Webloggin » A McCain Presidency Hangs on the Economy (Part III)

Oil and Energy Policy

Politicians are mind boggling because they are destructive self serving individuals by nature lacking in the moral fortitude to lead but somehow we keep sending the same incompetent people back to Washington time and again. This can be only explained away by what Plato said a couple of thousand years ago….

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.”

There is no other area in our political spectrum where this is more apparent than our energy policies where the holier than thou gang proclaims “America Must End Their Dependence On Foreign Oil”. It would be hard to find anyone who would disagree with this but yet, when you look at the Democratic energy policies they are designed to insure our mutual self destruction. We literally bite the hand that feeds us.

At this point in time there is no alternate fuel other than oil, nor is there a need for one, here is an except from Cambridge Energy Research Associates in 2006….

In contrast to a widely discussed theory that world oil production will soon reach a peak and go into sharp decline, a new analysis of the subject by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) finds that the remaining global oil resource base is actually 3.74 trillion barrels — three times as large as the 1.2 trillion barrels estimated by the theory’s proponents — and that the “peak oil” argument is based on faulty analysis which could, if accepted, distort critical policy and investment decisions and cloud the debate over the energy future.The new report describes CERA’s liquids supply outlook as “not a view of endless abundance.” However, based on a range of potential scenarios and field-by-field analysis, CERA finds that not only will world oil production not peak before 2030, but that the idea of a peak is itself “a dramatic but highly questionable image.”This means that there is time to consider the best way to develop viable energy alternatives that would eventually provide the bulk of our transport energy needs and ensure that there is a useable production stream of conventional crude for some time to come,” CERA concludes.

The full report can be read here…

Here is another link from United States Department of Energy chart that provides worldwide proven reserve figures. Please note that these resources are known to exist. These numbers do not include the energy resources that have not been found yet. It’s also important to note that several countries do not provide their reserve data.

So are we running out of oil? Not hardly, but in fact untapped supplies indicate that oil resources are growing. But when it comes to politics facts are irrelevant as compared to political agendas.

The 2007 Energy Bill passed by the Democrats set the stage for $18 billion in new windfall profit taxes on oil companies, which is a sure way of discouraging future research and development.

It established new foolish ethanol standards, which have removed 15% of our farmland from food production to make the ethanol equivalent of just 2% of our gasoline which have caused food prices to rise dramatically.

Under Section 526 of that law, tar sands are considered to be an alternative fuel. But the law requires oil sold to the U.S. government and produced from alternative sources to emit fewer greenhouse gases than oil produced from conventional crude sources.

Canada has an estimated 1.6 trillion barrels of oil on its territory, much of it locked in tough-to-excavate tar sands in the province of Alberta. By comparison, oil-rich Saudi Arabia has an estimated 270 billion barrels left.

Classifying the oil sands as a non-conventional fuel limits our supplies from our number one oil supplier Canada that will only drive the price of oil up. I am sure that China and India won’t have a problem using tar sand oil.

So while the Democrats kowtow to the environmentalist’s lobby the American people are asked to bend over and grab their ankles.

For John McCain this can be a win-win policy on oil because the majority of American people will agree that it is time to end the environmentalist hold that is dictating our energy policy. The people are tired of giving their petro dollar to the Middle East Oil producers who promote terrorism. They ere tired of being squeezed at the gas pump by $100 per barrel oil prices while the Democrats chase windmills, wind farms and ethanol biofuels which cause food prices to rise.

The American people are ready for a sound energy policy which includes drilling and tapping our own natural oil resources.

But the difference between genius and stupidity of Congress is that genius has its limits.— paraphrase of Albert Einstein

Ethanol Lobby Is Perpetrating A Cruel Hoax By WALTER E. WILLIAMS

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline.

(snip)

Let’s look at some of the “wonders” of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.

Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be shipped by truck, rail car or barge. These shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

Ethanol is 20% to 30% less efficient than gasoline, making it more expensive per highway mile. It takes 450 pounds of corn to produce the ethanol to fill one SUV tank. That’s enough corn to feed one person for a year.

Plus, it takes more than one gallon of fossil fuel — oil and natural gas — to produce one gallon of ethanol. After all, corn must be grown, fertilized, harvested and trucked to ethanol producers — all of which are fuel-using activities. And, it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol.

On top of all this, if our total annual corn output were put to ethanol production, it would reduce gasoline consumption by 10% or 12%.

Ethanol is so costly that it wouldn’t make it in a free market. That’s why Congress has enacted major ethanol subsidies, about $1.05 to $1.38 a gallon, which is no less than a tax on consumers.

In fact, there’s a double tax — one in the form of ethanol subsidies and another in the form of handouts to corn farmers to the tune of $9.5 billion in 2005 alone.

There’s something else wrong with this picture. If Congress and President Bush say we need less reliance on oil and greater use of renewable fuels, then why would Congress impose a stiff tariff, 54 cents a gallon, on ethanol from Brazil?

More here…

Clinton Link In Brazil Ethanol Probe

More here from CBS News

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