News

Somebody gets the whole idea of subsidies . . . E&E News (4/26/11) reports: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) today said that he could support eliminating subsidies for major oil companies “in a broader, broader sense” as part of a tax reform effort that would close loopholes while lowering overall rates…Pressed by Fox News on the apparent support for a rollback of oil industry tax benefits that Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) offered Monday, Cantor sought to reboot the politically volatile debate by putting it in the context of corporate tax reform — a top priority for both parties ahead of high-stakes spending and deficit talks…Asked by Fox News if he supported “taking away the subsidies,” as pitched by Democrats and President Obama, Cantor replied: “I support doing so in a broader, broader sense, OK?”…”I’m saying that the tax code, as it stands now, has failed,” Cantor added. “We need to go about broadening the tax code, getting rid of loopholes, special interest loopholes. If you characterize this as that, fine.”

Today’s lesson in monetary policy for Treasury Secretary Geithner: a weak dollar means higher oil prices CNBC (4/28/11) reports: Oil prices slid from earlier highs on Thursday as prospects for slower growth in the world’s top economy dampened sentiment, outweighing a sliding dollar and signs of lower North Sea supplies…”I think there are some concerns about how the US GDP will come out for Q1. The dollar is still weak, while oil is falling, so I think it’s demand driven. It’s the uncertainty about the demand from the U.S.,” said oil analyst Thorbjorn Bak Jensen at Global Risk Management…Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Wednesday the US labour market was still in a “very, very deep hole” and opted to keep interest rates unchanged, lowering expectations for growth prospects and fuel demand.

Supply follows demand, but the price is the gatekeeper of the free market Reuters (4/27/11) reports: Russia, the world’s largest oil producer, faces a regional fuel supply crisis that could quickly spread after an order by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to curb domestic pump prices led oil firms to increase export volumes…Shortages that have been building since Putin told oil firms in February to restrain retail prices came to a head last weekend, when almost all independently owned gasoline stations in the Altai region ran out of fuel…If they spread, the shortages could eventually hurt the popularity of Putin, who as the head of the government bears direct responsibility for economic policy, months before a presidential election which is due next March…Motorists in Altai, a Siberian region to the north of Kazakhstan, are now queuing in long lines at stations belonging to major oil companies, primarily Rosneft (ROSN.MM) and Gazprom Neft (SIBN.MM), which are still selling fuel…”Today our drivers have been arriving late to pick up clients because it’s so difficult to find a petrol station with fuel,” Yelena, a taxi dispatcher in the nearby city of Novosibirsk, told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday.

Remedy for high gas prices? Increase taxes. I guess you don’t have to fill up your tank if all you do is walk across the student quad to get to work New York Times (4/28/11) reports: Gasoline prices are above $4 per gallon in much of the country, a reminder that our dependence on oil carries a great cost. President Obama has promised that the Justice Department will be vigilant in pursuing price-gouging at the pump, but what we really need is to address the full set of energy-related problems, with a focus on spurring clean energy innovation…Our trade deficit arises in large measure from the hundreds of billions of dollars we pay for foreign oil. The imbalances threaten America’s economic stability and national security. Our consumption of fossil fuels and our energy inefficiency are a drag on our competitiveness and increase air pollution and the threat of climate change…To compete globally, we need to encourage clean energy innovation while letting the market decide which particular technologies prevail. Experience in fields like information technology and telecommunications suggests that creating demand for innovation is far more effective than subsidizing company-specific research projects or providing incentives for particular technologies. Governments just aren’t good at picking winners; witness the billions wasted on corn-based ethanol subsidies.

IER’s Dan Kish calls chicken shit when he see’s it Daily Caller (4/26/11) reports: Seizing upon comments made this week by House Speaker John Boehner that Congress should “be looking into” quelling subsidies for oil and gas companies, President Obama sent a letter to House and Senate leaders urging them to pass his proposal to end tax credits for oil companies and transfer them to other companies that produce energy through other means…Daniel Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research, an oil industry think tank, said Obama has long supported policies that would increase the price of oil, including limits on oil production in the United States, and is now pointing fingers at the oil companies for high gas prices…“Now that his plan is bearing expensive fruit Americans don’t like, his attempt to shift blame away from his actions is pathetically akin to what we would expect from Hugo Chavez or some other third world populist.  His chickens are coming home to roost,” Kish said.

Greenies must own stock in big oil because they keep driving up the price CNBC (4/26/11) reports: What’s good for Big Oil is good for America Or at least that’s the message from Big Oil this week, as five major oil companies prepare to unveil quarterly earnings numbers that are expected to show major profits at a time when Americans are facing rising gas prices at the pump…But the Obama administration has another take: If the oil companies are doing so well, maybe they ought to give up about $44 billion worth of federal subsidies over the next ten years…President Obama ratcheted up his push Tuesday with a letter to Republican and Democratic congressional leaders asking them to remove the subsidies…”Our outdated tax laws currently provide the oil and gas industry more than $4 billion per year in these subsidies, even though oil prices are high and the industry is projected to report outsized profits this quarter,” Obama said…The Obama administration now has an unlikely potential ally on that front: Republican House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, who said this week that he’s open to reexamining the oil company subsidies even if he’s not ready to commit to axing them just yet.

What Boehner should have said: let’s end all energy subsidies The Hill (4/26/11) reports: White House economic adviser Gene Sperling made the case Tuesday for eliminating a series of oil industry tax breaks, part of a ramped-up push by the administration to focus on the issue in light of rising gas prices…“At a time when we are asking our entire country to engage in shared sacrifice, we have to ask ourselves whether we can still afford $43 billion over 10 years on subsidies that do not seem to be efficient or needed or consistent with our G20 commitments and obligations,” Sperling said during an energy conference on Washington on Tuesday afternoon…Sperling’s comments came about an hour after President Obama sent a letter to congressional leaders calling for quick passage of legislation eliminating the tax breaks…The White House is hoping to capitalize on remarks by Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) Monday in which he appeared to open the door to supporting the elimination of the tax breaks. Boehner said he may be open to cutting the tax breaks for some of the larger oil companies.

Turns out Moses did not lead the Israelis to the only place in the Middle East without oil — oil shale deposits could make Israel energy independent Reuters (4/27/11) reports: A subsidiary of U.S.-firm IDT Energy (IDT.N) is leading a push in Israel to tap into the country’s vast deposits of oil shale…The company, Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI), has already invested “tens of millions of dollars” in preparing a pilot project it hopes to launch by the end of 2011, CEO Relik Shafir told Reuters…”If successful, in a few years IEI could start producing 50,000 barrels of oil a day, or 20 percent of Israel’s consumption, for 30 years,” Shafir said…The division of IDT that owns IEI is called Genie Energy, and it has already brought investments from financier Jacob Rothschild and media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Together they own a 5.5 percent stake worth $11 million, according to a company statement from November…Murdoch, upon joining Genie Energy’s advisory board last year, said the group would “spur a global, geo-political paradigm shift by moving a major portion of new oil production to America, Israel and other Western-oriented democracies.”

Two cheers for Florida taxpayers — solar and biomass energy producers mourn the death of their rent seeking bill Miami Herald (4/27/11) reports: Solar and biomass energy companies mourned the loss of a sure job development opportunity Tuesday as the state Senate’s budget chief put a spear through a bill to spur renewable energy in Florida…“I’d pronounce that one dead,’’ said Sen. J.D. Alexander, R-Lake Wales, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee after he indefinitely postponed a bill that would have allowed Florida’s largest electric companies to raise electric rates as much as $375 million a year for five years to develop alternative energy…”I think it’s a terrible idea,’’ said Alexander, a citrus grower. “I can’t believe we’d ask Florida to pay $1 billion in additional assessments with zero regulatory oversight. I think that’s fundamentally not right.”…This is the third year the bill has been the priority of Florida Power & Light, and it is the third time the bill has died. The only thing new this year is that the Koch brothers-backed Americans For Prosperity joined in the chorus of opponents to argue against the bill

In the natural gas debate, check your emotional baggage at the door — we’ve been fracking for over 60 years and the only byproduct is cheap energy New York Times (4/23/11) reports: Texans pride themselves on being the heart of the nation’s oil and gas business. But even here, public concern about natural gas drilling is growing… On Wednesday, several dozen protesters marched through downtown Fort Worth, waving signs and chanting anti-drilling slogans that reflected concern over air and water pollution…The anxiety centers on a recently expanded drilling method called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is now used in more than half of new gas wells drilled in Texas. This practice — which involves blasting water, sand and chemicals far underground to break up rock and extract gas — is common in the Barnett Shale, a major shale-gas field around Fort Worth…“It’s our health that’s at stake,” said Dana Schultes, who lives in south Fort Worth and worries about the impact of the drilling on her young daughter…The protest, organized by the group Rising Tide North Texas, is the latest sign of a backlash against drilling in Texas. Yard signs saying “Get the Frack Out of Here” and “Protect Our Kids/No Drilling” have appeared in some yards in Southlake, a Dallas suburb. A few communities have declared a temporary moratorium on drilling permits, and Dallas set up a task force last week to examine drilling regulations within its city limits.

Obama says there’s “no silver” bullet for high gas prices and he’s right, all you need to do is open up federal lands for energy exploration. To calm Obama’s fear, he can read IER’s report The Hill (4/23/11) reports:  President Obama said Saturday there are no easy answers for lowering gas prices, which are hovering around $4 a gallon, and criticized politicians who push plans to immediately reduce the price of gas…”You see people trying to grab headlines or score a few points,” Obama said in his weekly address. “The truth is, there’s no silver bullet that can bring down gas prices right away.”…According to AAA’s tracking, the national average price for a gallon of regular gas is $3.86, which is 4 cents per gallon more than a week ago and nearly $1 more than a year ago… The president laid out his own plan for controlling prices, focusing on ending price gouging but calling for an end to the $4 billion in federal subsidies for oil and gas firms…He said there are some steps the U.S. can take to improve the situation such as ramping up domestic oil production and ending subsidies for oil and gas firms.

An enviros heart just skipped a beat: New report argues that more wind and solar energy means more coal and nuclear because renewables are unstable E&E News (4/25/11) reports: The growth of U.S. wind power has begun to create operating challenges for nuclear and coal plants that must be ramped up and down as wind speeds vary, panelists at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology energy conference reported last week…The MIT Energy Initiative symposium on integrating large-scale wind and solar power attracted executives of utility and transmission companies, senior government officials and academic researchers, whose comments were off the record. Some papers prepared for the conference were made public by their authors, and they define a growing challenge of matching the current U.S. mix of power plants with new requirements to respond quickly to changes in wind and solar resources…”The power system needs more flexibility to handle the short-term effects of increasing levels of wind,” said Ignacio Pérez-Arriaga, a professor at Spain’s Comillas University and a visiting professor at MIT…He and other speakers predicted the expansion of renewable power will continue as a clear option for reducing power plant carbon emissions. Nearly half of global electricity supply will have to come from renewable sources if world carbon dioxide emissions are to be cut to half of current levels by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency, he noted.

Step one: make energy prices necessarily skyrocket. Step two: demonize energy companies for the price increases The Hill (4/23/11) reports: The White House has joined congressional Democrats in targeting oil companies with criticism for nearly $4 per gallon gas…President Obama lashed out at oil companies — and the tax breaks they get from the government — for a second consecutive day on Thursday and again in Saturday’s address…“Four billion dollars of your money are going to these companies at a time when they’re making record profits and you’re paying near record prices at the pump,” the president said at a Nevada town hall. “It has to stop.”…Obama also announced a Justice Department task force that will probe whether speculators and traders are to blame for the high prices. A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday criticized the effort as an attempt to deflect attention from White House and Democratic opposition to increased drilling in the United States…Going after oil companies is smart politics for Obama, according to polls and Democratic strategists.

IER’s American Energy Act is written up Clean Energy Report (4/20/11) reports: The Institute for Energy Research (IER) — a Washington, DC-based think tank that advocates a hands-off government approach to energy policy — is circulating model legislation that offers a litany of proposals to streamline and accelerate permitting for oil, gas, and renewable energy projects by scaling back numerous EPA and other federal agency authorities…While many of the provisions in the bill appear unlikely to fly on Capitol Hill or at White House, the package could provide fodder for GOP lawmakers seeking to blame government regulations for stalled domestic energy projects and high energy prices…The model legislation — the American Energy Act of 2011 — creates a fast track for projects defined as “priority energy projects” — defined as any project that boosts the U.S. supply of domestic energy. The fast track provisions call for making the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) the lead agency for projects that cross agency jurisdictions, according to a summary.

Let’s compete with China: Beijing wants to emulate the U.S. success with fracking because they need cheap energy MSNBC (4/25/11) reports: China has spent tens of billions of dollars buying into energy resources from Africa to Latin America to slake the unquenched thirst for fuel from its growing industry and burgeoning cities…But China may have more energy riches under its own soil than policy makers in the world’s second-largest economy ever dared imagine…Just over a year ago, Beijing awakened to a technology revolution that has unlocked massive reserves of gas trapped within shale rock formations in the United States…Once deemed too costly to extract, shale gas has turned around U.S. dependence on foreign gas imports. Just a few years ago, the United States was building scores of expensive facilities to import liquefied natural gas (LNG), looking at booming long-term demand forecasts and wondering which countries would supply the huge volume of imports it needed…Instead, the United States is turning import facilities into export terminals, because its shale gas reserves are estimated to be big enough to meet domestic demand for 30 years. This is an American dream that China wants to emulate…”America’s shale gas production alone has exceeded that of total Chinese gas output. That gives us a lot of confidence,” said Zhang Dawei, deputy director of the Strategic Research Center for Oil and Gas in the Ministry of Land and Resources(MLR).

Happy Lenin’s Birthday…err Happy Earth Day! Also, this man only weighs the negative externalities without mentioning the benefits of energy Time(4/21/11) reports: It’s Earth Day today—the 41st one—and it comes at a time when we’ve all been made aware of the environmental cost of the energy we use.  The BP oil spill caused ecological damage that scientists will study for years, and the partial nuclear meltdown at Fukushima may render large parts of the surrounding area uninhabitable. Coal and other fossil fuels continue to blacken the sky and warm the climate, and even natural gas—seen as a greener bridge fuel—has experienced recent accidents, with a major well blowout occurring this week in Pennsylvania. Alternatives like solar and wind are growing, but there are even environmental and quality of life complaints about renewable power as well…In fact, the blood cost is another way to calculate the energy equation: blood per kilowatt. Mark Fulton, the managing director and global head of Climate Change Investment Research at DB Climate Change Advisors, introduced me to the concept at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference earlier this month. When we evaluate different forms of energy, we shouldn’t only take into account the financial price or even just the environmental cost, but the damage to human health and well-being as well.

Obama directs his DOJ to investigate gas price gouging. What’s he going do when they discover Salazar and Bromwich are tops on the list? Wall Street Journal (4/21/11) reports: President Barack Obama Thursday shifted his focus back to an issue that is increasingly vexing consumers: Rising gas prices…At Mr. Obama’s request, the Justice Department announced Thursday that it has created a task force to investigate the oil and gas markets, a move some Democrats in Congress have advocated. “The attorney general is putting together a team whose job it is to root out any cases of fraud or manipulation in the oil markets that might affect gas prices, and that includes the role of traders and speculators,” Mr. Obama said during a town hall event at a renewable energy company in Nevada. “We’re going to make sure that nobody’s taking advantage of American consumers for their own short-term gains.”…The White House has been wringing its hands over rising pump prices in recent weeks, even as Mr. Obama was preoccupied by the budget battle with House Republicans. Mr. Obama’s approval ratings have dipped in tandem with consumers’ rising irritation at their increasing outlays for fuel. Higher gas prices and other commodities have been fueling inflation-on an annual basis, consumer prices were up 2.7% in March, the highest level since December 2009, the Labor Department said earlier this month.

Friend of the cause Steven Hayward highlights the fact that coal use is up and sulfur dioxide emission are down — eat your hearts out greenies The American (4/20/11) reports: Since it’s Earth Day this Friday, it’s worth having a look at one especially instructive energy-pollution linkage—in this case, the trend in the amount of coal used to generate electricity and in other industrial processes, and sulfur dioxide emissions from that use of coal…As the figure below shows, the amount of coal used in the United States has more than tripled since 1970 (up 225 percent); as mentioned here previously, we moved heavily to coal starting in the late 1970s as a means to discontinue using imported oil to generate electricity. But over this same time period, sulfur dioxide emissions from coal have declined by 54 percent. Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency projects a further 50 percent decline in SO2 emissions from current levels over the next 25 years, as shown in the second figure below.

I’m from the government and I’m here to help…study finds that CFLs emit cancer causing chemicals when used Telegraph (4/20/11) reports: Their report advises that the bulbs should not be left on for extended periods, particularly near someone’s head, as they emit poisonous materials when switched on…Peter Braun, who carried out the tests at the Berlin’s Alab Laboratory, said: “For such carcinogenic substances it is important they are kept as far away as possible from the human environment.”…The bulbs are already widely used in the UK following EU direction to phase out traditional incandescent lighting by the end of this year…But the German scientists claimed that several carcinogenic chemicals and toxins were released when the environmentally-friendly compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) were switched on, including phenol, naphthalene and styrene.

Senator Murkowski reconnects with her supply side Washington Post (4/21/11) reports: With gasoline prices in many areas above $4 a gallon, energy concerns are once again making headlines. Prices have more than doubled since the start of 2009 and are projected to remain at excruciating levels for the foreseeable future…We know from experience that high energy prices harm American families and businesses. Aside from pain at the pump, it’s harder to balance budgets or even buy groceries when transportation costs soar. Many experts have concluded that if prices remain high, economic growth will languish. At stake is our fragile recovery from the recent recession…High energy prices therefore demand a strong policy response. For years, however, federal lawmakers have routinely ignored the supply side of the equation and the fact that — if we chose to — we could absolutely produce more oil here in America.

The market has spoken: Americans will not pay a premium for green New York Times (4/21/11) reports: When Clorox introduced Green Works, its environment-friendly cleaning line, in 2008, it secured an endorsement from the Sierra Club, a nationwide introduction at Wal-Mart, and it vowed that the products would “move natural cleaning into the mainstream.”.. Sales that year topped $100 million, and several other major consumer products companies came out with their own “green” cleaning supplies…But America’s eco-consciousness, it turns out, is fickle. As recession gripped the country, the consumer’s love affair with green products, from recycled toilet paper to organic foods to hybrid cars, faded like a bad infatuation. While farmers’ markets and Prius sales are humming along now, household product makers like Clorox just can’t seem to persuade mainstream customers to buy green again.

Year One: Economic costs of the Moratorium and Permitorium CFIF (4/20/11) reports: One year to the day after the dreadful BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration’s responses to the crisis continue blowing holes in the regional and national economies. President Obama’s choices make George W. Bush’s responses to Hurricane Katrina seem like the epitome of competence and wisdom…Gulf Coast residents remember well that it took President Obama days to publicly awake from his torpor and say anything substantive about the spill. They remember the administration’s early defense of BP’s reactions; they remember its failure to stop the use of chemical dispersants that arguably did more environmental damage than the oil would have done if it floated to the top to be skimmed…They remember that the president declined several offers of assistance from foreign outfits expert in such situations, and remember that he refused to approve Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plan to use dredge material to create berms to block the oil from reaching fragile wetlands. On issue after issue and decision after decision, helpful action was late, if it came at all.

In most instances, we hate to say “I told you so”.  But since the President made a big deal about production increases two weeks ago Wall Street Journal (4/20/11) reports: Offshore oil production, most of which comes from the Gulf, is expected to average 1.55 million barrels a day this year, down 13% from 2010, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration…Following the April 20, 2010, blast on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig operated by BP and the subsequent oil spill, the Obama administration stopped awarding permits for deep-water drilling until late February…The drilling suspension, along with a new, slower permitting process, will result in the loss this year of about 375,000 barrels of oil a day, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. That is roughly equivalent to one-third of the production in Libya that remains shut down because of political turmoil there.

Odd.  We figured she would rejoin the Socialist International E&E News (4/20/11) reports: Carol Browner will join the Center for American Progress as a distinguished senior fellow, returning to the think tank where she worked before her stint as President Obama’s chief climate and energy adviser…Browner, a former U.S. EPA administrator under President Clinton, served for two years as one of Obama’s advisers and helped broker such deals as the first nationwide regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks. She announced her resignation in January, and her departure last month was soon followed by the consolidation of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy into the Domestic Policy Council…In a press release today, CAP President John Podesta said Browner’s work at the think tank will focus on domestic and international policy development. She will also serve on the group’s executive committee…CAP, Podesta said, will benefit from Browner’s “vision and experience.”

On energy policy, Obama adopts an old mantra at the Facebook Town Hall: If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull Business Week (4/20/11) reports: President Barack Obama likely has a few more “friends” after a town hall at Facebook headquarters that drew questions from site users and the youthful employees of the social media giant…The president’s first question Wednesday came from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who asked Obama about his plan to curb the federal deficit…Most of the conversation centered on earnest discussion of the president’s policies on the economy, immigration, energy and education…Lighter notes came at the beginning, when Obama joked about the famously informal Zuckerberg wearing a tie. At the end, Zuckerberg presented Obama with a hooded Facebook sweatshirt, the 26-year-old CEO’s signature attire…The event was held on Facebook’s Silicon Valley campus before hundreds of employees, along with other politicians and tech industry luminaries.

For shame: Not once does this man address the issue of affordable and reliable energy being a moral issue — high energy prices are a tax on the poor The Hill (4/20/11) reports: For years, congressional Republicans have had a singular message on addressing gas prices, one made famous by former Alaska governor and #qwitterer Sarah Palin: Drill, baby, drill…It’s a simple and memorable phrase, delivers their idea of a solution in very few words, and resonates. The problem is it isn’t a solution at all…As we witnessed this week, with oil at a record $127 per barrel, Saudi Arabia announced it is cutting back production because the market is “oversupplied.” Ali al-Naimi, the country’s oil minister, told CNBC.com that the Saudis had scaled back production by 800,000 barrels in March in comparison to February numbers. According to the report, oil ministers from other OPEC countries agreed with the Saudis’ assessment that the market is oversupplied…But wait, what?…According to the Republicans in Congress, the only way we can lower gas prices is to increase supply by expanding drilling — in ANWR, in the Gulf, on the OCS and in our backyards. They claim that demand drives the price of oil. That’s what I keep hearing from congressional Republicans like Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and the clarion of drilling, the aforementioned Palin. They think we just need to drill more and not invest in new domestically produced renewable sources of energy.

At first glance, this seems like more of the same old, same old.  But in reality, it is an acknowledgment that the EPA GHG program is in deep, deep trouble E&E News (4/20/11) reports: The states of California, New York and Minnesota, as well as about a dozen power companies and influential advocacy groups, have joined forces to persuade U.S. EPA to let states meet new federal climate change rules by crafting their own programs, such as the cap-and-trade plans that have been adopted by California and a handful of Northeastern states…Under a settlement that staved off lawsuits from environmentalists, EPA must set new limits on greenhouse gas emissions from the utility sector this year. The agency is planning to create New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) under the Clean Air Act, which would put a cap on the amount of carbon dioxide and other planet-warming gases that a coal-fired power plant is allowed to release.

Obama Administration has already said privately that they plan to oppose Commissioner Ostendorff’s confirmation.  Apparently, he is too effective at making the case for the need for nuclear power E&E News (4/20/11) reports: President Obama has nominated William Ostendorff to a second term as commissioner on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission…Ostendorff has been serving the commission since April 2010. His term expires June 30…The Nuclear Energy Institute applauded the nomination, calling Ostendorff a qualified candidate with experience as an engineer, lawyer, policy adviser and naval officer…”We hope for a speedy confirmation because a full complement of experienced commissioners is essential as the agency reviews operation of U.S. reactors in light of events in Japan and judges certifications for reactor designs and licenses for new reactors and fuel facilities,” NEI Senior Vice President Tony Pietrangelo said…Ostendorff served as the principal deputy administrator at the National Nuclear Security Administration from 2007 to 2009, and was a staffer for the House Armed Services Committee from 2003 to 2007.

The beatings will continue until morale improves — new drilling regulations in the works The Hill (4/20/11) reports: A top Interior Department official said Tuesday that another set of major offshore-drilling safety rules are in the works…Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement Director Michael Bromwich said the rulemaking process would begin “in the very near future.”…“This process will be broad, inclusive and ambitious. Our goal will be nothing less than a further set of enhancements that will increase drilling safety and diminish the risks of a major blowout,” Bromwich said, speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies…“It will address weaknesses and necessary improvements to blowout preventers, as well as many other issues,” added Bromwich…Bromwich spoke on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and touched off the months-long BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s amazing to watch the transformation of an entrepreneur into rent seeker Business Week (4/19/11) reports: Google Inc. has invested another $100 million in a clean energy project. The funding for the Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon brings Google’s total clean energy investments to more than $350 million and represents the company’s latest attempt to support reliable new ways to power its expanding data centers…Data centers, or server farms, are notorious power hogs. And Google has many of them. The simple act of typing in a Google search taps into Google’s computing resources — and the grid that supplies energy to those machines…Google also invested last year in a project to line the sea floor off the East Coast with electrical cables to send power from offshore wind farms back onto land. Building capacity is one of the major costs of clean energy projects. Google has also invested in solar energy.

Now serving Columbia. I wonder what number the U.S. pulled? CNS News (4/19/11) reports: The U.S. Export-Import Bank, an independent agency of the federal government, is now planning a $2.84-billion loan for a massive project to expand and upgrade an oil refinery–in Cartagena, Colombia…The money would go to Reficar, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ecopetrol, the Colombian national oil company…“This is part of a $5.18 billion refinery and upgrade project in Cartagena, Colombia supplying petroleum products to the domestic and export markets,” the Export-Import Bank said in a statement…The U.S. government-controlled bank says the $2.84-billion in financing it plans to undertake will be the second largest project it has ever done. The largest was $3 billion in financing for a liquid natural gas project in Papua New Guinea.

Double stamp, no take-backs: UK solar companies cry foul in court saying the government promised subsidies and they need that money in order to stay in business Bloomberg (4/19/11) reports: Low Carbon Solar U.K. Ltd., Element Power Ltd. and eight other companies and people asked a British court to review U.K. Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne’s decision to reexamine solar subsidies…The government in March said it may cut subsidies for bigger solar projects by as much as 72 percent after announcing a comprehensive review in February of feed-in tariffs, or guaranteed prices paid for electricity from renewables. The ministry Huhne leads wants to prevent large solar farms from taking money earmarked for rooftop installations…The companies said today in an e-mailed statement that the government had set “clear expectations” that a first review wouldn’t take place until 2012, with subsidies changing in 2013. They also said the Department of Energy and Climate Change never said what the trigger would be for an early review…“In pulling back on a commitment to support solar energy, the government will cause the abandonment of hundreds of community-scale schemes,” said Mark Shorrock, chief executive of Low Carbon Solar. “The cost of not getting this right now, aside from the government meeting its climate change targets, include the creation of new jobs, a diversified income for farmers and landowners, reduced energy costs for businesses and the provision of more secure and reliable energy for the U.K.

Global Warming’s new celebrity spokesman, Charles Manson, chastises us for not putting “the trees back that we’ve butchered.” Daily Mail (4/18/11) reports: Crazed cult leader Charles Manson has broken a 20-year silence in a prison interview coinciding with the 40th anniversary of his conviction for the gruesome Sharon Tate murders – to speak out about global warming…The infamous killer, who started championing environmental causes from behind bars, bemoaned the ‘bad things’ being done to environment in a rambling phone interview from his Californian jail cell…’Everyone’s God and if we don’t wake up to that there’s going to be no weather because our polar caps are melting because we’re doing bad things to the atmosphere…’If we don’t change that as rapidly as I’m speaking to you now, if we don’t put the green back on the planet and put the trees back that we’ve butchered, if we don’t go to war against the problem…’ he added, trailing off.

Possible ice breaker for Secretaries Salazar and Clinton, “Name all the areas of the world you’ve shut down for energy production” The Hill (4/19/11) reports: Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are both slated to attend the May 12 meeting of the intergovernmental Arctic Council in Greenland, Salazar told reporters Monday…“One of the items we will be discussing in that forum will be how we move forward with oil-and-gas development,” Salazar said at a press conference on drilling…The intergovernmental council is made up of nations that border the Arctic Circle including Russia, the U.S., Greenland, Finland, Norway and Sweden. It’s designed to enhance cooperation and coordination among Arctic states…Salazar’s actions and comments on Arctic development will be closely watched amid uncertainty about the extent to which Interior will allow oil-and-gas drilling in a fragile region believed to hold massive energy resources…Royal Dutch Shell has for years been seeking federal permission to develop billions of dollars worth of leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas off Alaska’s northern coast, and other companies are also planning exploration. Multiple bills on Capitol Hill are aimed at expediting development in the region.

The unstoppable can-do American spirit collides with the immoveable U.S. Government — Shell expects to drill in Alaska in 2012 Wall Street Journal (4/15/11) reports: Royal Dutch Shell PLC expects to start drilling in Alaska’s Arctic waters in the summer of next year and have in place an oil-containment system specifically designed for the area ready at the same time, the head of the company’s U.S. operations said Friday…”Our aspiration is to drill in the 2012 season,” Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Co., the U.S. unit of the Anglo-Dutch giant, told Dow Jones Newswires in a interview. “We are hopeful, but also cautions.”..Shell still has to obtain a number of permits from the federal government in order to go ahead with its $3.5 billion investment to drill in the state’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas. Shell’s plans have been delayed by environmental lawsuits and permit issues on top of calls for better spill prevention and containment capabilities following BP PLC’s oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico last year…Mr. Odum said the company will wait until about September to see the amount of progress in the permitting process before making a final decision to start deploying the system needed to drill next summer. “It takes about six months to build up the capacity you need to start the program,” Mr. Odum said. “This is a very significant resource for the country, which is worth pursuing, and we are focused on getting it done.”..Shell is planning to have in place an oil-containment system specifically designed to work in the cold-climate conditions of the Arctic by the time drilling starts, Mr. Odum said.

Good news is that Government Motors is going to sell a Volt. The bad news is that it’s replacing the one that burned down a garage Fox News (4/15/11) reports: Fire officials suspect an electric hybrid car may have sparked an overnight blaze in a garage in Barkhamsted on Center Hill Road…. Officials said they can’t rule out that the couple’s brand new Chevy Volt hybrid had something to do with the blaze…Homeowner Storm Connors and his wife, Dee, said they awoke to the sound of a smoke alarm around 4 a.m. The couple said they have lived in the home for nearly 40 years. They built it and raised their children there, so when the flames took over their attached garage Thursday morning, burning it down to its beams, the couple started to panic. They said they were worried they were going to lose their home and the memories inside…”I walked outside and looked in the garage door and it was flaming,” Dee Connors said. “I grabbed a pocketbook so I’d have a cellphone and a driver’s license and a jacket and a pair of slacks. I had no shoes, my feet were freezing.”

Instead of listening to kids who are supported by their parents, the President should be listening to American workers who are feeling the pocketbook squeeze at the pump The Hill (4/17/11) reports:  A dozen climate change activists expecting a discussion with White House staffers got a surprise meeting with the president himself…A dozen young climate change activists expecting a discussion with White House staffers Friday instead got a meeting with President Obama himself…The surprise meeting came hours ahead of the April 15-18 Power Shift 2011 conference, which is slated to include criticism of a White House that some activists allege has not been aggressive enough on climate change…“We went thinking we would meet with senior staff and in walked Barack Obama,” said Courtney Hight, co-director of the Energy Action Coalition that organized the conference, which opened Friday night…“Young people got to sit down at a table in the West Wing and have a meeting with the president and share what our priorities are and talk about solutions, and we talked about the impact of fossil fuels in our communities, and how they can wreak havoc,” Hight said onstage at the conference of largely collegiate activists.

This man has swagger Wall Street Journal (4/16/11) reports: The Chevron CEO is a rare breed these days: an unapologetic oil man. For decades—going back to Jimmy Carter—politicians have been peddling an America free of fossil fuels. Mr. Obama has taken that to an unprecedented level, closing off more acreage to drilling, pouring money into green energy, pushing new oil company taxes, instituting anticarbon regulations. America is going backward on affordable energy, even as oil hits $110 a barrel…As for biofuels, “we would need to consume land the size of states” to hit the country’s current ethanol targets. Chevron is investigating biofuels, but Mr. Watson says the “economics aren’t there” yet. Unlike many CEOs, Mr. Watson insists on products that can prosper without federal subsidies, which he believes are costly and lacking in transparency when “consumer pockets are tight, government pockets are tight…Bottom line: “We’re going to need oil and gas and coal for a long time if America wants to keep the lights on.”

Problem: supply of crude oil from Middle East is unstable. Solution: drill for oil in the U.S. and import from Canada Bloomberg (4/18/11) reports: Crude prices currently include a premium of $15 to $20 a barrel, OPEC’s Secretary General said, commenting on the commodity’s 19 percent gain this year, driven by rising unrest in oil-producing nations in the Middle East…Oil officials from Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Iran joined Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, in saying there is no shortage of fuel in the market…“I can’t say the market is oversupplied, but the market is adequately supplied and our production in March is almost the same as our production in December, even though one of our member countries is out of production,” OPEC’s Abdalla el-Badri told reporters today in Kuwait. “Yes, the price is a concern.”..Additional shipments to make up for halts in Libyan output has been met by a lack of buyers, el-Badri said, when asked if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will decide to raise production when it meets in June…Crude fell as much as 1.1 percent in New York to $108.47 a barrel today after Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said yesterday that the global “market is oversupplied” with crude.

NYT asked and answered their own rhetorical question, but here’s the kicker, they expect us to believe them on their word New York Times (4/18/11) reports: A year after BP’s Macondo well blew out, killing 11 men and spewing millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the much-maligned federal agency responsible for policing offshore drilling has been remade, with a tough new director, an awkward new name and a sheaf of stricter safety rules. It is also trying to put some distance between itself and the industry it regulates… But is it fixed? The simple answer is no. Even those who run the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service concede that it will be years before they can establish a robust regulatory regime able to minimize the risks to workers and the environment while still allowing exploration offshore…“We are much safer today than we were a year ago,” said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who oversees the agency, “but we know we have more to do.”..Oil industry executives and their allies in Congress said that the Obama administration, in its zeal to overhaul the agency, has lost sight of what they believe the agency’s fundamental mission should be — promoting the development of the nation’s offshore oil and gas resources. Environmentalists said the agency, now known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement, has made only cosmetic changes and remains too close to the people it is supposed to regulate.

Two cheers. When in comes to government-induced green energy investment, the U.S. doesn’t waste as much money as Germany of China Global Post (4/18/11) reports: Germany and BEIJING, China — In the rough and blustery North Sea, almost 30 miles off Germany’s coast, 12 wind turbines tower over the water, with rotors longer than football fields…Like most wind turbines, those that make up the Alpha Ventus Offshore Wind Farm have gearboxes that transmit the power of the rotors to much faster-spinning cogs that generate electricity…The strain from wind turbulence makes these gearboxes the most fragile part of the turbines and a true engineering headache…Six of the Alpha Ventus gearboxes are made by Renk, a 130-year-old engineering company based in Augsburg, southern Germany. The three decades in which Renk has been involved with wind turbines haven’t always been easy, said Toni Weiss, general manager of Renk’s industrial gear division. But he estimates the firm is now five to seven years ahead of most rivals

Well, there’s a first time for everything Houston Chronicle (4/14/11) The top U.S. officials in charge of offshore oil and gas exploration on Wednesday got a close-up look at the first deep-water drilling project approved since last year’s oil spill…Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and his chief offshore regulator, Michael Bromwich, spent two hours examining new safety systems – including one spurred by the spill – on the Ensco 8501 rig that is about to begin drilling a bypass well for Noble Energy in the Gulf of Mexico..They touched drilling fluids hauled from pits on the semisubmersible rig, interviewed workers about their jobs and studied the systems used as a last line of defense against surging oil and gas…Afterward, Salazar said he was impressed that “testing capabilities have been significantly enhanced since a year ago.”

Are you sure wind is stochastic?  Because Denise Bode keeps telling me that it is reliable Seeking Alpha (4/14/11) reports: Everybody knows that wind power is variable, which can be troublesome for a society that needs reliable power all day, every day. When inquiring minds ask whether wind power can ever be a reliable energy source for the U.S., we’re soothed by calm assurances that better transmission networks and wider geographic dispersion can overcome the variability with no fuss, muss or bother. Occasionally, however, the facts are too glaring to ignore and somebody needs to insist on a reality check. Today is one of those days for me…The Bonneville Power Administration, or BPA, operates in the Pacific Northwest. It has a geographic footprint of 300,000 square miles, it manages electric power generation and distribution in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Western Montana, and it exports more than half of its power production. In The All True April Fool’s Edition of the Department of Energy’s Blog, the following graph tracked the BPA’s regional load and power production for a period of seven days. Wind power, a quintessential favorite of renewable energy advocates everywhere, is the green line at the bottom of the graph…

It’s the biofuels, stupid CNN Money (4/14/11) reports: As global food prices rise near record highs, the World Bank warned Thursday that further spikes could push millions more people deeper into poverty…The organization that loans money to developing nations said its global food price index was up 36% in March from levels a year earlier. The increase was driven by sharp boosts in prices for corn, wheat, soybeans and other staples… Despite a modest drop versus the month before, the index remains near its 2008 peak…The surge in global food prices has already driven 44 million people below the “extreme poverty line,” which the World Bank defines as living on just $1.25 a day…An additional 10% increase in food prices would cause another 10 million people to fall below the poverty line, while a 30% spike would lead to 34 million more poor, according to the World Bank.

What is the green’s answer to high oil prices? Force Americans to buy more expensive, smaller, less capable, less powerful, but more fuel-efficient cars. Never mind that Europe has already done this and only 80% of the distance traveled is still by car–but in small cars Los Angeles Times (4/14/11) reports: There is no magic wand that will bring down the price of gasoline, which has once again crossed the $4 mark in California. But there is a long-term solution that will inoculate us from higher costs in the future…The Obama administration can’t do much to lower the price of a gallon of gas, but it is on the cusp of a crucial decision that could help consumers come out ahead because they would need less gas…Officials are quietly working on just how steeply to require the auto industry to cut emissions and increase mileage in the next generation of cars, SUVs and pickups. Their decision, coming as early as May, could require dramatically cleaner vehicles that would cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 6% a year and average 62 miles per gallon. The new rules would be phased in from 2017 to 2025…Obviously, using less gas is good for the environment. It means less carbon dioxide pollution and smog. It also boosts our energy security — a big deal, given the uncertainty of oil supplies from troubled regions and often unsavory players — and saves us money at the pump. That beats sending our dollars overseas.

Talk about earning your pay; Rep. Doc Hastings pushes through three new bills that would help expand American energy New York Times (4/14/11) reports: In a grueling nine-hour markup, the House Natural Resources Committee approved a trio of bills yesterday aimed at increasing production of domestic oil and gas off the nation’s coasts… he advance of bills by Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to accelerate and expand offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico as well as the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans is an early victory in the House GOP’s “American Energy Initiative.” The proposals could receive House votes as early as next month …Democrats loaded the docket with more than two dozen amendments in hopes of making the markup uncomfortable for Republicans, whom they blamed for turning a blind eye to unanswered questions from the BP PLC oil spill last year in the Gulf…But the bills emerged mostly unchanged with the notable exception of a provision by Texas Republican Bill Flores to extend lease terms for operators whose permitting was delayed in the wake of the BP spill.

We imagine that they will bring the same diligence to this as they have to every other instance where affordable, reliable energy is involved E&E News (4/14/11) reports: The Interior Department tomorrow will launch a new evaluation of the effects of oil shale leasing across millions of acres of federal land in the West…The programmatic environmental review — to be announced in tomorrow’s Federal Register — is Interior’s first step to complying with a February settlement with environmental groups to revisit a George W. Bush administration plan to offer oil shale leases on 2 million acres…The administration will also be reviewing Bush-era royalty rates designed to attract research into developing the resource…At issue is a 2008 program that expanded the available acreage for commercial tar-sands leasing and amended eight resource management plans in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming to make roughly 1.9 million acres available for commercial oil shale development.

Britain is on track to miss renewable energy goal despite considerable subsidies Bloomberg (2/13/11) reports: The U.K. will likely miss a goal set by the European Union to derive 15 percent of its energy supply from clean sources by 2020, a research group said…A milestone, to get 10 percent of its electricity in 2010 from sources such as the wind and sun, was missed, the Renewable Energy Foundation said today in a statement. That was a target set during the former Labour party leadership…“Failure to meet the much-discussed 2010 target, in spite of very high levels of consumer subsidy, is a clear indication that the EU 2020 goals are impractical and unaffordable,” John Constable, policy and research director for REF said today by telephone. “We need an urgent rethink.”…The U.K. generated 6.5 percent of its electricity from renewable energy last year, according to the London-based group’s research, which was based on data from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and energy regulator Ofgem.

For those of you who were thinking that a carbon tax would be better than cap and trade, why not have both? E&E News (4/14/11) reports: The European Union today proposed a stark restructuring of the bloc’s taxes on fuels and heating oil, including fees tied to greenhouse gas emissions. The plan, which faces multiple hurdles, likely will draw steep opposition from E.U. countries wary of rising gasoline prices…For years, Europe has pondered whether to bolster its existing cap-and-trade system — which places limits on CO2 emissions from sources such as power plants and factories — with a carbon tax on oil and fuels used in home heating, including coal. Several European nations, like Sweden and Finland, have long employed carbon taxes. But last year France, facing social unrest, abandoned similar plans…The carbon tax will be necessary for the union to meet its ambitious unilateral goal to slash its CO2 emissions 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020, said E.U. taxation commissioner Algirdas Semeta. Europe’s existing energy taxes are outmoded — for example, they tax ethanol more than coal — and countries need certainty in drafting recovery plans, he said.

Sure it’s possible to get 17 percent of our gasoline imports from algae (or from Jack Daniels) but the question is, what will it cost? Department of Energy (4/13/11) reports: Every day, the United States spends about $1 billion to import foreign oil, money that we could be investing in American energy and the American economy. President Obama recently announced an ambitious but achievable goal of reducing our oil imports by a third by 2025. To meet this goal, we will need to increase our use of homegrown advanced biofuels…Today, the Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) came out with a new study that shows that 17 percent of the United States’ imported oil for transportation could be replaced with American-grown biofuels from algae…Developing the next generation of biofuels is an important step towards reducing our dependence on foreign oil and advancing new economic opportunities throughout the country.

What does this geologist have against poor people? Times Live (4/13/11) reports: Fracking should not be allowed in South Africa. Ask just about any South African who’s heard about it – sheep farmers, rural labourers or even city-slicker geologists like myself – and they’ll tell you that fracking is dirty, wasteful of water and a solution to nothing but short-sighted corporate greed. It’s a no-brainer: we don’t want it… Fracking – oil and gas industry slang for “hydraulic fracturing” – is a technology used to extract natural gas trapped as tiny bubbles in underground layers of gas shale. After a well has been drilled into a stratum of gas-bearing rock, large quantities of fracking fluid, consisting of water, sand and a cocktail of chemicals, is pumped into it at high pressure, fracturing the source rock and allowing the gas to escape towards the surface.