News

Billionaire Bloomberg fights against affordable coal as Bill Gates admits only rich can afford the alternative energy Wall Street Journal (7/22/11) reports: [Chris] Anderson: When you look at the big picture [for the future of energy], where should we be focusing besides nuclear? On massive solar plants in the desert? On middle-size stuff for office roofs? Or is there a reinvention that could be done right in the home?…Gates: If you’re going for cuteness, the stuff in the home is the place to go. It’s really kind of cool to have solar panels on your roof. But if you’re really interested in the energy problem, it’s those big things in the desert…I think people deeply underestimate what a huge problem this day-night issue is if you’re trying to design an energy system involving solar technology that’s more than just a hobby. You know, the sun shines during the day, and people turn their air conditioners on during the day, so you can catch some of that peaking load, particularly if you get enough subsidies. It’s cute, you know, it’s nice. But the economics are so, so far from making sense. And yet that’s where subsidies are going now. We’re putting 90 percent of the subsidies in deployment—this is true in Europe and the United States—not in R&D. And so unfortunately you get technologies that, no matter how much of them you buy, there’s no path to being economical. You need fundamental breakthroughs, which come more out of basic research…Anderson: So suffice to say we will find no solar cells on the roof of the Gates residence?…Gates: Oh, we like to be cute like everyone. For rich people, this is OK. Rich people can do whatever they want.

As Bloomberg announces his campaign to shut down coal electricity Manhattan suffers rolling blackouts and the vulnerable die of heat stroke — sounds like his plan is working already New York Times (7/22/11) reports: Expressing frustration with the paralysis at the national and international levels on setting policies to combat climate change, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Thursday that he would donate $50 million to the Sierra Club’s campaign to shut down coal-fired power plants across the United States… Mr. Bloomberg appeared with the Sierra Club’s executive director, Michael Brune, near a coal plant in Alexandria, Va., to announce the gift from his chief charitable organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies. Mr. Bloomberg said he hoped it would help the environmental group shut down as many as a third of the nation’s coal-burning power plants — the oldest and dirtiest ones — by 2020…Coal provides nearly half of the nation’s electricity and accounts for roughly a third of its output of carbon dioxide and other gases responsible for warming the planet. Burning coal also produces millions of tons of other pollutants that are harmful to human health and the environment…The gift is a small fraction of Mr. Bloomberg’s wealth, but it represents a national political statement as well as an environmental commitment. With it, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent is taking on powerful coal and electric utility lobbies that have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to protect their interests and to oppose politicians who defy them.

We’ve sowed our own destruction with the success that capitalism creates — we can fix this country if we can only remember how National Review Online (7/20/11) reports: Our politicians love soaring platitudes followed by little, if any, action. The more Americans are promised shovel-ready stimulus projects, new sources of power, and other fantasies, the more we accept that bureaucracy, regulations, lawsuits, and impact statements will prevent much from ever being done…The president himself, after demanding nearly a trillion dollars in borrowed money for his budget, confessed that his “shovel-ready” projects had proved not so shovel-ready after all. Much of the vast sum of borrowed money instead went to subsidize nearly insolvent pension funds, entitlements, and bloated state budgets. Unemployment is still at 9.2 percent, with nearly 50 million people on government-subsidized food stamps — even as American infrastructure is crumbling, the private sector is moribund, and national timidity prevents any new large, visionary construction. Prior generations gave us space projects; ours ends them. Boeing once ruled the skies; now the government sues to stop Boeing from opening a new plant…Huntington’s dream project — eventually expanded, and today managed by the Southern California Edison power company — would eventually encompass six major lakes, 27 dams, and 24 powerhouses that capture the descending High Sierra water to generate over 1,000 megawatts of clean electricity.

What happens to the price of oil when it’s stranded underground by government policies? Reuters (7/21/11) reports: Oil is a quintessential global commodity. But the price of the black stuff has got harder to grasp thanks to the gap between the two main benchmarks — Brent and WTI. Contrary to market expectations, this gap could widen over the coming year as ever more U.S. crude is stranded at home. This will delight U.S refiners. Questioning about the true price of oil, however, could get louder…Market benchmarks for oil were never perfect measures of world crude prices. Crude oil comes in different qualities, and costs of transport impacts buying decisions. Dominant producers like Saudi Arabia –- seeking absolute control of pricing – pretend their oil is not even traded, but bought at the price it decides is right. The Brent benchmark, based on shipments of North Sea oil, emerged in the 1980s partly as a way of skirting this problem…But in recent years both Brent and WTI — West Texas Intermediate, a U.S. oil similar in nature to the North Sea crude –- have faced challenges. Does either reflect the global price of oil? Flagging oil production from the North Sea led to upward pressure on the price of Brent. Some wonder if trades are deep enough to constitute effective price discovery. True, Platts, custodian of the Brent benchmark, has worked hard to keep the price relevant by bringing new fields into the calculation and looking at prices over a longer time frame. The decline in North Sea output –- down 40 percent since 1999 according to Citi -– still makes its life difficult…As for WTI, inadequate pipeline infrastructure makes it difficult to get the stuff out of North America — and that depresses its price, especially when demand is also weak. Its problems could also get worse before they get better. Output from North America is growing faster than expected. Canadian producers, for example, recently said output will grow from 2.7 million barrels a day to 3.4 million by 2014 and North Dakota production is surging. Meanwhile efforts to build new pipelines are mired in political controversy.

Ahem, what about Virginia oil and gas production? Senator Webb would also like to know why the state he represents cannot get to work producing energy Washington Post (7/22/11) reports: Sen. Jim Webb is calling on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee to consider legislation opening waters off Virginia to oil and gas exploration…An aide said the Virginia Democrat’s appeal has been heeded and will be offered as an amendment to a Senate bill on Thursday…Webb and fellow Democrat Mark Warner have proposed legislation that would lift a moratorium the Obama administration placed on East Coast exploration following the Gulf oil spill. The Virginia senators also want to ensure leasing revenues flow to the state and an expansion of the leasing area. They say the change is needed to better reflect oil and gas reserves off the state’s coast…Webb maintains the proposal has strong support among state residents and Virginia’s political leaders.

Let’s not forget about the jobs…and the money Houston Chronicle reports: Faster permitting of offshore oil and gas projects could create nearly 230,000 new jobs in 2012 and boost the economy by $44 billion, including a surge in tax revenue, according to an industry-funded study released Thursday…The report by IHS CERA said job growth would extend beyond the Gulf Coast states, boosting employment indirectly as far away as California, New York, Florida, Illinois and Georgia…The study, funded by the Gulf Economic Survival Team, a group of largely Louisiana-based energy and business interests, looks at data on the pace of permitting by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement through April 30…That’s six months after the end of a federal moratorium on offshore drilling, which the government imposed after last year’s Deepwater Horizon accident killed 11 workers and triggered a 5 million-barrel oil spill…Permit approvals take 95 percent longer now than before the spill, the study says…The delays are leading to lost opportunities for investments in the Gulf, which would create jobs and boost federal and state tax revenues, IHS CERA said…Permitting delays also hurt future U.S. oil production as the slowdown in drilling postpones new discoveries, the study says, and faster permitting could lead to an additional 400,000 barrels per day in production by 2012…”There is a need to better align the new regulatory environment with industry capacity, as the current pace of plan and permit approval is congested,” said Jim Burkhard, IHS CERA’s managing director for global oil, who co-authored the report.

What else do you want us to do for you Mr. President on the Keystone XL oil pipeline? Read your horoscope? The Hill (7/20/11) reports: The House in the coming weeks is expected to consider legislation that would require the Obama administration to decide by Nov. 1 whether to approve the expansion of a TransCanada oil pipeline to the U.S…H.R. 1938, the North American-Made Energy Security Act, was just listed on the House Rules Committee website as an “active” bill, although no action is scheduled so far this week…Republicans who support the bill argue that the State Department has had enough time to examine TransCanada’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline. TransCanada applied for a permit for the project with the State Department in September 2008, but no decision has been rendered in the 33 months since…The pipeline would carry crude oil from Canada’s oil sands from Alberta to refineries in Texas, and would cut through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and Oklahoma…The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Lee Terry (R-Neb.), argues that approving the pipeline would bring hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day to U.S. refineries, and help lower gas prices.

Let me translate this article — we need more oil Wall Street Journal (7/21/11) reports: Oil futures ended higher after a U.S. government report showed a steep drop in crude inventories, but the rally was blunted by an increase in refined-product stockpiles…Light, sweet crude for August delivery rose 64 cents, or 0.7%, to settle at $98.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract expired at the close of trading, and the more actively traded September contract settled up 54 cents, or 0.6%, at $98.40 a barrel…Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange gained $1.09, or 0.9%, to settle at $118.15 a barrel…Futures ended higher after the Department of Energy said U.S. oil inventories showed a bigger-than-expected decline. The stockpiles of crude fell 3.7 million barrels last week, signaling strong demand from refiners…In fact, refinery utilization rose 2.3 percentage points to 90.3% of capacity, their highest rate of utilization in almost a year. Analysts had expected utilization to rise just 0.2 percentage point.

Tech executive uses your tax dollars to install solar panels on his mansion and feels real good about himself Los Angeles Times (7/21/11) reports: Just ask 51-year-old Karl Hutter. The Silicon Valley tech executive refuses to drive a hybrid car but signed up with solar panel outfit SolarCity…”You’re doing good by the planet, and you’re doing good by your pocket book,” says Hutter of Menlo Park, Calif. “Fundamentally, when you have both it makes perfect sense.”…Hutter has joined the ranks of people enticed as much by price as the feel-good element of saving the Earth. He’s hardly alone…In the first quarter of 2011, U.S. solar panel installations shot up 66%, or the equivalent of powering roughly 20,000 average houses, compared with a year ago, says a report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and GTM Research….In the past year, falling prices for systems that capture the sun’s energy and turn it into electricity have helped spur growth as well. Prices of solar panel components dipped 15% in the quarter from a year ago, according to the SEIA…”We’ve seen a dramatic decrease in the price of solar power over the past year,” said the SEIA’s Tom Kimbis. “That has helped residential and commercial use of solar.”

The lesson here is, it is better to be a replacement for a crazy enviro (like Nancy Stoner), than it is to be a crazy enviro yourself… E&E News (7/20/11) reports: President Obama’s pick to become the top conservationist at the Interior Department yesterday faced a raft of sharp questions about her past from Senate Republicans, signaling a bruising confirmation fight ahead…Under questioning from GOP members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Rebecca Wodder, the nominee to become assistant secretary of the Interior for fish and wildlife, tried to distance herself on several occasions from statements made and positions taken during her 16-year tenure as president and CEO of the conservation group American Rivers…”I had a job to do,” Wodder told Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, the committee’s top Republican. “I recognize very clearly the job I’ve been nominated for is an entirely different job.”..Wodder will likely win enough support from the Democrat-controlled committee before the August recess, although her confirmation by the full Senate is less certain, aides say…Yesterday’s hearing showed that Wodder made powerful enemies during her previous career. Inhofe’s question centered on a statement Wodder made that was sharply critical of hydraulic fracturing, a controversial method of natural gas extraction that involves blasting water and chemicals deep underground to free gas trapped in rock formations…”Unless we stop the threat of rampant shale fracking, the drinking water for 17 million people across the Northeast will be threatened by toxic pollution,” Wodder had said. “We can’t let natural gas companies fatten their profits by putting our precious clean water at risk.

You see?  When PSEG puts its mind to it, it can be a pretty good utilily NJ (7/20/11) reports: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission this morning approved a 20-year license extension for the Hope Creek nuclear reactor here…The action means the plant can now operate through April 11, 2046…On June 30, the NRC granted 20-year license extensions to the Salem 1 and 2 reactors which are located here along with Hope Creek at the Artificial Island generating complex operated by PSEG Nuclear.  Salem 1 and 2 are now licensed through 2036 and 2040, respectively…“The license renewal of Hope Creek, as well as Salem last month, ensures clean nuclear energy is available for New Jersey and the region for years to come,” said Tom Joyce, president and chief nuclear officer of PSEG Nuclear… “With the support of our employees, we will build upon our strong operating history of providing safe, reliable energy and continue to play a major role in supporting our local community who has supported us all these years,” said Joyce who is in charge of operations at the Artificial Island complex.

My math is always a little shaky, but it you carry the one . . . you still wind up about a million short of the President’s “goal” of 1 million electric vehicles by whenever Los Angeles Times (7/19/11) reports: When it comes to sales of electric vehicles, Nissan’s Leaf is charging ahead…Nissan Motor Co. has sold 4,134 of the battery-powered electric cars this year. General Motors Co.’s Chevrolet, by comparison, has sold 2,745 of its Volt car, which is technically a plug-in hybrid because it runs on electricity for about 40 miles before a gasoline-fueled generator kicks in to extend the vehicle’s range…Fans of the pure electric vehicles, rather than plug-in hybrid models such as the Volt, should be pleased, said Mike Omotoso, an auto industry analyst at J.D. Power & Associates…”The Leaf outselling the Volt helps the EV movement. The more Nissan sells, the more Leafs people will see on the road, and that might encourage others to take the plunge and buy an electric vehicle,” he said…Indeed, the electric car market is about to grow. Nissan and Chevrolet are ramping up production. In addition, other automakers have battery electric and plug-in offerings set to hit dealerships over the next 18 months, including the Mitsubishi iMiEV, the Ford Focus Electric, the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid, the Honda Fit EV and a plug-in hybrid version of the Honda Fit, according to market analysis firm Automotive Lease Group…Leaf sales are helped by a lower cost — a sticker price starting at $33,630 compared with the Volt’s $41,000. And the Leaf has an added benefit for California buyers. It qualifies for a carpool-lane sticker, whereas the Volt is not expected to get that certification until midway through the 2012 model year. Both vehicles qualify for a $7,500 federal tax credit.

Winning the Future: China dives three miles down into the Pacific to catalogue their under water treasures — natural resources Wall Street Journal (7/20/11) reports: China plans an ultradeep dive by a manned submersible beneath the Pacific that would propel it past the U.S. in a race to explore potentially vast mineral resources in the deepest parts of the world’s oceans…The Jiaolong—named after a mythical sea-dragon—left China on board an oceanographic research ship on July 1. It arrived on Saturday at its destination in the northeastern Pacific, between Hawaii and North America, where it is to attempt a dive to 5,000 meters, or about 16,400 feet, according to state media reports…The state-run Xinhua news agency on Saturday quoted Liu Feng, the director of the diving trials, as saying the sea was too rough to attempt the first of its planned four dives before Wednesday. “We’ll use this time to do our preparatory work down to the last detail, and as soon as sea conditions improve, we’ll start sea trials,” he was quoted as saying…Xinhua quoted Liu Cigui, director of the State Oceanic Administration, on Saturday that a “marvel” of Chinese manned submergence would occur in the next 15 days. The administration, which is overseeing the mission, didn’t respond to a request to comment.

Continued: Chinese company buys Canadian oil-sands developer for $2.1 billion Wall Street Journal (7/20/11) reports: Cnooc Ltd., China’s biggest offshore oil and gas producer, said Wednesday that it agreed to acquire Canadian oil-sands developer OPTI Canada Inc. at a cost of about US$2.1 billion…The deal is the latest of a string of Chinese energy acquisitions in Canada, although it comes just weeks after the collapse of a planned $5.5 billion shale gas deal after Encana Corp. and PetroChina Co. failed to agree on terms…Cnooc said in a statement it will make the purchase through its wholly owned unit Cnooc Luxembourg SA. The deal, under which Cnooc will buy OPTI’s outstanding shares for $34 million and acquire its debt of a little over $2 billion, will be completed in the fourth quarter, but is subject to regulatory approval in Canada and China…On July 14, OPTI filed for Canada’s version of bankruptcy protection after its senior bondholders agreed to a debt-for-equity swap…”The transaction strengthens our Canadian presence in the oil sands business. We believe that upside potential of the assets will facilitate local energy supply and our production growth in the long term,” said Cnooc Chief Executive Yang Hua…The principal assets of OPTI Canada are a 35% working interest in the Long Lake oil sands reserve and three other project areas located in the Athabasca region of Alberta…The Athabasca region holds an estimated 170 billion barrels of a type of heavy crude oil that requires heat, steam or chemicals to extract it from sandy deposits…OPTI Canada’s working interest share, before royalties, of raw bitumen reserves and resources on its oil sands leases is estimated to be 195 million barrels of proved reserves, the statement said. These reserves and resources are estimated to be sufficient to support about 430,000 barrels per day of bitumen production.

As if having an oversupply of attractive women is not enough, it was announced that Venezuela has the largest oil reserves of OPEC nations…CNBC (7/20/11) reports: OPEC’s proven crude oil reserves rose 12.1 percent in 2010 to 1.19 trillion barrels led by Venezuela, which has surpassed Saudi Arabia as the group’s largest reserves holder, OPEC said in its Annual Statistical Bulletin…The latest figures are unlikely to quell scepticism about reserves estimates from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, some of which analysts say may be exaggerated although the producers deny doing so…OPEC’s growth in oil reserves was mainly due to Venezuela, whose holdings climbed to 296.5 billion barrels from 211.2 billion in 2009, the report said. Top OPEC exporter Saudi Arabia’s reserves were steady at 264.5 billion barrels…Iran and Iraq also boosted their reserves last year. In October, Iran increased its reserves to 150 billion barrels within a week of an upward revision by Iraq, ensuring that Tehran continued to rank above Baghdad…”OPEC has a fantastic history of competitive reserves upgrades,” said Bill Farren-Price, analyst at Petroleum Policy Intelligence…Reserves are one of the criteria OPEC has used in setting output targets. Iran and Iraq were rivals in the past over OPEC quotas, and OPEC in the next few years is expected to tackle the issue of bringing Iraq back into the quota system. Iraq is exempt at present…Iraq boosted its reserves to 143 billion barrels last year, up 24 percent, the report said. Iraq has said its reserves increased as work by international oil companies started to yield results.

Sure, because the real problem here is position limits.  How in the world do Commissioners O’Malia and Sommers tolerate Gensler? E&E News (7/19/11) reports: Lawmakers who point to oil futures trading as a key culprit behind this spring’s uptick in gas costs will get a chance to delve more deeply into the politics of pump prices at a Thursday hearing on the Obama administration’s new nominee to join the Commodity Futures Trading Commission…Appearing before the Senate Agriculture Committee on the first anniversary of the financial reform law that he helped steer through Congress, CFTC nominee Mark Wetjen is expected to face questions from both sides of the aisle on the implementation of that statute’s futures trading limits. As gas prices climbed toward an average of $4 per gallon earlier this year, Democrats clamored for CFTC action to curb oil speculation, charging Wall Street hedgers with driving up costs for everyday consumers as a response to frequent GOP attacks on U.S. EPA pollution regulations…Amid that political back-and-forth, Wetjen was nominated to take the place of Michael Dunn, who is seen as a swing vote on oil futures regulation (E&E Daily, May 13). A former top adviser to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Wetjen would appear to represent a more reliable pro-Democratic vote for CFTC chief Gary Gensler but could face pressure to moderate his views on speculative trading to avoid putting his confirmation at risk…Gensler sought to assure the Agriculture panel last month that CFTC would act “as soon as we humanly can” on a mandate in the financial reform law to set limits on oil and other commodities trading. But committee Democrats were not pleased by the commission’s plans to delay regulation that was initially set to take effect this summer, telling Gensler — and likely Wetjen — as much.

Hey, if you’re going to get paid to lie, you might as well be good at it. EDP (7/19/11) reports: Neil Wallis, managing director of consumer agency the Outside Organisation and former News of the World executive editor, became the ninth person to be arrested in connection with the scandal on Thursday…The 60-year-old, who was deputy editor under Andy Coulson’s editorship, was detained in a dawn raid on his west London home and questioned for several hours at Hammersmith police station…The EDP has discovered that Wallis, who joined Outside Organisation in October 2009 as a senior consultant, was used by the UEA following the Climategate scandal which broke out in 2009 following the leak of thousands of emails which climate change sceptics claimed showed data had been manipulated in favour of man-made climate change…A UEA spokesman confirmed Wallis did give them advice following the scandal which last year saw Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit cleared by a committee of MPs of hiding or manipulating data to back up his own science…The revelation came on another extraordinary day in the phone hacking scandal as Rebekah Brooks finally resigned as chief executive of News International amid growing political and commercial pressure on the company and owner Rupert Murdoch prepared to use adverts in national newspapers today to apologise for the NoW’s “serious wrongdoing”.

Remember the biased NYT hit piece on Nat Gas? Well, even the NYT’s public editor agrees that the article was an unfounded hit piece New York Times (7/18/11) reports: A New York Times article last month, “Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush,” warned across two columns at the top of the front page that high expectations for companies drilling shale gas might be headed for a fall. It was the kind of story you wish The Times had written about Enron before it collapsed. Or about Bernard Madoff…The June 26 article, written by Ian Urbina, was clearly intended to offer that kind of signal and specifically invoked “Enron,” “Ponzi schemes” and “dot-coms” in the early paragraphs…Raising the prospect of a fall, though, is a journalistic gamble. Adding to the risk, the story painted its subject with an overly broad brush and didn’t include dissenting views from experts who aren’t entrenched on one side or another of the subject. After publication, critics jumped in with both feet…A UBS investment analyst, William A. Featherston, and colleagues issued a report saying that the article, part of The Times’s continuing “Drilling Down” series on shale gas, was “unduly harsh,” failed to recognize the “enormous” growth of shale gas in recent years and offered no “credible source and context.”…An M.I.T. natural gas study group released a statement taking issue with The Times’s analysis of shale gas economics, well productivity and other matters. Other commentators assailed the sourcing used to support the article’s premise: only two people named in the text, plus a large trove of e-mail from people whose names were redacted by The Times.

Our friends over at GMU provide some context and analysis of the NYT Nat Gas hit piece Stats (7/19/11) reports: The New York Times’ public editor, Arthur Brisbane, finally weighed in on the much-criticized reporting on natural gas by DC-based Ian Urbina—and it came as a sharp and almost unprecedented rebuke of the reporting techniques and ethics of its national editor and staff…The Times has raised eyebrows across the ideological spectrum for its “Drilling Down” series—what has appeared to many to be a year long un-nuanced attack on natural gas and the shale gas extraction technique known as hydraulic fracturing. A slew of commentators, from liberal Joe Nocera (of the very same Times) to Scott Anderson of the Environmental Defense Fund to almost every energy expert, from MIT to Wall Street, have made hash of claims by a faction of environmentalists, previously hyped in a series of articles by Urbina, that fracking poses extraordinary environmental dangers…But the Urbina ‘the sky-is-falling’ express went off the rails completely on June 25 and 26 with two front page stories asserting that shale gas reserves are being hyped by the natural gas industry. Urbina and the sources he selectively quoted suggested parallels to Ponzi schemes, Enron and the housing bubble…Scientists at MIT and elsewhere, who have confirmed massive shale gas reserves but whose research was not even referenced in the piece, immediately issued sharp rebukes of the Urbina narrative. As I noted in a critique for RealClearPolitics, the Times’ article left out key editorial framing details, such as the dubious credibility of the only two identified sources. And as Michael Levi of the Council of Foreign Relations pointed out in his blog, this latest critique of shale gas consisted almost entirely of cherry picked comments from anonymous sources.

Even the cars in East Berlin worked, but then again there was only one type to buy…perhaps that’s the next step for the Obama Administration KSBW (7/18/11) reports: Wave of the A Salinas car manufacturing company that was expected to build environmentally friendly electric cars and create new jobs folded before almost any vehicles could run off the assembly line…The city of Salinas had invested more than half a million dollars in Green Vehicles, an electric car start-up company…All of that money is now gone, according to Green Vehicles President and Co-Founder Mike Ryan…The start-up company set up shop in Salinas in the summer of 2009, after the city gave Ryan a $300,000 community development grant…When the company still ran into financial trouble last year, the city of Salinas handed Ryan an additional $240,000. Green Vehicles also received $187,000 from the California Energy Commission…Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue said he was “surprised and disappointed” by the news. City officials were equally irked that Ryan notified them through an email that his company had crashed and burned…Salinas Economic Development Director Jeff Weir said Green Vehicles flopped because of a lack of investors.

Oil is Mother Nature’s gift to man and right now North Dakota is reaping the benefits Forbes (7/19/11) reports: North Dakota ended the decade with more than 430,000 workers, up more than 61,000 since 2000 and an increase equal to the population of Bismarck, the state’s second biggest city, a Job Service analysis showed…Thousands of jobs remain unfilled in a state that’s enjoying a robust economy thanks to its booming oil patch and healthy agriculture markets, the agency said… While North Dakota lost residents for decades, it has gained population and jobs as oil production has increased in the past few years…”Oil is not the only game in town, but they are important to us,” said Michael Ziesch, a Job Service North Dakota research analyst…The state added 17,755 jobs from 2008 to 2010, more than two-thirds of which were filled by workers from elsewhere. They came from every state in the nation, led by neighboring Minnesota, Montana and South Dakota, Job Service records showed…Large influxes of workers also have come from states with similar climates and geographies as North Dakota, such as Wisconsin, Idaho and Michigan, Ziesch said. Residents from states with strong energy sectors such as Texas, Wyoming and Colorado also have flocked to North Dakota to fill jobs, he said.

Duh or should they being saying, D’OH? Reuters (7/19/11) reports: The International Energy Agency has not yet decided whether to conduct a second release of emergency oil reserves by its member countries, executive director Nobuo Tanaka said at a seminar in Tokyo…The IEA in June announced a 60 million-barrel one-month release from emergency stockpiles in a temporary measure to fill a supply gap from missing Libyan output before extra Saudi Arabian production emerged, the third such move in its history…The IEA is expected to confer with its member countries by July 23 to decide whether to draw further on emergency oil stocks…Tanaka also said the IEA is checking how long top producer Saudi Arabia will continue to increase its oil output and how much of the released oil reached the markets.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launches “Not In My Backyard” campaign against…cape wind. As it turns out, wind is good enough for the Hicks in West Virginia, but not arugula eating Bostonians Wall Street Journal (7/18/11) reports:  Someone needs to tell the politicians in Boston and Washington that Cape Wind, the long-stalled plan to cover 25 square miles of pristine Nantucket Sound with 130 massive steel windmill-turbine towers, is a rip-off. That someone is most likely to be the newly enlightened electricity ratepayers—and voters—of Massachusetts….In the past few months it has become clearer than ever how much this giveaway of public property is going to cost them if Cape Wind is ever built. The numbers are staggering…Vermont wants to take its nuclear plant off line and replace it with clean, green power from HydroQuebec—power available to Massachusetts utilities—at a cost of six cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). Cape Wind electricity, by a conservative estimate and based on figures they filed with the state, comes in at 25 cents per kwh…In Massachusetts, the utility company NSTAR has fought off intense political pressure to commit to buying Cape Wind’s power when and if it becomes available. CEO Tom May has repeatedly said such a contract would impose far too large a burden on his ratepayers…Instead, and to meet the state’s requirements that utilities purchase 3.5% of their power from “green” sources, NSTAR has contracted with several far less expensive land-based wind-power providers…According to NSTAR’s own filings to certify compliance with the green-power requirement, these contracts come in at $111 million below market averages over the standard contract period of 15 years. The price of Cape Wind power comes in at well over $1 billion above market averages, according to Cape Wind’s own regulatory filings about its contract with National Grid, the utility company that has agreed to buy half its power…If the sea-based wind farm off Nantucket did begin operating, it is safe to deduce that National Grid customers would be getting fleeced compared to their NSTAR neighbors. The land-based wind alternatives that have sprouted up over the last decade have given utilities far cheaper alternatives to the unbuilt Cape Wind.

Plant Food: new study out that shows forests love carbon dioxide New York Times (7/18/11) reports: The world’s forests are magnificent palaces of biodiversity, teeming with wacky and wonderful creatures and plants that seem otherworldly. But they’re also something far more mundane although useful: they’re giant sponges, soaking up vast amounts of carbon dioxide…According to a study published online on Thursday by the journal Science, the world’s forests absorb 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year, or about one-third of the carbon dioxide released through the burning of fossil fuels…The lead author, Yude Pam, a research forester at the Forest Service, describes the study as the most comprehensive analysis of the global carbon budget to date. It shows that forests are a far more significant carbon sink than previously thought. At the same time, the report emphasizes the devastating effects of tropical deforestation and the need to protect trees that perform an enormous global service…Of the three different types of forests studied — boreal, temperate and tropical — the paper shows that tropical forests are the most dynamic in capturing carbon dioxide. During the 17-year study period, from 1990 to 2007, an international team of researchers found that established tropical forests alone captured about 1.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year, accounting for 55 percent of the total established carbon sink in forests…At the same time, however, deforestation in the developing world, most notably in Indonesia and Brazil, is releasing about three billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year, the researchers write. While this is offset somewhat by forest regrowth, which annually absorbs about 1.6 billion tons of carbon, over all, shifts in tropical land use, like clearing land for agriculture, is still emitting 1.3 billion tons annually…In an interview, Richard Birdsey, program manager at the Forest Service and another lead author of the paper, emphasized that what happens in the tropical forests “can make or break the carbon budget.”

You want to really sell homes in this economy? Tell the buyer the home is powered with expensive energy, by which we mean green power Bloomberg (7/18/11) reports: In the 20 years Ron Betenbough’s company has been building homes in west Texas, he’s always been willing to compete on price. Now, in a market crowded with cheap properties, he’s also touting environmentally friendly construction and energy-saving features….Betenbough Homes has been promoting all its houses as “green” since November, after winning certification under an industry-run program, Betenbough said in a telephone interview. The company didn’t raise prices, absorbing added costs of less than $500 on each of its units, which list for as low as $110,000 in some subdivisions…“We chalked it up to marketing,” said Betenbough, 70, who founded the Lubbock, Texas-based company with his son, Rick…As the housing slump enters its sixth year, small companies such as Betenbough and giants such as PulteGroup Inc., the largest U.S. homebuilder by revenue, are using green marketing as a weapon in the battle for buyers who have their pick of low- priced existing properties, including foreclosures. Builders are touting a confusing array of potentially profit-pinching environmental standards that have yet to prove effective in swaying consumers…To label its homes green, Betenbough Homes added a few features, such as low-flow toilets, and paid for inspections, allowing it to get the “bronze” level of certification from the National Association of Home Builders, the lowest of the Washington-based group’s four green ratings. The company had previously adopted design elements including energy-efficient windows, to block out heat and dust, and prefabricated roof trusses, which save money and create less waste.

How do you like them apples, Mr. President? Speculators bet that the Obama Administration will maintain its campaign against affordable and reliable energy, compounding global demand Bloomberg (7/15/11) reports: Heating oil and gasoline gained on speculation that the economic recovery will accelerate and demand will improve if an agreement is reached to raise the U.S. debt ceiling…Heating oil futures rose as much as 1 percent as President Barack Obama pressed congressional leaders to give him options for a deficit-cutting deal that lawmakers could support as part of raising the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit by an Aug. 2 deadline…“Once we get past this debt-ceiling crisis, demand as we go into the fourth quarter, will provide some support for the oil markets and gasoline in particular,” Gene McGillian, an analyst and broker at Tradition Energy in Stamford, Connecticut…Heating oil for August delivery gained 2 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $3.1049 a gallon at 10:46 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures slipped as much as 0.9 percent earlier in electronic trading…The U.S. House of Representatives plans a vote next week on a measure that would raise the government’s debt limit by $2.4 trillion, cut spending, cap government expenditures and propose a balanced-budget constitutional amendment, Republican lawmakers Sean Duffy and Billy Long said…Gasoline for August delivery rose 1.21 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $3.1369 a gallon on the exchange.

Finally, instead of putting our best minds and money behind switch grass biofuel, MIT says they want to study how to get more oil out of the ground Houston Chronicle (7/18/11) reports: The University of Texas and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are seeking funding for a joint research center to study ways to produce oil and natural gas in challenging areas that may soon play a bigger role in the global energy mix…Representatives of the two schools met at MIT last week to hash out further details, but they have agreed on a broad framework for the proposed project, which they call the Research Center for Environmental Protection at Hydrocarbon Energy Production Frontiers, or REEF…The center, to be located at both UT’s campus in Austin and MIT’s in Cambridge, Mass., will tap experts from both schools in fields ranging from engineering and geosciences to law and public policy. The goal is to develop a series of guiding principles for responsible oil and gas exploration on frontiers such as ultradeep-water offshore areas, the Arctic and dense shale rock formations…”It builds on the undeniable and not-liked fact by some people that hydrocarbons are going to be with us for a long time, and to a large degree the increased supplies are going to come from risky environments,” said Chip Groat, director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin, who serves on a steering committee for the center…Once planning for the center is complete, the two schools will begin pitching oil companies and other potential sponsors, with the goal of having key portions of the center up and running by the end of the year, Groat said…The center, as it is envisioned, could require commitments of up to $100 million over five years, coming from multiple sponsors, he said…But its research would be independent…”We aren’t promising that everything we will find is exactly what they want to hear,” Groat said…The idea for the research center grew out of last year’s Gulf of Mexico disaster, which exposed risks of operating in the deep-water offshore areas. The blowout of BP’s Macondo well in mile-deep waters off Louisiana killed 11 workers and unleashed the nation’s worst oil spill.

The UK government in their infinite wisdom and knowledge of the economy has created an energy famine and poor people have been forced to make hard decisions AP (7/15/11) reports: One in five households in the UK were affected by fuel poverty in 2009 official figures showed on Friday with campaigners warning the situation will worsen as electricity and gas prices continue to rise…The number of UK households in fuel poverty rose from 4.5 million in 2008 to 5.5 million in 2009, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) figures showed…The department estimates that the figure was unchanged in 2010 but could rise by 1 million this year. In the UK fuel poverty is when a household spends more than 10 percent of income on fuel for heating, hot water, lights and appliances…But campaign groups warned that recent price hikes by energy companies will leave millions more people struggling to pay their bills and put vulnerable people at risk…The figures come a week after the UK’s biggest energy supplier announced rises in its gas and electricity prices from August…Centrica, which owns British Gas, said it was raising its domestic tariffs for gas by an average 18 percent and electricity by an average 16 percent, with some bills increasing by as much as 25 percent…The company blamed rising wholesale costs, which it said had increased 30 percent since last winter on higher global demand for gas and the impact on supply of unrest in the Arab world…That announcement comes in the wake of sharp prices rises outlined by Scottish Power, which plans to raise the cost of gas by 19 percent and electricity by 10 percent in August…It also comes on the back of increases last winter, when British Gas put its charges up by 7 percent in December, adding £1.50 to the average weekly dual fuel bill.

It’s a damn shame that the world’s two top bio engineers, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, are too busy debating the debt ceiling and cannot help refineries understand their instructions for how to make biofuel practical Wall Street Journal (7/15/11) reports: Today’s pop quiz: What happens if the government mandates the consumption of a product that doesn’t exist? Naturally, the Environmental Protection Agency has decided to punish the gasoline refiners because they can’t buy a type of alternative fuel that no one is making. Consumers will be punished too…The 2007 energy bill vastly increased the volume of corn ethanol that must be blended into gasoline, though it also included mandates for cellulosic ethanol. These are the second-generation fuels made from stocks like switchgrass or the wood chips that George W. Bush invoked in his 2006 State of the Union. At the time, no such fuels were being produced on a commercial scale, but cellulosic producers and the green lobby assured Congress they were just about to turn the corner, and both the Bush and Obama Administration furnished handsome subsidies…The EPA set the 2011 standard at six million gallons. Reality hasn’t cooperated. Zero gallons have been produced in the last six months and the corner isn’t visible over the next six months either. The EPA has only approved a single plant to sell the stuff, operated by Range Fuels near Soperton, Georgia. The company used to be a press corps favorite and has been lauded by the last two Presidents, but it shut down its cellulosic operations earlier this year to work through technical snafus…In its wisdom, Congress decided that some companies should be penalized if the targets aren’t met. But they’re not the companies that importuned the government for mandates and corporate welfare. They’re the U.S. oil refiners that make gasoline, which will end up buying six million cellulosic waivers by year’s end at $1.13 a pop. That’s $6.78 million in higher costs at the pump, in return for nothing.

Unlike the Energizer Bunny, the lithium ion battery companies did not keep on going and going and going… Alt Energy Stocks (7/14/11) reports: I hate being wrong, but Mother always taught us, “if you have to eat crow don’t nibble.”…In February 2010 I wrote an article titled “Why I Don’t Expect A Lithium-Ion Battery Glut” that’s shaping up as one of the worst predictions in the history of my blog. This week Lux Research published a report titled “Using Partnerships to Stay Afloat in the Electric Vehicle Storm” that has me convinced that the capacity glut in lithium-ion batteries will be massive for at least a decade…I humbly and sincerely apologize to any readers who bought shares in lithium-ion battery developers based on my starry-eyed optimism for the EV battery market…As I expected, plug-in vehicles are drawing breathless reviews from the press and EVangelicals, and indifference or outright scorn from the car buying public. Automakers are toying with plug-in vehicle concepts that may go into production over the next few years if the plans aren’t scrapped due to customer apathy, but they’re all rushing to make new fuel efficiency technologies like stop-start idle elimination standard equipment. With the exception of Advanced Battery Technologies (ABAT) which makes both ebikes and the batteries that power them, E2W manufacturers are letting their customers decide and the overwhelming majority of E2W buyers are voting with their wallets and deciding that cheap and reliable lead acid batteries are better suited to their needs despite a little extra weight…Can you believe it? Cheap is beating cool. Who could have predicted such an outcome in the depths of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s?…In all seriousness, Lux forecasts a catastrophic supply and demand imbalance in the lithium-ion battery sector over the next decade. On the supply side it predicts that global manufacturing capacity will ramp to about 21,000 MWh by next year (875,000 Leaf-class BEVs) and climb to almost 30,000 MWh (1.25 million Leaf-class BEVs) by 2015. On the demand side, Lux’s optimistic case based on $200 oil predicts annual battery sales of about 6,000 MWh in 2015 (250,000 Leaf-class BEVs) ramping to 22,500 MWh (937,500 Leaf-class BEVs) by 2020. Under their more conservative $140 oil price scenario, demand won’t hit 6,000 MWh until 2020. The low oil price scenario is aggressively ugly. Is it any wonder that France has recently withdrawn €100 million of subsidized loans for a planned Renault battery plant?

The Hill has it on good authority that the GOP isn’t ready to sell out the American motorist with higher energy taxes, yet…. The Hill (7/14/11) reports: Declaring it “decision time,” President Obama is giving congressional leaders until the weekend to determine the size and scope of a package to reduce the deficit and increase the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit… At a meeting described by multiple officials as “polite” and “cordial,” negotiators finished scouring the potential elements of a deficit-reduction deal, and Obama instructed Republican and Democratic leaders to discuss with their caucuses what kind of measure could pass Congress by the Aug. 2 deadline set by the Treasury Department for raising the debt ceiling…“It’s decision time. We need concrete plans to move this forward,” Obama told the leaders, according to a Democratic official familiar with the meeting. He gave them 24 to 36 hours to consult with each party’s rank-and-file…The House Republican conference will meet Friday at 8 a.m., House Democrats will meet at 9 a.m., and the president has scheduled a press conference for 11 a.m…The president and congressional leaders will not meet on Friday, but will probably reconvene over the weekend, an official said.

IER’s Tom Pyle gives the White House a math lesson U.S. News In the current stalemate on raising the debt ceiling, President Obama has ratcheted up the rhetoric against the American oil and gas industry.  Big Oil, he insists, benefits from generous federal subsidies and enjoys favorable treatment from the current tax code.  The president maintains that increasing taxes on these companies will help close the federal deficit while avoiding any adverse economic consequences…Take a look at the numbers, however, and it becomes clear that raising taxes on the American oil and gas industry has nothing to do with the federal purse and everything to do with the president’s desire to see energy prices necessarily skyrocket…The president proposes forbidding American oil and gas companies from taking advantage of the Section 199 tax deduction and the Dual Capacity Taxpayer credit, both of which are available to a wide array of American companies. Section 199 allows American companies to deduct capital expenses for producing goods and creating jobs here at home from their pre-tax income.  While every other American manufacturing company may deduct up to 9 percent of their pre-tax income, the five major integrated oil and gas companies are already capped at 6 percent…The Dual Capacity rules prevent American companies from being taxed twice on income earned abroad.  Rules finalized over 25 years ago hold American firms to a strict standard as to how much they can deduct from their American income tax liability.  President Obama’s proposal would force American firms operating abroad to be subject to double taxation while their foreign competitors are able to avoid such harsh treatment.  Essentially, the plan puts American oil and gas companies at a competitive disadvantage to energy companies around the globe.

The source of Bromwich’s power is his beard. If we can only find a modern day Delilah…we will settle for House Appropriations Committee The Hill (7/14/11) reports: The Interior Department’s top offshore drilling regulator is eyeing wide changes to drilling safety rules that have already been beefed up in the wake of the BP oil spill…Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), told reporters Wednesday that an upcoming preliminary notice of new regulations will be “extremely broad.”…It will include rules governing subsea blowout preventers — the supposedly fail-safe device that could not stop BP’s runaway well — and many other aspects of drilling safety. “It will contemplate a large body of improvements and enhancements to our current regulations,” Bromwich said…Bromwich’s comments signal that regulators believe improved oversight remains a work in progress despite new policies and safeguards adopted after the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year…The bureau last year issued new standards for well design, casing, cementing, blowout preventers and other equipment…The bureau now is preparing a so-called advance notice of proposed rulemaking for the further revisions, a preliminary step in the rulemaking process that will solicit input on its plans…Bromwich said it would focus on “all the elements of drilling safety.” He spoke from New Orleans, where Interior’s offshore drilling safety advisory panel is meeting.

Yesterday Rep. Ron Paul asked Mr. Bernanke if he follows the price of gold or if he considers gold to be money — his answer was no. Crude is up on inflation fears Fuel Fix (7/14/11) reports:  An unexpected drop in U.S. crude supplies boosted oil prices Wednesday, and more government stimulus spending could help push oil even higher this year…Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude for August delivery rose 62 cents to settle at $98.05 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. WTI got as high as $99.21 before easing back. Brent crude, which is used to price many foreign oil varieties, gained 91 cents to settle at $117.85 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London…Retail gasoline prices rose a penny on Wednesday to a national average of $3.645 per gallon. In Houston, the average price rose a cent to $3.522 a gallon…Oil jumped after the Energy Information Administration said that the nation’s crude supplies fell by 3.1 million barrels last week, a million barrels more than the decline that analysts forecast in a survey by Platts, the energy-information arm of McGraw Hill Cos. The drop was due in large part to lower imports of foreign oil. The EIA also said that oil and gasoline demand fell…The price of oil got an extra boost from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said Wednesday that the central bank is looking for ways to reinvigorate the sluggish American economy. Bernanke said in his semi-annual report to Congress that the Fed is considering a few options, including another round of Treasury bond buying.

Our friends at Western Energy Alliance produced this video

No surprise here folks, our government has created an energy famine. We have it in our power to provide the world with affordable energy if only given permission from Washington Wall Street Journal (7/14/11) reports: Data from the International Energy Agency published Wednesday amply demonstrates the key problem with world oil supply today—we are running faster and faster just to stand still…In June, Saudi Arabia responded to rising oil demand, against the protests of fellow OPEC members, by pumping an extra 700,000 barrels a day of oil, according to IEA data. This is no mean feat—equivalent to more than half U.K. oil output—and takes Saudi oil production to its highest level in almost five-and-a-half years…So what effect did this major effort have on the crucial balance between oil supply and demand? Very little…The gap between how much oil the world needs for the third quarter and total OPEC production shrank from just 1.5 million barrels a day in May to 1.3 million barrels a day June. Oil prices are also close to the peaks they reached in early June, before the Saudis raised production and prior to the IEA’s release of 60 million barrels of emergency oil stocks over 30 days…Just how could two such dramatic actions deal merely glancing blows to the oil price? The answer lies in three long-standing problems: Oil supply from countries outside OPEC for 2011 was revised down by 0.2 million barrels a day because of “prolonged production outages” in a number of important oil producing regions, the IEA said. Such disappointment is an increasingly common occurrence as non-OPEC producers struggle with aging oil fields, complex technical problems and hard-to-access resources.

White House is getting sloppy with their money laundering scheme — House plans to subpoena OMB over Solyndra The Hill (7/14/11) reports: House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans are playing hardball with the White House to obtain documents about a federal loan guarantee to a California company that manufactures cutting-edge solar panels but has faced financial problems…The committee’s oversight and investigations panel will vote Thursday on a motion to subpoena the White House Office of Management and Budget for documents about the Energy Department’s $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra Inc…Committee Republicans have been investigating the aid, which was enabled by the 2009 stimulus law, and allege that the White House has not provided certain documents…“After two years of zero oversight of the Obama clean energy programs, our investigation has been an exercise in good government to ensure that billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent wisely. Yet OMB has sought to delay and put off this investigation at every step of the way. Subpoenas would not be necessary if OMB had lived up to its agreement and produced the documents as requested,” said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), who chairs the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, in a joint statement with full committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.)…But OMB says it is trying to work cooperatively with the subcommittee to provide information it is looking for, and has already provided substantial amounts of documents.

It’s no wonder everyone in CA is on medical marijuana — have you looked at the books recently? CA businesses are leaving 5x faster than last year and if you think that’s fast, just wait until Lt. Gov. Newsom unveils his economic plan next week CNN Money (7/12/11) reports: Buffeted by high taxes, strict regulations and uncertain state budgets, a growing number of California companies are seeking friendlier business environments outside of the Golden State…And governors around the country, smelling blood in the water, have stepped up their courtship of California companies. Officials in states like Florida, Texas, Arizona and Utah are telling California firms how business-friendly they are in comparison… Companies are “disinvesting” in California at a rate five times greater than just two years ago, said Joseph Vranich, a business relocation expert based in Irvine. This includes leaving altogether, establishing divisions elsewhere or opting not to set up shop in California…”There is a feeling that the state is not stable,” Vranich said. “Sacramento can’t get its act together…and that includes the governor, legislators and regulatory agencies that are running wild.”…The state has been ranked by Chief Executive magazine as the worst place to do business for seven years…”California, once a business friendly state, continues to conduct a war on its own economy,” the magazine wrote…That is about to change, at least if Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom has anything to say about it. Newsom is developing a plan to address the state’s economic Achilles heels, and build on its strengths. It will be unveiled at the end of July.

The LA Times must be smoking medical marijuana too because they think Obama is ‘tipping the scale’ in favor of building the Keystone Pipeline Los Angeles Times (7/13/11) reports: At a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania in early April, President Obama was asked about a bitter fight between industry and environmentalists over a proposed $7-billion, 2,000-mile pipeline to ship crude from Alberta’s oil sands to Gulf Coast refineries… Because the pipeline crosses the U.S.-Canadian border, a decision on a permit is pending at the State Department. Obama avowed neutrality: “If it looks like I’m putting my fingers on the scale before the science is done, then people may question the merits of the decision later on…But a 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa suggests the scale may have already been tipped…The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks, describes the State Department’s then-energy envoy, David Goldwyn, as having “alleviated” Canadian officials’ concerns about getting their crude into the U.S. It also said he had instructed them in improving “oil sands messaging,” including “increasing visibility and accessibility of more positive news stories.”…Goldwyn now works on Canadian oil sands issues at Sutherland, a Washington lobbying firm, and recently testified before Congress in favor of building the 36-inch underground pipeline, Keystone XL…Environmentalists and industry experts say the cable is among several examples from unguarded moments and public documents that signal the administration’s willingness to push ahead with the controversial pipeline, even as its agencies conduct environmental and economic reviews.

Is Huntsman still working for Obama? Washington Examiner (7/12/11) reports: Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman isn’t really serious about seeking the 2012 Republican presidential nomination. If he was, the last thing he would do is appoint Mark McIntosh as his top policy advisor…According to Politico Pro, McIntosh will “will split his time between Huntsman’s Orlando headquarters and the GOP policy world in Washington coordinating expert advice on a range of issues, from the economy to energy, health care and foreign policy.”…So who the heck is Mark McIntosh, you ask? You’ve probably never heard of him because he is not an elected official, nor has he ever held a highly visible appointed position in a presidential administration. McIntosh’s GOP credentials consists of serving as deputy general counsel to the President’s Council on Environmental Quality during President George W. Bush’s tenure in the White House…Even so, MacIntosh is perhaps the Big Green environmental movement’s most powerful “Republican.” But don’t take my word for it. Here’s how Think Progress Green, a blog of the ultra-liberal Center for American Progress talk tank, describes Huntsman’s choice as his top policy advisor: “McIntosh has a long record of environmental activism, and is now an influential actor in the international movement to stop global warming.”

We have a $1 trillion budget deficit and the intelligentsia of DC are applauding a cut of a few billion for ethanol — we need to cut the whole Department of Energy National Journal (7/12/11) reports: When President Obama and congressional leaders finally get around to striking a deal to raise the debt ceiling, it will likely include measures repealing at least some ethanol subsidies and oil and gas tax breaks, according to a majority of National Journal Energy and Environment Insiders…Most insiders agree that renewable energy subsidies will get a reprieve this time around but will be front and center on the chopping block later this year. A whopping 70 percent said ethanol subsidies will be cut as part of a debt-ceiling deal. The experts cite two reasons: A 73-27 symbolic messaging Senate vote in June to repeal those subsidies and a deal announced last week by a trio of senators that puts most of the remaining ethanol subsidy to the deficit and keeps a sliver of it for biofuels and other renewable energy industries…“The recent Senate vote to eliminate ethanol tax subsidies shows that Congress is willing to consider eliminating subsidies previously considered sacrosanct if they have large revenue impacts and no legitimate public policy rationale, like ethanol policy,” one insider said…Essentially all energy subsidies except for oil and gas tax breaks ingrained in the tax code are set to expire at the end of this year anyway unless Congress renews them. Ethanol has triggered a political firestorm in the heat of the budget battles because of its hefty $5.4 billion to $6 billion annual price tag. Wind and solar subsidies, by contrast, have not garnered nearly the political opposition given the price tag is much smaller (about half the cost of ethanol subsidies, depending on what is included in the subsidy definition). That may bode well for the renewable industry now, but insiders warn those subsidies will probably not make it to 2012.

If you read this carefully, you’ll notice the subtle bias towards ‘green’ jobs — for example, ‘we know green jobs are important’ Time (7/12/11) reports: Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart famously said the phrase in 1964: “I know it when I see it.” It, in this case, was obscenity, and Stewart was making a point about the trickiness of properly defining the term. How do you have an argument about pornography if you can’t quite say what it is?…For the past several years, environmentalists have been having a version of the Stewart debate over the definition of a green job. We know green jobs are important, that they’re the key to a cleaner economy—and that they may be the best way to sell a sometimes skeptical American public on the pressing need for energy and climate legislation. But no one can agree on what a green job really is. A worker at a solar panel plant certainly qualifies—but what about a steel worker whose labor help makes wind turbines? A scientist working for an advanced biofuel startup definitely has a green job—but what about a roofer who sometimes works on green buildings? Without a meaningful reckoning of just how large the clean economy is, advocates on both sides of the issue can run wild—and for the average American, green jobs may seem more myth than reality… Good news—the numbers are in. The Brookings Institution—a progressive think tank in Washington—and the Battelle Technology Partnership Practice have collaborated on the first comprehensive accounting of the nation’s clean economy and green jobs on a city by city basis. They found that 2.7 million Americans are employed in the clean economy—more than the number who work in the fossil fuel industry and twice as many who work in biotech. And the clean energy sector in particular is growing very quickly: it grew by 8.3% between 2003 and 2010, nearly twice as fast as the overall economy during those years. “The pace of growth really is torrid in that sector,” says Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metropolitan Program and a co-author of the report. “This confirms the intuition that these exciting industries really are growing as fast as we think they are.”

Top-Line Findings of “Budget Impasse Hinges on Confusion among Deficit Reduction, Tax Increase, and Tax Reform” Study

To read the full study as a PDF, click here.

With the August 2^nd deadline rapidly approaching, talk on Capitol Hill over the debt ceiling has become enmeshed in debate over repeal of tax deductions for U.S. oil firms. The marriage of these issues, however, confuses the similar but distinct concepts of deficit reduction, tax reform, and tax increases.

Increases in tax rates do not guarantee increased tax revenues.

Throughout the recent budget debate, President Obama has consistently proposed increasing the effective tax rates paid by the American oil and gas industry as a necessary condition for achieving a compromise; part of that proposal is the elimination of the Section 199 tax deduction for oil and gas companies and adding substantial additional restrictions to the foreign tax credit rules by changing the “Dual Capacity” taxpayer rules.

That policy has been motivated variously as a social agenda tax reform and as a deficit reduction measure. The important question to sort out, however, is whether it can be both.

Proponents boast proposed revisions to Section 199 and Dual Capacity would raise approximately $30 billion in Federal tax revenue over the next 10 years.  But the tax hike would come at the expense of industry cutbacks that can reasonably be expected to cost the economy:

o   $341 billion in economic output;

o   155,000 jobs;

o   $68 billion in wages; and

o   $83.5 billion in reduced tax revenues.

The net fiscal effect, a loss of $53.5 billion in tax revenues, suggests that the policy proposals exacerbate, rather than alleviate, the Federal deficit.

Deficit reduction policies are not limited to changes in the tax code. Economic growth could result from expanding oil and gas exploration and production on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) which could generate the following:

–          Benefits from short-run exploration phases of development include

o   $73 billion annually in economic activity;

o   $16 billion annually in wages;

o   $11 billion annually in Federal tax revenue;

o   $5 billion annually in state and local tax revenue; and

o   250,000 jobs.

–          Benefits from long-run production phases of development

o   $275 billion annually in economic activity;

o   $70 billion annually in wages;

o   $55 billion annually in Federal tax revenue;

o   another $14 billion annually in Federal royalty payments;

o   $19 billion annually in state and local tax revenue; and

o   1.2 million jobs.

The next time you debate the debt, we got your back — Dr. Joseph Mason authored a new study that explains how a tax increase will destroy energy jobs American Energy Alliance (7/12/11) reports:   As the deadline for approving an increase in the Federal debt ceiling approaches, the tax treatment of oil and gas companies’ revenues has become enmeshed in the policy debate over debt reduction and tax reform. That debate, however, is presently confusing three concepts: deficit reduction, tax reform, and tax increases. While sometimes related, those three concepts are not guaranteed to be equivalent. It is crucially important, therefore, that policymakers maintain the distinction between the three in the highly charged budget debates in order to enact meaningful deficit reduction policies…The stated goal of all participants in the budget debates has been deficit reduction. Reduced deficits are crucial to eventually reducing the debt burden to a sustainable level. The simplest deficit reductions can be attained by decreasing spending or increasing government revenues. But there are other policy options to alter regulatory and public goods policies in ways that promote economic growth without raising tax rates…That is important because even increased tax rates, in and of themselves, do not guarantee increased tax revenues. One need only look at the famous Laffer curve hypothesis, combined with the type of economic theory and empirical tests carried out by Gary Becker (of the University of Chicago) and subsequent work to see the logic that taxpayers rationally choose to pay the lower of the costs of tax avoidance or tax liabilities. Indeed, the problems currently unwinding in Greece and other European countries are to a large extent caused by tax avoidance behavior in an environment of very high marginal income taxes. Hence, it should not be taken as a foregone conclusion that increased tax rates result in increased tax revenues. Moreover, when increased tax rates actually do increase tax revenues, they create a drag on economic growth. Hence, it is not clear that tax rate increases are sensible in the current economic situation.

The best thing to come out of Detroit since the Mustang — GM unveils new diesel Chevy Cruze that gets 50 MPG Fuel Fix(7/12/11)  reports: The Chevrolet Cruze, the most popular car in the U.S. last month, will come in a diesel version that could boost gas mileage to around 50 mpg, two people briefed on General Motors Co. product plans said today…A diesel Cruze would help GM meet more stringent government gas mileage requirements. It also would rival the efficiency of the popular Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid, which gets 51 mpg in the city and 48 on the highway, according to estimates from the Environmental Protection Agency…The diesel Cruze won’t hit showrooms until at least 2013, according to one of the people, both of whom asked not to be identified because the company hasn’t made a formal announcement…The people didn’t know the price of the Cruze. Cars with diesel engines generally cost more than those with gasoline engines because they are more expensive to produce. The base version of the Cruze now starts at $16,525. The diesel Cruze would be built at GM’s factory in Lordstown, Ohio, southeast of Cleveland…GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson would not comment on the diesel engine…GM sold about 25,000 Cruzes last month, vaulting the model past perennial leaders such as the Toyota Camry and Honda Accord to become the best-selling car in the U.S. Both Toyota and Honda had fewer models to sell because of parts shortages caused by the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Rep. Waxman knows as much about coal energy production as I know about ice fishing — the main difference is that I know not to run my mouth about ice fishing E&E News (7/12/11) reports: House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans are touting new legislative language to regulate the disposal of coal ash and pre-empt ongoing regulatory efforts by U.S. EPA…Panel members will reconvene this morning after opening statements last night to consider a substitute amendment to legislation (H.R. 2273) that Republicans had already passed in the Environment and Economy Subcommittee. The new language is the latest version of a measure that has morphed several times, partly in search of more bipartisanship…”The substitute says coal ash waste will be managed in the same manner as municipal solid waste: by the state environmental protection authorities applying stringent federal standards,” said Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) “Even EPA says that using the [municipal solid waste] standards would work well for managing coal ash.”…Texas Rep. Gene Green, a moderate Democrat who may join Republicans in supporting the legislation, said he believes the substitute bill needs some minor tweaking and hopes negotiations will continue to address his remaining concerns. Still, he said it “does represent a vast improvement” over the original legislation…Many committee liberals, led by ranking member Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), are unlikely to be swayed by Green’s efforts at compromise. Waxman, who in an interview least week appeared out of the loop in the negotiations, defended EPA’s regulatory attempts to prevent another coal ash disaster like the 2008 Kingston, Tenn., spill, when the retaining wall of an ash pond outside a coal plant gave way…”The legislation we will consider will not yet accomplish any of this,” Waxman said last night. “It will establish a weak federal program designed to maintain the status quo.”…Under the latest proposal, EPA retains its “imminent hazard” authority to intervene with the purpose of protecting public health. However, the legislation limits EPA’s involvement to overseeing state enforcement of coal ash rules under minimum federal standards. Only states would have inspection and enforcement authority, with EPA stepping in for states that fail to create coal ash programs.

We’ve heard everything in Texas is bigger, but Gov. Perry wants the state to be brighter too — orders that manufactures continue to produce incandescent light bulbs KHouston (7/12/11) reports: A battle of the bulbs is erupting as Texas challenges energy regulations that would phase out incandescent light bulbs in favor of newer, more energy-efficient ones…The 2007 energy bill was meant to help the environment, but critics say the new bulbs are way too expensive and some are more difficult to dispose of safely because they contain mercury…Texas Republicans are using the issue to challenge Washington and fight for states’ rights…The Texas legislature recently passed a bill declaring that incandescent bulbs—if they are made and sold only in the Lone Star State—would be exempt from the federal law since they don’t involve interstate commerce…H.B. 2510 was sponsored by State Rep. George Lavender, R-Texarkana…”This is a jobs bill and a consumer choice bill that benefits all Texans,” Lavender said in a written statement. “The last thing we need in this economy is to send American jobs overseas and raise costs to consumers based on dubious claims of increased energy efficiency.”…Gov. Rick Perry is now encouraging Texas businesses to step up and start making the bulbs Washington has essentially banned…”The federal government has no business telling people what kind of light bulbs they can run in their house,” said Bob Price, a spokesperson for Texas GOP Vote. “Washington has been thumbing its nose at Texas for many years. It’s time for us to stand up.”…Interestingly, it was President George W. Bush – a former Texas governor – who originally signed the energy regulations into law…Price said Bush’s record on states’ rights when it came to energy regulations “wasn’t much better than President Obama’s.”

Sounds like a good business call to me — Georgia Power said they will only purchase or invest in renewable energy sources if they are cost competitive in the market Forbes (7/12/11) reports: Renewable energy must cost about the same as traditional power sources such as natural gas or coal-fired power plants before Georgia Power will buy green energy on a large scale, company executives said Monday…Officials from the Southern Co. subsidiary said at a Statehouse conference that it wants to increase its usage of solar power from just over four megawatts now to more than 55 megawatts by 2015. That’s still a relatively small amount of electricity, or roughly 5 percent of the energy produced by just one of the nuclear reactors that the utility hopes to build in eastern Georgia… Georgia Power (            GPB – news – people ) Vice President Greg Roberts, who handles planning and pricing, said the utility will buy energy from green power sources so long as the cost is comparable to traditional power plants. Roberts said the firm is willing to both buy green energy and pay for some of the costs of building alternative energy projects…”But we’re really not willing to pay above that cost because we will drive up the cost for all customers if we do that beyond what we would be able to purchase in the market or build ourselves,” Roberts said…Doug Beebe, chairman of the Georgia Solar Energy Association, said the remarks from Georgia Power executives showed the utility has become more willing to at least discuss a broader use of alternative energy.

Japan needs some good news so I hope this works out, but at the end of the day we need to ask these three questions regarding the Leaf — Compared to what? At what cost? What hard evidence do we have? Reuters (7/11/11) reports: Nissan Motor Co on Monday unveiled a new charging system that gets electricity from solar power that can also be stored in the lithium-ion batteries used in its Leaf electric car…The 488 newly installed solar panels at Nissan’s global headquarters will produce enough electricity to charge 1,800 Leafs a year, allowing drivers plugging into one of its seven charging spots to travel on carbon-free energy…Nissan’s announcement comes just days after Mitsubishi Motors Corp said it would develop and market this business year a portable converter with enough capacity to allow its electric vehicles (EVs) to power household electronics such as rice cookers and washing machines…Japanese automakers have been working on clean-energy initiatives for years, but the earthquake and tsunami on March 11 have made electricity supply and sourcing an immediate concern…”Setsuden”, or power-saving, has become a buzzword in Japan, where the disasters crippled a nuclear reactor and triggered the worst radiation crisis since Chernobyl. Starting this month, big-lot electricity users in eastern Japan are required to cut peak consumption by 15 percent during the hot summer months, and utilities have also appealed to households to do their part.