Energy: it’s about prices and availability.
I hope to build on yesterday’s post and clear the air in order to reveal the current destructive policies of the Obama Administration. I’m going to attempt to utilize some actual common sense and get politics out of the energy equation, with the exception of today’s DC politics that purposely attempt to both divide and hamstring this exceptional nation. National exceptionalism? [The Obama Administration does not believe in American Exceptionalism; quite the opposite. But that’s a separate post for another day entirely.]
OIL PRICES:
That said, let’s examine current oil prices, most reflective of the dollars you and I are paying directly at the gas station pump as we place the fuel nozzle into our tanks.
In Sacramento, Fornicalia, at ARCO (BP-owned, but generally the least expensive franchise stations in the state), unleaded was listing (Monday, 4-25) at $4.09 per gallon. In my small town in the Sierra Nevada mountains (which requires some major transport service), milk is running at $3.40 a gallon. It is currently cheaper to run milk in my tank than gasoline. Cows nationwide are chagrined.
But what or whom is responsible for our gas pricing?
Many people are trying to say: “unrest in the Middle East!”
Other people are saying “speculators, damn them!”
I would, instead, like to zero in on the Real Responsibles: the Obama Administration.
WHAAAAT? the Leftists bleat.
Here are some Constants:
– WHEN THE DOLLAR GOES DOWN, THE PRICE OF GAS GOES UP.
Why?
– BECAUSE OIL IS PRICED IN DOLLARS.
Therefore:
– When Bernanke holds the prime down, when America continues to print money, the dollar continues to be devalued — and when America continues to print money (absent supply) then pricing falls down the line to you and me.
Further:
You need a Planning Triumvirate for energy policy —
1. Immediate
2. Intermediate
3. Long Range
Tell me, please: what is the three-pronged energy policy of the Obama Administration?
Yes, correct: it doesn’t exist.
Further, with regard to so-called “alternate energy,” let’s state the obvious: you can’t control it.
You can’t control the wind. You can’t control the sun. The wind can rise and fall as it will. The sun will shine or hide as it sees fit.
Electricity, for example, has to be consistent. Yes, it has some ebbs and flows. There is generally less energy used at night and more during the day. However, when a customer flips a switch, she expects there to be a resulting brilliance. No matter the time. The power curves run up and they run down. The electrical grid plans for this but — and few realize this — you can’t “store” what is produced.
There is, for example, no gigantic DieHard battery sitting in the Arizona desert storing juice from the national grid. That technology simply doesn’t exist.
The bottom line is this: the literal environment won’t support alternative energy. It won’t produce consistently, it won’t produce dependably. It won’t even produce minimally.
At the same time, Mr Obama and his Religious Leftists insist on demanding that we build vehicles and systems that rely precisely on ELECTRICITY. At the same time that the nation REFUSES to build a geometric number of electrical generation stations.
The “environment” won’t support alternative energy.
There is a Permitorium on the Gulf. No permits. Don’t ask.
On the other hand, most permits demand federal, state, city, county, Reclamation, Department of Water Resources, Fish & Game, Fish & Wildlife, Army Corps of Engineers — layer after layer after layer of “governing” various compacts.
Check out CB’s comment on my last post, for example.
Some facts & constants:
– When the dollar goes down, the price of gas goes up
– The Obama Administration assures the dollar will go down
– Prices strangle you, the individual car driver
– Obama wants to FORCE you into public transportation
– Because public transportation is more controllable
– When gas prices increase, federal coffers increase
In my state, Fornicalia, taxes per gallon of gas are:
– 18-cents state
– 6% additional sales tax
– 18.4-cents per gallon federal
Ken Salazar has shut off domestic shale oil.
Petroleum companies’ plans to tap the Rocky Mountains’ abundant oil shale reserves are “not ready for prime time,” a senior legal adviser to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told a Utah energy conference Wednesday.
Steve Black said the Obama administration is taking a deliberate, cautious approach on making federal lands available for major oil shale development because nobody has shown they can squeeze the oil out of hard rock economically.
Right.
Mr Obama decreed a drilling moratorium in May of 2010. His moratorium was overturned. But it didn’t make any difference — his decree was inviolate.
A report indicates that the US has the greatest amount of oil reserves in the world.
Mr Obama advocates drilling in Brazil and not in the US.
AVAILABILITY:
Oil is limited via pricing and availability.
Even if the United States had a lowered pricing structure, if it doesn’t drill and start now then it is doomed.
China and India will be MASSIVE demanders of oil. These demands will seriously OVERSHADOW our national energy requirements.
On the other hand, this nation has a massive amount of natural gas reserves. Untapped.
There WILL be a time when there are lines only open to the first few customers. I saw it personally in the 70s. You think it can’t happen here? Oh yes. It can.
The dune sagebrush lizard is part of the problem.
KILL IT.
BZ
There you go again, making sense. They have their “vision” and the power to ram it down our throats.
In the end, we may need to use thew vote they cannot control (thnk you 3%ers).
Who could have foreseen this disaster of leadership..who could have predicted this mess we find ourselves in… Oh yeah pretty much all of us on “Extreme Right”…
IF the media would have done it’s job perhaps we would have been spared. IF the GOP had done it’s job perhaps we would have been spared, if GWB would have done his job perhaps we would have been spared… But nope. We Americans are a stupid lot. We don’t remember history. OR in this particular generation we are being taught “History that isn’t fact”.
Gas prices are the least of our worries right now BZ. Seriously. We are one disaster away from collapse.
Our only hope.
Draft Allen West for POTUS in 2012
Just yesterday these idiots closed down Shell Oils operations in Alaska resulting not only with Shell losing a $4 billion investment, poof, but threatening due to lack of production shutting down the Trans Alaska pipeline… Does that make any sense?
One thing that many people are not aware of what also causes rises in gas/diesel/heating oil prices is, each state’s demands on the various providers on such things as additives.
So many years ago I was curious about how much gas prices from one state to another can vary, often by large amounts. Of course the amount of taxes each state takes out from each gallon of gas is often the largest factor in that but, it wasn’t until I worked for a company that was a distributor of the various products did I realize the many demands from states to state, demands that vary widely, more often than not.
The demand on the amount of sulfur that diesel produces, as a by-product, varies from state to state. Some are more stringent than others.
The most obvious one is the gasoline that is tainted with ethanol. The various amount of ethanol or percentages of ethanol affects the price of gasoline also.
The other additives that supposedly make gasoline and the other fuels more “environment friendly” can vary widely among the states, affecting that cost at the pump.
What’s added to the gallon of gas you buy in California can be quite different from that gallon from the very same company, let’s say, here in Florida.
There is very little “meeting of the minds” between the states on so many regulations, not just on oil products.
Agree with WSF… Releasing some of the reserve would drive the price down quickly, but that’s too easy… Also, Shell just got bit on the Alaska drilling, that may not happen now after $4B spent.
BAA: and what of this, the pipeline that is proposed from Canada to the US, again, HAMSTRUNG due to regulations and endless examination and analysis. Canada is our GREATEST supplier of oil and we can’t even agree to build a frigging pipeline from their country to ours!
Scotty: you nailed it. There are TONS of different “boutique” gas blends demanded by the various states and these blends don’t just vary from state, they vary from area to area in a given state, like Fornicalia. It is a WASTE of labor and time and dollars! Make ONE BLEND for the entire nation!
And let us not forget the gas additive that Fornicalia “Greenies” DEMANDED be added to fuel — MTBE? Which turned out to be TOXIC? Anyone remember THAT?
And oh yeah, on the topic, what about CFLs which, it turns out, are TOXIC and filled with MERCURY as well — more expensive, toxic, less light — hey, the best of all possible worlds for the fucking idiotic, emotional Religious Left.
But not like I’m pointing fingers or anything.
BZ
I personally am ‘ ‘ this close to joining the Alaska Independence Party and pushing for a vote out of the Union. Until you live here in Alaska you can not see how much BULLSHIT the Feds put us through on an daily basis. Down south you have the state, county, and local between you. here in many places its the fed telling City Council what to do. All these regulations dreamed up by idiots in Washigton DC who have never set foor in ALaska, much less Dutch Harbor, lived through a 115mph wind storm like we do and still have a soup-off fundraiser in the middle of it. These idiots have no idea of life outside their cities. As much as I love the USA I am beginning think AK’s destiny might lie elsewhere
CB: with the exception of ME. I believe it. I know the massive restrictions and regulations that just the fishing boats have to obey; moreover, the state has to jump through INCREDIBLE hoops in order to take advantage of ITS OWN resources! People see Deadliest Catch as an exciting show; I see it as a bunch of boats who somehow have managed to succeed DESPITE the onerous regulations placed upon them!
People migrate to Alaska because they THINK it’s the Last Frontier. Not quite. It might be one of the MOST regulated states in the Union BECAUSE of its free spirit.
I submit this, CB: it’s up to YOU to try to convey this to your readers, who are infinitely GREATER than mine. I suggest you can be a Great Voice in revealing the Federal Thumb under which Alaskans must operate.
BZ