Blogs > Linked! > Topic > Energy
U.S. laws and regulations make it near impossible for the U.S. to boost its domestic energy supplies--and cut back on oil imports--by drilling in coastal waters. But the Cubans, right in our backyard, are free to do as they like.
That's right: Cuba. The island nation long has been known for its aromatic cigars and sweet rums. But after years of limited oil production on lands around Havana and in neighboring Matanzas province, Cuba is poised for a significant expansion of its oil program into the waters that separate it from the United States. And thanks to U.S. law, Cuba's drilling partners will be working closer to Florida beaches than any American company ever could.
[Link]
The Houston Chronicle looks at the current state of certainty in climate science. It's not nearly so strong as some radical environmentalist groups and politicians argue and as the press often reports. This makes sense in terms of sensationalism perhaps more than any political agenda: Would a story about a couple-degree rise in temperatures really capture the public imagination?
In their efforts to capture the public's attention, then, have climate scientists oversold global warming? It's probably not a majority view, but a few climate scientists are beginning to question whether some dire predictions push the science too far. "Some of us are wondering if we have created a monster," says Kevin Vranes, a climate scientist at the University of Colorado. Vranes, who is not considered a global warming skeptic by his peers, came to this conclusion after attending an American Geophysical Union meeting last month. Vranes says he detected "tension" among scientists, notably because projections of the future climate carry uncertainties — a point that hasn't been fully communicated to the public.
[Link]
This article explains how another policy plank of the House Democrats' 100-Hour agenda that's more likely to be counterproductive with respect to Democrats' stated goals--in this case, tackling high energy prices.
"The goal for energy policy shouldn't be to help big oil companies per se or hurt them per se," Lieberman added. "It should be to help consumers, and whatever impact they have on energy companies ought to be incidental." As an example of attempting to hurt oil companies through higher levies, Lieberman pointed to the windfall profit tax on oil imposed under President Jimmy Carter's administration in 1980 and repealed eight years later by President Ronald Reagan. "The desire to hurt Big Oil through higher taxes back then actually backfired, because the higher taxes discouraged domestic production," Lieberman said. "In fact, a Congressional Research Service study afterwards estimated it reduced domestic oil production and gave a comparative advantage to OPEC imports."
[Link]
Ronald Bailey on how the actions of some governments bring the world closer to oil shortages.
he International Energy Agency believes that projected demand for oil and gas can be met if producers invest $4.3 trillion and $3.9 trillion (in 2005 dollars) respectively over the next 25 years. The question is that level of investment happening? That's were I get worried. The problem arises because 77 percent of the world's known oil reserves are in the hands of state-owned oil companies. Such "companies" do not respond with alacrity to market signals and so are under-investing in new production technologies and even in maintaining the production facilities that they currently have. I have earlier pointed out that an "oil crisis," that is, a steep rapid run up in the price of oil may occur at any time due to government incompetence or maliciousness.
[Link]
Oil prices plunged below $59 a barrel Wednesday as mild weather persisted in the United States, dampening demand for winter fuels such as heating oil and natural gas.
[Link]
Yes, of course, because that's how real markets work, in man-made "balance." We're wary to throw around the term "monopoly," but isn't price-setting to extract monopoly rents more or less the definition of one?
"I hope the market appreciates we are working so diligently to bring supply and demand in balance, to have inventories at a reasonable level so that we do not have gyrations," Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, told reporters at the meeting in Abuja, Nigeria.
[Link]
The height of frivolity. What if warm gasoline is the norm--wouldn't that mean that gas stations are *undercharging* their customers? Calling Public Citizen a "consumer association" is somehow like calling Dell a major manufacturer of typewriters.
According to Public Citizen, a consumer association, the oil industry has resisted installing equipment that can adjust gasoline volumes delivered at the pump when temperatures change. While the difference amounts to pennies per gallon, Public Citizen estimates that oil companies end up overcharging consumers by more than $2 billion each year.
[Link]
A critical response to Greg Mankiw's "Pigou Club" for higher gasoline taxes.
In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Ronald H. Coase derided what he calls “blackboard economics”—the practice of assuming simple economic models can be easily implemented in practice, without regard to practical considerations. It’s no surprise Coase spent much of his career debunking the naive application of the theory of Pigouvian taxation.
[Link]
Citing disruptions in oil and gas production caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the ensuing rise in prices, Mr. Pombo said it would be ill advised for the nation to limit new development of resources to the gulf. “We need to diversify where our domestic energy comes from,” he said. “We can’t continue going back to the gulf with greater dependence as the only source of new energy. Other places, onshore, are in decline. We need to look at other places for our new sources of energy.”
[Link]
When you consider all the direct and indirect costs of using ethanol, it's the equivalent of $4-a-gallon gasoline -- and closer to $5, given its lousy fuel economy. Give the feds credit. It isn't easy to find something worse for consumers than $3 gas, but they managed to do it. Of course, ethanol isn't really designed to help America's hard-pressed drivers, but to help special interests -- namely, Midwestern corn farmers and ethanol producers such as Archer Daniels Midland.
[Link]
The estimated $19 billion to $27 billion pipeline would stretch at least 2,100 miles from Prudhoe Bay to Alberta and perhaps another 1,500 miles to Chicago. The pipeline would carry about 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. It is expected to supply about 10 percent of future U.S. natural gas demand, according to the Energy Department.
[Link]
The report card grades a dozen major economic domestic policy issues: spending restraint, budget process reform, earmark reform, property rights, Social Security reform, pension reform, energy, tax relief, tax reform, Medicare, Medicaid, and health care reform. Details and the third-quarter grade for each issue follow.
[Link]
But many proposals would impose the kind of price controls that led to the shortages and gas lines last seen in the 1970s and early '80s. Apparently, some lawmakers missed the lesson of those days: that Washington can't simply force down the price at the pump.
[Link]
Once considered the green dream of the environmentally sensitive, ethanol has become the province of agricultural giants that have long pressed for its use as fuel, as well as newcomers seeking to cash in on a bonanza. ... The modern-day gold rush is driven by a number of factors: generous government subsidies, surging demand for ethanol as a gasoline supplement, a potent blend of farm-state politics and the prospect of generating more than a 100 percent profit in less than two years. The rush is taking place despite concerns that large-scale diversion of agricultural resources to fuel could result in price increases for food for people and livestock, as well as the transformation of vast preserved areas into farmland.... Despite continuing doubts about whether the fuel provides a genuine energy saving, at least 39 new ethanol plants are expected to be completed over the next 9 to 12 months, projects that will push the United States past Brazil as the world's largest ethanol producer.
[Link]
If the goal of a carbon tax is to combat global warming, there exists one major problem: enforcement. In the global marketplace, a healthy climate would be a public good where all countries benefit. Therefore, even if the entire world may benefit on net from a global carbon tax, without a proper enforcement mechanism, each autonomous country may have an individual incentive to not sign onto the tax given that everyone else has signed on. This tragedy of the commons is solved only by an allocation of property rights or via government enforcement. But who owns the rights to the global climate? And would some governments have authority over other governments, and if so, how? Would this enforcement be via military force, trade sanctions, or merely diplomacy?
[Link]
This page:  All: [?]
This weblog is licensed under a Creative
Commons License.
Disclaimer: A link is a link, not an endorsement.
Nothing written here is to be construed as necessarily reflecting
the views of The Heritage Foundation or as an attempt to aid or hinder
the passage of any bill before Congress.
|
