Category Archives: Energy

We'll Never Run Out of Oil

Wanna really quick proof?

We still haven’t run out of trees or whales.

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Elections Have Implications

When a candidate runs his campaign on the promise of no home work on Fridays, and wins, you can assume that the folks feel we shouldn’t have home work on Fridays.  When another candidate runs on a suite of issues all rolled into one common theme and she wins…you can say that the folks are pretty interested in that one common philosophy.  And finally, when one party is elected into office because of a wave of support from the folks…you can claim that the folks want that party to change things up.

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Awesome

Some say Obama is a Socialist.  Some say he is a Communist.  Others even say he is a fascist.  What is harder to dispute is what Karl Marx was.

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We'll Need Less Even as We Make More

You’ve heard it.  I’ve heard.  How could you NOT hear it?

We are gonna run out of oil!

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Where Brad and Britt Are Wrong

This morning Brad and Britt are discussing the shooting at Fort Hood.  During the conversation, Britt makes the statement that we can’t afford to piss ’em off, because that’s where we get all our oil!

It made me stop and wonder why he thought we were talking about Canada.

Oil Imports

Oil Imports October 29, 2009

Or Mexico.

Weird, those guys.

Because It Worked So Well The First Time

Unbelievable!

People often forget the lessons that history serves up to us.  We are destined to relive the errors of our past.  This happens in war, in love and, it seems, it politics.

You would think that with a recession just ending, an economy that won him the election and a financial crisis “the biggest since the Great Depression” Mr. Obama would know not to take these history lessons to heart.

But he isn’t, he’s going right back to the well that put us in this situation to begin with.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Monday launched a program to help the depressed U.S. housing market by effectively allowing state and local housing finance agencies to borrow from the U.S. Treasury.

The initiative, announced as new data showed a downturn in homebuilder sentiment, aims to restart a source of mortgage financing for first-time and low-income buyers that has been largely shut down by credit market gridlock.

Described as temporary by the U.S. Treasury, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the program will allow state and local agencies to issue bonds through government-sponsored mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Those bonds would then be purchased by the Treasury.

“Through this initiative, the administration aims to help … jump start new lending to borrowers who might not otherwise be served and to better support the financing costs of their current programs,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said in a statement.

At the very root cause of this most recent crisis is the fact that it was easy for people to borrow money to buy houses.  Many of these people would not have been able to afford to borrow that money in the past.  With the added demand on the housing market, the price of homes sky rocketed.  This in turn caused further investment in that market and so on and so on.  Finally, when those folks who borrowed money they couldn’t afford failed to pay that money back, the wheels came off.  The rest, as they will say, is history.

So what are we doing?  Ignoring history and doing the exact same thing; borrowing money to people who can’t afford it.

Corporate Good Will

This is how it should be done.

The state’s largest natural gas utility is asking its customers to pay a little extra each month, in a novel effort to help cover heating bills for low-income residents.

Piedmont Natural Gas, with 725,000 customers in the state, expects a surge of delinquent bills this winter in the midst of a grinding recession and is hoping to avert a corresponding increase in disconnected accounts.

The company this morning introduced a program to let its customers sign up to “round up” their bills, with the difference going to a fund to help residents who can’t afford to pay their utility bills. The program rounds up Piedmont customer bills to the nearest dollar and will result in an average monthly donation of 50 cents, or about $6 a year.

If 100,000 people sign up, Piedmont would raise about $600,000 a year toward the program. The company is contributing $100,000 of its own money and will contribute $50,000 more if 100,000 people sign up.

The money would be given to the state Department of Health and Human Services to distribute to social-service agencies. The donations would be distributed to all customers who can’t pay their utility bills, not just natural gas customers.

Here is a corporation that is using it’s position in society to help society.  Further, it is doing it by asking, not forcing by fiat.  Further, Progress is putting it’s money where it’s mouth is; they are donating $100,000 of their own money to the program.  Lastly, they are giving the money to social-service agencies to distribute as needed; not force those agencies to simply return that money to Progress.

Kudos to Progress Energy!

We Are In Trouble

I will try to be as simple as I can be:

Economics: The study of the distribution of scarce resources with alternate uses.

So, I am sitting reading the Internet today and come across this gem.

Some highlights:

  1. Allow the Governor to ration gas in similar situations.
  2. Allow the Governor to freeze fuel prices.

Look, this is simple.  Gas is a thing that if people were able to obtain for free, would soon run out; we wouldn’t have enough to go around.  So we have to ration it.  Today, we do this using money; as the price goes up, yuou may trend to use less, as the price goes down, you will tend to use more.  Now, what the government wants to do is end the normal market method of rationing it and put it into the hands of elected officials who have almost zero ability to have a complete understanding of the market forces.

The result will be predictable:  Lines.

Global Warming – Local Take

Turns out that just around the corner, we have work to do.  Here, Butner Blogspot is talking about clean coal and how it’s not so clean.

In reality, there is no such thing as “clean” coal in America today. Coal cannot be called ‘clean’ until its CO2 emissions are captured and stored safely.

So, using this same definition for all things, I am guessing that there is no such thing as ‘clean’ trees?  Or ‘clean’, say, people, or squirrels and such?

Butner continues:

Today, coal power plants emit carbon dioxide (CO2), the pollutant causing the climate crisis. A third of the America’s carbon pollution now comes from about 600 coal-fired power plants.

I guess we are skipping the whole science part, or that the alarmist science might be wrong, or tampered with or any other misguided side affect of the Global Warming scare.

Promises

So, the good Gov’na has made many many promises over the course of her campaign.  And, according to reports, those promises have been removed from her website.  This seems to be a popular politician’s trick as we have seen the same shenanigans over at Obama’s website.  I’ll comment on each in the coming days and then we’ll follow up on the Govna’s progress from time to time.
Thanks to the Raleigh News and Observer who was able to capture those promises and then publish them in today’s edition.  They are:
EDUCATION

  • Expand and better coordinate the Smart Start and More-at-Four pre-kindergarten programs.
  • Build a volunteer corps to tutor students in math and reading.
  • Require all troubled high schools to comply with research-backed restructuring.
  • Ensure that high schools across the state are equipped to offer online college-level coursework.
  • Establish the “College Promise” program to guarantee free or affordable college for students who graduate from high school, stay out of trouble and perform community service. The program would expand a state scholarship program known as EARN and increase the scholarships from two years to four.
  • Waive tuition to all students who graduate from high school and then enter a community college full time.

ARTS

  • Support sustainable resources for community arts councils and organizations. Help them get support from the private sector.
  • Protect and develop cultural heritage sites.
  • Support arts education and expand arts programs in public schools.

WATER

  • Assist local governments with moving toward a tiered water billing system that would charge a higher rate to customers who use the most water.
  • Help small cities and towns install better meters, build connections between regional water systems and repair leaking pipes.
  • Establish water conservation standards for all new homes, businesses and state government buildings.
  • Adopt tax incentives for business to improve water conservation standards in existing buildings.

CRIME

  • Give law enforcement agencies equipment they need and fix funding gaps for high-crime communities.
  • Boost the number of district attorneys, judges, magistrates and clerks. Increase pay for those positions.
  • Toughen anti-gang laws, and attack gangs as organized-crime organizations.
  • Enact harsher penalties for crimes involving guns and drugs.
  • Give more money to law enforcement agencies participating in a federal program that allows local agencies to pursue immigration charges against illegal aliens.
  • Make sure sentences for violent criminals are strong and long.

ECONOMY

  • Dramatically expand and transform a state program that helps small towns and cities preserve and revitalize downtowns. Allow cities and towns to choose which economic development ideas best fit their needs.
  • Support an $18 million tax reform plan to exempt small businesses from the first $15,000 of their income.
  • Expand to $10 million a year a state fund that provides matching grants to start-up companies that win certain research or technology grants.
  • Make the state a leader in biofuels, solar energy and other green technology industries.
  • Increase the state’s investment in an N.C. State University partnership that fosters manufacturing businesses.

HEALTH

  • Provide health insurance coverage for all North Carolina children by giving more money to N.C. Kids Care to expand who is covered. Create a system for families to buy insurance for uninsured or uninsurable children. Expand public outreach to ensure that all children who are eligible are enrolled in Medicaid and Health Choice.
  • Encourage businesses to offer employees affordable health insurance through tax incentives. Establish an affordable small business-coverage policy that would be funded equally by the employer, the employee and the state.
  • Support stem cell research using adult, cord blood or embryonic sources. The N.C. Biotechnology Center will oversee and manage the awarding of stem cell research grants.
  • Every person served by the mental health system should have strong, effective case management.
  • Establish “mental health courts” to link at-risk and minor offenders with mental illnesses to get them treatment before they spiral into a life of crime.
  • Punish swiftly and fully those who abuse or neglect mental health patients.

GOVERNMENT REFORM

  • Make government transparent: “I’m going to open the windows wide on the state capitol, and we’re going to let the sunshine in.”
  • Create a Google-type search engine for scrutinizing all state contracts.
  • Establish an independent budget-reform panel whose recommendations must be voted up or down by the legislature without amendment.
  • Tighten controls to stop officials leaving state service from immediately going to work for businesses they were working with in their state jobs.
  • Prohibit legislators from asking lobbyists to contribute to charities.
  • Make unannounced, on-site inspections of state agencies. Meet with employees without managers present.
  • Work in Charlotte three or four days each month.
  • Change state policy to require that all e-mail messages be kept until the state develops a plan for long-term retention.

ACCESSIBILITY

  • Field questions from the news media every week.
  • Share her public schedules and prohibit staff from deleting e-mail messages.
  • Hold at least four live town hall meetings during her 4-year term. Hold an online town hall meeting once a month.

TRANSPORTATION

  • Strip most specific road-building decisions from the Board of Transportation. Convert the panel into an advisory board of directors.
  • Road building and other transportation decisions will be based on data and need.

ENERGY

  • Rely on scientific and environmental information to determine whether to allow oil drilling off the state’s coastline. North Carolina should share in the profits of any oil discovered.