Maligned Fossil Fuels Engine of Economy

Dr. Ileana Johnson Paugh

According to the Congressional Research Service, overall energy consumption has tripled in the U.S. since 1950, per capita consumption increased 50 percent, and electricity consumption increased even more rapidly. The heaviest energy user, the industrial sector, grew the slowest. From 1973 to 2010, “the consumption of electricity remained close to 0.4 kwh per constant dollar of GDP.” Annual power generation now is ten times larger than in 1950. “Renewable sources (except hydropower) continue to offer more potential than actual energy production, although fuel ethanol has become a significant factor in transportation fuel. Wind power has also grown rapidly, although it still contributes only a small share of total electricity generation.” (Carl E. Behrens and Carol Glover)

The reality is simple: renewable energy is not sufficient to power the largest economy any time soon. I am yet to drive a wind or solar powered car. Electric cars, if they do not “brick” themselves (the engine dies and must be factory rebuilt for $40,000), do not go very far between charges. Hybrids do not get the mileage per gallon claimed and their batteries are toxic to the environment.

The pie-in-the-sky wind energy can be expensive. Windmills are noisy, people nearby complain of headaches and insomnia from the constant hum, propellers kill thousands of birds, particularly endangered species, and nobody wants wind farms in their own back yards. The maligned fossil fuels are the engine of our economy. Gasoline provides transportation and electricity generation. Natural gas provides home heating, industry and electricity generation. Cars, vans, trucks, and buses can be retrofitted to run on natural gas. Coal generates electricity exclusively and so do nuclear and hydroelectric power plants.

Since 1950, crude oil provides 40 percent of U.S. energy. In spite of political fear mongering, we are not running out of oil as we were told since the 70s. We have discovered new reserves in deep-sea waters, Mexico, oil sands in Canada, and heavy oil in Venezuela.

Different sectors of the economy consume different types of fossil fuels. Many products that hypocritical liberals use abundantly are made from petroleum, yet they support green energy.

Diesel fuel is used in many transportation sectors. Railroads utilize diesel and diesel-electric power. Marine transportation, large commercial trucks, and some cars use diesel. Most of the food brought to the American table is ferried by eighteen-wheelers. Aviation uses 99 percent jet fuel. Some airlines are advertising the use of bio-fuels. (U.S. Energy: Overview and Key Statistics)

The Keystone pipeline was nixed by this administration, bent on increasing the price of oil, making energy skyrocket, and bankrupting the coal industry. The Arab Winter turmoil interfered with Libya’s oil production. We freed Iraq but it is selling oil to China. President Obama is cutting back on domestic oil production with every opportunity by imposing a moratorium on domestic drilling in the Gulf and using EPA’s regulations to prevent new oil leases on federal lands and sometimes on private lands.

According to Joe Miller, “Obama’s State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to the Russians. The seven endangered islands in the Arctic Ocean and Baring Sea include one large island the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined.” The Russians are going to get Wrangel, Bennett, Jeannette, Henrietta, Copper Island, Sea Lion Rock, and Sea Otter Rock and “tens of thousands of square miles of oil-rich sea beds surrounding the islands.” Estimates by The Department of Interior include billions of barrels of oil.” (World Net Daily)

The Joint Ocean Commission Initiative recommended that the United States give its oceans to the regulatory power of the United Nations Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) which would control oceans, connected waterways, and any oceanic economic activity including passage, fishing, mining, and exploration of fossil fuels.

“Obama’s plan is still in draft form. It calls for an executive order to be issued for a National Ocean Policy that will determine how the ecosystem is managed while giving the federal government more regulatory authority over any businesses that utilize the ocean.” The executive order will draw on Obama’s 2010 Interagency Ocean Policy Taskforce and Executive Order 13547 of July 2010, “Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and the Great Lakes.” (Aaron Klein, World Net Daily)

Sierra Club is blocking the natural gas liquefaction facility of Virginia-based Dominion Resources Inc. at Cove Point, Maryland because it would “change the footprint” of this “natural heritage area.” Dominion wants to export by 2017 750 million cubic feet of gas per day from the Marcellus Shale to Asia. (Ben Wolfgang, The Washington Times)

Sierra Club argues that Dominion’s hydraulic fracturing (fracking) would pollute the Chesapeake Bay and cause irreversible environmental damage to many adjacent areas. The air and drinking water would be poisoned by the process of injecting water, sand, and harmful chemicals to crack deep underground rocks that would release the natural gas.

“Supporting Safe and Responsible Development of Unconventional Domestic Natural Gas Resources,” President Obama’s Executive Order passed on April 13, 2012, aims to control the natural gas market that delivered 25 percent of our energy in 2011. Environmentalists cannot let cheap natural gas interfere with their stated plans to de-develop the United States as punishment for 235 years of ecological imperialism and social injustice.

Many solar energy storage companies, alternative energy companies, and solar panel manufacturing companies that were backed by the Obama administration and heavily subsidized by the Department of Energy have sought bankruptcy protection. Several government subsidized German manufacturers of solar panels have also gone bankrupt.

According to Christopher Bedford, China stopped expansion of its wind and solar energy production, concentrating on nuclear, hydroelectric, and fracking. China has 14 nuclear power plants and 25 under construction. U.S. has 104 nuclear power plants, built prior to 1974, with two new ones scheduled to operate in Georgia in 2016-2017. Unlike China, who is the largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world, we do not build hydroelectric power sources, we blow up dams in order to comply with the EPA Endangered Species Act.

Daniel Kish explained that China is making cheaper solar panels and windmills in order to sell them to western countries that impose renewable energy and clean energy standards on their citizens.

“It is getting tougher and tougher for the Obama administration to argue that somehow we’re in this big race for green power worldwide when the rest of the world seems to have decided that the race isn’t worth winning.” (Daniel Kish, Institute for Energy Research, Daily Caller)

In the meantime, we are experiencing unnecessary high prices at the pump when we could be energy independent, if our administration cared more for the U.S. economy and its citizens and less for the United Nations dictates, treaties, and laws.

It is true, there are other variables that affect the price of oil, such as exchange rates (oil is priced in dollars, a very weak currency right now), OPEC policies, a changing commodities market, inelastic demand for oil products (consumers must buy gasoline whether they like the price or not), and federal taxes on gasoline (18.4 cents per gallon).

The main impediment to our energy independence is the federal government’s policies of green energy, wind, solar, renewables, and out-of-control regulatory agencies such as the EPA and federal bureaucracies like the Department of Energy.

The EPA will use any tactics, including “crucifixion of Big Oil,” to enforce draconian rules and to bring coal, oil and gas companies into submission, in order to fulfill Obama’s “dream of a green planet” devoid of polluting humans. Americans will pay dearly for his dreams.

Canada Free Press