$4, $5 Per Gallon of Gas...McCain Was Right

In 2008, John McCain predicted that if Barack Obama was elected president, Obama's energy policies would see $4 +  per gallon of gas...McCain was right...




Obama's energy policies are predicated on the proposition that expensive costs would make 'green' energy sources financially viable. That's the only way that solar-wind production system will break even. That's why the Obama administation has enforced a moritorium on energy production off the coasts of the Carolinas and in the Gulf of Mexico as well as shale oil in western states, much less Alaska.

In 1995, the Clinton administration denied further exploitation of Alaskan oil fields on the rationalization that it would take 10 years for those fields to produce oil...that was 17 years ago.  The current administration is content to deny the construction of the Keystone pipeline that would rapidly bring Canadian shale oil to refineries along the Gulf coast.  I suspect that's because a number of his larger donors (George Soros being one) own stock in the rail companies what are currently making huges sums of money in shipping that oil via the more expensive rail routes.

Between Barack & A Hard Place...

Since the Obama administration has refused nearly all new drilling, we'll likely see gas prices top $5 per gallon by the end of summer.  This will...kill off any economic recovery that's occured.  Furthermore, it will set off a round of inflation as business increase prices to cover the costs of transporting goods and providing services that will further erode the ability of lower paid workers to make ends meet.  But then, Obama administration officials are record  as saying that they want to see $9 per gallon gasoline.  Links here and here. 

“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Steven Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, told the Wall Street Journal in September.

While Ken Salazar cancelled 77 drilling leases immediately after being sworn in as Secretary of the Interior.  This administration in general, and the Democratic party in particular seem bend on destroying the economy of this country.  The crippling debt load that has been inflicted over the past 4 years by the Obama, Pelosi, Reid trioka will take decades to payoff...if ever, when combined with vastly increased energy costs, will add ever more to the burden working Americans are saddled with.

Is this the "hope" or the "change"?  At this point, I'm just hoping for a change...

We Need A Rational Energy Policy

Some day here in America we're going to have get some semblance of sanity and develop and adopt a rational national energy policy. As a country, we can no longer afford to continue to fund OPEC countries to the extent we are today. Before we can begin to develop a "greener" infrastructure, as a nation we must take advantage of the natural resources that we have here.

Recently the Obama administration decided to invest $2 billion dollars in offshore drilling in Brazil. That would be good for America, but the entire production of the proposed drilling field has been dedicated by Petrobras to the Chinese. The only American to benefit from this will be George Soros, who is a large shareholder of the company.

The Obama administration is going to fund this huge project while forbidding the exploitation of the huge deposits in the Gulf of Mexico, off the eastern US coasts of North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. This while we import more than 70% of our petroleum products from OPEC. That's a luxury we can no longer afford. The gradual rise in petroleum prices has forced this country to an untenable position. Especially when you consider the present sharp rise in the national debt.

Simply stating that we must have a "green" economy and implementing any sort of "Cap & Trade" scheme will destroy and already fragile economy. While I would love to see this country redevelop our industrial base but we have to face facts and realize that without a huge investment, "green jobs" will not come to America. A recently developed wind farm in Wyoming was built with Chinese wind turbines because the only othe source of turbine production, Germany, has a backlog of years for their production lines. This administration wants to develop green jobs here in America, at our present rate of industrial decline, there will be no "green jobs" here.

Because our economy has more than a century on the path of petroleum dependence, it will take decades to wean ourselves away from them. In the mean time, instead of sending hundreds of billions of dollars permanently out of our economy, we must begin developing domestic supplies of oil. Alaska, the continental shelves of both coasts as well as the shale oil deposits that stretch from Colorado to the Yukon. Thus, we reinvest much of those profits into alternative sources of energy.

Research must be intensified in making solar panels more efficient. At present the average efficiency of solar panels is about 5%...that's not nearly good enough to be genuinely cost effective. But it is unrealistic to believe that either wind generation or solar power will ever be sufficient to provide this country's electrical energy needs. At best these sources will only supplement our needs, not fulfill them.

While our country does this we can begin to build the network of nuclear power plants that the "green" movement has forbidden us from developing. After all, if France and Japan can get 75% or more of their electrical energy needs from nuclear power, why shouldn't we do so as well. While coal is relatively inexpensive, it is an inefficient source of electrical production. Nor do we have to build huge terawatt production facilities. There are two companies who have developed small 5 megawatt reactors that are very nearly maintenance free and can literally be buried underground until they need to be refueled.

These are just the sorts of solutions that this country needs, but unfortunately, our political masters are not intelligent enough to implement them. So we will continue to bleed our treasure off shore...eventually, it will stop, but by then, we'll be bankrupt.