In The Pipeline 7/7/11

As the Beatles said, we get by with a little help from our friends — Senators Jim Webb and Mark Warner realize oil and gas is mother nature’s cash crop and urge Obama to lift moratorium Washington Times (7/6/11) reports: Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner have introduced legislation to lift a moratorium on drilling off the Virginia coast enacted by President Obama after last year’s oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico…The bill from the Virginia Democrats would allow oil and natural gas exploration and production and direct half of any leasing revenues to be paid to Virginia to support a range of projects including land and water conservation, clean energy development, transportation and other infrastructure improvements in the state…Virginia was set to become one of the first East coast states to drill offshore for oil and natural gas. But after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April 2010, spewing millions of gallons of oil into the gulf, Mr. Obama pulled the plug on a lease sale planned for 2012…“Opening up and expanding Virginia’s offshore resources to responsible natural gas and oil exploration holds significant promise for boosting needed domestic energy production, while bolstering the commonwealth’s economy,” Mr. Webb said…The U.S. will import almost 10 million barrels a day of crude oil and refined petroleum products in 2011, which is about half of all U.S. fuel consumption, according to forecasts by the U.S. Energy Information Administration…“We should not be sending hundreds of billions of dollars each year to oil-producing countries that do not like us,” Mr. Warner said. “Senator Webb and I firmly believe that Virginians should benefit from any energy resources that are developed off of our coast, and our legislation specifically requires the federal government to make reasonable royalty payments to the Commonwealth.”

There are two things Canadians get right — hockey and oil. Americans don’t care much about the former, but it’s Aboout damn time we start accepting the latter WSJ (7/7/11) reports: With 9.1% unemployment and gasoline prices in the stratosphere, President Obama must sometimes wish that some big corporation would suddenly show up and offer a shovel-ready, multibillion-dollar project to create 100,000 jobs and reduce U.S. reliance on oil from dictatorships…Oh, wait. His Secretary of State has had that offer sitting on her desk since she was sworn in. The trouble is that the Administration can’t approve it without upsetting its anti-fossil fuel constituency. And so the proposal sits…In September 2008 TransCanada applied to build a new pipeline—the Keystone XL—to bring diluted bitumen from the oil-rich tar sands of Alberta to thirsty American refineries on the Gulf Coast. It is hardly a radical proposal. Canadian crude has been flowing to the U.S. for decades. Another Canadian company—Enbridge—operates the Clipper pipeline across the Canadian border to Chicago. In July 2010 TransCanada began operating its Keystone pipeline from Alberta to Cushing, Oklahoma, which is a major storage and pricing depot…The Keystone XL would cut a slightly different path, through the American heartland to Port Arthur, Texas. Judging from its past experience and that of Enbridge, TransCanada expected that permitting would take roughly 23 months. Thirty-three months, two State Department studies and 208,000 public comments later, TransCanada is still waiting. On current trend, the company will be lucky to get its permit by January, or after 40 months. But even that is far from certain.

Psst….government….wanna save some money?  Stop buying $50 per gallon jet fuel when you can buy better stuff for $3.03.  Trillions in debt, and the geniuses downtown can’t figure this out? E&E News (7/7/11) reports: The policy provision preventing the federal government from buying alternative fuels with a higher greenhouse gas footprint than traditional petroleum is a boost for the Navy as it aims to become more energy independent, an official from the service said yesterday…The provision, known on Capitol Hill simply as “Section 526″ for its place in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, has come under attack in Congress in recent weeks. Several stand-alone bills to repeal the rule have been introduced, including one by Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) (Greenwire, June 1) and one by Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), at the same time that provisions have been tacked onto other bills exempting individual agencies such as the Defense Department from the provision (Greenwire, May 12)…Critics say the ban limits the military’s fuel choices, especially with respect to coal-to-liquid fuels. They also question whether the provision prevents the government from purchasing fuel made from Canadian oil sands…”If not repealed, Section 526 could increase fuel costs for our military and severely restrict the Pentagon’s ability to get fuel from our strongest ally, Canada,” Martin Durbin, executive vice president of the American Petroleum Institute said in a statement in March. “The DOD is the biggest consumer of jet fuel. At a time when American forces are combating terrorists abroad, it is especially necessary for the Pentagon to have the versatility to secure and develop alternative sources of fuel from a friendly ally.”…Chris Tindal, the Navy’s deputy director for battlefield energy, pushed back against that argument yesterday, saying that the department supports the goals and intent behind the provision.

This is why we do what we do — Brits are living in ‘energy poverty’ because their government will not let them develop or use affordable and reliable energy Mirror (7/7/11) reports: As energy prices go through the roof, shocking figures reveal one in four families has been plunged into fuel poverty…Single parents are the hardest hit with 39% of mother or father and child households struggling to pay bills…The figures are higher than the one in five first estimated and show for the first time wealthier families have also been hammered by spiralling fuel costs with 15% of middle classes now fuel poor…Research from price comparison website uSwitch found the number would leap to one in three if housing costs were added in…It means at least 18 million people are spending 10% or more of their take home pay on energy bills. Based on the new way of calculating fuel poverty, 47% of working class families and 22% of the middle classes fall into this bracket…A quarter of families with a stay-at-home parent are fuel poor but uSwitch argues this figure would soar to 44% if mortgages or rents were included. The number of fuel poor single parent families would jump from 39% to 52% while pensioner numbers would rise from 33% to 36%.

The U.N. says that going green will cost a mere $1.7 trillion a year–or $76 trillion over the next 40 years. Where do we sign? Fox News (7/7/11) reports: Two years ago, U.N. researchers were claiming that it would cost “as much as $600 billion a year over the next decade” to go green. Now, a new U.N. report has more than tripled that number to $1.9 trillion per year for 40 years…So let’s do the math: That works out to a grand total of $76 trillion, over 40 years — or more than five times the entire Gross Domestic Product of the United States ($14.66 trillion a year). It’s all part of a “technological overhaul” “on the scale of the first industrial revolution” called for in the annual report. Except that the U.N. will apparently control this next industrial revolution…The new 251-page report with the benign sounding name of the “World Economic and Social Survey 2011” is rife with goodies calling for “a radically new economic strategy” and “global governance.”…Throw in possible national energy use caps and a massive redistribution of wealth and the survey is trying to remake the entire globe. The report has the imprimatur of the U.N., with the preface signed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon – all part of the “goal of full decarbonization of the global energy system by 2050.”