Killing The Domestic Coal Industry; More Jobs Lost

This really is quite amazing. China will still buy coal -- from Australia if not elsewhere. Let's get real, folks. But activist environmentalists are helping the president's desire to kill the domestic coal industry.

The Billings Gazette is reporting:

The last partner has dropped out of a proposal to ship coal from Montana and Wyoming to Asia through Oregon's Port of Coos Bay, port officials announced Monday.

Metropolitan Stevedore Company of Wilmington, Calif., known as Metro Ports, did not renew the exclusive negotiating agreement that expired Sunday, the port said. Two other partners dropped out earlier.

Port CEO David Koch said the port was continuing to develop new shipping facilities, but did not say if that would include coal.

Environmentalists have mounted a campaign to stop the proposed shipments, arguing that burning coal in Asia contributes to global warming and that huge trains filled with coal would be bad for the health of communities along the route. They have argued that demand for coal in Asia is dropping as concerns rise over its contributions to climate change.

Can you imagine all the economic benefit this project would have brought to the region?

A 2012 feasibility study for the Coos Bay project estimated that construction of a bulk marine terminal would cost $250 million, and upgrades to the Coos Bay Rail Link between Coos Bay and Eugene would cost $182 million. It estimated that coal exports through Coos Bay could go from 3 million tons annually in the first year to 10 million metric tons in the fifth year.

Mitsui & Co., the U.S. subsidiary of a Japanese trading company, and Korean Electric Power Corp., the potential buyer of the coal, dropped out earlier.

Losing His Clout -- But, Of Course, Then, Most Can See Through The Lie; For Every Gallon of Gasoline, 50 Cents in Taxes; 2 Cents in Profit for XOMs

Let's get real, folks. 

ABCNews is reporting:

A last minute entreaty by President Obama wasn’t enough to convince senators to strip the oil and gas industry of billions in tax incentives. [All industrial companies have same tax incentives; not just oil and gas.]

The president said today that Americans are getting fleeced by an oil industry awash in profits [compare the margin XOM receives on a gallon of gasoline vs margin AAPL gets for its productts] – pinched at the pump by rising prices and forking over billions in taxpayer cash and he put his weight behind a senate bill that would repeal the tax incentives. [Price at the pump would simply go up more, for several reasons.]

“Think about that. It’s like hitting the American people twice,” Obama said in a Rose Garden press conference, just before senators considered a bill that would roll back many such tax incentives for  oil companies. [If one is concerned about getting sucker punched, look at ObamaCare.]

“They can either vote to spend billions of dollars more in oil subsidies that keep us trapped in the past. Or they can vote to end these taxpayer subsidies that aren’t needed to boost oil production so that we can invest in the future,” Obama said. “It’s that simple.” [His answers are always simple. And wrong.]

Less than an hour later, Republican senators were joined by a handful of Democrats in the senate to reject a bill that would do just that. They argue it would raise gas prices even more. The “Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies” bill failed to advance by a vote of 51-47. It needed 60 votes to overcome a procedural hurdle. [I believe there are 45 Republicans. Something tells me that if push came to shove, more votes could have been found to kill this bill.]

And then, I suppose, he went golfing.

North Dakota #3 in Wind Power; The EPA To-Do List Updated

Nice review of possible Obama order to kill the domestic nuclear industry: nuclear power vs wind power.

The article includes an update of wind energy in the US. North Dakota is #3, behind Iowa and South Dakota. The data comes from the American Wind Energy Association.

I hope these are still photographs 'cause the blades aren't turnin':

Wind Farm, Dickey County, North Dakota, December, 2012
Dickey County is in the southeast corner of the state, bordering South Dakota. With about 6,000 people, it has a population density of about 5 people per square mile.

March 8, 2014: because the Dickey County video above was removed, a new one in its place:

Wind Tower Fail

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Back on November 9, 2012, I posted the EPA To-Do Checklist:

Rough draft:
✓ Permitorium in the Gulf of Mexico
✓ Delay drilling in the Arctic another year (repeat annually)
    Double CAFE standards five years earlier than current timetable
    Increase penalties for migratory bird kills
✓ Unlimited waiver of liability for wind turbines (migratory bird kills)
✓ Confirm tortoises have been relocated (solar farms)
    Increase emissions standards on coal plants
✓ Close 90% of federal land to further oil shale exploration (think sage grouse)
    Federal regulation of hydraulic fracking on state land
    Ban all hydraulic fracking
✓ Kill Keystone XL 1.0
    Re-define "clean coal": [kleen kohl], noun, mythic fossil fuel found only in Australia and China
    Ban export of coal

I need to update the EPA to-do checklist.

Revised draft, #2:

✓ Permitorium in the Gulf of Mexico
✓ Delay drilling in the Arctic another year (repeat annually)
    Double CAFE standards five years earlier than current timetable
    Increase penalties for migratory bird kills
✓ Unlimited waiver of liability for wind turbines (migratory bird kills)
✓ Confirm tortoises have been relocated (solar farms)
    Increase emissions standards on coal plants (that's being worked (March, 2013)
✓ Close 90% of federal land to further oil shale exploration (think sage grouse)
    Federal regulation of hydraulic fracking on state land
    Ban all hydraulic fracking
✓ Kill Keystone XL 1.0
    Re-define "clean coal": [kleen kohl], noun, mythic fossil fuel found only in Australia and China
    Ban export of coal
    Destroy the US nuclear power industry
    Executive order requiring all energy permits to meet international standards

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Speaking of destroying the domestic coal and nuclear industry, it looks like we only have to look to Europe to see where we will be ten years from now (if not sooner) if all this progressive thinking continues. One can take bits and pieces away from this article, but the problem with Europe, in addition to everything everyone always talks about: Europe doesn't know how to manage its energy assets.

Indeed, just four days before the Holy Week came this heartbreaking report from Caritas (one of the world's largest humanitarian organizations): more than 3 million people in Spain currently live in extreme poverty (families with an income of less than $390 per month), and more than one million are barely surviving on charitable donations -- an increase of 150 percent from the pre-crisis levels.
 
And there seems to be no end to this, Chancellor Merkel says that at least five more years are needed to put this horrible human suffering behind. But five years sounds like a short time to produce a German euro area. And a more important question is whether that objective can be achieved without tearing apart the social fabric already stretched to the breaking point in France, Italy and Spain - to say nothing of smaller countries like Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Cyprus, Slovenia, etc.

For the U.S., the euro area chaos is not just an issue of bleak outlook for one-fifth of American exports going to Europe. It is a question of political stability of its key ally and a pillar of the largest and, arguably, the most successful military alliance in history.

 Google "energy" in the linked article. The word does not appear. "The most successful military alliance in history" is now a paper tiger. Spain's extreme poverty: Spain can thank their wind and solar renewable program for much of their problems. Germany is going to have a major problem with energy: won't frack; won't nuke; back to coal. "For the US, the euro area chaos is not just an issue of bleak outlook for one-fifth of American exports going to Europe....." Folks, get real. The world is changing. The shift is moving to China. And it could happen faster than folks realize.

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I can't make this stuff up. President Obama proclaims the month of April to be the month to teach young people how to budget responsibly:

President Barack Obama, who has increased the national debt by $53,377 per household, has proclaimed April “National Financial Capability Month,” during which his administration will do things such as teach young people “how to budget responsibly."

“I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices,” Obama said in an official proclamation released Friday.

Let's get real, folks.

Remember The Guy Who Tried To Corner The Silver Market and Went Broke: He's A Billionaire Again -- Because of the Bakken

Wow, I love this stuff. I always wondered who the "Hunt" was in Petro-Hunt. I didn't think it was associated with Hunt's ketchup, but maybe....but I digress. Sorry.

Bloomberg is reporting:

William Herbert Hunt was once one of the wealthiest men on Earth. With his brother, Nelson Bunker Hunt, the billionaire bought more than 195 million ounces of silver -- 60 percent of the U.S. market -- in the 1970s. By early 1980, their stake was valued at more than $9 billion. 

The Hunts’ position imploded when silver prices plummeted 80 percent over the course of a few weeks in March 1980, culminating 33 years ago this week on what traders called Silver Thursday. The crash rattled Wall Street and sent the Texas brothers into bankruptcy.  

That was 1980; flash forward to 2012:

Hunt is once again a billionaire, this time with oil. In October, he sold 43 percent of the North Dakota petroleum assets owned by his closely held Petro-Hunt LLC for $1.45 billion to Houston-based Halcon Resources Corp. The cash and stock deal made Hunt Halcon’s largest shareholder and boosted his net worth to $4.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. 

The $9,500 per acre Halcon paid for Hunt’s land is about average for recent deals in the Williston Basin, according to Eli Kantor, Senior Exploration and Production Analyst with Iberia Capital Partners LLC in New Orleans, Louisiana.  

The Williston Basin, also known as the Bakken, is a geological formation covering North Dakota as well as parts of South Dakota, Montana and Saskatchewan. The largest contiguous oilfield in the U.S., the Williston has the potential to be the largest producing field in the world over the next 30 years, according to Harold Hamm, the billionaire chairman of oil and gas producer Continental Resources Inc.

An early Bakken wildcatter, Hamm has said in company reports that the area will yield as much as 24 billion barrels of oil. He is worth $12.8 billion, according to the Bloomberg ranking. 

Go to the link for the full story. It's worth your time.

Jane Nielsen needs to read it. 

After Sandy, No One Lined Up for Wind Turbines -- WSJ

Link here to the WSJ.

Let's consider what a wind-powered hospital in New York might look like. NYU's Langone Medical Center lost power shortly after Sandy hit. The hospital had diesel-fired emergency generators, but basement flooding caused them to fail. [One would think that lessons from the Japanese nuclear disaster would have taught us something, but I digress.] [The power failure] required the evacuation of hundreds of patients.

Assume the hospital needs one megawatt of emergency electricity-generation capacity. Lives are at stake. It needs power immediately. That capability could easily be provided by a single, trailer-mounted diesel generator, which would occupy a small corner of the hospital's garage (and be safely removed from any flooding threat).

By contrast, providing that much wind-generation capacity would require about 5.6 million square feet of land—an area of nearly 100 football fields. And all of that assumes that the land is available, the wind is blowing, and there are enough transmission lines to carry those wind-generated electrons from the countryside into Lower Manhattan.

Last year the mayor of New York pledged $50 million to Sierra Club's "Beyond Coal" campaign. The WSJ suggested he won't be making a similar pledge for Sierra Club's parallel "Beyond Oil" campaign.

Thank goodness.

But I bet there are a few folks in NYC wishing the major had pledged $50 million to shore up conventional utilities in case of global warming catastrophes that have been predicted since at least 1992 by Al Gore. Wow, a short synopsis of how long folks have had to prepare for global warming disasters predicted by Al:

Gore became interested in global warming when he took a course at Harvard University with Professor Roger Revelle, one of the first scientists to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Later, when Gore was in Congress, he initiated the first congressional hearing on the subject in 1981. Gore's 1992 book, Earth in the Balance, dealing with a number of environmental topics, reached the New York Times bestseller list. 

As Vice President during the Clinton Administration, Gore pushed for the implementation of a carbon tax to encourage energy efficiency and diversify the choices of fuel better reflecting the true environmental costs of energy use; it was partially implemented in 1993.

My goodness, the book was published in 1992 -- that's exactly 20 years ago. And it reached the New York Times bestseller list, so it wasn't exactly unheard of. Twenty years to prepare for one storm that barely reached Hurricane Level 1 status.

One cannot argue that Luddites were standing in the way of upgrading and hardening conventional utilities; there is an article in the same WSJ today talking about the strides being made with new technology, and all the money spent on conventional ways to protect utilities.

The problem is that advocates of wind energy to replace oil ("Beyond Oil") cannot do the math. The math doesn't add up. One small generator in the corner of a garage will match 100 football field-size windmill farms.

The WSJ:

If oil didn't exist, we would have to invent it. No other substance comes close when it comes to energy density (the amount of energy contained in a given unit of volume or mass), ease of handling or flexibility. A single kilogram of diesel fuel contains about 13,000 watt-hours of energy. That is about twice the energy density of coal, six times that of wood, and about 300 times that of lead-acid batteries. (And those batteries are useful only if they have been charged by some other energy source.)

[And no, we're not going to run out of fossil fuel any time soon.]

A hundred football fields of windmill farms to power one hospital for emergency services only. [I have not verified the Journal's figures.]

Wow.

And folks get alarmed by a quarter-acre pad that will support a well that will produce upwards of one million bbls of oil over its 30-year lifespan.