#7 - Bill O'Reilly is Misinforming Americans About Oil Supplies
Posted by Robert Rapier on December 27, 2012 - 5:48am
The Oil Drum staff wishes a Merry Christmas to all in our readership community. We are on a brief hiatus in this period, and will be back with our regular publications early in the new year. In the meantime, we present the top ten of best read Oil Drum posts in 2012. The fourth in this series is a March 2012 post by Robert Rapier reacting to statements by Bill O'Reilly on US oil supply and demand.
Last week I was interviewed by Alan Colmes from Fox News Radio on the topic of gas prices. During the interview, he mentioned an idea that Bill O'Reilly has proposed, and that is to address gasoline prices by discouraging U.S. oil companies from exporting their products. The critics of Bill's proposal have generally focused on the notion that "We can't tell the oil companies where to sell their product."
However, there is a far more fundamental issue, and that is that the basic facts of his proposal are based on an erroneous assumption. Let's first have a look at the proposal, in his own words:
O'Reilly: We began covering the skyrocketing oil prices last Friday with Lou Dobbs. He was candid, saying because of the mild winter, there is plenty of oil and gas in the U.S.A. So supply and demand here should dictate lower prices.
With all due respect, Bill O'Reilly has a fundamental misunderstanding about oil supplies. There is not "plenty of oil and gas in the U.S.A." He has mistakenly translated net exports of finished products like gasoline and diesel into "plenty of oil and gas in the U.S.A.", as I explain below.
O'Reilly: But of course, they are not lower. They are much higher because the oil companies are shipping their products overseas. Measured in dollars, so oil products are now America's largest export worth $88 billion a year to the oil companies. A decade ago, oil exports were not even among the top 25 exports. Most of the oil stayed here. And with working Americans getting hammered by stagnant wages and huge unemployment, this is yet another punishing situation for the folks.
Most of the oil still stays here. O'Reilly is casually conflating exports of oil products and "oil exports." According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. currently produces 5.7 million barrels of crude oil per day, imports 9 million barrels of crude oil per day, and exports 50,000 barrels per day (less than 1% of our crude oil production). The fact that we import 9 million barrels of oil per day demonstrates that we do not have "plenty of oil and gas in the U.S.A." Where does the less than 1% of crude that is exported go? To Canada. And by the way, we import 2.3 million barrels of oil per day from Canada. But why do we export any oil at all? Oil that is exported to Canada is most likely produced in fields that have easier access to Canadian refineries than to U.S. refineries. Clearly, since we import over 50 times as much oil from Canada as we export to them, we aren't doing it because they need the oil worse than the U.S. does.
Now that we have cleared that up, let's examine O'Reilly's proposal:
O'Reilly: However, if the Obama administration wanted to, it could ask Congress to raise export taxes on the oil companies to encourage them to sell their products here. Think about it. The oil companies are regulated by the federal government. They can't drill on land nor in American waters without permission from the feds. Many Republicans want to drill baby drill but what's the point if all the oil goes to China? Increased production obviously doesn't mean lower prices for us.
Here is the reason his proposal would have zero impact on gas prices, and would in fact accelerate the closure of U.S. refineries. O'Reilly believes that U.S. oil companies are drilling for oil, producing gasoline, and shipping that overseas (or simply shipping the crude overseas). As shown above, net imports of crude oil are still 9 million barrels per day -- a number that has not changed much in the past few years. It is the finished products that are being exported -- not crude oil -- and these finished products are being made from imported oil. We have oil refiners like Valero -- who don't actually produce oil at all, but import oil from countries like Mexico and Brazil, refine it, and ship gasoline back to them. Between just Mexico and Brazil (and there are others), we are importing 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, and sending them back about a million barrels a day of finished products. (Some of the oil we get from them does stay in the U.S. as finished products). If you subtract our finished product exports from our oil imports, you still end up with net imports of crude oil and crude products of 8 million barrels per day. Hence, the U.S. still operates at a significant import deficit, which contradicts claims that we have plenty of oil and gas in the U.S.
So how might O'Reilly's proposal play out? It is easy enough to see what would happen. If you put a high export tariff on fuel and made it unattractive for U.S. oil companies to export their products, they simply would not import as much oil. So as gasoline demand continues to fall in the U.S., instead of continuing to import 9 million barrels per day and export 1 million barrels of finished products, we might only import 8 million barrels of oil per day and then export zero. It would not impact the balance of fuel supplies at all within the U.S., but it would lead to faster closures of U.S. refineries as their export markets dried up. So you would see the export problem "solved", and the consequences would be no change in U.S. gasoline prices (Brazil and Mexico would then source their gasoline from someone else who benefitted from the refining jobs) and there would be further loss of refining jobs in the U.S.
Bill O'Reilly is promoting a false belief: that the U.S. is awash in oil and that gasoline prices are high because we are shipping gasoline overseas instead of selling it domestically. The truth is that the U.S. does not produce nearly enough oil to meet our fuel demands, but we import about a million barrels a day more than we need and export some of the excess as finished products, creating jobs and helping the balance of trade in the process. The reason we are doing this is that domestic demand for gasoline has fallen in recent years, and refiners can therefore either close more refineries or they can find other markets for their products. Thus the main reason to reject O'Reilly's idea is simply because it is based on a false notion. He would do a great service to his viewers if he clarified the situation.
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While it is true that Fox; and o'Reilly have an enormous impact on US public opinion that impact is inversely proportional to the intellect of o'Reilly and everybody else at Fox. There is no point in engaging with the organisation or anybody involved from Murdoch down. They are all unpleasant dishonest scum. Do not watch Fox ever is the best you can do (and do not support any Murdoch media on any occasion).
The war on Fox has failed
http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/80326/bill-ryerson
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/fox-news-1-for-10-years_b109611
I don't think there was ever a war on Fox news. We criticize them as we should and many would like to see them go under. But we all know better.
But why is Fox at the top of the news ratings. For one simple reason. All the far right wing republicans and tea party types watch that channel exclusively. All the rest of the audience is spread over CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, CBS, NBC and ABC. That makes the rest of the audience spread pretty thin.
Ron P.
I am enjoying the Huffington Post fixation on Megyn Kelly (heroine of the Duke Lacrosse hoax)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/27/9-wildest-things-fox-mashup_n_2...
Well I am by no means defending fox but I have....heard a lot more coming out of NPR about how we are awash in oil...I would not be surprised if you quized a liberal NPR listener, they would tell you we have lots of oil and are in no danger of running out anytime soon...Obama said that in his state of the union address that we have over 100 years of natural gas....I see a lot of stories come out of the NYT and then they are picked up by the major news sources...lets be fair here Fox is not the only one twisting the truth...
It is not about twisting the truth, it is about knowing the facts. The myth that we are awash in oil was started this past June by Leonardo Maugeri and the Harvard Belfer Center. When NPR repeats that myth they are just doing what the rest of MSM is doing. And why shouldn't they believe it since it comes from one of the most prestigious schools in America.
But that has nothing to do with where we are a net oil exporter or not. There is no evidence to support such a thing and no study by anyone has ever stated such a thing. That nonsense was caused by not paying attention to what the news release was. We import refined products and we export refined products but because we import and export from Canada, we export slightly more refined products than we import.
And that Sparky was where Bill O'Reilly got it all wrong. It was not the truth but he did not deliberately twist the truth. In his ignorance, he simply got it wrong. And the NPR most certainly has not twisted the truth, well not in thin instance anyway. They are simply stating what the Harvard Belfer Center put out. Which is of course all wrong but the important thing is they truly believe it is the truth.
Ron P.
True but Maugeri is just the latest. One could go back to controversies involving Michael Halbouty, Julian Simon and others.
From Wiki
... Halbouty was fond of citing Wallace Pratt's dictum that "Oil is found in the minds of men"...
here is an NPR STORY ..... titled "Could U.S. Produce Enough Oil To Rival Saudi Arabia?"
http://www.npr.org/2012/10/24/163565485/could-u-s-produce-enough-oil-to-...
just because they are repeating falsehoods does not make it right... most people do not read through the facts so just a small story like this has a big impact in peoples mind...that is why fox is so successful....just saying that when it comes to peak oil it comes from all sides.... ignorance is everywhere...I like to the point with warren olney but he has had so many idiots on stating that there is so much oil out there that the price will fall to 50 dollars a barrel...NYT saying the same thing
"a small story like this has a big impact in peoples mind"
Oh how true. Once it gets into the mind it is next to impossible to get it out. That is a well know dictum which seems to work, thus it is widely used by the propaganda "news engineers". FOX knows this :-)
To that we can add these two quotes from Ole Sam Clemens...
Or:
Or:
Ron P.
O'Reilly and FOX are symptoms, not the cause; folks are allowing themselves to be used, rather than FOX imposing itself on an unsuspecting population. I fully agree with your sentiments about FOX though.
People aren't that dumb. People are manipulable, though.
I've really been 'seeing' what a juggernaut this whole thing is. Obama is steering the Titanic right into the iceberg, as Romney would have. It doesn't matter much whose hands are on the wheel.
An example: The California teachers union was appalled - Appalled! - at the latest school shooting. A day later a little digging uncovered that the California teacher union pension $$$'s are invested in, you guessed it, Bushmaster assault rifle corporation (link: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/17/the-money-behind-the-massacre/)
The teachers paid for the ads (and the product placement into video games) that sold the gun that was used to gun down the children...
"People aren't that dumb. People are manipulable, though."
I've admitted several times I'm one of the dummies visiting here, and certainly most of my mates have higher IQs, I'll freely admit. So I agree being dumb has nothing to do with the basic math of "getting it" (compounding growth, finite planet). It's not rocket science. However, if I were to ask any of my fellow Joes or Janes did they think they were "manipulable" (perhaps implying a level of extreme gullibility?), no doubt I'd be met with a stern look or two. It may be true of course (and probably is), but them's a fightin' words! :)
People just grow up with "beliefs" and I believe (ha!) it's as simple as that. To pull one from their beliefs, developed (manipulated?) over decades, well, that may be trickier than dismantling a nuclear power station.
Belief: Just another damn roadblock. :(
Cheers, Matt
I appreciate you chiming in.
I mean manipulable at a base, animal level. Sub consciously. An independent quality from intelligence. 'Low' intelligence probably shields one from some of the tactics.
The marketers and the hucksters know it and use it. That's what the main stream media is. Billions of dollars are spent advertising, because it works. Here in California we have an initiative process that allows big money (big advertisers) to pass just about whatever they want. It's not hard hard to get an initiative on the ballot, then run deceptive manipulative ads, and bingo, you have your new law. Or your new war.
It just seems crazy to me that half the folks out there think the other half are stupid. And half the folks think their news source is 'right', and the other one is all lies.
Yes, people do grow up with all sorts of cray beliefs!
I worked on a couple of those California initiatives back in the '70s. I gave up after a decision in a court case allowed unlimited financial contributions for initiatives, where the previous law required equal time access by the media. It's been downhill since to the recent Citizens United decision, which resulted in massive spending during the last election cycle. So, our government has been bought by the highest contributors.
But then, we know that half the population is below average in intelligence. That is, the tests given to measure intelligence result in a normal distribution of grades and half the population scores below the mid point on those tests. So most people believe in some mystical supernatural world view, a world view passed down generation to generation for thousands of years in spite of considerable evidence accumulated over centuries that most of those old beliefs are flat out wrong...
E. Swanson
Its that damn Amygdala:
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2011/02/building-what-up-from-amygdala.html
Never do, and when channel surfing while passing Fox in that brief moment its visible on the screen and their uttering some nonesense, I always say
"What was that?"
I am confused as I would think that the oil company execs are in the FoxNews camp and would be setting him straight, or that he would check with them before complaining about their actions. It also must be conflicting for FoxNews viewers. They want to believe everything that is said by their showmen, but they must be wondering why exporting jobs to India and China is great and should not be stopped - no matter how many are unemployed, but exporting oil isn't.
It is a mistake to think that the Fox News folks must check with anyone before running their mouth off. Of course they know the network's policies and would never violate them. But that goes without saying because the network's opinions are the same as theirs so there is seldom, if ever, a conflict.
Public companies do not have the the control over news networks that so many folks seem to think they have.
Ron P.
I wasn't suggesting that FoxNews has to cowtow to the oil companies. But rather, that they are on the same team. They share the same ideology. The have the same bogeymen. So my assumption is that O'Reilly and the FoxNews camp would speak to Republican CEOs of all stripes, and in particular oil company CEOs, and get their story, before attacking them.
FQ - Just an opinion from an oil field insider: I've known many working in the oil fields who were way to the right of Genghis Khan and more than a tad racist. But don't think that influenced their business decisions or how they communicated to the public or MSM. This is only one prime motive IMHO: profit and self enrichment. Probably not much different than all the other industries. But I've spent 37 years viewing it from the inside and thus have countless first hand examples. And I know more than a few oil patch hands that think President Obama's re-election might shed some silver linings for some aspects of the oil patch.
And I think the same can be said for Fox, CNN et al: they are businesses and profit is the key regardless of political leaning. If O'Reilly can make a buck throwing a conservative under the bus or Wolf Blitzer can do the same with a liberal it's gonna happen IMHO.
Are you saying that Juan Williams, Bob Beckel, Alan Colmes, Mark Lamont Hill, Mara Liasson, Geraldo Rivera etc. would never violate the network's policies? and that the network's opinions are the same as theirs?
Geraldo Rivera? You've got to be kidding. Anyway these people never violate the network's policies. People's opinions differ but their opinions about the network's policies should be known by all and followed by all. If they don't they will be fired. It has happened many times before on every network.
They have the token liberal of course, Alan Colmes. Else how could they be "fair and balanced"? ;-)
You sound like you are an avid Fox News follower. Sorry if I offended your sensitivities.
Ron P.
Not an avid Fox follower. But they do have straight news during the day hours. I watch two TV's, usually business for 30 minutes or so in the morning. Fox business, Bloomberg or CNBC. Cavuto is my favorite. . Before Keith Olbermann got fired I used to watch Olbermann and O'Reilly at 5PM, sound up on whoever had the most interesting guest or subject - and was not on a commercial. They were having an amusing somewhat one-sided feud. MSNBC is politics all day, no straight news. They do have some bright people, especially Rachel Maddow. Have you ever watched Shepard Smith? What are his politics - his sexual orientation?
-- You did not offend my sensitivities. I do believe that Fox critics should first watch daytime Fox - assuming that they are retired with time to waste like myself. Fox has many 'token' liberals. How many conservatives can be found on daytime or evening MSNBC?
My politics - liberal on social issues and somewhat conservative on economic issues - with Malthusian leanings. I am not convinced that we can continually suppress interest rates and borrow our way to prosperity
MSNBC is becoming more and more liberal, but they have given a former Republican congressman a show.
I used to really like Cavuto on his weekly financial show where he had a roundtable, but then I saw a clip which turned me off. He incredulously asked John Kerry if he really thought people making 200K a year were rich (or upper class). I don't remember what Kerry said, but he fumbled the answer. He should have said that that income was somewhere north of the 5th percentile. That that income was over 4 times the national median household income at the time. I would have thought many of the FoxNews viewers would have reacted negatively to a 200K salary in 2004 being downplayed as not a wealthy salary.
Anyway these people never violate the network's policies
Oh! So you have a copy of the policies over time to show what they are and therefore how the conduct thus your claim can be checked?
Do share the policy so we can verify the claim.
Don't be absurd. Anyone that willfully violates their employers policies gets fired.
I once read that Mark Lamont Hill was fired - then rehired. In any case he still appears regularly
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2457920/posts
robert - Sure: we've seen editorial comments that appear to differ from what you might expect from upper management/owners. And I have no doubt those comments had been previous approved by the management/owners in almost every case. As Ron points out below real life doesn't quit match the Hollywood portrayal of the firebrand bucking the system and winning IMHO. On the rare occasions when I've seen that happen in the oil patch was when they were correct and made the company money. But eventually the memory fades and as often is the case no good deed goes unpunished if you piss off the wrong people. Especially if you prove them wrong. I've seen decade old grudges come back to hurt some hands.
Watching Fox News is worth doing, from time to time.
It makes some of the craziness make sense.
In this case, O'Reilly was simply picking up a meme the
Wall Street Journal was propagating, that the US
was becoming an energy exporter.
This, at a time when we were importing nearly $1 billion
worth of petroleum each day.
----
On a separate note, it's intriguing that whatever "spare capacity"
the global oil system now has is overwhelmingly due to the nearly 2 MBd
reduction in US consumption, combined with the 1.5 MBd (ballpark) increase
in US crude production.
That's a 3.5 Mbd change, in just 5 years... Imagine where oil prices would be if
that had not occurred.
This is the usual pattern beginning to reverse - US ability to import oil beginning to decline due an increase in demand overseas. The increase in demand is driving the increase in extraction at home, which would not at all happen at $20/bbl. The increase in fleet efficiency is an economic necessity, but for the fuel cost I think many more people would be driving 3/4 ton pickups and large SUVs, the vehicles are so very useful. The majority of the public will not choose a geo metro class vehicle unless there is a considerable economic justification.
The US has the most fat to trim - and seems unable to stop the trimming. This has been fortuitous for the developing world.
Many will be shocked I think at what is in store the next decade.
I bet the vast majority of people don't buy pickups and SUVs because "the vehicles are so very useful". They buy them because they are big, macho-looking, feel safer to drive (though are actually not), and help to "cocoon" the driver from the other cars and the external environment. "Usefulness" has nothing to do with it. "Utility", as in personal gratification, is a different thing altogether.
Perhaps true in urban/suburban areas - but here in the rural countryside there is no substitute for pickups, and SUVs are very useful.
If you have a family and drive 25 miles each way to the grocery store would you rather go once in an SUV or twice in a Tercel? Which vehicle would you rather tow with?
If you own woodland would you cut your own wood or pay someone else, then pay again when property tax is due? You won't cut it if you can't haul it.
Do you hire a carpenter or build your own shed? A pickup is the difference here,you won't be picking up lumber in a Fiat.
Are you self employed? A painter, carpenter, cabinet maker, lumberjack, farmer, a lobsterman, a clammer, a commercial diver, a fir tipper etc? You need a work vehicle. (These examples are real life - they are my closest friends).
Drive down I95 in Maine - look at the pickups - the majority show a lot of use.
Edit:actually,an SUV towing a trailer or a full size van can substitute for a pickup, but usually not as conveniently, and with little to no difference in mileage. Painters tend to like full size vans.
Daily rural life today is more dependent on liquid fuel on average than life in an urban area - this is as true in Canada and Australia as it is in the US. Part of the fuel efficiency in Europe I think is the relative proximity of large urban areas, which lends itself to development of public transit.
Increasing relative cost of fuel will hit rural areas hard - It will be difficult to adjust - I think there will be migration to cities (where there will be some disadvantage compared to those already settled there). Remaining employment in rural areas will simply need to pay more to compensate for fuel cost - this will need to happen if the cities wish to continue receiving the resources of the rural areas...
One may think rural areas are well suited for self sufficiency, but...
The fly in the ointment for self sufficiency in rural areas is property tax structure. Property tax has increased several hundred percent in my lifetime - it works so long as you can sell a piece off for a house lot now and then - but the house lots haven't really sold for the past 5 years.
An example - in Maine woodland will generate 1/2 to 1 cord of wood per acre perpetually. Without development into housing, much woodland really has little other economic use to the owner (of course it is useful recreationally, but I am talking about economic resources available to the owner). So if I own 14 beautiful acres, I pay in $600 in tax and make $300 in stumpage. I'm losing money. Or I could cut 10 cord myself, split and deliver it, for $1700. Subtract $600 for property tax, I'm left with $1100 - I've paid myself a low wage for my labor, and essentially given the town the entire economic output of my land and then some, for if the town owned the land they would've only received $30/cord stumpage.
One of the last local farms I was told pays $30,000/year property tax - it was only a few hundred when I was a child. The owner has to run to stay still - so the local economy that James Kunstler says we need so badly is still strongly disincentivised. Oh, if a town decides to cut back on road maintenance and slash property taxes etc, the state can claim mismanagement and take over the town.
By the way, I have some beautiful woodland - only $10,000/acre, wonderful land for recreation, on a major river, lots of wildlife - deer, beaver, turkey, eagles flying overhead every day, osprey,an occassional gyrfalcon,broadwing hawks, excellent smallmouth fishing (considered the best in the US by some - I can catch and release 20 or more - they hide where the eagles can't see them) - tax only $600/year - any takers?
edit:I'm being a little sarcastic with the sales pitch - I get mad every time property tax is due - its a form of rent really - the land is beautiful though, and I haven't named half the wildlife there. I wish the wildlife could pay the property tax - I'm not a trapper though - I'd rather watch the animals live in ignorance of human concerns -except maybe the coyotes.
All true, but for how many people really? In our relatively dense Boston suburb I see many many SUVs that seem to have never hauled anything other than people, and never forded anything deeper than a puddle. You need trucks and SUVs if you live in the boonies, but the boonies are sparsely populated.
And when I was a kid, we made do with a Ford Econoline van for many many years. Bigger than a Tercel, not as beefy as an SUV. Hauled firewood, loads of unburnable stuff to the dump, quarters of a slaughtered calf, and enough sawdust to sink the springs down flat.
And we could damn sure downsize smaller than a Tercel in places like Boston. Very many commutes could be handled with an electric scooter or a bicycle (I often ride a bicycle. And before anyone asserts "but I can't ...", rephrase it instead to "how do I ...", because there are solutions to many problems, though the solutions often cost as much/little as a tank of gasoline for an SUV).
Yes - cities offer the viable choice of not even owning a vehicle. Young people in urban areas are beginning to see the light I think - a vehicle can be more liability than status symbol. Better to have no vehicle and money to spend than the other way around - what is the total cost of car ownership in urban Boston, including parking, insurance, etc. - $8-10,000/year?
One of the better things I did in life was the day I realized "news" is not about informing the public. It's business, pure and simple. In fact, America is business, pure and simple. It's about money. I think far, far too many people live with the mythology that business, media, politicians, etc have the country in mind. I do not believe they do. They have their job/money in mind. O'Reilly, or most anyone else for that matter, will say/do what pays them. O'Reilly is not there to do service to anyone but himself. If O'Reilly doesn't say it, someone else will. While we may cry and rant, these people simply do what sells. They say and do what the public pays them to say and do. Same for the oil companies. Oil companies are not in business to save us from ourselves, they are there to make money. As long as they can sell what they produce, they will do so. To expect anything else is a waste of time.
In my opinion, the reality is we all do it so some degree. You push a point too far from your company's line and you're out of work. You push a point too far from your community's line and you're an outcast. I have watched us paint ourselves into this corner for 25 yrs. I used to try to convert people. All I did was make myself a pain in the ass. A few people can look at the world and draw conclusions from what they see. Almost all do not have that ability. They try to make what they see fit what they believe and if it doesn't they scream to high heaven that someone should make it so.
This Rapier post was excellent - as is all of his work. When it was first posted I tweeted and face booked it to Fox sources and Lou Dobbs. Did the same yesterday.
But that goes without saying because the network's opinions are the same as theirs so there is seldom, if ever, a conflict.
'Cept when there is.
http://www.foxbghsuit.com/
from the same link:
(oh, oh Mr. Kotter, is this a fox news pile on?)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/fox-news-chiefs-failed-att...
Ponder the above - the "highest office" in the "free world" is being pitched here as "for sale".
One of the better things I did in life was the day I realized "news" is not about informing the public. It's business, pure and simple
Because the 1979 source is listed:
http://www.metafilter.com/75174/Oh-sht#2274275
there is plenty of oil and gas in the U.S.A.
Yes Bill there is. But not at $1.00 a gallon for gasoline. If there was "plenty" and there was a "free market", then do explain how the US has been an importer of oil/gas from the 1950's? When the globe has 1 cubic mile of the stuff extracted a year - there is "plenty" for any one given human.
I thought this said it all about Faux news:
"O'Reilly: However, if the Obama administration wanted to, it could ask Congress to raise export taxes on the oil companies to encourage them to sell their products here."
Hello: its the congress that passes laws, the executive executes the laws that congress passes. They never miss a chance to blame anything they can on the pres. The Faux news niche is to act as a mouthpiece for the Republican party and a critic for any other political view.
It is also unconstitutional to tax exports, if I am reading the constitution correctly. See Section 1 Article 9.
There can be only ONE real solution..peer pressure..
Those people who follow Fox news drones and get sucked into carbon industry propaganda will also make poorer choices, both now, and in the future. Purchasing high maintenance gas guzzlers, driving autos instead of exercising(biking), wasting hard earned after tax dollars on needless energy use, etc.
Use those attributes against them. In every society, market, whatever, there will be winners and losers. You can stack the deck by being on the winning side early on. Those energy wasters will be punished by the market, by getting fat, lazy, and poorer. And you will have avoided those pitfalls and be rewarded.
Whatever you do, don't let them mooch off of your resources to make up for their failings.. Teach them some of the facts by comparing, (or bragging about your much lower), energy bills.
Be ready to inform them the facts about Carbon Industry, how much we really import, Kerogen Shale(long carbon chain waxy material locked up in a rock layer wayy to deep to strip mine), the true nature of recent discoveries(why they won't make much difference since we waste way to much). That the only way to get off imports, (and our military out of the middle east), is to reduce consumption, etc.
Fox news is not monolithic. Neil Cavuto of Fox News and Fox Business News has been a critic of O'Reilly's populist oil rants on multiple occasions, some of which can be googled.
Question seeking an answer:
Courrntly, GE has built and operated 1+ MegaWatt power plants using natural gas fuel with their H-series turbine cogens.{e.g. 2 in Riverside, California, each about 1 MW in op since 2009]. That rivals modern NucPPs of 1+ MWe, such as San Onofre Units 2&3, each 1200 MWe.
If I recall correctly, that is 1MW Electrical, not 1MW Thermal output. Perhaps this is my error?
Is it not fesible to build modular natgas-turbine plants and site them where the [stranded] gas is, while delivering the output over new transmission cables? The CapEx should be modest, the units portable, and the heat + some elec output consumed locally to support NG production?
By the way, if you seek knowledge on the horrors of nuc radiation, as from fallout, spent fuel, "normal operation of NPPs, Depleted U, etc, I suggest goto Dr. Ernest Sternglass, who speaks sooth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzRVXGnu6Js
Circa 1980 I had a long evening with Eugene Sternglass over dinner and drinks. Briefly described here
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
posted 11-04-2004 01:59 PM
quote:
Originally posted by CowPieMaster:
[B]
I suppose my theory depends on if you believe sources like Dr. Bernard Cohen or Dr. (?) Sternglass (sp?).
B]
Bernard Cohen and Eugene Sternglass both taught at the Univ. of Pittsburgh but I have been told that they hardly knew each other. Many, many years ago I encountered Sternglass at a shuttle bus stop in Atlanta following a day at The Roentgen Ray Society. I took him for dinner and drinks and had a most interesting conversation. He was obsessed with WWII and the Holocaust and had no interest in discussing low level radiation except to claim a seemingly bizarre relationship between radiation and the Holocaust. I have not kept up with Sterngalss but when I originally studied his work my impression was that he used data selection in a manner similar to that used by J. B. Rhine to 'prove' telepathy
-------Also discussed here
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6269
reddot - "Is it not fesible to build modular natgas-turbine plants and site them where the [stranded] gas is, while delivering the output over new transmission cables?" Such trailer and skid mounted systems have existed for decades. (http://energyinternational.com/rent-power-turbines.html). The problem isn't the equipment but the economics. About 10 years ago I tried to design such an effort for the huge amount of stranded KY shale gas due to lack of pipelines. But the economics just didn't work. Even in a situation where I had an aluminum smelter periodically in desperate need of electricity and stranded gas wells within a few hundred yards away from the plant I couldn't get the numbers to work. If there are local spots where the economics work then I'm sure someone is doing it. And if it isn't being done on a broad scale I just assume there's insufficient economic incentive. If there's any profit to be made by such an effort an operator would do it.
That may be the problem, we make decisions based totally on money and numbers, not what needs to be done for the country and its people. We are conditioned by a fallacy that what is good for the economics is good for the country. That is not always the case.
This is an old debate. Its a form of nationalistic populism.
Energy Security Populism: Oil Prices, American Leaders, and Media
http://www.consumerenergyreport.com/2010/03/22/energy-security-populism-...
I believe you could sum this article as a debunking of the whitewashing of those who have the most to lose in the eventuality of awareness that oil is disappearing. Resource depletion is the new climate change, as tobacco was its predecessor, and denial is the word of the day. I have the utmost respect for all the public peak oil and sustainability advocates, but dont be offended when I recomend people stocking up on iodine tablets.
Bill O'Reilly is Misinforming Americans About
Oil SuppliesPretty Much Anything He Talks AboutThat is pretty much all you need to say. The guy can't even understand tides.