Sorry, but we respect the intellectual works of others here at RedState. That means we don’t cut and paste entire articles from either traditional or new media sources 1) because it is copyright infringement, and 2) because we expect others to respect our rights to original material published at RedState.

Now, I am not a lawyer and I’m certainly no expert on copyright law, but my understanding of “fair use” is this: it is permissible to quote limited quantities of material from another source, preferably with a link and always with attribution. “Limited quantities” generally means three (3) paragraphs or so. The diarist is expected to analyze, comment, or otherwise amplify on the quoted material.

Material that you own and publish elsewhere should not be excerpted here, but published in full. It is acceptable to link to your personal blog in acknowledging the cross-link.

Oh, and here’s the link to the Western Gas Fields article, from the Rocket-Courier in Wyalusing, PA.

By Matt Rooney | Cross-posted at SaveJersey.com

Here’s your daily dose of political levity, Save Jerseyans.

President Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator and the former New Jersey Deptartment of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner under Jon Corzine (quite a resume, huh?), Lisa Jackson, is returning to New Jersey later this month. She has openly accused Congressional Republicans of endangering millions of lives for opposing her draconian measures.

For what, pray tell?

The answer is in today’s AC Press…

Read More →

TOWANDA – While Bradford County has experienced extensive gas drilling for a few years, what will it be like after the drilling has gone on for decades?

The three Bradford County commissioners and other local officials had a chance to get a sense of what could happen when they traveled last week to participate in a two-day conference in Lea County, N.M.

Lea County’s economy had been based for decades on natural gas production, although in the last decade its economy has diversified to include other forms of energy, such as nuclear, solar, and wind, the Bradford County commissioners said.

The conference, which was titled “Shale Gas & Conventional Gas: From Pennsylvania to New Mexico,” discussed the issues surrounding the development of shale gas using Lea County, N.M., and Bradford County, Pa., as case studies, according to the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County, which co-sponsored the conference.

Lea County’s population is about the same size as Bradford County’s, but its economy is dependent solely on energy production, Bradford County Commissioner Daryl Miller said.

The Bradford County commissioners discussed the trip at the commissioners’ meeting on Thursday, and both commissioners Doug McLinko and Mark Smith said it was worthwhile to travel to New Mexico.

McLinko said the trip reinforced for him the belief that Bradford County needs to do more to be ready to take advantage of opportunities to bring long-term jobs to the county, such as the planned Moxie Energy gas-fired electric power plant in Asylum Township. The Moxie Energy plant will bring a significant number of long-term jobs to the county, he said.

“They (Lea County officials) are very aggressive with their (economic) development (efforts)” to keep and attract long-term jobs, he said, adding that Lea County needed to broaden the base of their economy so that they were not tied to the ups and downs of the natural gas industry.

Among the measures that Lea County has taken are to purchase and lease thousands of acres of land, and Lea County is bringing infrastructure to that land, such as municipal water and electrical service, in an effort to attract industry to locate on the property, McLinko said. By controlling those thousands of acres of land, Lea County can offer attractive terms to the businesses that consider moving there, said Bradford County Economic Development Manager Lauren Hotaling, who also attended the conference.

McLinko said he does not want Bradford County to buy or lease land to attract businesses. But he said that townships, boroughs, and private property owners in Bradford County need to take steps to make sure there is land available for businesses or industry to move to, and that that land is ready with the infrastructure they need, such as municipal water and sewer, as well as any zoning provisions.

“When you get an opportunity for development, you can’t lag behind, because we are in competition with other states,” he said.

However, Hotaling said one problem with attracting businesses and industry to Bradford County is that there is a limited area in the county that has the kind of infrastructure that many large businesses are looking for, such as municipal water and municipal sewer.

And in the locations where municipal water and sewer exists or will soon exist, such as Route 6 in Wysox Township, the land is expensive to buy, she said.

There is even a lack of natural gas distribution lines in Bradford County that could supply these large businesses, she said.

Just as is the case in Bradford County, hotels in Lea County are used by workers in the energy extraction industry, namely gas and oil drilling, Hotaling said.

But Lea County has secured a use for its hotels which will buffer them against the ups and downs in gas and oil drilling. Specifically, Lea County has become a training center for Homeland Security, she said. The training has resulted in the construction of three or four additional hotels in Lea County, she said.

Hotaling also said that New Mexico’s state budget is heavily dependant on revenue from the gas and oil industry.

The gas and oil industry provides over 26 percent of New Mexico’s state funds, she said.

New Mexico has a state severance tax on gas and oil, she said. New Mexico also gets a significant amount of revenue from lease bonuses and royalties on state-owned land, she said.

Among the local officials who traveled to the conference were state Rep. Tina Pickett, Progress Authority Executive Director Tony Ventello, and Mark Madden of Penn State Cooperative Extension.

Bradford County paid the airfare to the conference for the three Bradford County commissioners, according to Bradford County Fiscal Director Joan Sanderson.

The Progress Authority paid for lodging and meals for the three Bradford County commissioners while they were in New Mexico, Hotaling said.

James Loewenstein can be reached at (570) 265-1633; or email: jloewenstein@thedailyreview.com.

SOCORRO, N.M. January 10, 2012 – As oil companies deploy hundreds of wells in northeast Pennsylvania to tap into the lucrative “shale gas” deposits, many are weighing the environmental impacts, the economic outlook and the regulatory climate related to the latest bonanza in domestic natural gas production.

Now, the New Mexico Center for Energy Policy – a research wing of New Mexico Tech – is taking the lead in framing the debate on these hot-button issues. The Center and the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County (N.M.) are hosting a conference on these controversial and lucrative shale gas deposits that dot North America.

“Shale Gas and Conventional Gas: From Pennsylvania to New Mexico” is a two-day conference that features experts from the industry, government, independent researchers and state officials from Pennsylvania and New Mexico. The event is Thursday and Friday, Jan. 12 and 13, at the Lea County Event Center in Hobbs, N.M. The Center for Energy Policy also is located in Hobbs.

The presence of large deposits of shale gas in the U.S. has led to the rise of debate about the environmental impact of production, with conflicting reports about the impact of production and use of shale gas.

Canada has taken the lead in production of shale gas, with production in Alberta proving to be lucrative. Shale gas production in the United States is expanding quickly in Pennsylvania, but has been met with resistance from environmentalists and regulatory agencies.

“Shale gas is a very important topic nationally and internationally as we tap into the shale gas resources, which will create vast amount of energy for the United States,” said Dr. Van Romero, Vice President of Research at New Mexico Tech. “This conference brings together experts to discuss the finer points of technological advancements, production and potential risks involved.”

Shale gas production has benefited from the advancement of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has become a controversial method of extracting natural gas from shale formations.

The opening panel event will feature experts discussing both horizontal drilling and the process and consequences of fracking – which involves injecting water into shale formations to push oil toward production wells.

Conference organizer Dr. Daniel Fine – director of the N.M. Center for Energy Policy – said Pennsylvania is on the vanguard of the current bonanza in shale gas production.

“Technical innovations from 1992 to the present have allowed us to develop the capability of extracting gas from these hard rock formations,” Fine said. “Hydro-fracturing and horizontal drilling represent a whole new evolution.”

“Fracking is controversial and it’s important to have a good scientific basis to understand it,” Romero said. “The fear is that fracking will contaminate groundwater as we liberate natural gas from deep under the surface. We need to do a good job from a scientific and engineering basis as we proceed with development of these formations.”

Fine said that just 10 years ago federal experts predicted a natural gas shortage in the United States. Now, with new the new technology, the United States has such a glut in natural gas that prices have plummeted.

One of the largest deposits of shale gas – the Marcellus shale – rests under Pennsylvania. According to a National Geographic report, Marcellus shale holds between 50 trillion cubic feet (TCF) and 500 TCF of natural gas. At the low end, that represents twice the natural gas in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay. Given high estimates, the Marcellus reserves would be the second largest in the world. Other large deposits are known to exist in Illinois, Texas and Wyoming.

Bradford County in northeast Pennsylvania issued permits for more than 300 new wells in 2011 alone, Fine said. Several officials from Bradford County – and neighboring counties in Pennsylvania – will be speaking and attending the conference.

Fine said an ongoing and heated debate in Pennsylvania the state legislatures proposal to institute a severance tax on natural gas. A key point of the debate is how the state and the counties will share the revenue.

“Lea County (New Mexico) is a model on how to manage natural resources,” Fine said. “For three generations, Lea County has developed a model on how to manage natural gas and oil production and how to use the revenues for local economic development.”

The conference’s opening session features a panel discussion covering the basics of shale gas. Ron Broadhead, senior petroleum geologist at the Bureau and the state’s leading expert on oil-and-gas recovery, will lead the discussion. Broadhead and two industry leaders will explain the technologies needed to recover shale gas, prospects for recovery in the continental United States and potential strategies for production.

The Thursday afternoon session will focus on regulation and opposition to shale gas development. Fine and Dr. Van Romero, vice president of research at New Mexico Tech, will lead the panel, along with Alan Eichler of the Pennsylvania Environment Department and Jamie Bailey of the state of New Mexico.

Fine said the main debate over fracking relates to federal regulations. The sole federal statute that relates to the practice is the Safe Drinking Water Act of the 1970s. Most states have regulations specific to fracking, but the federal government has none.

The Friday morning session will delve deeper into the issues related to shale gas recovery. The panel will feature eight experts from Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Chesapeake Energy, a leading onshore developer of unconventional oil and natural gas plays.

U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce will deliver the keynote speech at Thursday’s luncheon. Pearce will discuss the potential economic impact and job outlook for the natural gas industry if shale gas is fully developed. Fine said preliminary studies tout 1.9 million additional jobs in natural gas by 2025.

N.M. Lt. Gov. John Sanchez and Pennsylvania Rep. Tina Pickett will provide Friday’s keynote talks. They will discuss the economic impact that shale gas could have on their respective states.

The event is co-sponsored by New Mexico Tech and the Economic Development Council of Lea County, led by president and CEO Lisa Hardison.

– NMT –

By Thomas Guengerich/New Mexico Tech

http://www.nmt.edu/nmt-news/336-2011/4286-energy-conference-focuses-on-shale-gas-hot-button-issues

Fox Lake Power Plant has been listed as an electrical generating plant to be closed down by the EPA ostensibly due to it being ‘dirty’ and not complying with new rules generated by the EPA administrator uber-radical Lisa Jackson.  In my last post I questioned why this small rural Minnesota power plant being placed on the list because it doesn’t even burn coal and hasn’t since 1998.  It seems the EPA, as administered by the Obama administration, is using a kind of “slide rule of law” in determining what plants should close and which remain open.  Instead of adhering to a historically American version that demands all people to be treated equally before the law, Lisa Jackson and President Obama view some populations as more equal than others.

How is Fox Lake being treated in comparison to other plants serving other populations?  Is there a political calculation being used instead of a scientific standard?  These questions arise because it seems rather bizarre a natural gas fired power plant would be closed for coal-burning reasons.  It has been suggested the reasons are Fox Lake still has a coal burning boiler on the premises and an ash pond, though that pond isn’t polluting.  Following these standards, let’s look at two other power plants and see how they are treated.

I looked into the power plants that generate electricity for the Twin Cities Metro power grid.  The entire metropolitan area is served by several power plants, two within the city limits of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  One, in St. Paul, is called the High Bridge Power Plant.  The other in Minneapolis is the Riverside Power Plant.  Other plants also feed the Twin Cities Zone of the grid including a plant called Sherco (Sherburne Power Plant).

Riverside Power Plant was converted to burning natural gas, in 2009.  It is five times the size of Fox Lake and serves the dark blue inner city.  If we consider the fact it once was a coal-fired plant, we’d have to conclude it spewed poisonous gases far more copious that little Fox Lake did, and for eleven years longer.  Yet, Riverside isn’t on the EPA’s shut down list.  According to an EPA filing, the Riverside Generation Plant is now 100% gas-fired but “Unit #8 is currently idle, is not producing ash, and is not expected to operate on coal again before it is converted to gas.”  This document was sent on March26, 2009 and there is no reason to believe the coal-fired boiler was removed since them.  The pond was dredged and going to be removed.  However, the ash had to go somewhere so its existence is an issue.

So why isn’t Riverside being shut down?  It burned coal until April 2009, according to Xcel Energy’s website.  It has a coal-fired boiler on site.  In fact, it lists coal-fired boiler Unit #7 as being used as a secondary steam generating unit from the exhaust from the gas-fired units.  Sure, it’s not burning coal but the mere existence of a coal-burning unit at Fox Lake was considered enough to shut it down.

If Riverside were to be shut down, the city of Minneapolis would be starved of electricity.  The plants in the surrounding areas would be hard pressed to fill the void.  Yet, Riverside and Fox Lake fit the same criteria.  They simply serve different populations, one urban and dark blue, the other rural and red.

Next, if we look a little to the north of the Twin Cities, we find a far more stark comparison to Fox Lake.  Up in Becker Minnesota is a plant called Sherco.  Sherco supplies power for the northern and western parts of the metropolitan area grid.  Becker is in a conservative part of the state, but it serves a population that is blue as well.  Sherco is the polar opposite of Fox Lake, yet it isn’t being shut down either.

Sherburne Power Plant is enormous, generating 2400 megawatts of power, five times the amount of electricity as Riverside and 24 times that of Fox Lake.  It’s a coal-fired plant with state of the art scrubbers to keep pollution at a minimum.  However, Sherco isn’t on the EPA’s list, even though it burns coal and has enormous ash ponds, one which leaked in 2007, according to EPA filings.

Sherco was even listed as one of America’s ‘dirtiest’ power plants by the Environmental Integrity Project in 2007.  It was listed in the top twenty producers of mercury and thirteenth biggest producer of that evil, toxic gas carbon dioxide.  It spews out sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxides, yet curiously it isn’t on the EPA’s list.  Why would such a filthy polluter get away with all this terrible energy production while meek little Fox Lake gets padlocked?

Well, Sherburne Power Plant is the big dog that fuels business and homes for most of the Twin Cities area.  In fact, if you add up all the other electrical generating plants throughout the Twin Cities, only then do they match the power generated by Sherco.  Almost half of the electricity used by the Twin Cities area comes from the coal-burning Sherco plant.  If that plant were to convert to natural gas, it would burn as much as 80% of all of Minnesota customers use now.  It’s a big plant and important in keeping the Twin Cities’ lights on.

But, according to the EPA, it is a dirty, polluting plant.  So, why isn’t Sherco getting shut down and leaving Fox Lake alone?

In a word:  political calculations.

Shutting down such a plant would be the death of the Twin Cities economy and howls of public protest would shout down any argument to the contrary.  The plant is the heart and soul of the economic engine of the Twin Cities metropolitan area.  So, the EPA had to get out their slide rule to factor in the political considerations.

Fox Lake is little and rural. Sherco is enormous and serves a highly populated area.  Even though Fox Lake’s ‘transgressions’ pale in comparison to Sherco, one is shuttered, the other ignored.

This is not an argument for shutting down Sherco or any power plant for that matter.  It is the use of political considerations while making public policy that should trouble us.  The people of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa shouldn’t be treated differently than people of the Twin Cities, regardless of political power.  The EPA should be generating rules and regulations that can be implemented regardless of population served.  If the rules promulgated do irreparable damage to a large group, it will do so to a small group, though with less of a political impact.

This is just plain wrong.  It doesn’t fit our strict standard of a law impacting everyone equally.  It creates a sliding scale of harm compared to cost.  Regulations should treat all players the same.  One group doesn’t get a pass while another is punished for the same offense.  The Obama administration doesn’t care about such considerations.  Lisa Jackson gets out her slide rule and calculates harm and political risk, and makes a determination.  That’s the rule of man, and not of law.  We should not tolerate it.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

References are as follows:

http://www.xcelenergy.com/About_Us/Our_Company/Power_Generation/Sherburne_County_(Sherco)_Generating_Station

http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys/northern-states.pdf

http://www.environmentalintegrity.org/news_reports/documents/DirtyKilowatts-Top50MercuryPowerPlantReport.pdf

http://minnelectrans.com/documents/2011_Biennial_Report/2011_Biennial_Report.pdf

The Obama administration’s EPA has declared a war on coal-fired power plants.  The president famously remarked he didn’t care if coal power plants operated, but he would make sure they were cost-prohibitive.  His EPA rolled out rules that would make coal-burning power plants a target in his war on mercury and other pollutants.  His radical EPA chief said, “This has been 20 years in the making,” Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, said today at Children’s National Medical Center in Washington. “This is a great victory for public health, especially for the health of our children.” Bloomberg News, December 21, 2011.  But, when you look a little deeper, it seems the list of 32 power plants targeted by Obama doesn’t jibe with their reasoning.  It appears the EPA isn’t just targeting polluters, but targeting specific demographic and political areas.

Consider this, in southern Minnesota along Interstate 90, there is a little town by the name of Sherburn.  Outside Sherburn is a power plant that is on the list of targets issued by the EPA.  The Fox Lake power plant has been generating electricity in the area since 1950 and produces power for nearby homes and businesses.  The new rules being promulgated by the EPA define Fox Lake a ‘dirty’ producer of electricity.

From the AP:

“Combined, the rules could do away with more than 8 percent of the coal-fired generation nationwide, the AP found. The average age of the plants that could be sacrificed is 51 years.

These plants have been allowed to run for decades without modern pollution controls because it was thought that they were on the verge of being closed by the utilities that own them. But that didn’t happen.”  ‘Federal clean-air regulations mean closure for dozens of power plants,’ Dec 20, 2011,by Dina Cappiello.

So, finally Fox Lake is being slated for shutdown because it’s time has run out to change over to cleaner forms of energy, right?

Wrong.

From the Fairmont Sentinel, the newspaper from the county where Fox Lake is located:

“There are four production units at the Fox Lake plant, but only two are in operation. Those units produce about 100 megawatts, enough to power about 100,000 homes.

While the plant formerly burned coal, today it only uses natural gas.”

So, we now find out Fox Lake isn’t a ‘dirty’ coal operation at all.  It is a clean electricity producer using only natural gas . . . since 1998.  For the past fourteen years, Fox Lake has been making electricity without the use of coal, and so suddenly it’s a target of the EPA.  But why?  This seems outlandish and capricious.

Ryan Stensland, spokesman for Alliant Energy explained it like this:

“What the EPA looks at are the units, specifically the boilers associated with the units,” he said. “They are identified as being tied to units that could potentially burn coal. If they still have that
capability, they need to be upgraded to bring it into compliance … Even if it were to burn coal for only 10 minutes only one day out of the year, the EPA still wants to have that upgraded to be environmentally compliant.” ‘Fox Lake power plant to be retired — eventually,’ December 23, 2011, Jenn Brookens – Staff Writer , Fairmont Sentinel

So, the EPA created rules that just having a coal burning boiler on the premises makes you a dirty producer of energy.  Given the nearest coal mines to Minnesota are in Illinois, it would be quite the trick for Fox Lake to sneak a few loads of coal to the plant just to skirt the rules.  Since it converted to natural gas over a decade ago, why would it go to all that trouble?  The EPA seems to be creating a rule that prevents an event that simply wouldn’t happen, especially since the coal burners are off-line to begin with.

This is curious.  So, what other reason would the EPA rationally have for shutting down Fox Lake?

From the AP story, “Other rules in the works, dealing with cooling water intakes at power plants and coal ash disposal, could cause the retirement of additional generating plants.”  So, perhaps Fox Lake has water and coal ash disposal issues that caused its shutdown.  Since burning natural gas doesn’t create coal ash that seems to be eliminated as a reason.  However, in a response to the EPA in 2009, Alliant Energy, owner of the plant answered this as to water issues:

“Ash Pond: IPL [Interstate Power and Light] is not aware of any known spills or unpermitted releases from this pond within the past 10 years. For purposes of this question, all discharges exiting the pond via the discharge point governed under the NPDES/SDS permit, including any water quality exceedances, are interpreted to be ‘permitted releases’.” http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/special/fossil/surveys/alliant-fox.pdf

Regardless, if the ash pond was the issue and water runoff or discharges affected the environment, the EPA would demand a cleanup and containment process.  Since they have not done so, it would appear the environmental angle is not the issue.  The Fox Lake plant burns natural gas which doesn’t emit mercury or other poisonous gases.  It hasn’t had an issue with the ash pond or water.  The entire reason Fox Lake is being shut down by the EPA appears to be because an old coal boiler sits in the building.

This stinks to high heaven.  If the issue were that Fox Lake was inefficient and outdated, it is the owner and the purchasers of electricity who should close it down or modernize it.  If it were an excess of electrical power in the area, this would be a concern of the public utilities commission and the Department of Energy.  However, this is the EPA demanding Fox Lake close down in spite its compliance with every material issue considered.  I refuse to believe the existence of an old-fashioned coal-fired boiler is as the reason for shutting down an electrical generating plant.  Such a thing is simply too stupid to accept.

So, why is Fox Lake the victim of the EPA’s overreach?

After reviewing a list of the power plants to be shut down by the EPA, a specific pattern began to emerge, rural, conservative areas.  Martin County and surrounding counties are consistently more conservative and Republican.  Would this reflect the list as a whole?  http://www.timesunion.com/news/article/List-of-power-plants-retiring-in-face-of-EPA-rules-2410590.php

An overwhelming majority of the list of thirty two sites to be closed voted Republican in 2008.  At least 21 of the 32 sites are represented by Republicans or voted with Republicans in the last election cycle.  Almost every site, with the exception of Alexandria, VA and Louisville, KY, are rural areas that tend to vote for more conservative candidates.  Almost every power plant on the list supplies areas that are hostile to Obama and the radical environmentalist agenda being promoted by this administration.  Since inexpensive energy is the life blood of a dynamic, growing economy, it seems strange only these areas would be held to these capricious standards.  Meanwhile, there are plenty of other power plants that are not on the list but burn coal.

This is not to suggest Lisa Jackson sat down with David Axelrod and plotted which districts they wanted to punish because of political reasons.  On the contrary, I think we have been told Obama isn’t even going to try and get the blue collar, rural or exurban white vote.  Instead of picking victims, the demographics of these areas allowed them to be targeted without worry of political fallout.  If there were questions, the EPA would just refer to mercury and other pollutants as the reason for the closures.  Any anger at the arbitrary rules wouldn’t affect the president’s reelection effort in the least since the people served by the plants have been written off already.

But, the Fox Lake example shows the EPA rules are not driven by environmental concerns.  Lisa Jackson has written energy sector rules, not environmental rules that make sense.  It’s also no surprise the Fox Lake power plant sits within an area with several wind farms.  The electricity generated by these windmills is significantly more expensive than that generated by burning natural gas.  To equalize prices, the EPA is making fossil fuel electricity more dear and therefore more expensive thereby making wind energy more competitive.  This kind of duplicity and abuse of power is becoming more apparent in the Obama administration.  Instead of just making the case for a policy, they make up an excuse to change the nation’s power grid with contrived reasons.

We are witnessing the most ‘transparent’ administration in history revealing itself as the most devious.  The war on Fox Lake is just a good example of their disingenuous nature and a philosophy of deceit and thuggery.  The people served by these power plants should be furious.  The rest of the country should be alarmed.  After all, it could be your power plant and pocket book that are affected next.

Crossposted at Looktruenorth.com

From a fiscal standpoint, perhaps the most dangerous Democratic constituency are the environmentalists.  What one cannot achieve legislatively, one can achieve through the regulatory apparatus of the EPA.  As long as liberal nut cases like Carol Browner, Lisa Jackson and Steven Chu are in charge, that threat exists.  Fortunately, there are fact checkers who question the premises of the Al Gore crowd.  Unfortunately, because of their marriage to the MSM and academia, the message of the fact checkers does not always reach its intended target- the public at large.  Occasionally, a story like Climategate receives some notice, but whether that is enough to weaken the voices of the Left remains to be seen

The big cause of the day is, of course, global warming-  a theory  that pervades the entirety of our federal environmental and energy policies- which became popular with Al Gore’s borefest “An Inconvenient Truth” propaganda film that would make Goebbels proud.  Leaving aside the fact that this “film” was nothing more than a vehicle for a failed Presidential aspirant trying to reinvent himself since it was discovered he did not   invent the Internet, the documentary is full of  scientific inaccuracies, falsehoods, and misconceptions.  Yet, it is trotted out in our schools as the new Gospel according to Al.  We are creating a student body that shows greater empathy with a polar bear than they show towards the economic well-being of their country.  Never mind the FACT that the polar bear population has increased over the last two decades despite the late night commercials pleading for money with the picture of that polar bear floating on a piece of ice.  Here is a little fact liberals won’t tell you: that is how polar bears generally get from point A to point B.  Another inconvenient fact: the Canadian government actually increased the number of permits for polar bear kills among Inuits because their population is increasing.

I remember before Al Gore burst upon the scene, not too long ago the Amazon rain forest was the environmental cause celebre and the great crusade.  Today, for every acre of rain forest cut down, we gain 50 acres of rain forest.  That fact comes from the New York Times.    Why don’t environmentalists tell you that carbon dioxide is necessary for life on earth?  Why don’t people remember their high school biology lessons about photosynthesis and realize this?  There is a concerted effort to mislead and mis-educate the public on environmental issues.  The fact is that most of these groups would cease to exist if they did not resort to these scare tactics.  Fear generates revenues.  And these environmental groups have diversified beyond what their names suggest.  I remember Greenpeace saving harp seals and intercepting whaling vessels, but somewhere along the line they transformed themselves into an anti-nuclear group.  I venture that the leaders of environmental advocacy groups are, in fact, quite green- as in the color of money.

Of course, they will trot out their cadre of experts- the IPCC or the National Academy of Sciences- a group of scientists who one day “voted” that global warming existed and that it was manmade.  Let’s agree to the concept of “global warming” for the sake of argument, but agree that it is a natural phenomena that man can do very little about short of putting a big umbrella over the earth.  There is a reason Congress, especially the Senate, resorts to the findings of these so-called experts and fails to debate the issue: because it is far from settled science.

So how do we combat the environmentalists?  As I have said, liberals hate facts.  Facts and reason are the enemy of the liberal.  Grassroots environmental educational efforts can do a great deal of good here.  In my area, there is liberal, local columnist- a classic peacenik, anti-nuke type- that rails against nuclear power and wants to see them replaced with solar energy panels and wind farms.  Inevitably, he, like others, have to invoke the specter of Three Mile Island.  This is an old joke, but it is an incontrovertible fact that more people died in Ted Kennedy’s car at Chappaquidick than died at TMI.  I find that websites like Heritage Foundation and the like are enormous sources of facts and information about energy and environmental policies that can be used to refute the liberal emotional arguments (the specter of cooling towers, polar bears on ice floes, a dead fish somewhere).

When confronted with objective facts- facts they cannot refute- they usually try to shut down the conversation with some appeal to their authoritative voices, utter some ulterior motive on your part, or trot out some rare occurrence like Chernobyl or TMI or, more recently Japan.  As to that final point, remind them that Chernobyl was human error in a collapsing Soviet Union in a plant with serious design flaws, TMI is overblown, and tsunamis are not a common occurrence in places like Illinois and Tennessee.  With authoritative voices, remind them that you too have voices of authority to cite.  At the very least, why can’t my facts reconcile with your facts indicating that we can agree to disagree in which case why disrupt a major economy for a bunch of “maybes?”  Ulterior motives- you will be accused of being a lackey for Big Oil.  Whether you are or aren’t makes no difference because they are going to believe what they believe there, so why argue?  Keep to the facts; it will drive them crazy.

The fact is with global warming, thanks to the “shoot yourself in your own foot” antics of Climategate, the public’s perceptions are changing.  As recently as 2006, 66% of Americans believed reports of global warming were correct or even underestimated.  Today, 41% of Americans believe the claims are greatly exaggerated.  After going through record cold periods and snowfalls recently, that is little wonder.  Of course, they claim that this too is proof of global warming.  These same polls indicate that among the 18-29 year olds, they seem to be ignorant of these changes in attitudes: 31% in 2008 said it was exaggerated and the same percentage said that in 2010.  The older one is, the more likely one is to believe that claims of global warming are exaggerated.  In fact, today 60% of Americans do not believe it is a serious threat.

When all else fails, remind the liberals that the American public, when it comes to environmental issues, cares more about those areas that most immediately impact their lives.  In a March, 2011 Gallup poll, for example, the top four rated environmental worries involved water- contamination of soil and water by toxic waste, pollution of rivers, pollution of drinking water, and maintenance of a fresh water supply.  Air pollution- traditional air pollution, not carbon dioxide- ranked a close fifth.  Coming in ninth and last?  You guessed it- global warming.  Overall, since 2001 American concerns about the environment have been placed on the backburner.  People still worry about it and I think we can all agree that Republicans, Democrats, and Independents want clean air and water, to enjoy open spaces, and to maintain biological diversity.  The difference is at what cost?

And that is the final fact we have on our side- economics.  Since 1984, when Gallup started to ask the question whether the country should prioritize economic development over the environment, the results have been a resounding no, that the environment should take priority.  In March, 2011, they showed the greatest gap favoring economic development over the environment- 54% to 36%.  Only three socioeconomic  groups were at odds with the public in general- those age 18-29, self-described liberals, and registered Democrats.  The difference between Democrats is only 1 percentage point, liberals are hopeless anyway, and the young are victims of the educational system.  Additionally, while conservation still is favored over exploitation of domestic fossil fuel reserves, the gap is narrowing.  Hopefully once those 18-29 year olds enter the real world and have to drive to work, their attitudes will change.  When liberals trot out their cap-and-trade nonsense, frame it in economic terms on a personal level: how much will that cost John Q. Public annually on their energy bill.  Can they really afford that extra $1,000 or so every year in order to satisfy some specious argument by tree huggers?  Can the struggling family really afford gasoline at $4.50 a gallon?  How many green jobs were created in Spain versus how many jobs were lost?  How did that cap-and-trade scheme work in Europe (it crashed while they now emit more carbon dioxide than the United States at a faster rate)?  Why exactly is it that India and China are excluded from controlling global warming?  Assuming the American public decides they can afford these programs, what exactly will be accomplished- we will drop the world’s average temperature what percentage of one degree in how many years?  When it comes to the environmental concerns of Americans- clean water, adequate supplies, and clean air- why is this EPA dithering away trying to control a naturally occurring compound in the atmosphere?  Why can’t the EPA stick to its statutory mission- enforcement of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act independent of erroneous concerns over global warming?  When liberals can answer these questions in a coherent fashion without resorting  to ad hominem attacks or appeals to emotions- when they can refute facts with facts- then maybe then we can listen to them.  Until then, attack their premises and their “science” at every opportunity and don’t let up.  The foot of commonsense is on the neck of the radical environmentalists.  Keep it there.

A ruling by the Environmental Appeals Board of the EPA has scuttled Shell Oil Company’s plan to drill its initial exploratory test in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. This is at least the second time drilling has been deferred or delayed due to environmental concerns. But this time, the reason proffered by EPA seems to be “Because we can.”

The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling.

We have handed radical environmentalists veto power over domestic development. It matters little whether the pretext is (as in this case) ship exhaust 70 miles distant from the nearest human settlement, “burning water” or a 3-inch lizard in West Texas, environmental extremists are hell-bent on shutting down any and all development of conventional fuels in the United States. EPA offers them all the tools they need.

Read More →

A ruling by the Environmental Appeals Board of the EPA has scuttled Shell Oil Company’s plan to drill its initial exploratory test in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. This is at least the second time drilling has been deferred or delayed due to environmental concerns. But this time, the reason proffered by EPA seems to be “Because we can.”

The EPA’s appeals board ruled that Shell had not taken into consideration emissions from an ice-breaking vessel when calculating overall greenhouse gas emissions from the project. Environmental groups were thrilled by the ruling.

We have handed radical environmentalists veto power over domestic development. It matters little whether the pretext is (as in this case) ship exhaust 70 miles distant from the nearest human settlement, “burning water” or a 3-inch lizard in West Texas, environmental extremists are hell-bent on shutting down any and all development of conventional fuels in the United States. EPA offers them all the tools they need.

Read More →

Natural gas is the cleanest-burning and most efficient of all the fossil fuels. Because of the age of the Appalachian Mountains, 480-600 million years old, a wealth of fossil fuels, i.e. coal, oil and natural gas was created by Mother Nature ripe for the picking by this country and probably enough to keep the US fuel-independent for a very long time.

Natural gas drilling has been going on for a very long time in West Virginia. I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Corky DeMarco, the Executive Director of the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association (WVONGA) and he has provided me with a wealth of information. The first commercial well started producing in 1859 and here’s a bit of trivia for everyone: George Washington even surveyed a natural gas well there in 1750.

There are currently 60,000 active NG wells in West Virginia, with 300 of them being in the Marcellus Shale. Because of the unique properties of shale, special and different drilling techniques must be used. The problem with shale is it has insufficient permeability to allow enough fluid flow to a well bore. Because of the unique properties of shale, the extraction of natural gas in these areas requires a different method called “hydraulic fracking.” This “fracking” or “fracturing” of the rock can be either natural or man-made and is extended by internal fluid pressure which opens the fracture and causes it to grow into the rock. Man-made fractures are created by pumping a cocktail of various chemicals through a bore hole. The fracture must then be kept open, usually by sand. This process can be controversial and environmentalists and citizens have chimed in. Please see my previous post on hydro-fracking for more in depth info and a power-point presentation of the process.

Below is a map of the Marcellus Shale, courtesy of the USGS, which covers most of West Virginia, a good part of Pennsylvania, southern New York and eastern Ohio:

Because shale NG extraction is relatively new to West Virginia, WVONGA commissioned an independent economic impact study by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research College of Business and Economics West Virginia University. This 57-page study was released on January 25, 2011 at a press conference in Charleston and can be seen here. Below is a one-page summary:

WVONGA_SummaryPts

As one can see, many jobs will be created. Of key note is the point:

Future development of Marcellus Shale in West Virginia is dependent on changes to federal and state policies [emphasis mine] as well as changes to tax and environmental policies in other Marcellus Shale states.

Please see my post on the EPA recently revoking an already-in-use coal mine permit in West Virginia, so naturally one of Mr. DeMarco’s key statements to me was:

When the EPA comes in and withdraws permits it is certainly disconcerting and what it really amounts to is a “taking” of the company and assets which have already invested. We can’t expect to compete in a global economy if we have uncertainty in the industry.

Mr. DeMarco explained to me originally in the Marcellus, drilling took place where oil pooled, not in the source rock. As a result 60-80% of the NG in those wells was left, however those wells can be revisited with the new technology used to drill in shale. And here is the shocker. According to Mr. DeMarco the US as a whole uses less than 30 trillion cubic feet of natural gas annually. At a meeting 2 years ago in Pennsylvania, estimates were the Appalachian basin collectively with the Utica shale in Ohio held 180 trillion cf of natural gas. Later estimates rose to 500T cf, and now current estimates are a whopping 750 trillion cubic feet of reserves, enough to keep this country energy independent for a very long time, of course if there is no interference from the Feds and companies are willing to invest the huge amount of dollars it would take. These reserves if correct even far outweigh those in the Middle East. And yes, I am positive I heard him correctly. I even asked him to repeat because I was so stunned.

Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK), co-chairs of the Natural Gas Caucus sent this letter off to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on January 5 of this year because of concerns

the Department of the Interior may seek to impose new regulations on the natural gas extraction process on federal lands and urge you to not institute any new regulatory burdens before the completion of the 2010-2012 Environmental Protection Agency study on hydraulic fracturing.

Check out the other signatories. And of course, not to be outdone progressives in Congress led by Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) fired their own letter off to Salazar on the 12th to

express our strong support of your recent announcement of plans to develop a new policy for the public disclosure of chemical compounds used in hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking on public lands. This is a critical step forward in encouraging the oil and gas industry to be more transparent and responsibly address the potential implications of hydraulic fracturing on water supplies and public health.

I can’t make out all the signatories, but we have many of the “usual suspects” such as Frank, Kucinich, Moran, Woolsey, et al. And on the heels of Obama’s State of the Union address, even before he finished speaking, I had this statement from Doc Hastings, Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee in my email box:

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 25, 2011 – House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (WA-04) released the following statement regarding the President’s State of the Union address:

“The President spoke at length tonight on the need to increase our economic competiveness and create new jobs. However, it’s the spending and job-destroying policies of his Administration that are jeopardizing our economic future.

“Today, American families are facing the harsh realities of rising gas prices, higher electricity costs and near double-digit unemployment. Instead of addressing these issues head-on, the Administration has spent the past two years blocking access to America’s resources that create jobs and produce more energy. These policies have only succeeded in driving American jobs overseas, threatening our economic recovery and making us more dependent on hostile foreign nations for our energy needs.

“A strong economy needs access to an abundant and affordable energy supply – we have both here in America. The President needs to embrace a robust plan to produce all types of American energy – from renewable to American-made oil and natural gas – and it has to be done without harmful government subsidies or unrealistic mandates. America cannot regulate its way back to prosperity. Certainty in the free market, not fear of red tape, is what will ultimately create jobs and grow the economy.

While it certainly appears that West Virginia is well on its way, at least at this point, with proceeding with drilling more wells in the Marcellus, the same cannot be said for New York. Ex-governor Paterson recently Executive Ordered a ban on horizontal fracking in NY after ACORN-spawned Working Families Party convinced the State Assembly to pass a bill placing a moratorium on all hydrofracking for fears residents might be able to set their tap water on fire. Here is Mark Ruffalo, spokesman for WFP or this subject:

Guess what Ruffalo: you may be a looker but no way will I be going to one of your movies, ever again. And yes, I know WFP was leading the charge because I signed up for their emails long ago and have been following the progress of this. Mr. DeMarco assured me if the process is done correctly, with cement and steel casings on the drill pipes at least 100 feet down, hydrofracking is extremely safe.

I just checked our natural gas bill. We used 189 cubic feet in December. In northern Ohio. $148 at the rate of $0.59360 per CCF for a 3,000 sq ft house kept at 70 degrees. Imagine what 750 trillion cf can do.

Fuel for thought.

Please visit the WVONGA website for a wealth of info on natural gas, including this interactive map of wells there.

Crossposted at Conservative Outlooks

Crossposted at Procinct.net