Links tagged “fracking”

Francis Menton: "At the preposterous end of the scale we have the claim that the fashionable 'renewable' sources of electric power, wind and solar, are actually cheaper than fossil fuels to generate electricity...I call this claim preposterous because the fundamental deception is so obvious that you would think that no one of any intelligence could possibly fall for it. And yet you have undoubtedly read numerous articles in the past few years asserting that wind and solar-generated electricity is now as cheap or cheaper than electricity from natural gas or coal. To make the claim, the promoters of wind and solar simply omit from their calculations the single biggest part of the cost of those sources. That would the cost of intermittency, otherwise known as the cost of providing sufficient backup or storage to run a stable electrical grid while generation from the wind and sun fluctuates wildly. (As wind and solar become a bigger and bigger part of power generation on the grid, the cost of necessary backup and/or storage could easily multiply the cost of electricity by a factor of five or more."

In 2019 and 2020, for the first time since 1952, hydraulic fracturing helped the U.S became a net total energy exporter, thereby making a major contribution to our national security.

“The 3.9 million jobs currently supported by fracking take the form of direct jobs in the extraction industry, indirect jobs in the supply chain, and induced jobs [in] local hardware stores, restaurants, car dealerships, and bakeries.”

Dr. David Wojick, an independent analyst, working at the intersection of science, technology, and policy, outlined the impact of hydraulic fracturing on energy prices:

“Before fracking, wholesale gas was always around $7.50 a million BTU. Fracking cut that way down…Henry Hub price is $3.30, which is typical of the fracking-based price. A ban [on hydraulic fracturing] would take us back, or worse, since cheap gas has taken over electricity generation. The adverse economic impact would be huge.” *

Americans should realize that oil and gas account for 70% of our energy supply. The reality is that blocking pipelines and development does nothing to lower demand, it just makes getting access to these irreplaceable products more difficult - and more costly. Oil in particular has no material substitute, with still niche market electric cars being far more expensive and much less convenient. In addition, oil and gas revenues offer states billions of dollars to pay for schools, hospitals, roads, bridges, and other critical infrastructure - explaining why "blue state" New Mexico might already be fraught with buyer's remorse.  

Not just easily the world's largest oil and gas producer, the U.S. is quickly becoming a major exporter of these essentials, rivaling Russia and Saudi Arabia for oil and Russia, Qatar, and Australia for natural gas. Even though global oil demand fell 8% in 2020 through the pandemic to ~92 million b/d, U.S. oil exports stayed the course and remained much stronger than one might suspect (Figure). Demand this year should increase to 97 million b/d as travel normalizes, with still the potential to rise to 109 million b/d by 2040. There is simply no evidence that global oil demand is in structural decline: "Goldman Expects Oil Demand To Rebound To 100 Million Bpd By August."

Phil Flynn: "OPEC, which met its match in Trump, sees Biden as a business booster... On his first day in office, Biden made decisions that spread joy across the OPEC nations by revoking the permit for the Keystone Pipeline, which would help make Canadian oil less competitive on the global market allowing the cartel to maintain or even gain global oil market share. That eliminated at least 11,000 oil and gas jobs in the U.S. and Canada that should now be picked up by OPEC.

Stephen Moore: President Joe Biden's take-no-prisoners approach to energy. The goals: kill fossil fuels; stop the building of pipelines; enter international treaties that outlaw fossil fuel use; end drilling on federal lands; strangle the oil and gas industries with regulatory assaults. And then throw billions and perhaps trillions of tax dollars at wind and solar farms. ... 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration recently released a chart showing the latest official data on U.S. energy production sources from the Department of Energy. Some 80 percent of all our energy comes from oil, gas and coal. Less than 5 percent comes from wind and solar. Somehow, Biden is going to magically flip these percentages around in five or 10 years? Even the federal forecasters who support renewable energy think that is highly unlikely. ... 

We will reverse the energy independence achieved under former President Donald Trump to dependency on OPEC nations under Biden. This certainly isn't good for the U.S. economy and jobs here at home. But it's great news for the Saudi oil sheiks, Russia's Vladimir Putin and the communists in Beijing -- all of whom are going to make out like bandits. They can't believe their good fortune.

Wouldn't it be smarter, safer and, yes, more virtuous to get the energy we need from Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota or even Alberta, Canada, than from countries that hate us?