(CNSNews.com) – A new study says drilling on Alaska’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) could make Alaska the eighth largest oil resource province in the world — ahead of Nigeria, Libya, Russia and Norway.
The report — by the consulting firm Northern Economics and the University of Alaska-Anchorage’s Institute of Social and Economic Research — says that developing Alaska’s OCS could produce almost 10 billion barrels of oil and 15 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, create around 55,000 new jobs and produce $145 billion in new payroll nationally, generating a total of $193 billion in government revenue through the year 2057.
A senior policy advisor with the American Petroleum Institute, the trade group for hundreds of U.S. oil and gas producers, said in a statement about the study that offshore drilling for oil and natural gas can help with the country’s energy and economic needs.
By Richard Littlejohn
Created 9:55 PM on 27th December 2010
This is the season for quizzes. So fingers on buzzers, here’s your starter for ten. In percentage terms, how much electricity do Britain’s 3,150 wind turbines supply to the National Grid?
Is it: a) five per cent; b) ten per cent; or c) 20 per cent? Come on, I’m going to have to hurry you. No conferring.
Time’s up. The correct answer is: none of the above. Yesterday afternoon, the figure was just 1.6 per cent, according to the official website of the wholesale electricity market.
Over the past three weeks, with demand for power at record levels because of the freezing weather, there have been days when the contribution of our forests of wind turbines has been precisely nothing.
It gets better. As the temperature has plummeted, the turbines have had to be heated to prevent them seizing up. Consequently, they have been consuming more electricity than they generate.
by Scott A. Hodge, The Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact No. 252
U.S. Governments Offer Little Support to Energy Firms
In advance of the G-20 meeting in Seoul, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its annual World Energy Outlook, a 738-page analysis of the global energy market. The report discusses the market for various types of energy and summarizes the energy policies of the world’s governments, devoting two chapters to raising the alarm about government subsidies for fossil fuel usage.
Just five months earlier the IEA had published in conjunction with OPEC, the OECD and the World Bank a stand-alone study of governmental subsidies to energy in advance of the G-20 meeting in Toronto. That joint report found that no systematic effort has been undertaken within the last decade to estimate subsidies to fossil-fuel production over a wide range of countries. Continue reading “IEA Study Ranks Nations’ Subsidies to Fossil Fuel Consumption” »
Grid-hacking is back in the news, with the unveiling of “Perfect Citizen,” the National Security Agency’s creepily named effort to protect the networks of electrical companies and nuclear power plants.
People have claimed in the past to be able to turn off the internet, there are reports of foreign penetrations into government systems, “proof” of foreign interest in attacking U.S. critical infrastructure based on studies, and concerns about adversary capabilities based on allegations of successful critical infrastructure attacks. Which begs the question: If it’s so easy to turn off the lights using your laptop, how come it doesn’t happen more often? Continue reading “Hacking the Electric Grid? You and What Army?” »
BP says there are no signs of leakage from its ruptured oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, a day after the flow was stopped for the first time since April.
No oil has escaped from the new cap sealing the well and there was no sign of any breach under the sea floor, BP executive Kent Wells said.
Last November there was a world-wide outcry when a trove of emails were released suggesting some of the world’s leading climate scientists engaged in professional misconduct, data manipulation and jiggering of both the scientific literature and climatic data to paint what scientist Keith Briffa called “a nice, tidy story” of climate history. The scandal became known as Climategate.
Now a supposedly independent review of the evidence says, in effect, “nothing to see here.” Last week “The Independent Climate Change E-mails Review,” commissioned and paid for by the University of East Anglia, exonerated the University of East Anglia. The review committee was chaired by Sir Muir Russell, former vice chancellor at the University of Glasgow.
Mr. Russell took pains to present his committee, which consisted of four other academics, as independent. He told the Times of London that “Given the nature of the allegations it is right that someone who has no links to either the university or the climate science community looks at the evidence and makes recommendations based on what they find.”
Members of the congressional committees that oversee the oil and gas industry held more than $11 million in personal financial assets in that sector late last year, including at least $400,000 in the two companies at the heart of the Gulf of Mexico oil-drilling disaster.
From the nearly $100,000 in BP stock held by Rep. Frederick Upton (R-Mich.) to the nearly $650,000 in ConocoPhillips shares held by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), lawmakers on five key panels with oversight of the oil industry held more than 110 assets in firms from that sector.
All told, the members of the five House and Senate committees had a minimum of $11.4 million in stock holdings in the oil and gas industry, with a maximum value that could have exceed $16.8 million, according to an analysis of financial disclosure forms released Wednesday.
Before the Gulf disaster, some lawmakers sold off shares in the companies at the center of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill for personal financial reasons. Among them was Kerry, whose wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sold off the last remaining shares she held in Transocean, the company that owned the drilling rig.
At the end of 2009, however, Heinz family trusts still held between $350,000 and $750,000 in BP stock, coming in purchases last year.
PHOENIX – There have been a lot of ideas as to what to do with illegal immigrants, but one candidate’s idea could put him in the dark.
Barry Wong, a Republican candidate running for the state’s Corporation Commission, says that people living illegally in Arizona should have their power cut off.
The European Union has adopted a regulation that will ban the construction of ordinary family houses, starting from 2020. Only the so-called passive houses will be allowed:
For example, page 33/71 of the PDF document above says that all new buildings have to be “nearly zero-energy buildings” by the end of 2020. It has to be true by the end of 2018 for all new buildings occupied by public authorities.
Americans believe strongly that the United States needs to change its dependency on fossil fuels, but they have mixed feelings about whether government policies should encourage use of alternative energy sources in their place.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 73% of Adults believe it is at least Somewhat Important for the country to change its dependency on fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil in the near future. This includes 42% who say it’s Very Important.
Just 23% say this change is Not Very or Not At All Important.
Forty-one percent (41%) say government policies should be enacted to discourage use of fossil fuels and encourage the use of alternative energy sources instead. But 36% don’t think that’s a good idea. Another 23% are not sure.
This is in contrast to the advise of Thomas Jefferson who wrote, “The policy of the American government is to leave its citizens free, neither restraining them nor aiding them in their pursuits.” In our Capitalist tradition, the people “voted” for or against various products and prices by casting their ballot at the checkout stand. Continue reading “People favor policies to discourage fossil fuels, but don’t want to pay for it.” »
WASHINGTON – In the movies, they at least would have offered him a last cigarette and a blindfold ahead of facing the Congressional version of a firing squad.
But hapless BP Chief Executive Tony “I’d Like My Life Back” Hayward had no such luck Thursday as he became the juiciest corporate target for lawmakers since the Senate feasted on the arrogant whiz kids of Goldman Sachs earlier this spring.
In his prepared testimony for the hearing of the House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, Hayward was contrite. But he also tried to convey that BP was not solely to blame for the Gulf oil rig blowout that killed 11 workers and triggered the worse environmental disaster in U.S. history.
“I fully grasp the terrible reality of the situation,” Hayward said, but “this is a complex accident caused by an unprecedented combination of failures.”
President Obama in his Oval Office address to the nation Tuesday night said BP is responsible not just for the environmental clean-up from the massive Gulf oil leak but also must “compensate the workers and business owners who have been harmed as a result of [the] company’s recklessness.” He is expected to repeat that message in a meeting with top BP officials today.
Sixty-nine percent (69%) of Americans agree that the oil companies involved with the Gulf leak should be required to pay back everyone who lost income because of the oil spill, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 17% disagree, and 14% more are not sure. Continue reading “Americans agreeable that BP should pay.” »
At several critical points in his career, President Barack Obama has turned to his considerable oratorical skills to help salvage his image.
When Mr Obama’s campaign was beset with criticism over his relationship with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the then-senator gave an eloquent and widely-lauded assessment the state of race relations in American society.
When his healthcare bill looked to be on life support, Mr Obama rallied support for it before a joint session of Congress.
On Tuesday evening, Mr Obama chose to address the BP oil spill crisis from the illustrious Oval Office, a location soaked in historical importance and shrouded in seriousness, where past presidents have spoken of wars, tragedies and struggles.
In what were his first Oval Office remarks, Mr Obama spoke of waging a war on an oil spill that is “assaulting our shores and our citizens.”
He was resolute, at times calm and at times impassioned, projecting both gravity and sobriety.
February 5, 2012 1906 John Carradine 1920 Frank Muir CBE 1946 Charlotte Rampling 1948 Barbara Hershey 1948 Lord Haden Guest 1948 Sven-Goran Eriksson 1952 Russell Grant 1962 Jennifer Jason Leigh 1966 Jose Maria Olazabal
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