USGS Survey shows huge oil-natural gas reserves in Arctic Circle
July 27, 2008
According to the New York Times, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has just released a study showing that the Artic Circle holds one fifth of the world’s oil reserves. Most of the oil and natural gas resources fall under current territorial claims. As Russia, the United States and Canada begin to go after these newly charted energy fields, most national disputes will be avoided for now. But the question remains whether American energy needs will be addressed in US Territory or whether Congress will put up barriers to expediting development of these newly discovered fields.
Sphere: Related ContentAl Gore’s Nutty Idea
July 25, 2008
Vince Carroll, Editor of the Denver, CO based Rocky Mountain News dissects Al Gore’s outrageous proposal to replace all power generation with renewable sources in the next 10 years”
Sphere: Related ContentThis would of course require utilities to mothball hundreds of existing power plants as they launched a crash construction program of solar plants, wind farms and transmission lines costing hundreds of billions and perhaps trillions of dollars. (To put this in perspective, T. Boone Pickens, another fellow who’s caught the wind-power bug, claims on his Web site, “Building wind facilities in the corridor that stretches from the Texas panhandle to North Dakota could produce 20 percent of the electricity for the United States at a cost of $1 trillion. It would take another $200 billion to build the capacity to transmit that energy to cities and towns.”)
“Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we’ve simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions,” Gore worried during last week’s speech.
For bold solutions? No. But for nutty ones: Let’s dearly hope so.
Privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-WSJ
July 16, 2008
The Wall Street Journal’s Holman Jenkins, Jr. makes a strong case for Privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac:
Sphere: Related ContentSell off their regional underwriting offices to private investors. Don’t heed any guff about how Fannie and Freddie are “vital to the functioning of the U.S. housing market.” Houses would still need to be financed, and the private sector would jump at a chance to get the solid, triple-A business that Fannie and Freddie now monopolize. Indeed, there’s evidence that their implicit subsidy never flowed through to homebuyers anyway, but was captured by their shareholders and managers.
The wisdom of “hard power”
July 16, 2008
We regularly stand in awe of the wisdom of Charles Krauthammer. This analysis of the reasons why Ingrid Betancourt was freed from her six years of captivity is a worthy example of a remarkable sage:
In the Bush years, hard power is terribly out of fashion, seen as a mere obsession of cowboys and neocons. Both in Europe and America, the sophisticates worship at the altar of “soft power” — the use of diplomatic and moral resources to achieve one’s ends. Europe luxuriates in soft power, nowhere more than in l’affaire Betancourt in which Europe’s repeated gestures of solidarity hovered somewhere between the fatuous and the destructive. . . .
And so the innocent languish [under the heavy hand of oppressors in Zimbabwe, Burma, Sudan], as did Betancourt [under FARC], until some local power, inexplicably under the sway of the Bush notion of hard power, gets it done — often with the support of the American military. “Behind the rescue in a jungle clearing stood years of clandestine American work,” explained The Washington Post. “It included the deployment of elite U.S. Special Forces . . . a vast intelligence-gathering operation . . . and training programs for Colombian troops.”
But no thanks to the United States from the world or Betancourt.
Sphere: Related ContentPond Scum for Petroleum?
July 9, 2008
A July 5, 2008, Denver Post editorial, “Pond Scum to the Rescue?” touted a joint effort by ConocoPhillips and the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels to use algae (“pond scum”) as a biofuel alternative. The Post claims rather optimistically that this experimental process could “[fight] global warming and the OPEC oil cartel in one stroke,” and that we should “stop using ‘pond scum’ as an insult and start using it to save our wallets and our planet.” Such a rosy prediction is, with all due respect, overstated. To the contrary, the problem with oil is not the lack of alternatives. It is significant government restrictions on oil exploration right here at home that artificially limits supply and needlessly leads to higher prices.
While alternative fuels are largely limited to research and development, expansion of oil production in our own country would have a vastly greater effect on our national and economic security as a nation. And Colorado will become a major source of that security if we will decide to implement reasonable policies for energy exploration. The problem is some of our elected officials are putting up roadblocks which are nothing more than environmental alarmism. We need forward thinking in support of Colorado’s well-established, leadership role in the energy economy while maintaining our commitment to environmental stewardship. Read more
Sphere: Related ContentBoy survives Amazon forest; dies in father’s arms
July 2, 2008
From City News:
Sphere: Related ContentIt is an incredible story of survival and a tragic tale of getting there too late. It concerns an 18-year-old from Brazil named Jonathan dos Santos Alves, who spent a harrowing and almost unbelievable 42 days lost in the Amazon rain forest, only to finally be found - and die in his father’s arms minutes later.
Oil Passes $145
July 2, 2008
From Brietbart.com:
Sphere: Related ContentOil surged past 145 dollars per barrel for the first time Thursday as the weak US dollar and Middle East tension stoked black gold’s record-breaking run, analysts said. Brent North Sea crude for August delivery hit 145.11 dollars in early Asian trade, before easing back to 144.90 dollars. It had settled at a record 144.26 in London on Wednesday after breaking 144 dollars for the first time.
Trading sex for gas
July 2, 2008
From The Smoking Gun:
Sphere: Related ContentKentucky woman is facing prostitution charges for allegedly trading sex for gasoline. Angela Eversole, 34, was nabbed last weekend during a police stakeout at a Days Inn, where she allegedly trysted with customer Kenneth Nowak. According to court records, Nowak admitted paying for Eversole’s services, in part, with a $100 Speedway gas card.
Starbucks closing 600 stores
July 1, 2008
From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Sphere: Related ContentFor a decade it appeared there was no such thing as too many Starbucks for U.S. coffee drinkers, whose willingness to buy its $4 lattes and dark drip brews rationalized a second green-and-white mermaid awning just down the street - and sometimes even a third. But in a sign that those days are over, Starbucks Corp. announced Tuesday it will close 600 company-operated stores in the next year, as the faltering U.S. economy hastened the pain caused by the company’s own rapid expansion.
Saudi King: Get Used to Oil Prices
July 1, 2008
From Brietbart.com:
Sphere: Related ContentKing Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whose nation is the world’s number one oil exporter, called on consumer countries to get used to high prices in comments published on Tuesday. “Consumer countries have to adapt to the prices and the mechanisms of the market,” the king said in an interview published by the Kuwaiti daily Al-Siyassah.
