Justine texted me yesterday to fill up at the one place in town that was still under $3; this morning they're at $3.37. That's up 42¢ overnight, the other stations went up more than that as she was out driving around.
I tried to get funded to do a baseline survey of methane emissions from a potential coal-seam gas region but the government decided it was easier to just ban development. If the industry had any sense they would figure out the background so they don't get blamed for something they didn't produce. If the government had any sense they would demand baseline surveys so they could go after industry for fugitive emissions. But in most cases, neither want to know the answer. It is infuriating.
Yves here. Itâs pretty remarkable to see Big Oil via its current favorite front, Joe Manchin, push for âFrack baby, frackâ when shale gas will not substitute for Russian oil. And worse, apparently no one in the climate change opposition has bothered to learn enough about oil production and refining to call this nonsense out. Yours truly is NOT on the energy beat. The fact that Iâve worked that âfracking will not solve our Russian oil problemâ with only minimal contact with this topic, and supposed full-timers havenât, is yet more proof of why the left sucks. It canât get past emotionally-appealing sloganeering to understand how things actually work.
The US needs heavier grades to mix in with very light (shale gas) or light (Saudi light sweet crude) to produce diesel and home heating oil. Russian oil is apparently moderately heavy and therefore a very productive source for diesel and home heating fuel. Absent heavier grades, we have a problem with diesel, already in short supply globally, and home heating fuel. Yes, they apparently can be produced from lighter grades, but those âlighterâ grades have shorter carbon chain which means are lower energy density. So using light sweet crude to make diesel is inefficient and will put price pressure on gasoline.
Note the final paragraph â âit backs more near-term oil production, even as it pushes clean energyâ.
So is the âWhite Houseâ â Joe Biden â in favor of more oil and gas production, or opposed to it?
2. Hereâs the answer, via Jerri-Lyn Schofield at Naked Capitalism:
Biden Administration Greenlights More Fossil Fuel Drilling Permits in 2021 for Public Lands and Waters than Did Trump in 2017
As he moves into his second year as President, it seems the only promise Joe Biden has made good on is his pledge that âNothing fundamental will change.â
This promise even applies to policies on climate change where voters might have expected Biden to pursue initiatives that curtailed expansion of the oil and gas industry. No such luck. Instead, Biden seems to be following in the footsteps of the last Democratic president, who proudly and publicly took credit for the oil and gas boom. Positively gloated. And if you donât believe me, watch the video clip contained in this post, which I posted â again! â less than a fortnight ago (U.S. Interior Department Moves to Block Some Oil and Gas Leasing on Alaskaâs North Slope).
The Biden Fossil Fuel Record: Full Speed Ahead for Drilling on Public Lands
âSyncrudeâ from tar sands oil is extremely light after pre-refining and, therefore, maybe not so helpful for diesel. Venezuelan oil is heavy and sourâalso has high vanadium which will poison refinery catalysts. They are not good substitutes for each otherâ¦
I think the Canadian syncrude is mostly expected to be exported from our Gulf Coast rather than refined in USA. That would be why one of the arguments against Keystone XL is that Canadians should build their own pipeline from Athabasca to a port in British Columbia and not put USA water at risk.
IRVING, TXâIn the wake of global turmoil and worsening inflation, oil companies were lamenting the rising price of Joe Manchin, sources confirmed Tuesday. âWith the economy what it is and a split Senate, it seems like the price just keeps going up and up nearly every day,â said ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, who was just one of many industry executives left suffering from sticker shock after learning how much the West Virginia senator was now asking for. âIt definitely hurts, but what other option do we have? I guess thatâs what happens when too many people want access. Then again, maybe itâs on us for not diversifying our Senate power sources.â At press time, several reports indicated that a long line of oil executives waiting outside Manchinâs door had begun to wrap around the block.
Loving my Chevy Volt. Wish they hadn't discontinued them, and I bet now they wish that too. I get maybe one 7 gallon tank a month, unless we go traveling. But otherwise I get 40-50 miles on the battery, which is perfect for around town and other usual things. Just plug it in at night and fall in love with it again each morning.
Bwah ha ha. Americans are so far removed from the idea of what war is that they have a temper tantrum if they’re even slightly inconvenienced by higher prices. Imagine this attitude if the nation were physically attacked. In fact, see how it plays out now as Russia/China simply says things on social media and half the nation (less now, since many have died) says “but a mask is so inconvenient! But I know more than the experts about mRNA and epidemiology because I saw a meme! Wahhhhh! Standing up to Russia is so hard!”
Really ? You get all of that from this particular meme ?
I was more like the CDC has been so wrong on so much of the Covid stuff that the masks could still have a real use, metaphorically speaking of course.
The usefulness of masks other than the 95's has been so thoroughly destroyed by science (and established by OSHA decades ago, yet ignored) that the use of masks themselves are now an indicator of a paranoid person more than anything else, to me. Wear the other masks and believe you are protected. Fine with me.
I was told early on that if you want to test how effective a mask is, wear it going into a fish market. If you can smell fish, fail.
In his State of the Union Address, President Joe Biden promoted electric vehicles (EVs), trumpeting his plans to establish âa national network of 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations.â In so doing, Biden is unwittingly supporting the worst humanitarian abuses in the world. This is because of the way in which the materials used in manufacturing the batteries that power todayâs EVs are obtained.
A 1,000-pound Li-ion EV battery typically also contains about 30 pounds of cobalt. Cobalt ore grades average about 0.1%, so we need to process almost 30,000 pounds of ore to get 30 pounds of cobalt. With 50% of the worldâs cobalt reserves, the Democratic Republic of Congo contributes almost two-thirds of global cobalt production. This is causing immense humanitarian abuses. Congo has at least 40,000 childrenâsome as young as 4-years oldâworking with their parents for less than $2 a day. They are exposed to multiple psychological violations and abuse as well as significant physical risks. Engineer and energy consultant Ronald Stein and Todd Royal, an independent public policy consultant focusing on the geopolitical implications of energy, go into more details in their book Clean Energy Exploitations â Helping citizens understand the environmental and humanity abuses that support âcleanâ energyâ:
âCave-inâs, constant exposure to toxic, radioactive water, dust, and dangerous air loaded with cobalt, lead, and uranium with other heavy metals breathed into lungs day-after-day so western citizens can feel good about their Tesla or wind turbine. Cobalt ore is sent to China since one of the larger mines in the Congo is Chinese-owned Congo Dongfang International Mining Company.â
A 1,000-pound EV battery also has 110 pounds of graphite. At 10% concentration, 1,100 pounds of ore must be processed for each battery. China is now producing about 70% of the global supply of natural graphite. Villagers living near graphite companies in provinces in Northeast China complain of âsparkling night air,â crop damage, homes and belongings covered in soot and polluted drinking water.
In his State of the Union address, Biden spoke of promoting âenvironmental justiceâ and âexpanding fairness.â The president said, âI will be honest with you, as Iâve always promised.â
Biden must now be honest about electric vehicles. They grossly violate basic environmental justice principles and are anything but fair to the poor of the world who suffer and die so that wealthy western elites can virtue signal with their electric vehicles.
