oil Shale Exploration
House Republicans: 90% Supported
House Democrats: 86% Opposed

Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Exploration
House Republicans: 81% Supported
House Democrats: 83% Opposed

Refinery Increased Capacity
House Republicans: 97% Supported
House Democrats: 96% Opposed

SUMMARY

91% of House Republicans have historically voted to increase the production of American-made oil and gas.

86% of House Democrats have historically voted against increasing the production of American-made oil and gas.

And let’s not forget all the organizations, like the Sierra Club and all the other enviromental groups, that lobby the heck out of these guys. All Left of Center aligned. Yeah, no kidding.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/07/2008 at 09:33 AM   
Filed Under: • No Shit, Sherlock • Oil, Alternative Energy, and Gas Prices •  
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   Thursday - May 01, 2008

A Voice in the Wilderness

What to do about oil? First it went from $60 to $80 a barrel, then from $80 to $100 and now to $120. Perhaps we can persuade OPEC to raise production, as some senators suggest; but this seems unlikely. The truth is that we’re almost powerless to influence today’s prices. We are because we didn’t take sensible actions 10 or 20 years ago. If we persist, we will be even worse off in a decade or two. The first thing to do: Start drilling.

What keeps these areas closed are exaggerated environmental fears, strong prejudice against oil companies and sheer stupidity. Americans favor both “energy independence” and cheap fuel. They deplore imports—who wants to pay foreigners?—but oppose more production in the United States. Got it? The result is a “no-pain energy agenda that sounds appealing but has no basis in reality,” writes Robert Bryce in “Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence.’ ”

On environmental grounds, the alternatives to more drilling are usually worse. Subsidies for ethanol made from corn have increased food prices and used scarce water, with few benefits. If oil is imported, it’s vulnerable to tanker spills. By contrast, local production is probably safer. There were 4,000 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico when hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit. Despite extensive damage, there were no major spills, says Robbie Diamond of Securing America’s Future Energy, an advocacy group.

Yup, this fits my special Filed Under category to a T.

Many activities that currently use oil, natural gas, propane, or coal can be converted to electricity. Like heat and hot water. So let’s provide lots of electricity, cheap. There’s only one way to do that, without leaving a big ‘carbon footprint’, and that’s nukes. So get to work. US designs out of date? Go hire the French. Their whole damn country runs on nuke E, and they haven’t had a spill or a disaster yet. If we had nearly limitless electricity we would hardly even need gasoline. Almost everyone could run a local battery powered car. Diesel hybrids? Why not? The Germans have little clean diesels that get 75mpg. Hybridization of those might get you 90mpg. Get to work. You want solar farms too? Fine, let’s build some. Wind farms and tidal generators too. Right where Teddy sails his little boats. But when they don’t generate enough juice to pay for themselves in a decade they go on the scrap heap and you hippies shut the fuck up about them already.

But gosh, all this stuff will take time!! What do we do NOW? (see the above article: start drilling). Well, right now you’ve got a few choices. Pray. Walk. Start a war. Or accept that you’re going to suffer for an entire generation until things get built. You can’t just solve the “energy crisis” by complaining, or by endless research. You’ve got to pick a plan or three RIGHT NOW and then GET TO WORK.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. I have lived most of my life hearing the same bullshit from the government every single year about “alternate energy research” and all that yadda yadda. Since the early 70s. More than 35 years of hot air. Well, it’s long past time to ‘git er done’. The REAL energy policy of the US is to do nothing. Nothing. We’ll continue to buy up all the oil the rest of the world has, and not drill our own, until they run out. Then we’ll have lots left, plus 500 years worth of coal. And all the food! Neener neener neener!!! But in the meantime, you and I will pay out the wazoo. I don’t want that. I want CHANGE. I want to HOPE that I can fill up my little economy car’s tank for less than half a day’s pay.

Posted by Drew458     on 05/01/2008 at 04:15 PM   
Filed Under: • No Shit, Sherlock •  
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   Thursday - April 03, 2008

Told ya so last time

Iran assembling centrifuge cascades

I’m going to have to make a new post category to cover these Well D’uh! situations.

VIENNA, Austria - Iran has assembled hundreds of advanced machines reflecting a possible intention to speed up uranium enrichment, diplomats have told The Associated Press.

One diplomat said more than 300 of the centrifuges have been linked up in two separate units in Iran’s underground enrichment plant and a third was being assembled. He said the machines apparently are more advanced than the thousands already running underground, suggesting they could be the sophisticated IR-2 centrifuge that Tehran recently acknowledged testing.

But a senior diplomat said that while the new work appeared to include advanced centrifuges, they were not IR-2s. He added that it was unclear whether the machines were above or below ground.

The location is significant, since the aboveground site at Natanz is for experimental work and the underground facility is the working enrichment plant.

A third diplomat — who like the other two closely follows Iran’s nuclear program — confirmed that Iran had started linking up advanced centrifuges in a configuration used for enrichment. But he said all remained above ground and none of the machines were running.

Their reports underlined Iran’s determination to push ahead with its enrichment program despite U.N. Security Council sanctions. One of the diplomats said officials in Tehran would likely detail the new centrifuge work on April 8, which Iran has designated National Nuclear Technology Day.

The workhorse of Iran’s enrichment program is the P-1 centrifuge which is run in cascades of 164 machines. But Iranian officials confirmed in February that they had started using the IR-2 centrifuge that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate.

Yeah, and if they can build 10 of the IR-2s they can build 10,000. All it takes is a little more time.

Here we go again. Let’s drag out the nay-sayers and the apologists, the “chicken hawk” accusers, and all the other MSM talking heads who will try their damnedest to push our ostrich heads back under the sand. Nothing to see here people, move along. Let’s just all repeat the mantra that “Iran gave up it’s nuclear weapons research program in 2003”, even though recent weapons seizures in Iraq have shown that the Iranians are quite good at shaped charge munitions (EFPs are a type of shaped charge), which are the kind used to initiate nukes. In other words, they gave up the program because they knew enough to be able to light them off. But we must ignore that inconvenient truth.

UPDATE Second verse, same as the first!

Last time the mad mullahs got attention focused on their nuke program, it was mostly a subterfuge to move the focus off of Hezbollah and Hamas. It worked last time, and probably the time before that, so let’s do it again ... the West falls for it every time

War Is Talk Of Syria And Israel

By BENNY AVNI
Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 3, 2008
Reports that Syria has stepped up its military presence near Israel’s northern border have sparked increasing speculation on both sides that war may be imminent. Although some Israeli politicians are advocating negotiations with President al-Assad of Syria, the Israeli army deputy chief of staff said yesterday that retaliation against any nation that launches a war against Israel, the “strongest country in the region,” would be “painful.”

On the face of it, Syria may have enough of a pretext to launch a military offensive this spring.

According to several recent press reports, Syria and Iran have transferred chemical- and biological-tipped warheads to Hezbollah, which some claim possesses more missiles now than it did before the 2006 Lebanon war.

Oh, and the palis are fat with cash right now too. Wonder what they’ll spend it on? Food? Hardly. Thank you George Bush. And there’s no fence along the Egyptian border anymore. Oops.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/03/2008 at 07:18 PM   
Filed Under: • No Shit, Sherlock •  
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