We have lost our Minds over green

[Caustic Burno]

CHINA STARTS OIL DRILLING OFF FLORIDA

WHILE AMERICA TWIDDLES THUMBS, CHINESE TAP BILLIONS OF BARRELS



By Mike Blair

While Washington dithers over exploiting oil and gas reserves off the coast of Florida, China has seized the opportunity to gobble up these deposits, which run throughout Latin America, the Caribbean and along the U.S. Gulf coast.

The Chinese have forged a deal with Cuban leader Fidel Castro to explore and tap into massive oil reserves almost within sight of Key West, Florida. At the same time, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western Hemisphere, is making deals to sell his country’s oil to China, oil that is currently coming to the United States.

Meanwhile, a new left-wing populist regime in Bolivia has nationalized the natural gas industry, threatening to cut off supplies to the United States.

SLANT DRILLING

There are new reports out circulating that Chinese firms are planning to slant drill off the Cuban coast near the Florida Straits, tapping into U.S. oil reserves that are estimated at 4.6 billion to 9.3 billion barrels. This compares with 4 billion to 10 billion barrels believed to be beneath the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, where drilling is held up in Congress due to the objections of environmental groups which warn of endangering caribou. Permission to drill in the refuge, which experts are certain will not present any environmental hazard, has failed by just two votes in the Senate.

As Chinese business increases its reach around the world, it is seeking oil, which it lacks domestically.

After elections in Mexico in early July, when a new regime hostile to Washington is expected to take power, the United States might be without supplies of Mexican crude oil. The United States gets about 40 percent of its imported oil from Mexico and Venezuela.

China is eager to tap into oil reserves in the Florida Straits and then make a deal with Castro to control it. The Chinese have already reopened an abandoned Russian oil refinery in Cuba. Much of the gas refined there is believed to be destined for Freeport in the Bahamas, where the Chinese, through front company Hutchison-Whampoa, has developed a massive port facility and airfield.

With the refinery reopened and expanded it will also meet the needs of Castro.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) has introduced legislation to ease U.S. restrictions that prevent dealing with Cuba to drill in the Florida Straits. It is hoped that Florida regulations that prevent U.S. oil drilling off the state’s coasts could also be eased.

The irony is that Chinese drilling could be even more of an environmental hazard since China is not as concerned about or equipped to deal with any potential ecological disaster as a result of a spill, said Craig.

 

[Anonymous]

Thing's like this will never be corrected unless. People of different mind sets, will first bury the hatchet, and focus on what's right rather than being right politicaly. Most would rather set around, and watch this country, continue to slide towards being a third world country. Many are affiliated, and of their opinions, because thats what gramps, or mom and dad did. All the while being to head strung, and high minded to think outside the box.

 

[Tod Dague]

:help:

 

[rattler]

Thing's like this will never be corrected unless. People of different mind sets, will first bury the hatchet, and focus on what's right rather than being right politicaly. Most would rather set around, and watch this country, continue to slide towards being a third world country. Many are affiliated, and of their opinions, because thats what gramps, or mom and dad did. All the while being to head strung, and high minded to think outside the box.

Good post you hit the nail on the head.

rattler

 

[Beefy]

there is oil in georgia too if anyone would come drill for it.

 

[skyline]

Unbelievable. We won't drill for our own oil, we're more interested in producing fuel that wouldn't exist without tax credits and makes no sense financially (biodiesel), we're planting these ugly wind turbines all over the country that wouldn't exist without tax credits, we're afraid to permit new nuclear plants or lignite plants. Instead we're focusing on carbon credits and friggin flourescent light bulbs. What is it going to take to wake this country up?

I fear for the future for my kids and grandkids. China drilling off our coast? Unbelievable.

 

[Caustic Burno]

Unbelievable. We won't drill for our own oil, we're more interested in producing fuel that wouldn't exist without tax credits and makes no sense financially (biodiesel), we're planting these ugly wind turbines all over the country that wouldn't exist without tax credits, we're afraid to permit new nuclear plants or lignite plants. Instead we're focusing on carbon credits and friggin flourescent light bulbs. What is it going to take to wake this country up?

I fear for the future for my kids and grandkids. China drilling off our coast? Unbelievable.

To take it a step further read this article Russia and Norway are drilling in the Artic circlewhile we sit and watch as well.

Posted by Royal Dutch Shell Plc.com at November 25th, 2007

By Ed Crooks in London
Published: November 26 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 26 2007 02:00

StatoilHydro, the Norwegian national oil company, has begun a two-year drilling programme in Arctic waters to determine the potential of Norway’s share of one of the world’s few remaining unexplored oil prospects.

It also hopes to co-operate with Russian companies such as Gazprom to find oil and gas further into the Arctic, including areas disputed between Russia and Norway.

Helge Lund, StatoilHydro’s chief executive, has called for an international framework to protect fragile communities and environments in the Arctic, to enable development to go ahead without unacceptable damage.

StatoilHydro last month became the first company to start deliveries of liquefied natural gas from an offshore field inside the Arctic circle with its Snohvit project.

Over the next 18 months or so, StatoilHydro plans to have a drilling rig working continuously looking for gas in the area around the Snohvit development, to see if it can find enough to justify building a second line for producing LNG.

Meanwhile, Eni of Italy is leading the Goliat project, in which StatoilHydro is a partner, to develop oil reserves off the north coast of Norway.

Mr Lund suggested in an interview with the Financial Times that he wanted Norway to work with Russia on future development of Arctic resources.

“During the next five to 10 years, I think we’ll learn a whole lot, and you can see perhaps an industrial scenario being developed in the Norwegian and the Russian side of the Barents sea that will qualify the industry to work on even more challenging areas,” he said.

StatoilHydro has been chosen by Gazprom as one of the foreign partners in developing the state-controlled Russian company’s massive Shtokman gas field off Russia’s north coast.

Mr Lund also said it was “important that we can define a framework that respects the sensitivity of those [Arctic] areas, particularly in the Norwegian sea”.

Arctic oil and gas exploration has been highly controversial because of the threats that critics say it presents to local people and wildlife.

 

[Caustic Burno]

We needed a comprehensive energy policy that should have come in to play in the seventies when we got our first black eye. But no as Americans we keep pumping dollars over to countries that hate our guts and use the money to support our enemies with our dollars. We are scared to death to build a dam to generate cheap electricty for fear some minner no one has every seen will become extinct, I have survived just fine without Ivory bill Woodpeckers and dinosaurs. We won't build a nuclear power plant, drill an oil well, build a refinery or a dam that employs American workers. We buy cars and tractors from every country under the sun supporting everyone but ourselves. We have become Mexico's welfare system provinding free education, health care and Social Security to people that have never paid a dime into the system for the people it was supposed to protect US. We have created an entire generation of Americans with no craft experience as all of our manufacturing jobs have went overseas.
If we as a people do not wake up and keep American dollars home for American workers we are digging a hole that will take decades to dig out of.
To top this off the USA gave 2 billion in food away to other countries last year while Americans are straving.
What has to kick us in the seat of the pants as a country to wake up.
My sermon for the day.

 

[mermill2]

You would think sencable people would wise up.$4.00 fuel and some idiots are allowed to dictate that we cant drill our own oil.

 

[john250]

Enviros are a different breed of cat from most of us on CT.
They don't manufacture or grow or steward anything much, as far as I can tell. They write and they study and they resent the profitable. I call them "anti's", as they will normally oppose anything a hard working person wants to do to make a living. They gather in solar heated conference rooms and present papers on a world heated and fed by pure white light. A world where no one poops. Where we buy our necessities from an honest craftsman who made a single item just for us.
I should not try to tell what they think, because I really don't know. What I see is that every power plant, every refinery, every mine, every innovation (biotech, CAFO's, heck, they still oppose the industrial revolution 500 years after it started) meets with determined, politically connected opponents. I think they get their jollies by being logjams in the river of life.

I also think they are hypocrites. My area has rejected two applications for large hog farms, but the county seat has a sewer system which frequently dumps raw sewage in the river. Rejecting a CAFO costs them nothing. Fixing the sewers would cost every user $50/mo. I don't see them protesting for a $50/mo increase in their sewer bills. They see the world through some weird portal.

 

[Wewild]

The green thing is just a way for most of them folks to make money. Kinda like the news folks. Let's just throw the rest of the parasites on society in with them. It all comes out of our pocket.

 

[Caustic Burno]

The Stoned Crab
everything and anything -- snook is a fish -- 10k is the Everglades -- Exposing Leftist Propaganda Anywhere It's Found
Friday, March 28, 2008
Massive Oil Find In North Dakota

America is sitting on top of a super massive 200 billion barrel Oil Field that could potentially make America energy independent and until now has largely gone unnoticed. Thanks to new technology the Bakken Formation in North Dakota could boost America’s Oil reserves by an incredible 10 times, giving western economies the trump card against OPEC’s short squeeze on oil supply and making Iranian and Venezuelan threats of disrupted supply irrelevant.

The new technology is a combination of what I had talked about in this post. There are some differences, but the main drilling is the same. The main idea is to 'turn the drill hole horizontal'. In the case of the new find, this is necessary because the oil is about two miles below a lake created by the Federal Government for water storage in the 1950s, Lake Sakakawae. The fracturing is an added feature designed to add contact area between the drill hole and the oil reservoir, not needed at this particular oil find.

However it's done, the find is looking huge. The oil reservoir was known to exist some time back, but drilling technology wouldn't allow for exploitation, drilling would have to be done in Lake Sakakawae, which could pollute the water. But slant drilling two miles under the lake is not going to disturb the water or effect water quality.

How big is this? Really really big. As much as 10 times the proven reserves of the USA -- With new horizontal drilling technology it is believed that from 175 to 500 billion barrels of recoverable oil are held in this 200,000 square mile reserve. Today Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels proven reserves.


Texas Will Host First New U.S. Nuclear Plants Since 1970s

Two new plants scheduled to go online in 2014
Written By: James M. Taylor
Published In: Environment News
Publication Date: August 1, 2006
Publisher: The Heartland Institute


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not a single nuclear power plant has been commissioned in the United States since 1978, but that is about to change as General Electric and Hitachi have announced a joint venture to build two nuclear power plants in Texas.

The Texas project, announced in June with plants scheduled to begin operations in 2014, is expected to be the first in a new wave of economical and emissions-free nuclear power plants.

NRG Energy, which will operate the plants, has already filed a request with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to build the plants in Matagorda County about 70 miles southwest of Houston. Construction of the plants will cost $2.6 billion each, but they will thereafter produce power for a fraction of the cost of traditional power plants. NRG expects the new plants will create 6,000 new construction jobs and 1,000 permanent operator jobs.


Nuclear Finding Favor

Nuclear power plant construction hit a brick wall in the 1980s because of low fossil fuel prices and concerns about the safety of nuclear power. But nuclear is returning to favor with economists, legislators, and the general public.

Fossil fuel prices--and particularly the price of natural gas, which fuels most recently constructed power plants--have soared in recent years. At the same time, new technology has made nuclear power safer than ever. Also important is that nuclear plants produce energy without greenhouse gas emissions.

With each of these factors working in nuclear power's favor, experts predict nuclear power plant construction will take off in the coming decades.

It is "very important for our country to move forward in a very deliberative direction" toward building more nuclear power plants, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) told a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing on June 12. Landrieu's support is noteworthy because Louisiana is a leading producer of fossil fuels, and because Democrats have typically been more cautious than Republicans regarding nuclear power.


Texans Welcome Plants

Also noteworthy is the relative lack of NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard) sentiment regarding nuclear power. A June 25 Dallas Morning News house editorial in response to the announcement of the new nuclear power plants in Texas voiced just the opposite opinion.

"It's time for long-standing opposition to nuclear power to give way to reality," the Morning News wrote.

"For environmental and geopolitical reasons, the U.S. must reduce dependence on fossil fuels," the Morning News editorial continued. "Coal gasification, a cleaner technology, is relatively untested on a large scale. Wind and solar power are clean but insufficient. Natural gas is becoming more expensive."

"Quite simply, nuclear power offers the only large-scale, feasible alternative to fossil fuels," said Sterling Burnett, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis. "Wind and solar power are intermittent, and solar power in particular is prohibitively expensive. It is not surprising that to the extent people buy into global warming theory, nuclear power is becoming the power source of choice."

 

[Wewild]

Plant Vogtle is adding 2 more and the Alabama Plant at Bellefonte is also approved to come on line.

I can't find the link but i saw where there were maybe 8 approved.

I may be wrong. Help me look.

It is a good thing if i am right. One small step.

 

[Mahoney Pursley Ranch]

This country better wake up and wake up fast.

 

[Jogeephus]

I would like to see the government require the use of Cost/Benefit decision making when implementing regulations. If the cost of the regulation does not trump the benefit of the project then the regulation should be voided. One simple example of this is the use of silk fencing. While I don't condone polluting our streams, I do think the mandatory installation of silk fencing is ridiculus in every circumstance. Just look at the construction sites that have silk fenciing on the uphill side of the site next to highway or a building. This is just the tip of the iceberg as these stupid regulations run deep. And it costs us all in the long run.

The green thing is just a way for most of them folks to make money. Kinda like the news folks. Let's just throw the rest of the parasites on society in with them. It all comes out of our pocket.

You hit the nail on the head. They are costing us all. Costing us in the form of money, loss of jobs from people who have lost inititiative to build industry in this country, higher fuel prices and the list goes on. All the greenies do is squeek like a bad bearing and the dang politicians run like rats to the hedges.

 

[skyline]

I went to see the new documentary called Expelled last night at the movie theatre. It's a documentary by Ben Stein that investigates the debate of Intelligent Design versus Evolution and how in this country that scientists are basically being shunned by the scientific community, universities, the media, and the courts if they dare to research or suggest that perhaps the "big bang" doesn't make sense scientifically.

There are a lot of parallels in the movie to the positions that our country has taken on the issues that Caustic mentioned in his posts. I believe that it would be possible for the uniformed and disinterested folks in this country to sit back and allow some of our leaders to ruin our freedoms and our way of life.

I agree, we better wake up before it's too late.

 

[skyline]

I would like to see the government require the use of Cost/Benefit decision making when implementing regulations. If the cost of the regulation does not trump the benefit of the project then the regulation should be voided. One simple example of this is the use of silk fencing. While I don't condone polluting our streams, I do think the mandatory installation of silk fencing is ridiculus in every circumstance. Just look at the construction sites that have silk fenciing on the uphill side of the site next to highway or a building. This is just the tip of the iceberg as these stupid regulations run deep. And it costs us all in the long run.

JG, they do use a cost/benefit analysis in most of the environmental impact statements that I have seen. The problem often comes down to the government bending over backwards to pacify the screaming few at the expense of the silent majority. The folks that are taking it on the chin in this country are the ones that never speak up. For instance, say a new power plant is proposed that will save big $$$ on everybody's electricity bill. The problem is that all the folks that would appreciate the savings never get involved in the process. It's the folks protecting the minners (as CB said) that make all the noise and so the minners get protected. Same goes for federal regulations. It's boring, but go back and look at the public comments in the Federal Register on your least favorite regulation (take silt fences and the regulations that the EPA put forth requiring the use of stormwater pollutions prevention plans for example). You'll be amazed.

One of the problems is that while we're out trying to make a living, we've got an army of folks in DC writing and imposing new regulations. Only the organizations and folks with "special interests" know about or keep up with proposed new regulations that are coming down the pipeline towards us. You and I don't have the time or resources to do it.

 

[Jogeephus]

One of the problems is that while we're out trying to make a living, we've got an army of folks in DC writing and imposing new regulations. Only the organizations and folks with "special interests" know about or keep up with proposed new regulations that are coming down the pipeline towards us. You and I don't have the time or resources to do it.

You make a good point. It wasn't too very long ago the EPA wrote a regulation requiring silk fencing to be used on ALL SOIL DISTURBANCES in US. Thankfully a few of the ag lobby groups got ag and forestry exempted from this and most people never knew it happened. I see the problem is not so much in the law making but once the law is created the agency can write the regulation in whatever manner they wish as long as they can justify its accordance to the law. Combine the Peter Principle to this and you got a mess. This is where I've seen things fall apart cause many of the older guys I know and can work with are retiring and being replaced by young tree hugger types that know it all cause they got a collard education and the attitude that its their job to save the world no matter what it costs the person whose paying their salary. I'm very frustrated with this.

 

[skyline]

I'm very frustrated with this.

I hear ya. I think my blood pressure is elevated. I better take a break.

 

[Caustic Burno]

It is like the hidden tax on 2-4-D Amine you have to pay for an applicators license to buy more than a quart.
Simple another EPA tax on us. Cost 40 dollars a 2 1/2 gallon jug or 10 dollars a quart a tax again. They really don't care about the enviroment as you can buy a semi truck load of quarts as long as you willing to pay the tax of 5 dollars plus a quart. This is nothing more than taxation without representation.
They cost us on electricity, fuel and jobs, there are no saw mills or plywood plants here any longer that had been operating for generations supplying good local jobs. The companies chose not to spend more money than the plants were worth.
All the regs on fuel cost Americans on everything from a dozen eggs up, are we so stupid India,Mexico,Brazil, Middle East and China ignore these costly programs. The jet stream that was over China 12 hours ago is here now. It would be different if everyone was playing by the same rules.
Potash has tripled as China sets world price for potash did you know this?

BAC understands the Chinese government is working on a counter with a round of meetings scheduled for this week. This initial BPC offer appears to be well above BAC's estimate of an $80/MT settlement with China next year. While it is impossible to predict the eventual outcome, clearly there is potential upside to China potash price assumptions for next year. China typically sets the global benchmark for potash prices as the largest importer of potash (9.2m MT, 72% of domestic use) globally.

The news has potential positive implications for potash earnings at all North America producers. By their math, every $10 per ton in potash price adds earnings of $0.19/share at POT, $0.12/share at MOS. Rates Buy on both.

That is just like our domestic N production has gone overseas to the middle east so again we ship our dollars to our enimies. This has to do with cost and EPA regulations as Amonia plants emit a lot of CO2 so to feel warm and fuzzy we said not in my backyard, here again we just moved the jobs, security to another country, but the jet stream over them doesn't circulate around the globe.

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/AGDM/a ... Nov07.html

http://www.ghgprotocol.org/calculation-tools/ammonia

We should have a bounty on the EPA, I am all for a clean enviroment but common sense has to come into play as well.