Terence Corcoran: The new impossible energy no-fly zone
All our energy options appear to be politically off-limits
The world is about to enter a no-fly zone for energy policy, a period where nothing gets off the ground. Here we have a globalized economic system filled with unprecedented energy options, but where all options appear to be politically off-limits. If it comes to that extreme, as seems probable in the short-term wake of the Japanese nuclear meltdown, the battle will be fought with mind-spinning claims and counterclaims, distortions, lies, exaggerations, misrepresentations.
Activists and corporate interests on all sides of the energy policy debate bring their own brands of hysteria and manipulation. The media are in full throttle. Politicians are scrambling.
Who can sort fact from fiction even now? (Financial Post)
Develop American energy – or say good-bye to jobs, revenue and modern living standards.
As Britain suffered through its coldest December in a century, families were forced to choose between keeping homes warm and feeding their children nourishing meals – thanks to climate policies that have forced extensive reliance on wind power and deliberately driven energy prices skyward.
Barely two months later, the UK’s power grid CEO informed the country that its days of reliable electricity are numbered. Families, schools, offices, shops, hospitals and factories will just have to “get used to” consuming electricity “when it’s available,” not necessarily when they want it or need it. A new “smart grid” will be used to allocate decreasing electricity supplies, on a rolling basis or according to bureaucratic determinations as to which consumers most need available power – mostly from wind turbines that provided a pitiful 0.04% of Britain’s electricity during its coldest days last December.
Meanwhile, the EU’s Energy Commissioner warned that German electricity prices are already at “the upper edge” of what society can accept and businesses can tolerate. Taxes, levies and regulations imposed in the name of reducing carbon dioxide emissions and global warming are forcing companies to relocate to other countries and causing “a gradual process of de-industrialization” across Germany.
Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt called for a full and independent investigation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, its practices and suspect science. The IPCC no longer has integrity or credibility, he said, and some of its researchers “have shown themselves to be fraudsters.”
To all of which, the autocratic European Commission essentially said “Drop dead.” The EU, it decreed, will spend $375 billion (€270 billion) annually to slash CO2 emissions by at least 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and 80% by 2050.
Welcome to the Third World, Europeans, where costly electricity is available only from time to time, at unexpected hours, depending on bureaucratic whims and how much power wind turbines and other “environment-friendly” generators can muster. (Paul Driessen, CFACT)
Drilling Delays Inspire New Proposal to Reform Permitting Process
Two Republican lawmakers have developed a plan they hope will put pressure on the Obama administration to speed up the permitting process for offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Reps. Bill Flores (R-TX) and Jeff Landry (R-LA) introduced legislation to codify timeliness of permitting process by establishing stringent deadlines and clear requirements on drilling applications. Leaseholders would even be able to request a refund on their bonus bid if the Department of Interior rejects and application.
The goal is to finally end the de facto drilling moratorium, which was the subject of Wednesday’s hearing of the House Natural Resources Committee.
“The Expedited Offshore Permitting Act aims to increase American energy production and reverse the Obama administration’s reckless anti-energy policies that are costing thousands of jobs, driving up gasoline prices and increasing uncertainty in the marketplace,” Flores said. (The Foundry)
