AMERICAN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

boblonsberry.com ^ | 07/17/12 | Bob Lonsberry

[shortstop]

Do you know who Lord Browne is?

Me neither.

But he said something interesting the other day. At a recent energy conference in Britain, Lord Browne – the former CEO of British Petroleum – said that America would be energy independent by 2030.

One of the most connected and knowledgeable energy men in the world said that the United States is less than 20 years away from being able to tell the Arabs to go pound salt.

The Arabs, and all the rest of the oil producers.

By 2030, we’ll be able to provide for ourselves when it comes to energy.

No, this isn’t another pie-in-the-sky love song to wind and solar and switch grass and whatever other bull-crap project Obama and the Democrats want to cram down our throats.

This is real energy.

The kind that doesn’t take a government welfare check and which doesn’t leave us all huddled in the darkness as the global-warming con pushes mankind back to its second Stone Age.

This is fuel. Good old hydrocarbons.

Specifically, natural gas.

America has enough natural gas to heat its homes, drive its cars, fuel its trucks, power its electrical generators and protect its national security.

For how long?

For multiple centuries into the future.

The British guy used the word “infinite.”

That’s a lot.

American can not only meet its energy needs and sustain its lifestyle, it can do so without buying a barrel of anything from anyone. No more bowing presidents holding hands with Saudi princes, no more billions for the terrorists, no more dirt bag petro tyrants like Hugo Chavez, no more carriers through the Straits of Hormuz.

And every energy dollar now going into foreign pockets would flow instead into American paychecks, leases, stocks and 401Ks.

We would rediscover the wonderful empowering and enriching nature of being self-sufficient.

Plus there’s this: Natural gas is far cheaper and cleaner than gasoline, per unit of energy.

But there’s a problem.

Liberals.

Liberals, who hate America, have twisted the sustainability and environmental arguments into weapons to be used against American prosperity and power. The great uniting theme of liberalism is the castration and impoverishment of America. All its hydra-headed manifestations grow from one pathetic body – the hatred of American liberty, values and prosperity.

They don’t care about global warming, they care about shutting down American factories and power plants, and parking American cars. Global warming is a pretense for burdensome taxes and regulations, a purposeful disadvantage to eliminate the disparities of the Third World by eliminating the prosperity of the First World.

The socialism that is modern liberalism seeks the equality of the lowest common denominator. It doesn’t seek to raise the poor nations of the world, it seeks to debase the rich nations of the world.

The foundations of economic prosperity are manufacturing and energy. American manufacturing has been laid low – check the labels on your Olympic jersey – and now the broad attack is on American energy.

Coal, a longtime cheap source of power, has been specifically attacked by the president and his supporters. Insane new Democrat mileage standards are unmeetable by a fleet of gasoline-powered vehicles. Cap and trade and other schemes to make American products unaffordable and homeowners’ electric bills unpayable drive the cost of American energy upward, at great risk to continued American prosperity.

We bemoan the fact our children won’t have it as good as we had it, and ignore the reality that it is purposeful liberal policies that will make it that way.

Which gets us back to natural gas.

The recent proliferation of natural gas exploration – and the technology that makes that simple and cheap – has done two things dramatically: Increased supply and lowered price.

That changes the fundamental equation of American energy. If we move from foreign oil to American gas, all of a sudden, life is good and the economy is on fire.

Which scares the liberals.

Because it goes exactly counter to their plans.

Instead of an America in decline, cheap natural gas all but guarantees a resurgent United States. Instead of shuffling off to the welfare line of history, and taking our silly notions about individual liberty and the possession of property with us, America would all of a sudden have what the Chinas of the world can only dream of – a secure and affordable source of our own energy.

And that puts us back on top.

Which is what the liberals hate.

They already lost the Cold War once, they don’t want to lose it again.

Which is why they oppose hydrofracking.

The “infinite” supply of natural gas the British guy was talking about is in shale.

It needs to be fracked out.

Much as it has been for some 40 years.

Much as it is being fracked now in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

That’s why the liberals are fighting hydrofracking tooth and nail. That’s why their propagandists in the media speak of it so contemptuously. That’s why the Democrat politicians drag their feet so insistently.

Because fracked gas is the ticket to American prosperity, security and independence.

They oppose it out of blind hatred, as opposed to practical principle. In the name of the environment, they oppose an energy source that produces 40 percent less waste than the sources it replaces.

Because they hate America.

Because they want to enslave us with their superstitions and prejudices.

God founded this country. And he gave us the resources we need to survive.

Including natural gas.

We can use it and prosper.

Or we can give in to the sorceries of the left, and live in the cold and dark.

[cripplecreek]

Lets not forget hydro while we’re at it. Its green energy that actually works consistently and virtually perpetually. Naturally the greentards want to tear out all the dams.

[Carry_Okie]

But there’s a problem.

Liberals.

Liberals, who hate America, have twisted the sustainability and environmental arguments into weapons to be used against American prosperity and power. The great uniting theme of liberalism is the castration and impoverishment of America. All its hydra-headed manifestations grow from one pathetic body – the hatred of American liberty, values and prosperity.

Little does the author know who FUNDS those liberal greenies but the owners of petrochemical energy production companies. Constraining production means higher prices. Higher prices mean a bigger return for less investment.

There's a reason we have limousine liberals: Controlling access to resources through government is cheaper and more predictable (and you'll hear them use that word) than is to competing in the marketplace.

[Triple]

Natural gas is the fuel of the future for the USA.

[cripplecreek]

I know Al Gore has definitely made a chunk of change from his Occidental Petroleum holdings not to mention many other things he opposes but holds stock in.

[cripplecreek]

Its ONE of the fuels of the present and future. Oil, gas, hydro, nuclear are all good reliable energy sources.

[Triple]

Which energy source do you think will increase utilization the most, on a percentage basis, over the next 5-7 years?

I think it will be natural gas.

[my small voice]

That is a speech that should be given by Romney.

Energy independence!
Jobs!
Back on top!

Hello???????

[my small voice]

Think about it:

This is CLEAN fuel. Cheap and abundant. Give the auto industry the charge of retrofitting vehicles to burn NG. Charge them with rolling out new vehicles that burn NG. Gas station across the country would be encouraged to create pumps so that they could refuel NG vehicles. Contractors with jobs! Detroit comes ROARING back. New technology appears to accomplish these ends!

This would ignite the nation like no other mission. A national goal to be energy independent by 2020. We’d explode with jobs, prosperity and the the Middle East rot.

[cripplecreek]

You might be surprised. The dams are already in place and many are being retrofitted with new generators as we speak. Just yesterday a bill passed in the Michigan senate that removes the requirement for a DOE permit for new generators on existing dams producing less than one megawatt.

Even in the heart of Michigan liberalism of Ann Arbor two new generation plants are moving ahead on the Argo and Geddes dams at a total cost of around $6 million. Both dams are expected to exceed capacity some 28% of the time (Dump excess water over the spillway.) I like to ask liberals how often their windmills exceed capacity and what happens when they do. The Argo dam will generate approximately 2,000,000 kwh/yr. and the Geddes will generate approximately 3,350,000 kwh/yr. There are other even larger dams in the area being studied for future generation projects. Of the 3000 dams in Michigan, several hundred are of similar potential. In fact, much of the USA east of the mississippi is in similar shape.

I'm all for oil and gas drilling but only fools will tie themselves to one form of energy. If you look deeply enough, you'll find that I'm about the only FReeper calling to lift the great lakes directional drilling ban because we sit on an ocean of natural gas and should use it.

[MrB]

AMERICAN ENERGY INDEPENDENCE...
will never be allowed

[cripplecreek]

I would also encourage industry to install their own generation facilities and team it with tax free wholesale sales of natural gas to the companies that do.

I used to work for a large sawmill that generated their own energy and sold the excess.

[MrB]

I plan on installing my own personal residential NG generator,
and perhaps a digester to make it if the grid fails.

[thackney]

Quite a change from some of Lord Browne's previous work.

http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/9016/

In 2001, Lord Browne of Madingley, then chief executive of BP, worked with advertising agency Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide on a rebranding exercise for the company. This was less an extreme makeover than a full facial transplant, with BP spending over $200million to come up with a new image. The company adopted the new strap-line ‘Beyond Petroleum’ and replaced its traditional green shield with a new logo resembling a sun shrouded in green leaves.

‘Beyond Petroleum’, Browne said, was not just a name; it represented the company’s new ‘purpose and intention’. As the advertisements at the time made clear, the intention was to move away from the black stuff. One read: ‘Solar, Natural Gas, Wind, Hydrogen. And oh yes, Oil.’

Indeed, BP did much to raise awareness of the evils of the substance that continues to form all but a fraction of its revenue. It ran adverts showing the public criticising the oil industry in an attempt to inject ‘more humility, more transparency, more openness to the relationship’. One commentator felt the campaign was tantamount to ‘McDonald’s running ads in which Eric Schlosser, author of the exposé Fast Food Nation, discusses the horrors of ground beef’.

Under Browne’s stewardship, BP became the first multinational oil company to accept a causal relationship between increased carbon emissions and global warming. In 2005 it famously developed a carbon footprint calculator for use on its website. According to Mathis Wackernagel, executive director of the Global Footprint Network, the media campaigns around BP’s calculator played an important part in establishing the notion of a ‘carbon footprint’ in popular consciousness.