Lower Than Pond Scum
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February 25 2012
Between 1955 and 1959 I was a student at the University of Miami. It was perhaps the best four years of my life and remembered fondly for its combination of fun and learning. On Thursday, February 23, President Barack Obama was on the UM campus to tell the biggest bunch of lies about energy in America I have heard compressed into a single speech.
This President has already set records wasting taxpayer’s money on a range of so-called clean energy and renewable energy “investments”. Solyndra, the solar panel company that went bust and stuck taxpayers with a half-billion in loan guarantees is just one of those “investments” and I keep waiting for someone to ask why public funds are being flushed down the toilet when, if the companies involved were viable, they could not raise private venture capital?
“And we’re making investments in the development of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance known as algae,” said the President. “Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17% of the oil we important for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in America.”
All politicians put the best face on their pet projects, but to flat-out lie about one of the most idiotic ideas to replace oil when this nation has enough oil, domestically and offshore, known and estimated to exist, defies the imagination. It is an insult to every one of us. And Obama wants to pump $14 million into algae, otherwise known as pond scum.
It is very likely that, like the solar panel and other “clean energy” scandals that we know about and will learn about as time goes alone, the average American is unaware that, by 2008, there were fifteen (15) algae startup companies. When I heard Obama talk about algae, I could practically hear the campaign fund-raising bundlers scurrying like rats from company to company.
To those of you not intimately and well informed about algae, it is that organic stuff that gathers in ponds and swamps and, in aggregate, is politely called “plant-like organisms that are usually photosynthetic and aquatic.” It is scum. It has no roots, stems, or leaves. It is scum.
In a marine environment it is called seaweed. Algae have chlorophyll and can manufacture their own food through photosynthesis. Algae, the scientists tell us, produces more oxygen than all the plants in the world in addition to being an important food source for marine creatures as diverse in size as shrimp and whales.
The notion that millions would be “invested” to turn algae into fuel ranks just above the idiocy of converting thousands of acres of corn into ethanol instead of food.
Barack Obama has been lying about so many things for so long I doubt he even knows when he is lying or even cares. It’s not enough to dismiss this saying that all politicians lie because many do not. Some in Congress right now are desperately trying to get the public in general and voters in particular to understand that America has more debt per capita than Greece. We are on the precipice of financial collapse and Barack Obama just wants to spend more and more and more; some of it on pond scum.
During his UM speech, he derided those who have for decades been saying that America has to allow oil companies access to its vast reserves in order to reduce our dependence on imported oil. “We’ve heard the same thing for thirty years,” he said. He’s right. And administrations and Congress have blocked access for just as long. It’s our oil!
He went further, though. “It means that anyone who tells you we can drill our way out of this problem doesn’t know what they’re talking about—or isn’t telling you the truth.” That’s rich, coming from someone who lies almost as often as he exhales. Oil is a global commodity. The more that’s available to the market, the lower its cost. Domestic oil always costs consumers less than imported oil!
The truth is that oil production on federal lands declined last year by eleven percent on lands controlled by the Obama administration and six percent for natural gas in 2011.Oil and natural gas production on federal lands is down by more than forty percent (40%) compared to ten years ago. The Obama administration, in 2010, issued the lowest number of onshore leases since 1984. In 2011, it held exactly one offshore lease sale.
On February 24, one day after the Obama speech, the U.S. Geological Survey released a report on the amount of oil estimated to exist in the North Slope of Alaska. “The amount of oil that is technically recoverable in the United States is more than 1.4 trillion barrels, with the largest deposits located offshore, in portions of Alaska, and in shale in the Rocky Mountain West. When combined with resources from Canada and Mexico, total recoverable oil in North America exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels.
In a 2008 Wall Street Journal interview, Obama’s Energy Secretary, Dr. Steven Chu, famously said, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels of Europe.” Anyone who does not believe this administration has a deliberate policy of achieving this goal is just not paying attention. Remember that the next time you fill your car’s gas tank.
This is the same President who stopped the building of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada that would provide more oil for our refineries and not cost the American taxpayer one penny to build. This is the same President who imposed a moratorium on oil from the Gulf of Mexico even after the courts told him to remove it. It caused the loss of an estimated 12,000 jobs while rigs departed for Cuba, Brazil and Mexico.
Between now and November, the President will be out campaigning and telling the same lies. The rise in the cost of oil isn’t just a seasonal thing though prices have usually gone up in the summertime when people travel more for vacations. It’s up because the Iranians are closing in on making their own nuclear weapons and their own missiles to hit, not just Israel, but the U.S. It’s up because it is essential to ensure that the tankers oil-producing nations around the Persian Gulf can enter and exist it via the Strait of Harmuz.
The world isn’t running out of oil and is not about to run out. The Earth floats on an ocean of oil despite the rising demand from Asia and other developing nations. To replace foreign oil with algae-based fuel would require a chemically-controlled tank the size of the State of Colorado, about 69.3 million acres.
In 2010, Obama’s mandated biofuel production was less than ten percent of foreign oil imports. It is impossible for biofuel of any description to replace foreign oil imports; just as it is idiotic to pay $41,000 for an electric car when you can have a gasoline-fueled car for around $16,000.
Pond scum is not a rational substitute for oil and spending $14 million on its production as a fuel is beyond absurd. It is the same confidence game as selling “carbon credits” to avoid the hoax of “global warming.”
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Comments
There is a great deal of evidence indicating that what you claim is untrue as well.
That "second half is always the hardest half to get" has it's proof where? Int warmist talking points?
It wasn't true then, either.
• 1857 - Romania produces 2,000 barrels of oil, marking the beginning of the modern oil industry.
• 1859, Aug. 25 - Edwin L. Drake strikes oil in Titusville, Pa
• 1862 - First commercial oil production in Canada, also 1863 in Russia.
• 1862 - Most widely used lamp fuel (camphene) taxed in US at aprox. $1 a gallon; kerosene taxed at 10 cent per gallon. (Kovarik, 1997)
• 1863 - John D. Rockefeller starts the Excelsior Refinery in Cleveland, OH.
• 1879 - US Geological Survey formed in part because of fear of oil shortages.
• 1882 - Institute of Mining Engineers estimates 95 million barrels of oil remain. With 25 million barrels per year output, "Some day the cheque will come back indorsed no funds, and we are approaching that day very fast," Samuel Wrigley says. (Pratt, p. 124).
• 1901 - Spindletop gusher in TX floods US oil market.
• 1906 - Fears of an oil shortage are confirmed by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Representatives of the Detroit Board of Commerce attended hearings in Washington and told a Senate hearing that car manufacturers worried "not so much [about] cost as ... supply."
Yeah, this goes on for pages and pages...
Oil reserves have declined from 95 million barrels in 1882, to well over a trillion barrels in 2011. We will probably run out in a few centuries at the rate we are consuming the oil.
I'm sure I mentioned this before but my dad, who was an aeronautical engineer by trade) knew a heck of a lot about oil, I remember him explaining to me when I was a kid that the Earth is basically a machine that makes oil, will carry on making oil and gas faster than we can use it.
Have a great weekend.
ClimateAudit has won the 2012 Canadian weblog award
Tallblokes talkshop has won the auropean weblog award
Wattsupwiththat has won the best science and technology award
Congratulations to everyone!
George Osborne: UK has run out of money
... and not once in the article does anyone discuss cutting green programs! The closest they come is...
“I have taken action already this year to avoid increases in fuel duty which were planned by the last Labour government,”
What about the damned bird shredders?
On the energy front, the current and new policies are designed, by intent, to bring this country and its citizens to its knees. And for what purpose? So we can be serene, green neighbors in the world community? Oh, I hope not. There can be no rational explanation for this, except for the shameful lust for power that these hoodlums possess.
Just like Gleick was 'forced to break the law' to inspire "open, honest debate".
Just a question... didn't the Governor of Nebraska approve an alternate pipeline route? Didn't the appropriate Commissar alert Obamboozle?
George Orwell would be having a stroke to see all this come about. It almost exceeds even his own predictions.
Luckily for us Canadians, a lot of Americans won't stand for it... "Last fall, I wrote about a surprising trend: gun sales have skyrocketed since Barack Obama became president. During that time, the stock of gunmaker Sturm Ruger (RGR) has outperformed gold. Analysts aren’t quite sure what’s causing the trend…" www.businessweek.com/politics-policy/joshua-green-on-politics/archives/2012/02/barack_obama_greatest_gun_salesman_in_america.html
Mind you this is just private citizens...
As Canadians, we need Americans to stand tall... the whole world does.
channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/
It even got a couple of my neighbors by the house for a visit, discussing in greater depth how we could work together in the event of a crisis. We already have plans to produce our own fuel if necessary, security is no issue (we can go full auto now!) and we can grow, hunt and fish our own food.
Some of the 'Doomsday Preppers' are flat goofy, and some have really great ideas. You have anything from pole reversal disaster preparation, to folks readying for a financial crisis, and everything in between. I personally have been studying food storage for a few years now and have learned alot about practical applications. If done correctly it can be cheap, and can be used for things as boring as simple unemployment.
As I always say, hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.
This is all done in good humor. You will not find me wearing a gas mask, performing preparedness drills at the ranch. The food does not go to waste, target practice makes perfect, and I do not worry about my future because I am prepared.
You may as well go out in style...
Yes, you are correct.
There is another dodge about this issue, claiming that the approvals could not be rushed; however, the December resolution that related to this stated that the approvals were in place. Obama's decision hinged on whether he figured the construction of the pipeline was in the "national interest." That should be as easy as deciding whether taking a job is in one's personal intererest.
I take the insults from this administration personally. They think we're all a bunch of country dumb-zhits
Yes I do remember your comments. I don't always have time to write but I do have a quick read here and there.(Interesting analogy that article with the tomatoes and what really goes on)
Oh, I remember the 80's and 90's the same as you as I grew up in Yorkshire at the time. I remember snow and sun too.
I think they just make it up, and if they keep saying it is the warmest ever hope people cant remember. Because lets face it everyone is too preoccupied with trying to make ends meet than worry about the weather!
Anyway, I thought the warmists said weather isn't climate so it doesn't count.
Can't beat a bit of Danish blues
(I mean blue). 3rd freezing cold winterin a row here but doesn't count cause its only weather:-)
If the world does not devolve into chaos, you will have some mighty fine cheese with which to enjoy the new world order.
'Despite the massive investment, solar power accounts for only about 0.3% of Germany's total energy. This is one of the key reasons why Germans now pay the second-highest price for electricity in the developed world (exceeded only by Denmark, which aims to be the “world wind-energy champion”)...governments elsewhere cannot afford to repeat the same mistake'
I am so proud to live in Denmark. Can't wait to pay more taxes. We already pay the Highest electricity bills in the world. Hooray for socialism. More Danish cheese! please.
Hi Gator, doing the cheese thing tonight
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