China Confidential
Monday, September 01, 2008
Labor Day 2008: It's All About Energy and Jobs
Dateline USA....
John McCain's surprising Vice Presidential pick--Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin--will help spur millions of Americans to decide which side they are on in the national energy debate. Do they stand with the anti-oil, no-drill Democratic Party--the party of fake solutions, false hopes, and phony, government-backed, green dreams and white collar schemes (and scams)--or do they stand with the Republican Party, champions of genuine job creation and real energy-production? Will ordinary people support the party of Barack Hussein Obama, Joe ("Blowhard") Biden, and Nancy ("Save the Planet") Pelosi, or the party of the maverick John McCain and the plucky Sarah Palin? Time will tell.
This much is already clear: when it comes to energy, the differences between the two parties could not be more dramatic. Whereas the ever-changing Candidate of Changenowadays says he supports natural gas and some nuclear power, Obama's heart is in the heartland--with the avaricious agribusiness industry. The supposedly progressive Democrat is a zealous advocate for government mandated and government subsidized corn-based ethanol--a water-gulping, resource-draining, genocidal menace that drives up food prices and threatens the world's poorest people with starvation, while actually making the air dirtier, and harming car engines. A 100 million-gallon-a-year corn ethanol plant, which has become the norm, consumes a staggering amount of water--400 million gallons a year, to be exact--which should alarm anyone concerned about manmade or naturally occurring climate change.
Obama also backs biodiesel--an impractical, food-inflation-causing alternative to petroelum-based diesel fuel that is made from soybeans and other edible and inedible oilseed-bearing crops, including palm oil--a feedstock that is so environmentally destructive that its use has led many environmentalists to brand biodiesel as "rainforest diesel." Although it is going nowhere fast in the US, biodiesel has made some inroads in Europe as a result of radical, European Union mandates that have benefitted a few companies (and a handful of opportunistic US biodiesel manufacturers, who depend on US subsidies to export the phony fuel) at the expense of the overwhelming majority of ordinary Europeans.
Selling Hope
In short, Obama is doing what he does best: selling hope. Aware of the food-or-fuel controversy surrounding biofuels (which are really agrofuels), Obama is promising a big push for "next-generation"--i.e. non-existent-- cellulosic ethanol, a source of energy that has somehow been just a few years away from commercial exploitation for more than two decades. He is also promising to speed development of other forms of renewable energy, including construction of massive, ugly wind farms, which are notoriously inefficient and unreliable, and responsible for slaughtering migratory birds and harming the health of human beings forced to live or work near the horribly humming, monstrously tall turbines, and increased use of solar energy, which, like wind power, is hampered by the limitations of an aging and outmoded national electricity grid. The grid infrastructure issue also affects expansion of wind power and development of intriguing but futuristic technologies for harnessing the power of ocean waves and river currents.
None of which seems to bother Obama. Against all evidence and common sense, he proposes to end the nation's "addiction to oil"--foreign or domestic. In the eyes of Democrats, you see, all oil is bad, even though the production, refining, marketing, and transportation of petroleum is the world's largest industry.
As for jobs, the capital-intensive energy alternatives Obama favors are all quite automated; so, the great numbers of "green collar" jobs he promises to deliver will never materialize, even if some of his pie-in-the-sky plans pan out. Main Street will be bitterly disappointed.
Banking on Hot AIr
Not so for Wall Street. The Democrats' anti-global warming, carbon trading schemes--which depend on the economy-crippling redefinition of carbon dioxide as pollution and adopting draconian government penalties for carbon emissions--are designed to further enrich the nation's top investment banks. That's why Goldman Sachs and other leading financial institutions are supporting Obama. After the busts in biofuels and sub-prime mortgages, the beleaguered bankers are drooling over the prospects of a trillion-dollar market in the securitization of carbon--literally, buying, selling, and borrowing hot air.
Republicans, led by John McCain, want to end the mandated madness. He opposes the twin evils of corn ethanol and soy biodiesel. More important, McCain supports domestic oil and gas development, as shown by his choice of a running mate. Palin is an especially effective advocate for unlocking her state's energy resources. The Alaskan governor, whose husband is a North Slope oil worker--and a card-carrying union member--is actually ahead of McCain on oil. She argues convincingly that responsibly opening up 2,000 acres of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, known as ANWR, to oil exploration and drilling will generate tens of billions of dollars in revenues to the state and Federal government from bonus bids, lease rentals, and taxes; create between 250,000 and 735,000 jobs; and produce nine to 16 billion barrels of crude oil.
The next time someone talks to you about biofuels or biomass or bio-what-have-you and wind and solar ... think about all those ... real ... jobs and all that ... real ... energy and ... real ... wealth ... which can be created on only 2,000 acres of Alaskan wilderness.
The potential economic importance of ANWR development is in keeping with the oil industry's contribution to Alaska. Oil and gas activities in Alaska have created 41,744 jobs (roughly 9 percent of all jobs in Alaska) and $2.4 billion in payroll (roughly 11 percent of total wages in Alaska). Oil company pay averages $12,737 per month, three-and-a-half times more than the statewide average wage of $3,627 per month; and the industry directly employs 1,649 Anchorage residents with total direct wages of $295 million.
All that .... reality ... which the Democrats conveniently ignore.
Concluding Comments
A few concluding comments: (1) Oil and gas supply 65% of US energy needs. Every credible expert agrees that the US will continue to rely on oil and gas for at least another two decades. Serious analysts also agree that the US is sitting atop massive untapped reserves of conventional and heavy oils and natural gas, in addition to huge, economically recoverable reserves of coal (which can be liquified and gasified using proven technologies) and shale, from which oil can be squeezed using proven methods.
(2) Energy is the lifeblood of a nation. Restrict its use and supply, limit or cut off access to energy, and you cripple--or kill--a country. Thus, the Democratic Party's obsession with a hoax--manmade global warming--and insane opposition to so-called fossil fuels--bordering on a religious crusade--spell doom for the US economy. If there is a catastrophic threat to the US, it is the (Democratic) manmade energy crisis.
(3) More than any other industry, energy--meaning, real energy, including oil and gas, coal, shale, and nuclear power--is capable of driving and stimulating the US economy. Energy, as McCain and Palin both know, can create the jobs and the wealth our nation needs ... now, more than ever.
VIDEO POSTSCRIPT: In late June, incredibly, conservative thought-leader Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, predicted Palin would be McCain's running mate. Kristol also predicted that Palin would persuade McCain to support drilling in ANWR. Click below to screen the video. Did Kristol advise McCain to pick Palin? It sure looks that way.
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